Write on: Letters to the editor
Festival of the boot
On Tuesday (September 22) morning, police reinforcements were called into Rundle Mall over fears that the hundreds gathered outside the Myer Centre would turn violent and riot.
What's this? Have I missed a rally? No, it was the outcome of devastation as Crows fans realised the tickets for the grand final game had sold out! Anxious fans had camped out since the previous Saturday night in anticipation of seeing "their" team attain another victory. By Sunday morning, the queue had grown to more than 1km long.
Some tickets went on sale to Gold Pass holders, but ordinary Crows club members had to wait until Tuesday ... and so they did. The Mall was festooned with camp-beds, billies and radios. One fan paid someone to mind his spot while he went to work.
The exuberant atmosphere turned to anger when the remaining tickets sold out in less than an hour. Images of tear-streaked faces were splashed across the front page of the Advertiser.
It serves to demonstrate that football, like most sport, has been commandeered by big business and money. Ordinary people who have been tirelessly following their club were left out because they couldn't afford the extra $65 for a Gold Pass.
Corporate boxes, however, will be overflowing with the rich and their hangers-on who didn't have to bother with a queue. Business will gloat as sales rise. Pubs, paraphernalia and bakeries selling Crows cakes are booming.
Adelaide water must have been tainted with a Crows love drug: even relatively sane people have been behaving strangely. Every second person is wearing the Crows colours, T-shirts, ribbons, socks, etc. Some have coloured their hair and fingernails.
The festival of the boot is attracting far more interest and participation than the festival of democracy. I wonder if this was an extremely sensible tactic by John Howard?
Adelaide
[Abridged.]
British Labour
Martin Thomas in his reply to Ben Courtice's review of my book (GLW #333) just avoids any of the points that comrade Courtice makes.
He says British workers have been reformist for most of this century. What on earth does this mean? If he is saying they have not been revolutionary, this is hardly controversial. The question is, why?
One can only assume from what he says, because they have been reformist. The argument is entirely circular. He cites Lenin's comments on the ALP made prior to the first imperialist war, and of course neglects the whole discussion about opportunism and its relationship to imperialism that Lenin led during that war, on which the communist position is based.
The [British] Labour Party has never been a workers' party. That is the point, and it certainly isn't a workers' party today. It has just passed the most draconian laws against democratic rights, unprecedented this century during peacetime. You can now be jailed for 10 years on the word of a police officer. You can also be jailed for supporting national liberation struggles.
Labour could pass such laws, not the Tories. No wonder Labour is the preferred party of the British ruling class. It still also appears to be the preference of Martin Thomas.
England
Cambodia
91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly's news is usually distinguished by its persistent pursuance of democracy and human rights in Southeast Asia.
However, its coverage of the Cambodian elections and aftermath has been shamefully generous towards Hun Sen and the Cambodian Peoples' Party, who, like their Indonesian, Malaysian and Burmese counterparts in tyranny, spare no means in suppressing democracy.
According to Nate Thayer, renowned for his penetrative journalism in Cambodia, the international observers, under pressure from the ASEAN nations and France, were determined to endorse the elections at any cost, despite a preponderance of evidence of intimidation and fraud.
Yet 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly took the endorsement by the Joint International Observer Group uncritically. At least the international observers reproach Hung Sen for his past abuses, the bloody July 1997 coup and the deadly harassment of opposition.
According to UN human rights investigators, Hun Sen's government is responsible for over 100 politically motivated disappearances and murders in the past year. I could find not a single allusion to these in Helen Jarvis' "Losers reject election results" (GLW #327).
Jarvis depicts the Cambodian opposition — Sam Rainsy and Prince Ranariddh — as spoilers, bent on advancing questionable causes.
She may have a point: both invoke violent racism against the Vietnamese minority; and both crave power. But her reckless analysis tramples under the courageous associations of women, workers, students and new political parties who struggle for greater freedoms under Hun Sen.
The stolen elections provide much-needed international legitimacy for the corruption, militarism and criminality that define Hun Sen's rule. International approbation means Hun Sen and his circle can resume their real political program: the pursuit of personal power and fortune.
San Francisco USA
[Abridged.]
