The question of the senate and blocking the budget has been raised in the Victorian Student movement. At the meeting of the Student Unionism Network on the 10th of September, the International Socialist Organisation moved that the slogan for the next rally be "The Senate wont save us". They were supported in this by Socialist Alternative and Workers Power. The next day a Melbourne University forum on "Blocking the Budget: which way forward?" had further discussion on the senate with the ISO basically saying that the senate was irrelevant and we could "rely on our own power a la France 1995". Socialist Alternative argued that we should "Fuck off the senate" and that the campaign against Austudy showed that "it is our mobilising power in the streets" that can defeat government attacks.
These are all fine sentiments, but only that — sentiments, without a perspective for the next step the campaign must take in order to involve masses of people (a la France) against the Budget.
Two questions for the ISO and SA: 1. Do you think the senate should not block the budget? 2. What demands will you put on the government that have the potential to mobilise thousands in support?
We think that demanding (not begging) that the senate block the budget is a demand that can mobilise support: it is simple, its intent is clear and it is realisable. We also think that if the senate were forced to block the budget it would be a massive victory for the working class, making it much harder for governments of any persuasion to impose austerity.
Either way we think people will have a valuable experience and understanding of their own strength and/or the true nature of parliament.
Felicity Martin, Ray Fulcher, Jo Williams and Phuong Dang
Melbourne
[Edited for length.]
Marxism '96
Over the weekend of September 7-8 I attended some sessions of Marxism '96, the International Socialists' (ISO) conference. I was glad to see that the ISO, after largely ignoring the development of the Indonesian workers' movement, had scheduled a session on the recent rise of the democracy struggle in Indonesia.
However, I was disappointed by some of the statements and analysis in that session. Ian Rintoul, a long-term member of the ISO, responded to a comment about needing to build the solidarity movement here by stating that, while solidarity is, of course, important, it had to be more than just writing letters and signing petitions. So far, so good. But then he went further. He said revolutionaries in Australia have more time than Indonesians to study theory and history, and therefore we (i.e. revolutionaries in Australia) should use this to teach the Indonesians lessons about how best to fight for democracy and socialism.
This patronising and paternalistic attitude runs counter to the basic idea of international solidarity. Our job here is not to stand at a distance and lecture revolutionaries overseas about what they should be doing. Surely the leadership of the movement in Indonesia is the best judge of its tactics. We must approach the Indonesian activists as fighters with more than a few lessons to teach us.
Internationalism means building support here for revolutionary struggles overseas. For socialists in imperialist countries like Australia, international solidarity campaigns are an important weapon against "our" government. They show the treacherous and undemocratic nature of the Australian government which puts its support behind regimes such as Suharto's in Indonesia all in the interests of profit.
Wendy Robertson
Resistance and ASIET member
Sydney
CTBT
In response to Pip Hinman's article (91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ August 21) on India being blamed for the stalemate in the nuclear Test Ban treaty negotiations, nothing is to be gained by siding with any nuclear power, "third world" or otherwise. Anti-nuclear activists should tell the Indians to dismantle their nuclear arsenal, full stop.
The old pro-Soviet World Peace Council always had very good arguments to support the peace-loving nuclear diplomacy of the USSR. Peace movements like the WPC which take sides with one nuclear power against another always end up getting outsmarted by apologists for "nuclear deterrence".
Australians saw this in 1995 when then Foreign Minister Senator Evans got away with his outrageous defence of Russian nuclear weapons at the Hague. You will remember that he referred to a need to "safeguard deterrence pending eventual elimination".
Since 1945 when the United States exploited its broad anti-fascist mandate so as to carry out nuclear experiments on the Japanese, no state has even had the public support necessary to make a convincing threat of first use of nuclear weapons. This is not an apology for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is merely an explanation of why there have been no other Hiroshimas and Nagasakis.
NATO's "limited nuclear war" scaremongering in Europe in the early '80s might seem to contradict what I am saying, but this particular charade was possible only because of the existence of the Soviet nuclear arsenal, the much publicised target for NATO's "first strike" missiles.
