Billy Hughes
I hear the WWF will put W.M.(Billy) Hughes in the famous wharfies' mural at 63 Sussex St.,Sydney.
Billy Hughes tried to conscript all of Australia's youth for the human slaughter-house in France. He tried to introduce a police state which had the right to hound and harass eligible men into the perpetual meat-grinder of the Western Front. He split the Labour Party, left it, formed his own Party, the Nationals, and slavishly licked the boots of Imperial England. He promised returned soldiers the world, and gave them little.
One of his most despicable acts was to hound an old Socialist poet, J.K. MacDougal from Victoria, and a Labour member of Parliament. MacDougal wrote a poem attacking the Boer War and Australians who went. Hughes took this poem, distorted it, and said MacDougal wrote it about WWI soldiers. Inflamed, a group of soldiers tarred and feathered MacDougal.
Billy Hughes has no place in a working class mural. The reason being given is "for the sake of history". This is the very reason Hughes' conniving, treacherous little face, the epitome of the opportunist, right wing of the Labour Party should not be included in the wharfies' famous mural.
Denis Kevans
Wentworth Falls NSW
Forgotten land
Your review of Trevor Sykes' Bold Riders (Nov. 2) says that the writer does much to explain "how capitalism's chorus line of crooks managed to get where they did". It then goes on with Sykes to blame "greedy and reckless bankers" for the damage they inflicted upon the Australian economy.
But is it Trevor Sykes or only the reviewer who does not see that, without the institution of private property in land, neither the "corporate cowboys" nor the banks would have got anywhere? It is strange that in this review "land" is not mentioned once whereas in Paul Barry's The Rise and Fall of Alan Bond "land" is mentioned over forty times in one chapter (without counting its equivalents). Paul Barry in fact says that, once Bond had learned the ways of the property magnate, "from then on it would be land, land, land, all the way" (p.43).
What the "paper" entrepreneurs, and the banks, were after was the economic rent of land: the location value of sites at the centres of economic activity. Marx says private property in land is as absurd as private property in people (Capital, vol. III, pp. 901-2). And that is precisely what the recent behaviour of the "corporate cowboys", and the banks, proves.
Richard Giles
Enfield NSW
Cuba
I want to congratulate you on publishing the Amnesty report on Cuba's human right situation several issues ago. It has reaffirmed my confidence in GLW being a truly independent progressive newspaper.
Over many years, the "left" seemed to have this tendency to idolize revolutionary figures, and in doing so they had made embarrassing, and sometimes tragic historical errors.
Many years ago, Mao Tse Tung was a figure regarded by many people in the popular left circle as a revolutionary hero. Malcolm X himself could say no wrong about him. During the Cultural Revolution, many progressive youth in the west carried the English version of Mao's little red book. Of course we later discover just how gullible we were. (One of the tragic legacies of this is that nowadays among the average Chinese, the word "left" is more associated with Maoism and its crazy cultural revolution, rather than democratic socialist ideals.) In fact, when Pol Pot first came to power in Cambodia, there was an initial wave of enthusiasm among the left! Now that was embarrassing, if not tragic.
We humans always seems to have this innate need for "hero". We should affirm that, but when one gets too carried away, tragedy always seems to follow. If we are to avoid errors of the past, we must avoid idolizing revolutionary figures who seem to carry the aspiration of humanity.
I never envisage Cuba being an ideal socialist country, but I believe that many of the things that had happened in that country had been for the good of the Cuban people, and I don't believe that Castro is a tyrannical figure like Mao, and I have always found many of the portrayals of him and Cuba in the western media very dubious. Cuba deserves our support, but that does not mean that constructive criticisms are out of the question.
Aston Kwok
Ashfield NSW
Cambodia
While the Federal Government is using the brutal murders by the Khmer Rouge of at least three of their eight hostages as justification for the escalation of military and political interference it is worthwhile keeping in mind some of Australia's previous actions in Cambodia.
During the period that Hun Sen and his Vietnamese allies were fighting to break the power of the Khmer Rouge Australia and other Western countries were adamantly supporting the Khmer Rouge as the legitimate representatives of Cambodia in the United Nations and therefore the proper recipients of food and military aid to camps along the Thailand-Cambodia border.
Now the Federal Government is attempting to play the role of power broker and dictate to SE Asian countries which governments they may have.
It sees nothing incongruous in an avowedly pro-republican government now supporting a monarchy in Cambodia.
There is no evidence that the payment of ransom increases abductions, it is much more probable that such payment increases the likelihood of hostage release than does the non-payment.
The latter course probably ensures the deaths of hostages as in the recent events.
If Australia escalates its military aid to Cambodia it runs the risk of creating its own Vietnam. The proper course is to withdraw from any overt or covert military and political intervention in other countries however much we might detest their political factions. The present Cambodian Government is no improvement on the Khmer Rouge.
C.M. Friel
Alawa NT
Application forms
The Australian Yearbook has in its pages written snapshots of several dozen social benefit programs.
My suggestion to make these entitlements more widely utilized is to create a uniform application form. After you answer up to several hundred questions — skipping many that would not apply — a computer could tell you in two minutes of all your benefit rights and responsibilities.
The technology to perform this public service has been available in all developed countries for some time. Sadly, the United States has not taken the lead in this area. Would the Australian government care to be #1 in the world here?
Raymond Avrutis
Washington, DC, USA
Global warming
The world and all its living species will be victims of global warming — the buildup of heat caused by fossil fuel emissions in Earth's atmosphere — if drastic steps aren't taken now to dramatically cut greenhouse gas emissions.
World-wide there are erratic changes in weather patterns. Australia is in the worst drought ever recorded, threatening our economy and the livelihood of millions of Australians.
Within five years the US has been buffeted by at least 15 weather-related disasters each costing more than $1 billion, and it appears global warming is the cause, according to Christopher Flavin, a senior fellow of the group Worldwatch. Damage caused by one hurricane in 1992 cost a record of $25 billion and caused the collapse of eight insurance companies, he said.
Mr Flavin claims that an increasing number of scientists believe that the frequency and magnitude of such disasters may be influenced by the warming of atmospheric and water temperatures caused by the emission of greenhouse gases by global industry and motor vehicles.
Greenpeace released a report which cautions investors against putting their money in fossil fuel industries in the light of the growing global warming debate. The report, entitled "Long-term Financial Risks to the Carbon Fuel Industry from Climate Change" and written by a former director of the Chase Investment Bank, warns that alternative energy firms are a much better bet in part because insurance companies, which invest billions of dollars a year, are increasingly worried about the meteorological effects of global warming.
Australia has the world's worst record in releasing greenhouse gases, something all governments and industry should be condemned for.
Don Mackay
Port Macquarie NSW