Migrants create jobs
In view of the fact that ongoing research by successive Australian governments and non-government agencies alike shows that increased immigration does not add to unemployment but actually leads to greater job creation, it is indeed surprising that nobody has actually asked Mrs Hanson to justify her policy to cut immigration to zero levels.
It is time that Mrs Hanson was challenged to "please explain" how zero immigration will, in any way, contribute to the nation's security or wellbeing.
It is doubtful whether Mrs Hanson has ever put that question to herself or whether she could find an answer to it if forced to confront the actual facts prevailing in the real world.
Toowong Qld
Population levels
As the State of the Environment Reports at both federal and state levels show that urgent action is needed to repair and maintain a sustainable environment in Australia, it is absolutely essential that we take urgent action to ensure that this part of the planet, for which we are responsible, is protected from increasing environmental degradation.
The above reports (researched by respected scientists and not by Nazis) clearly indicate that Australia is an arid, fragile continent with depleted soil, polluted air and waterways, and the highest rate of extinction of our unique flora and fauna species.
Of course we must act locally, as we only really have the power to make changes here in Australia. To suggest that we should ignore Australia's problems and concentrate somehow to try to effect change elsewhere in the world is pretty fanciful and amounts to little more than emotional incontinence.
The impractical suggestions of Francesca Davis (19/8/98) and the gratuitous insults of Norm Dixon (2/9/98) do nothing to address the problems facing future generations in this country. They seem to be more concerned with other parts of the planet than right here, which is the only place they have any hope of safeguarding.
Australia has to choose either to stabilise population and conserve the environment (and quality of life) or to continue with population growth and further environmental degradation (and a diminished quality of life). Every other country faces the same task — to choose between a small population with a good standard of living or a large population and sadly suffer the consequences.
Ardross WA
[Abridged.]
Racist government
The Country Liberal Party has done more to interfere with my Native Title Rights than One Nation ever will.
They are a racist government.
They introduce and create racism through their policies which in turn lead to division within the Aboriginal community of the Northern Territory.
It is difficult for many Aboriginal people to speak out about this for fear of repercussions.
Dangalaba Clan, traditional owners of the Darwin region
supported by Harold Thomas, registered designer and owner of the Aboriginal flag.
Real solutions needed
A generation ago conservatives liked to kick the Communist can come election time. In 1998, they prefer to put the boot into the unemployed.
Struggling to sell its regressive tax policy, the Coalition is placing renewed emphasis on work-for-the-dole. Its TV ads make sure the word "bludger" is drilled back into the national psyche.
But whose fault is unemployment? 95% of the responsibility lies with the governments and the employed majority who elect them.
Unemployment could be halved within five years if taxes were raised and billions were spent on wage subsidies, public sector [job] creation, education and training to match the skills of the unemployed to employers demands, and so on.
Governments have a moral obligation either to ensure suitable job opportunities for all or to pay the unemployed a full living wage. Either way taxes must rise.
Yet the Coalition offers massive tax cuts, blames the unemployed for unemployment and reduces the paltry unemployment allowance available to thousands of young people.
It's enough to drive a person to Communism.
Rydalmere NSW
Closing ranks
In the US everyone seems to be interested in the sexual behaviour of their president and no one seems to care that the same president a short time ago ordered air strikes in Sudan and Afghanistan!
We here in Australia are of course far more sophisticated! True, we like to go to war too, but we also worry about a political conspiracy to protect paedophiles! (Australian, 19/9/98).
However, the word conspiracy suggests people sitting around the table plotting or scheming something that is usually very bad!
And in a sensitive case like protection of paedophiles this certainly could not have happened! No one talks about that, not even in secret!
But there is another word much closer to the truth and that isC
. closing ranks! This means we all know what is going on, C: for the sake of mateship we all remain silent! The worst thing is to betray your own colleagues!
Closing ranks was and still is applied en masse in the case of the Hilton bombing, Black deaths in custody and police behaviour in general!
So, if judges feel offended by the idea that they could have been involved in protecting paedophiles, Parliament should express a definite opinion about what is more important ... the reputation of judges or the physical damage done to children by paedophiles? On which side is law and order?
Surely from a socialist point of view this would be in the interest of the public?
President Clinton would whole-heartedly agree. He knows that there is a great deal of difference between sexual misconduct of this kind or that kind.
Sydney
[Abridged.]