Free trade
Speaking at the recent Summit of the Americas in Quebec City in support of the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, George Bush said that "trade not only helps spread prosperity, but trade helps spread freedom". If this is true then it is a very funny sort of freedom, since the FTAA was drafted in secret without any popular vote or public consultation involved.
Also judging by the fact that 3000 mounted police (including "Sergeant Pepper"), 2000 regular cops, 1200 soldiers and a tank were needed to defend the summit I guess Bush must be thinking that freedom and violent repression are quite compatible — at least when he looks out from behind the 6km long and 3 metre-high steel wall around the SoA.
I would presume then that what Bush really means by freedom is "free" trade and "free" enterprise in a "free" market — in other words, freedom for a powerful minority from democratic control. For the powerful and very, very, very wealthy minority this means the freedom to exploit land and labour and to continue to rape society for private gain. For the rest of us this means, in the words of Zach de la Rocha, "the freedom to buy things you can never afford, the freedom to die of curable disease, the freedom to starve without land or liberty" — in a less poetic turn of phrase, basically we have the freedom to get screwed.
Come to think of it Bush's "freedom" isn't very funny at all.
Leigh Hughes
Canberra
Communist Party
I was angered when reading in GLW #445 that Communist Party of Australia members had attempted to intimidate Democratic Socialist Party members who had been selling GLW and distributing Socialist Alliance leaflets outside the CPA's congress. As an ex-DSP member and concerned socialist I wanted to make some points about the current direction of the CPA.
The main resolution adopted by the recent CPA congress states that the "Party seeks ... agreements for joint action with", among other forces, "other left progressive organisations. We lay stress on the development of mass action in which coalitions of organisations and individuals can play a major part in mobilising thousands and tens of thousands of workers".
I participated in just such a mobilisation recently; the inspiring Sydney M1 day of action. Sadly the CPA was nowhere to be seen. In fact the CPA had not played any role in building M1 and has completely ignored it in its newspaper, the Guardian.
In addition to ignoring the most important social movement to have developed recently in Australia, the CPA is ignoring the Socialist Alliance, potentially the most important development on the Marxist left in this country for decades. Does not the CPA consider concrete attempts at greater cooperation between the most advanced elements of its own class, the working class, as being a vital component in moving the socialist movement forward?
A thousand lofty sounding resolutions are no substitute for what in the end Marxists are judged by: objective deeds and actions. The alternative would appear to be the road of sectarian obscurity.
Christopher Pickering
Wollongong [Abridged]
Socialist Alliance I
The working class has no representation in parliament. All the parties represented in parliament despise the working class and only represent the interests of local and international capital.
The experience of the Hawke/Keating years has shown us there is no difference between Labor in government and the Liberals. Socialist Alliance at last offers workers an alternative. Workers can now vote for candidates who will support the working class, the poor and the disadvantaged. Of course, bourgeois Parliamentary elections are not the answer. Workers must ultimately seize power and set up a workers government. But as part of the process of building the revolutionary struggle, Socialist Alliance is a worthwhile step forward and should be supported.
Peter Ellett
CPSU workplace delegate
Canberra
Socialist Alliance II
It is my great personal pleasure to send heartfelt, warmest and comradely greetings and best wishes on this occasion of the formation of the Socialist Alliance in Australia. A common platform for all those who seek social justice, freedom and dignity against the forces of social injustice, slavery and indignity has been a long felt necessity and an essential condition in working towards a genuine but fundamental social, political and cultural change.
As the documentation relating to the formation of the Socialist Alliance indicates, social change has to be driven by the clear majority of people.
So-called development of the capitalist world based on economic rationalism has not provided solutions to the growing socio-economic problems of the downtrodden majority of the world. In the developing world many millions are becoming unemployed. The gap between the rich and the poor is widening locally and globally. Needs of the majority of people are ignored in favour of the needs of multinational corporations. Indebtedness of many developing countries has turned out to be a vicious cycle destroying their social fabric. Developing countries that do not obey "free trade" and "economic liberalisation" are subjected to dire consequences. The vast majority of people faces job insecurity, homelessness, racism, and destruction of their environment.
The formation of the Socialist Alliance is a clear indication to the people of Australia that there is an alternate path to development that will not put profits before the needs of the people.
Lionel Bopage
Canberra [Abridged]
Drongos and dingos
Yesterday a dingo walked through a camping area on Fraser Island. Inappropriately named "wild life" officers shot it. Lingering ghosts: Indigenous people were accorded similar treatment by white pastoralists. The Queensland government announced it would kill any dingo that disturbed the tourist trade.
Research shows that 250,000 tourist visit Fraser Island ever year. One child died this week after being attacked. The first recorded death from dingo attacks in Australia for 20 years. Over that period dozens of people were killed as a result of car crashes on Fraser Island. Several have drowned, two last weekend in the sea just south of Fraser Island.
Instead of shooting dingos the government should drain all the water from around Fraser Island. This would prevent drongos drowning and they should also start culling cars.
John Tomlinson
Deagon Qld