91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly can do better
I have been a subscriber to the GLW for many years, because I believe it is essential to have publicly available sources of information that are independent of the mainstream media.
But for the GLW to be of value its readers must be confident that its reports are accurate and report on all relevant aspects of an issue. An article in GLW #827 did not meet these criteria.
On page two, Tony Iltis reported on the five people convicted under the anti-terrorism laws ("Five Jailed for Thought-crimes"). I think there is a sustainable argument that the sentences were too harsh, but the convicted men were not jailed just for their thoughts.
Tony chose not to mention that the five had stockpiled explosives and other bomb-making materials. So even though they had not settled on a target, they had already taken action to make bombs.
Tony also omitted to mention that in their recorded conversations and in their court appearances they made no secret of the fact that they had hoped to cause destruction and would still do so when released into the community.
You can do better.
Chris Ansted
Garran, ACT
No pride in flag
Flying the Australian flag doesn't mean you can hoon around at 2am and bash women, students, gays and migrants. Who says Indian students should change their clothes and walk in different times and places in Melbourne?
Assault of anybody is a crime, let alone attempted murder. Have the responsibilities and freedoms hammered out in the High Court disappeared?
I thought we wore the clothes we chose since the chains of the 1950s fell off. I thought the culture and graciousness of our first nations was gradually being respected. Mum Shirl, Ned Kelly, Jack Mundey and Germaine Greer make me proud to be Australian but the flag doesn't.
Yvonne Francis
Apollo Bay, Victoria
Sweetening of the nuclear debate
I was recently given a Canadian study by Trevor Findlay from the Centre of International Governance Innovation titled The future of Nuclear Energy to 2030 and its Implications for Safety, Security and non-Proliferation.
There was a phrase in the executive summary, right at the start, which absolutely chills the blood as the writers outline their version of what they euphemistically call the "nuclear renaissance": "[The role of this work is] to investigate the likely size, shape and nature of the purported nuclear energy revival to 2030 — not to make a judgement on the merits of nuclear energy, but rather to predict its future."
It is clear that these writers, among many other advocates for nuclear power, see nuclear power as a solution to climate change. They claim it is also "clean and green". This paper seems like a work of apologetics, based on these challengeable presuppositions.
Not even 60 years have managed to provide any answers to the problem of nuclear waste, which is still stored in stockpiles, right down to the last gram produced.
At least, in some countries, it is stockpiled so those grams are actually able to be accounted for — there are plenty in Russia alone which are not. Never mind opportunistic terrorist nations and/or individuals. It is the same filthy and risky substance it ever was.
It is enormously wasteful of natural resources like water (and contaminates that precious resource) and also of diminishing fossil fuels. There is not one working plutonium reactor in the entire world that might have even a remote prospect of renewing its own power source, independent of the fossil fuels that are the source of the climate change that nuclear power's proponents claim it is the solution to. Finally the establishment phase for a non-nuclear nation like Australia is incredibly long term and expensive.
Why we in Australia would want to head down this route voluntarily when we have huge alternative self-renewing energy resources is completely beyond me. We must be vigilant against the sweetening of the nuclear debate as a new and green solution to global warming.
Marya McDonald
by email
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