Police violence at Perth M1
Jon Mayhew (Write on, GLW #449) raised the point that no riot shields were used on protesters. On this point he is correct. The mistake in my article was due to an error in the editing process. Police did not use riot shields against the protesters. However, his overall description of the clash in the side alley was extremely glossy. He makes no argument as to why it was necessary to charge the blockade with mounted police.
The only reason access was denied to the riot police was their reluctance to open the big black bags that protesters believed contained riot shields and helmets. The democratic decision of the blockade was that the police would not be given access until they displayed the contents of the bags — fearing that shields would be used in a charge of the blockade. Protesters chanted "open your bags", only to be met by mounted police who charged the 6-metre wide alley. These actions could have severely injured the protesters, since they had no way to escape.
Mayhew claims that there were "no police behind" the protesters. In fact, a line of police were there all day. They were there to stop protesters gaining access to the building and in conjunction with the mounted charge they did have the protesters hemmed into the alley. All the media coverage and a number of photos clearly show that this line of police was always standing behind the protesters.
On the issue of no alternative access to the exchange building. This is an outright lie or Mayhew does not know that there was a service entrance to the exchange building on Barrack St. Mayhew mistakes the "rear" entrance that was referred to in my article with the alley way in the lower side of the building. The unguarded entrance I referred to was the delivery lane located on Barrack St and was not at any stage blockaded by protesters.
The M1 Alliance discovered later that it was used to escort arrested protesters out of the Exchange Plaza during the blockade and therefore could have been used to get people into the building. However, it is the belief of the organisers that the police deliberately inflamed the situation by not using that available entrance which they knew existed together with the management of the Exchange building.
Grant Coleman
Perth [Abridged]
Socialist Alliance
While I welcome Comrade Nichols response ("Who's Afraid of the Socialist Alliance?", GLW #449) to my article ("Another Generation Lost? Doubts About Socialist Alliance"), there are matters of content and motivation that must be corrected.
It is incorrect to suggest that I claimed that the Socialist Alliance has deliberately excluded the CPA, SP et. al. The point made was that the far left still finds ethereal grounds for forming separate political organisations. Whilst the Socialist Alliance is no doubt a step against this trend, it has been tried before and under better conditions, as editorials from Direct Action will testify.
Rather than defend my accusations that the platform of Socialist Alliance lacks even the basic criteria of being socialist, Nichols turns his condemnation onto the Greens, apparently for being too successful in the electoral arena and the ALP left which has committed the mortal sin of at least making real — and often successful — attempts to convert socialist principles into reality.
Most importantly however, Nichols has completely misinterpreted the motivation for my article. He seems convinced that it has been written from a perspective of fear that the Socialist Alliance might just be successful, and that a fragmented and marginalised socialist movement is preferred. Nothing could be further from the truth. A successful left of Labor group would no doubt strengthen the prospect for genuine social reforms, advances in civil rights, social democracy and the well-being of working people.
I sincerely hope that the Socialist Alliance is successful. But there are genuine doubts, backed with historical experience and theoretical grounding. It is far better to address those doubts, rather than ignore or misconstrue the motivations behind them.
Lev Lafayette
Melbourne
What 'parliament of the streets'?
It is a rare occasion indeed, but I agree with Janet Burstall (Write on, GLW #449) when she questions the view put by Alison Dellit ("Their parliament versus ours", GLW #445) that the "parliament of the streets" is an alternative to "their parliament". Perhaps there are even a few members of the DSP who would cringe at the use of such empty rhetorical language.
It is all very well for you to go on about the impossibility of changing society through "their" parliament, but any serious strategy has to start from where we are at today, and that means the long and relatively stable history of parliamentarism in this country. (Have you ever heard of a "transitional program"?)
Dellit's sort of anti-parliamentary cretinism, that has come to the fore in the DSP's discussion of the Socialist Alliance, shows that the alliance is a continuation of the deep sectarianism of most left parties, not an end to it. The electoral strategy of the alliance is just not serious.
On the other hand, if the alliance forces a discussion on issues that you have failed to confront in the past, it may have a progressive role to play. Perhaps, one day, you may actually have to consider how, concretely, to deal with working in the parliamentary framework, a necessary part of a strategy to move beyond it. Then again, you still sound like you have all the answers — but none of the questions.
