Write on

February 24, 1993
Issue 

On Clinton

In response to Alan Kazlav (Write On, GLW #87): It is not news that elections, especially in the USA, are largely a ritual. Election programs are hardly more than a device to capture votes and the candidates adjust their messages to the audiences as the public relations tacticians advise. Bill Clinton is no exception to the rule, and the fact that he is relatively young is irrelevant.

The US has an effective one-party system — the "Business Party", which is made up of two factions: the Democrats and the Republicans. The American people have no real choice.

It is therefore no surprise that half of the population (disillusioned and unrepresented) does not even bother to vote and those who take the trouble often have to vote against their own interests.

Kazlav's appeal to the so-highly-respected Australian notion of "giving everyone a fair go" is laughable in the face of the reality that a prerequisite to take part in the US elections is either to be a millionaire or have the corporate sector sponsor the election campaign. Media monopolies do their part so that no challenge to the system occurs. Dissidents and alternatives to the "Business Party" do not get space in the media — they are not supposed to exist!

Clinton's inauguration was a multi-million dollar spectacle paid for by big business and seems quite contradictory to his "folksy, working-class" election campaign. His cabinet includes eight millionaires (more than Bush or Reagan had!) and about 13 "baby boom, yuppie lawyers" — so despised by the general population.

Clinton's promises are slipping out of his hands (surprise, surprise) and his excuse is "changing circumstances". Clinton has an aggressive protectionist stance and wants to "force open" foreign markets. He wants to stay chief world cop and defend American business interests under the guise of "democracy and freedom" using the means applied by his predecessors: coercion, threats, economic embargoes, military intervention, support for the state terrorism of dictators who are American clients.

My conclusion: different name, same system.
Margarita Windisch
Melbourne

David Irving

The Minister for Immigration, Mr Hand, is to be congratulated on banning the proposed visit by pro Nazi Jew baiter David Irving who is one of those peculiar people who claim that the Holocaust never happened. Mr Hand wisely followed in the footsteps of the German and Canadian governments who took a similar action. National Action will be disappointed at his exclusion, predictably the notorious Eric Butler of the League of Rights has already protested.

It was his group together with National Action (which is comparable with the Klu Klux Klan) that stacked the recent Adelaide meeting to discuss the Racial Discrimination Amendment Bill 1992 which if passed will make racial vilification unlawful and create a criminal offence hatred. So we have people contaminating Australian society who quite clearly and unashamedly support racial vilification. The meeting degenerated into a shambles because of very loud abuse of anyone who supported the Bill. Free speech must be preserved even for racists, but groups like National Action (or the IRA) with a policy of unending violence forfeit that right. Many of us dare not appear in the telephone directory or on the electoral roll.
Norman Taylor
Henley Beach SA

Hewson and Kennett

If you are a Victorian worker, say a teacher or a nurse, please remember on March 13 that the only thing protecting your wages and conditions at the moment are your newly won Federal awards, overseen by the Federal A.L.P. Rest assured that if the Coalition win government then Hewson will do the same thing to your awards that Kennett tried (he has already signalled this.) Please ensure that, if you vote Independent on election day, that you give your preferences to Labor (if you care about your working future.)
Graeme Merry
Croyden Vic.

Energy

In criticising the populationists' I = PAT formula, Alex Aitkin (GLW January 27) makes the surprising claim that "in a society which met its energy needs wholly from renewable resources such as the sun, it would make no difference to the environment how much energy was consumed." Such a claim reveals ignorance of environmental issues.

Sheep meet their environmental needs wholly from renewable grass and vegetation, but 160 million sheep grazing our fragile pasture lands have caused enormous environmental damage in Australia. Several plant species, including trees, have gone extinct. Soil erosion and salinization have often followed over-grazing.

Similarly, large numbers of people on this planet will cause environmental damage even if they do use energy from renewable resources . Ten billion people, all using solar hot water heaters and cookers, would require enormous supplies of metals to build the solar devices. Ten billion people would also require most of the world's remaining forests to be cleared to provide land for their cities to be built on and to provide farmland for their food.
Evonne Moore
A.E.S.P., Adelaide

PSU

I have been reading with great interest and concern recent articles in your publication regarding the Public Sector Union.

It is disheartening to read that members and delegates in other states are having as much luck getting through to the union hierarchy as the rank and file in W.A.

Woe betide any schmuck of a member who dares to question the sickening pragmatism of the union elite. The recent concern of the P.S.U. with the economic rationalism of the Liberal Party does not extend to the economic rationalism already displayed by the Labor Party. Ah! they wisely tell you, it's much slower under the Labor Party, instead of an instant fatality you will just die slowly. Whether Labor or Liberal, ame. Members have been reduced to half-baked snivellers, cupped hands extended — maybe we'll catch the odd crumb Labor throws our way.

Members are fed up with the P.S.U.'s directives from above, the pathetic attempts at so-called "consensus", and most of all the paternalistic, condescending attitude that they know better than the people they are supposed to represent.

Phil Sandford's sentiments have my sympathy entirely.
J. Dodd
Craigie WA

Fred Hollows

Fred Hollows certainly did much to earn the love and respect of many people. His work was admirable. Unfortunately your editorial (February 17) did not give a full picture of this man's politics.

Hollows might have been a communist, but he came from a communist tradition which was anti-gay. All protests to the contrary notwithstanding, his attack on what he chose to call the gay lobby regarding his views on how to control the AIDS epidemic bears this out. His politics on AIDS was not only anti-gay, it was racist. Racist because his proposal for dealing with AIDS among Aborigines in rural Australia was to isolate their communities. To top it all off, he joined forces with arch-reactionary Dr Bruce Shepherd.

It is regrettable that no reference to this reactionary approach to AIDS by Fred Hollows was made in your editorial. Such a reference would have confirmed a firm commitment to gay liberation. The lack of such a reference, though probably only an oversight, can only sow doubts among the GLW's readers.
Michael Schembri
Surry Hills NSW

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