Spoiling the party
I hate to spoil Howard's party but in 1996 we were not at war. The International Court of Justice outlawed nuclear weapons. No child of Middle-Eastern appearance had been compensated for mental torture. Women worked for equal rights not just as mothers and others. We did not spend hours worrying about mortgages, the GST and stock markets. Most of us could afford to get our teeth fixed. We had a fair idea privatisation was bad, but we had not seen e-coli in Sydney's water and public health, child care, transport, and telephones completely in shreds. Education was a right, not the enclave of the rich. Muslims were part of the rich tapestry of life.
Our future is clear — uranium mining, galloping greenhouse and toxic waste. Probably another $300 million for Bush's next jet fighter and more gun-totin' security guards at the airport. Social justice is far too politically correct and anti-terror laws will keep us free from riots and political dissent. Beazley has helped a lot by avoiding solid policy alternatives.
Yvonne Francis
Queanbeyan, NSW
Racist mafia
During the forgettable, self-congratulatory 10th anniversary of John Howard's accession to single-party dictatorship over this hapless country, we have been greeted by some of the nastiest, most socially retrograde mouthings that can be heard from any leader — I mean certain craven ministers of Howard's racist mafia.
The inanities spoken by both Costello and Abbott, made me fume. They have not felt restrained by any principle of decency in their denigration of foreign creeds and cultures that are part of this nation and have been for over 100 years. By comments that reek of ill-disguised, cheap xenophobia, they have been capable mouthpieces for the "Hanson" wing of their party. Indeed, it would not surprise me if they wanted reinstatement of what the Labor Party traditionally supported as a "White Australia" for many decades.
At least the Labor Party (no hot favourite of mine) made valiant attempts under PMs Hawke and Keating, to rid itself of such paranoid ways of looking at immigration and the many cultures now integrated into our country. But inevitably we find again that amid all the post-modern diversity and pluralism of the 21st century, low-life such as the two Liberal ministers mentioned above, still hark nostalgically back to the "white-picket Sullivans" days they love so dearly in their sick imaginations. All they achieve is to deepen a cheap, populist, shock-jock attitude to those Australian citizens who believe fervently in another creed: namely the Muslim faith.
It makes me sick to hear shallow references to "Australian values" — when no such entity exists at all. What Costello means may be reformulated as "Western imperial and triumphalist conservative Christian morals", but that epithet hardly describes a secular nation like ours in any adequate way.
Shame on Howard for not absolutely disowning the views of his hideous smirking minions. But I am so naive — there be votes out in them-there suburbs, as Johnny well knows, to be had for the taking by damning multiculturalism like Hanson did 10 years ago. Hanson might have no political power these days, but the tune she piped is still being played by some of the most dishonest, hate-peddling creeps that have ever grabbed the reins of power in this country.
Russell Pink
Leura, NSW [Abridged]
Memo to the VP
Dear Vice-President Richard Cheney
Re: 10 Years of John Howard
We have a few too many fat, lazy kangaroos roaming loose on Parliament Hill, Canberra. Please bring your best hunting buddies.
Jane Salmon
Lindfield, NSW
Flag burning I
I would like to applaud the actions of Resistance in the distribution of flag burning kits during the university orientation weeks. This may initially isolate them from the vast majority of Australians who feel it necessary to beat their chests to this shitty piece of material but it opened debate and makes people question their relationship towards the irrelevant and stupid.
The RSL's shallow criticisms of these actions underrates the sacrifice of those who fought and died in the past wars. Instead, why not find the actions of the Howard government "deeply offensive" for their increased troop commitment to the unwinnable conflicts of the Middle East/Afghanistan, to which both young Australians and innocent civilians will pay the price for the coalition of the maniacs.
I applaud Resistance for inciting debate, a great way to politicise the start of the year.
Rake Derby
via email [Abridged]
Flag burning II
I was not sure whether to laugh or cry when I read in the March 1 Melbourne Herald Sun that National MP Bruce Scott wishes to have Resistance members sent off for "re-education" because of our flag-burning kits. For one thing, the overtones of totalitarianism in this proposal confirm everything we have been saying about the anti-democratic direction this country is heading.
Does this little-known political time-server seriously think he has anything to teach us? We know very well what values the present Australian flag represents. We saw these values displayed alongside the flag by a drunken, violent mob in Cronulla — the same values shown by Howard and Costello with their regular incitement of racial and religious hatred, and their police state "anti-terror" laws.
In Baxter and on Christmas Island, this flag flies proudly over concentration camps where innocent people are incarcerated. In Iraq and Afghanistan, it represents Australia's part in the coalition of the killing to boost oil corporation profits.
As for history, since the Union Jack first flew in Australia it has represented the genocide of Indigenous people, the brutal convict system, the massacre of the Eureka miners and the enslavement of South Pacific islanders, among other things. Since becoming part of the Australian flag, it has represented the White Australia policy, aggressive military action around the world, the theft of wages from Aboriginal workers and worse, the theft of their children.
Tim Doughney
Melbourne
From Green Left Weekly, March 8, 2006.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.