Nation or religion?
Shua Garfield (Write On #495) rightly claims Jews can live peaceably among non-Jews but he must admit to do so they often have to accept and suffer anti-Semitism wherever they so choose to live, hence the Zionist allure of a Jewish homeland where one does not have to contend with anti-Semitism.
No more inquisitions, no more pogroms, no more Holocausts is a great attraction for those who have suffered persecution, discrimination etc. The fundamental question however is, are the Jews a nation or only a religion? I believe today Jews can only be regarded as a religion!
Just as a Polish Jew is Polish by nationality and a Jew by religion and an American Jew is American by nationality and Jewish by religion, so is a French Catholic French by nationality and Catholic by religion, and a German Protestant is German by nationality and Protestant by religion.
Zionists have no right to rob these Jews of their nationality and provide a national safe home for those Jews escaping from unbearable anti-Semitic environments by stealing Palestinian land, displacing millions of innocent Palestinians. Zionists and their biblical fundamentalist allies wish to build their little exclusive empire. It just won't work. Fifty-two years of suffering of both Palestinians and Israelis hasn't brought success or a solution.
S Pearce
Caloundra Qld
Parliamentary wages
Dear Peter Beattie, Premier of Queensland,
I noted with interest your offer to Indigenous people of this State to settle for $4000 for lost wages from 1897 to the 1970s. These wages were, or were supposed to be, paid into the welfare benefit fund. These wages were subsequently disappeared by the "protectors". I note that the $4000 amount is between one-tenth and one-twentieth of the realistic losses incurred by Indigenous citizens of this state.
I think it is only reasonable that all Labor politicians demonstrate their bone fides by paying their entire salaries and allowances, for the next decade, into a parliamentary welfare benefits fund which I will administer.
Labor politicians will be able to approach me with requests from time to time should they need to draw any money from the fund and I promise to be as sympathetic to their needs as were the protectors of the Aboriginal welfare benefit fund. Should there be any shortfalls or monies misappropriated by me at the end of this decade I undertake to pay every Labor politician an amount of $4000 by way of final settlement.
Don't you worry about that.
John Tomlinson
Director of the Parliamentary Welfare Benefit Trust Account (Auditors: Arthur Andersen; Insurers: HIH)
'Liberal' authoritarians
The federal "Liberal" government sure contains a lot of authoritarians. Whatever happened to the sound view that people generally know what is in their best interests; and that the state is in a bad position to judge, and is likely to abuse its power if it tries to micro-manage individual lives?
Amanda Vanstone recently claimed it would be "criminal" if many disabled people were not effectively stripped of $40 to $50 a week and subjected to full job-search obligations and penalties. The notion that people who are already disadvantaged by serious health problems and a very low income might be free from regular government bullying seems to deeply offend her.
Her lack of trust in, and respect for, the individual is extraordinary.
The injustice of paying a healthy person — let alone a disabled person — a basic allowance of only $185 in exchange for meeting all unemployment benefit conditions is obvious. And it is high time this "Liberal" stopped pretending that reducing the liberty of disadvantaged people is good for them.
Vanstone talks of "criminal" behaviour, but by repeatedly curtailing their freedom, this government adopts an approach towards social security recipients which has parallels to the treatment of criminals.
Brent Howard
Rydalmere NSW
Block the budget
Stephen Langford's call (GLW #494) for forcing the Howard government from office, via the Senate blocking Supply on the grounds of government lies at the last election, ought to be supported by all. Will the Democrats now break their written guarantees to never block Supply, on the grounds of "keeping the bastards honest"?
Chris Beale
Sydney
Dalai Lama
While Jess Melvin (GLW #495) correctly draws attention to the US abandonment of the Vietnam war as "One of the greatest victories for peace in the 20th century" she ignores the fact that many Vietnamese Buddhist monks burned themselves alive as part of the struggle against the Vietnam war, which would seem to negate her suggestion that "This [Buddhist] peace of mind is nothing but an acceptance of oppression".
The article criticises the Dalai Lama for his lack of "hard answers" on a range of difficult and involved questions, but the format of his lecture was hardly conducive to the sort of analysis needed to provide a "Buddhist perspective" on these issues.
Does Melvin really assume that the only motivating factor behind the US response to the September 11th attacks is the "rapacious greed" of US transnational companies? Would a similar sound bite to the effect of "all violence is wrong" really have been satisfactory?
Buddhism is a religion with a complex history and many diverse facets with regards to moral issues. To merely equate Buddhism with other religions simply because they are both "religious" (e.g. the utterly horrendous equation of Nirvana with Heaven) and to assume that the answers of the Dalai Lama in an informal setting represent the Buddhist "position" (what about the Zen perspective? Mahayana? Dzogchen?) is to ignore the many and varied contributions that Buddhists have made to the area of social justice, and also grossly perverts the many teachings of Buddhism.
Dexter Fletcher From Green Left Weekly, June 26, 2002.
Melbourne
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