Local issues
While GLW does an excellent job concerning issues of war and peace and the Work Choices legislation, there are essential local issues that merit additional attention.
I am trying to obtain a housing commission flat in Canterbury and the waiting-list period is 15 years. It is the same at Bankstown. In Riverwood, there is the shortest waiting list — eight years. The so-called Labor government is selling out housing commission accommodation.
The federal government has deprived the states of adequate finance for dental care for pensioners and has the audacity to say it is a state responsibility.
I would also like serious consideration be given to animal welfare issues in this country.
I was a Socialist Alliance candidate for Canterbury at the last local government election and I obtained a reasonably good vote for taking up these issues.
Susan Mullan
Belmore, NSW
Work Choices
It is essential to form a united front with all opponents of the odious Work Choices legislation. The widest publicity should be given to the statement that was made by former NSW premier Neville Wran. He was quoted in the May 9, Sydney Morning Herald saying that Work Choices is the "most divisive, disruptive and damaging legislation presented to the Australian people since federation". He added that the "game is the ultimate destruction of the trade union movement which means the ultimate destruction of the rights of the individual to stand up to the boss".
The misanthropes who instigated and piloted this reprehensible legislation though parliament deserve to be defeated at the next federal election.
Australian history has some very good precedents for electoral retribution for conservatives and Labor renegades. The most notable one was the defeat of conservative PM Stanley Melbourne Bruce in 1929. His successful opponent was Edward Holloway, who had been a leading trade union official.
In 1925 the Bruce Page government tried to deport Tom Walsh and Jacob Johnson who were officials of the Seamen's Union. The issue was litigated before the High Court and the deportation order was invalidated.
When the majority of people realise that they will be much worse off under the Work Choices legislation, electoral retribution will eventually await those responsible for it.
Bernie Rosen
Strathfield, NSW
Nuclear power
I am against nuclear power completely. It may be clear in regards to pollutants in production, but the waste in the form of spent Nuclear products has to go somewhere and I am not happy with the idea of sticking it into the ground for an undetermined period of time (leaving it for a further generation to deal with).
I will be talking about it with friends, family and in the workplace in the hope I can make a difference.
Damien Hugh Boyd
Via email
Pagans
Catholic archbishop George Pell recently gave a speech to the Legatus Summit in California, a summit of business leaders seeking "divine guidance" in their profiteering. Pell used his speech to attack the Koran as a book which incites violence, and also compared the entire environmentalist movement fighting climate change to a pagan cult. Has Pell overlooked incitements to violence in the Old and New Testaments? like "Anyone who blasphemes or curses shall be stoned to death by the entire community" (Lev 24:16)?
Jesus reportedly said that "If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned" (John 15:6). Whether Jesus was saying that non-believers should be burned or that by ignoring his wisdom they would be alone and defenceless in their world, is a matter of subjective interpretation.
This is the core of the matter. The Koran, just like the Bible, consists of highly metaphoric writings and can easily be interpreted as inciting self-righteous violence in "true believers". Did not George Bush junior invoke the words "God" and "Christian" when invading Iraq on behalf of corporate America?
We live in a world of absolutely ridiculous inequality, where thousands of people die every day from curable diseases and a lack of food.
Climate change, a human-made phenomenon, is being expanded by the ravenous money machine that is capitalism. Yet the Catholic church wants to rant on about abortion, gay marriage and the Da Vinci Code.
In his speech, Pell proposed that, "In the past pagans sacrificed animals and even humans in vain attempts to placate capricious and cruel gods. Today they demand a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions." What would Jesus do? Try to wish away climate change with the rest of the flat-earth society, apparently. And burn bridges between Christianity and Islam. If Pell wants to see pagan emptiness, then he need look no further than his audience of "business leaders" at the Legatus Summit. Powerful, suit-wearing pagans. It is my sincere belief that George Pell is every bit as "pagan" as the people he is demonising from his ivory tower.
Zane Alcorn
Newcastle, NSW
Iran
Reports that George Bush is one whim phone call from sneak attacking Iran should have Americans horrified. This would be a disaster. Think of major oil disruptions, financial panic and a million dedicated suicide bombers out for revenge on Americans.
Selling war with lies is evil. Bush ordered a war based on lies that killed thousands of civilians. He imposed on Iraqis a dysfunctional Green Zone puppet government. Innocent people are slaughtered by all sides. Your tax dollars empower death squads that round up and torture humans with electric drills. Tortured bodies are found by the truckload on garbage dumps.
By extending this war to Iran, the only ones to benefit would be Texas oil billionaires when the oil beneath their feet skyrockets in value, and war profiteers like Cheney and Halliburton. Everyone else loses.
Conspiring to wage a war of aggression is a war crime. Enraged citizens must overwhelm Congress and demand that their be no secret war plotting, no sneak military attacks and no insane wars. The only hope for a decent future is for Congress to impeach the Iraq war plotters, deliver all records of the war plotting to the International War Crimes Tribunal, cut off funding of the war and bring the troops home.
John Mackesy
Middletown, California
From Green Left Weekly, June 7, 2006.
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