Paul Petit
Adelaide
Kennedy myth perpetuated
While I am glad to have seen Thirteen Days after having read the review by Kim Bullimore (GLW #448), I cannot agree with the central political assessments of the review. These are that the movie "manages (almost) to do away with all the Hollywood hoopla and flag-waving that normally surrounds movies of this kind" and that the film is a "sober" portrayal of the White House response to the Cuban missile crisis since US generals (more immediately than the Soviet Union) are portrayed as warmongers.
Bullimore concedes that "the film still manages to portray" the Kennedy brothers as "men of goodwill" — without seeming to notice that this is the movie's most important political message and therefore its greatest subterfuge. The film reveals (but in no way challenges) the fact that Kennedy and his advisers were prepared to bomb and then invade Cuba, had no qualms about violating Cuban sovereignty and airspace, and imposed on other Latin American governments support for US military strong-arm tactics.
By portraying Kennedy's doubts about the even more hawkish policies of the generals, the film humanises Kennedy the aggressor. In the context of the current mass disillusionment with capitalist politicians, fostering myths about good-hearted politicians of yesteryear is "hoopla and flag-waving" for the political establishment.
In fact, the movie does not challenge the myth that "hardline Soviet aggression" was responsible for the crisis. It simply presents Khrushchev as another of the "men of goodwill" battling against hawks in the Soviet camp. While this is a departure from a different propaganda technique used by Hollywood — that of painting the USSR as a monolithic "evil empire" — it is hardly radical or even unique. It is simply a more credible way for the establishment to present the more important propaganda message of the moment.
Alex Bainbridge
Hobart
Disgusted
I couldn't help being disgusted by the nauseating display of parochialism and nationalism displayed by ALP politicians and union officials at a meeting regarding Arnott's workers losing their jobs. I'm offended by the callous casting of workers onto the scrap heap — but I'm equally offended by hypocritical lamentations about the callous "foreign multinationals" that are causing this disaster. Apparently Australian capitalists are more caring — they must be exempt from the cut-throat competition that motivates other capitalists.
While speakers were happy to talk about "globalisation gone wrong" and the like, they like to forget some of the other aspects of a global economy: capitalists invest where they can make a profit. This might be in Brisbane or Bangkok. As long as the profits are enough to keep them competitive, the capitalists don't care. Australian or not — they're all in the same competition.
This fairy tale about nice fair Aussie capitalists is just another (nationalist) version of the old myth of the "trickle-down theory", one of the central myths of the neo-liberal economic rationalist ideology which kicked off "globalisation" (of itself) in the era of Thatcher and Reagan. It says that if we make the rich richer, we'll all benefit in the long term — whatever sacrifices we make in the short term — because their wealth will "trickle down" to us lower classes. The reality of stock market gambling, and investment in starvation-waged third-world manufacturing doesn't seem to enter into this happy fable.
To any worker who's had their eyes open for the last five, 10 or 20 years, such a theory can only seem like a bad joke. Let's forget the fairy stories about nice capitalists, and get down to the serious business of making them cough up their wealth, and place their investments under democratic control.
Ben Courtice
Footscray Vic
Socialist Alliance?
It is quite obvious that, due to media bias and reactionary politics, terms such as socialism, communism, anarchy, green and left have been effectively discredited in the minds of a lot of people.
The expression "Socialist Alliance" attracts only those who have an understanding of and positive regard for socialism, which is not the majority of the population. This has been the situation for a long time. I remember Harold Wilson's Labour government in England, in the '60s, still calling itself a socialist party, and the term was disturbing a lot of people then. Wasn't socialism what they did in Russia?
If it is going to get support, a radical new party of the left needs to call itself something that sounds familiar and is not threatening. "New Labour" is a label that has been used successfully in Britain and, while it has turned out to be a pseudonym for "Thatcherism in pants", there is no reason why it could not be used in Australia to stand for "Socialist Alliance".
A lot of conservative working people and traditional Labor voters, who would be turned off or feel threatened by the word "socialist" may well be attracted to the idea of a real labour party. Furthermore, currently elected Labor politicians with green left tendencies would find it possible to move to the left without necessarily disaffecting their electorates.
Michael Birch
Nimbin NSW