US deserters
91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly #619, reports that at least "5500 US military personnel have deserted since the war started in Iraq". While it is good that this number of US troops have deserted, dodged call ups or refused orders, instead of shooting Iraqis, we should think about whether there are better ways to resist imperialist wars.
Trotsky said that workers should join the army to organise resistance to imperialist war from the inside and to work for armed mass mutinies such as we saw in Germany in 1918, or even the more limited type of actions taken against US officers in Vietnam.
Of course Trotsky was talking about a draft army and he was arguing against draft dodging and pacifism as an individualist, rather than working class response to war. But we can use the same reasoning for career soldiers who are workers employed by the bosses to defend their private property.
We should look on the 5500 who have deserted as taking individual stands against the war. While we can applaud their courage and their stand against the war they are not contributing as effectively to mass resistance in the way that those who stay and campaign inside the army can.
Individuals who leave the army because of a particular war, leave it in the hands of its officers and the ruling class still able to fight future imperialist wars and civil wars. Collective resistance in the army is, as Trotsky said, like building a workers union inside the army and taking armed strike action against the officer bosses. Workers control of the army is a necessary step to overthrowing bosses' power with workers' power.
Dave Brown
Communist Workers Group
New Zealand [Abridged]
Iraq
As an idea for any rallies you may have in the future, are you aware that the government and defence leaders have stated that it takes Australian defence personnel six years to qualify to be deployed. Why would the government send unqualified service personnel into harm's way?
I am an ex-service person who was injured and discharged medically unfit for service. I did not complete six years therefore I do not qualify for an Australian Defence Medal. Many thousands of service and ex-service personnel are being discriminated against.
I lobby many pollies in regard to this matter along with many others. I think it could be of interest to anti-war bodies as support for their cause on why Australian defence personnel should not be in Iraq. If this is not of interest to you please disregard and accept my apology for this inconvenience.
Graeme Brereton
Pingelly, WA [Abridged]
Tenants
While not denying that tenants sometimes need legal and rental advice, I feel that organisations that help them do not need the $22 million that the NSW Minister for Fair Trading, John Hatzistergos, is about to give them over three years. Three or four million should be adequate. The minister should be thinking about a fair go for schools, hospitals and the homeless all of which are just as deserving.
Gail Lord
Kingswood Park, NSW
Macquarie Fields
Macquarie Fields is not just a state policing and public housing design problem. It is not just a ghetto culture issue. It is also a problem for every federal agency and group which should be providing infrastructure for the poor.
You can't pull yourself up by your bootstraps if you have no boots. Where is hope?
Where are the commonwealth skillshares and job schemes and tax breaks to help ease people back into work and to buy their public housing back from government? Where are the incentives to break the poverty cycle?
Where are the churches and social support groups willing to help establish local-run community markets and youth sporting clubs? Who takes the kids bushwalking and horseriding? How many of these children have seen a relevant musical lately?
It takes more than state government or police PR to make things work.
Jane Salmon
Lindfield, NSW
Werriwa by-election
Why is there a by-election in Werriwa anyway? The direct answer is "because Mark Latham decided to leave parliament and vacated his seat". But the real answer is "because Australia has the single-member electoral district system which requires that a by-election needs to be held whenever an MP vacates his or her seat".
In the very many countries that use the proportional representation system instead, based on multi-member electorates, by-elections simply don't occur. If an MP vacates the seat the candidate who is next on the list of the party he or she represented, but didn't make the quota and therefore missed out in the most recent election, automatically replaces the outgoing MP. In such countries the frequent boundary changes, necessary to counter gerrymandering, are not known either. Remarkably, PR was actually co-invented in Australia.
The single-member electoral system has become very dysfuntional and is essentially undemocratic. It has its origin in the period in the UK that parties did not exist in the organised form they later adopted. With the formation and growth of political parties, from the late 19th century onwards, voters have increasingly voted primarily for party platforms, not for individuals.
Today in Australia MPs of the major party candidates are elected on approximately 40% of the primary vote on average. All other candidates in the single-district electorate will not get a look in. People who voted for them, with a few Independent exceptions, are not represented, full stop. This in itself makes a complete farce of democracy.
In the rest of the world single-member electoral districts are very much in the minority. It is a direct legacy of the British colonial period and most of the newly independent Commonwealth countries have abandoned the system.
Klaas Woldring
Pearl Beach, NSW
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, March 23, 2005.
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