The Soviet system was not protected by its nuclear weapons. It was destroyed by them. This is what anti-nuclear activists should tell the Indians and other third world bullshitters who want to get us involved in their meaningless disputes with the big nuclear powers.
Wayne Hall
Athens Greece
[Edited for length.]
Guns
I am appalled that you support the gun lobby with articles/books claiming need and right of the masses to be armed — and so not let the police and army be the only forces with arms.
There is nothing in Howard's proposals that no one may have a gun — he only restricts mass murder weapons: automatic and semi-automatic guns. In fact, amazingly for a pro-US politician, he says "we must not go down the American road" of massive gun ownership and massive murders.
We have seen recently many of the pro-gun lobby expressing most blood-thirsty, pro-fascist and racist ideas. National MP Katter, eg, boasts he had a gun under every bed in his house. I'm sure he supports your ideas that we should all have guns.
If you continue propagating such ideas, which might be valid in a revolutionary situation but not when as now we have no threat of invasion or imminent revolutionary overthrow of collapse of capitalism, I shall cancel my subscription to GLW.
Simon Bracegirdle
Brisbane
Superheroes
"Is there still room for super heroes?" This is a quote from one of the most naive and inappropriate articles I've ever seen in GL (4/9/96). Two minor points: the Batman TV series was a 1960s phenomenon not a 1970s one (important if some claim is made about such media products and their reflection of larger social issues), and it was camp, not kitsch (Batman, like such comics generally, has always been either crude or Kitsch).
False consciousness is a useful concept that was never more apt than in this piece, where the expression "graphic novel" was used as if it was something other than a sales pitch towards comic strip readers with pretensions. Superhero comics haven't so much grown up as re-targeted themselves towards a market that is older, but no more sophisticated than before. Bad short stories used to be called pulp fictions, but add bad art and you can call them graphic novels.
Batman used to peddle the old simplicities of "one Man [sic] can make a difference" (only great individuals can save us, ie, the problem posing as the solution), as he, one of the idle rich saved Gotham City and the world, but the message has now become "no one can make a difference" — just as naive.
Both have the result of creating a dull and complacent readership/market (it is probably a dim awareness of this that makes such sub-cultures turn in on themselves, for the last thing any of them want is a sense of perspective). Such material has always been a combination of infantile phycology, neo-fascist art and misunderstood Nietzsche. I've read many articles like this one before, as well as almost all of the little comic books referred to in it. There are places for this nonsense, but GL isn't one of them.
Dave Baker
Ridleyton SA
[Edited for length.]
T I. A. 1. a.(1)(a) i) a)T X{!9p Indonesia
On August 29, Socialist Alternative organised a meeting at which SA member Steve Miller spoke on the military invasion of the PDI [Indonesian Democratic Party] headquarters and the subsequent riots in Jakarta.
Miller, who was in Jakarta at the time, argued that solidarity actions in Australia will have little effect, because the left here is too weak. Therefore, the left in Australia must first build itself by fighting against Howard's cuts before lending support to the Indonesian democratic movement.
Miller told me he did not meet with or engage in political discussion with the PRD [People's Democratic Party], a party setting the pace of the democratic movement and which has since been persecuted by the regime. Incredibly, Miller concluded his talk by saying that the prospect for change in Indonesia is remote! This in a period when even mainstream journalists and political analysts are discussing the end of the Suharto regime and when the US is seeking to back a moderate opposition.
Paying lip service to solidarity whilst not acting now is opportunism and a deception of SA members who are genuinely concerned about Indonesia.
Solidarity is crucial when the regime has been known to engage in extrajudicial executions, disappearings, torture and daily harassment of opponents. Moreover, a victory for the Indonesian people would also be a victory for the left and labor movement in Australia: it would be a defeat for our government and its big business backers and would inspire and energise the struggle here.
Vannessa Hearman
ASIET convener
Melbourne
[Edited for length.]
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