Capitalism and health
I write in relation to Nick Fredman's article on capitalism and health in GLW #637. This article contains a couple of inaccuracies. Perhaps the most obvious is the claim that counselling is a viable alternative to lithium for people with mental illness. In fact, lithium is a drug for the organic illness schizophrenia. Lithium seriously improves the quality of life for many schizophrenia sufferers, and counselling is no substitute.
Research has repeatedly demonstrated a small but statistically significant link between longevity and socio-economic status. The argument made by the author would have been more compelling if such research was cited.
Jim Tran
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War times
The federal government has declared war on our right to remain free to think and to be democratically governed. Some Australians have been threatened with jail or deportation if they oppose government policy on the war in Iraq, Afghanistan, free speech or industrial relations.
In times of war, the first casualty is the objective analysis of the facts. This why the 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly is so important in maintaining balance. We, its present readership, should make every endeavour to increase its circulation by talking to our friends and neighbours about taking out a subscription. Act now!
Don & Sheila Blundell-Wignall
via email
Independent media
Have you noticed that nowadays, most of the Australian media seems to sing from the same song-sheet? Uses certain catch words and phrases repetitively? For example, calls every measure which affects your rights as a citizen, a worker or a consumer a "reform", even when you know it will leave you worse off?
Big media sound the same because too few people own and control them and those who do have little in common with most of us. But, in addition to our own common sense, there is an antidote to being talked into surrendering our own best interests. It's called the independent media and 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly is the leading paper in the field.
But precisely in order to be independent, GLW does without revenue from government or business sources and the high cost of newspaper production means that the paper now has a life-threatening financial problem. If, like me, you are an independent thinker who prizes media diversity, we owe it to ourselves to see that the paper survives. And that means contributing to GLW's emergency appeal to the best of our financial ability.
Should the independent media in Australia vanish, dear reader, you and I will have no one to blame but ourselves!
Rob Mc
Perth, WA
[full name withheld at request]
Cindy Sheehan
What Cindy Sheehan has done is present US President George Bush with a very simple lose-lose proposition: Talk to me and have the world watch you equivocate before someone who won't back down and whom you cannot demonise, or fail to talk to me and show cowardice in the face of someone who has paid the price for your war.
It was actually quite spontaneous — planned in less than four days — but the timing was perfect, ergo the incredible resonance of it. The real victory here, however, for the movement, is that the issue of the war was pulled back up off of page 8 and back onto the front page. People are paying attention again, and now the lens is that of a grieving mother.
Stan Goff
Raleigh, South Carolina
'Intelligent design'
The renewed push to have "intelligent design" taught as a plausible idea in schools should be resisted. Intelligent design is a theory advanced by some religious believers who accept that evolution has occurred but who claim the process was set in train by God. They often assert that the complexity of even the simplest living cells is very unlikely to have arisen by chance.
However, if that's true, what is the probability of God arising by chance? It must be orders of magnitude lower.
So, was God intelligently designed by an even more remarkable super-God? If so, how did this super-God come into existence? Are we expected to believe in an infinite regress of progressively more astonishing gods?
People who acknowledge that increasingly complicated life-forms have repeatedly evolved from simpler ones should be particularly sceptical of the notion that life began with an incomprehensibly sophisticated life-form — God.
Brent Howard
Rydalmere, NSW
Fossil fuels
If Australia wants to lessen its dependency on fossil fuels it should nationalise coal exports and use the proceeds to create a new viable mass export of solar panels and wind turbines.
It is simple to apply voltage to water and split it into hydrogen and oxygen, another principle begging to be applied to domestic car engines.
Re-train coal workers in making these things and fill up those giant boats with affordable, Australian-made sustainable energy generators instead of coal.
The US dollar is pegged to "black gold" (oil), rather than normal gold and has been since the mid-1970s. A deal was cut when this change was made whereby the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) would trade their oil exclusively in US dollars, meaning that the entire world would always be taking out massive loans of US dollars to buy their oil, thus supporting the greenback.
Part of the reason Iraq was invaded was that since November 2000, Hussein had been selling his oil in euros, a move primarily financed by the French bank BNP. If other OPEC countries started trading in euros, this could knock the wind out of the US dollar in a big way; so in a sense the US was "forced" to invade Iraq to protect their whole economy. Australia should learn from the US and not ever be forced into doing deals with the devil because our economy is pinned to coal. We could head the new OPEC of sustainable energy instead.
Zane Alcorn
Merewether, NSW
Kurdish films
I have seen two Kurdish films — A Time for Drunken Horses and Turtles Can Fly. They are both excellent films. My boyfriend is Kurdish and he has told me so many stories about his life in Kurdistan, but the films have such a powerful impact. Well done to all involved in making these films. Is it possible to purchase these films on DVD? Keep up the good work.
Debra Lidgett From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, August 24, 2005.
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