Consumers
Tony Hastings (Write on #170) says that "the proletariat don't need their living standards raised any higher". Tell that to the majority of working people in Australia, whose standard of living has decreased in the last decade. Tell that to the working class of countries like Brazil, the Philippines, the US, New Zealand. If Tony can produce any evidence that most workers in any country have a luxurious lifestyle, I would like to see it.
The resources of the world and decisions regarding their use are controlled by a handful of multinational companies.
While corporations control resources, it is impossible for most people to survive without buying products from companies. Especially working people who don't have the time or money to take up Tony's suggested lifestyle of self sufficiency. That idea certainly doesn't offer a solution to people of the Third World, who already work incredibly hard just to survive. If Tony thinks labour intensive production will give us all a warm fuzzy feeling as we get in touch with nature perhaps he should try living in the Third World.
Tony says we should not "play the capitalist game", but then goes on to suggest that correct consumer decisions (which implies still living in a capitalist society) are the way to save the planet.
He says we should all ask ourselves how much plastic we have consumed today. Maybe we should be asking how many chemical corporations do we own today? How many times did we get to decide production today?
A lot has been said about the importance of a greening of the left. Perhaps more needs to be said about the need for a lefting of the greens. The blame the individual/small is beautiful mentality will not build a strong, radical environmental movement and will not provide global solutions.
Emma Webb
Adelaide
[Edited for length.]
Suharto
Put yourself, for a moment, in the place of the maligned Suharto government.
You have killed around 500,000 of your own people to get into power; ten years later Saigon falls and the East Timorese declare independence. Of course you go in there, kill up to 300,000 more and encourage internal migration together with the forced sterilisation of Timorese women.
Your family has gained control of the commanding heights of the economy, and your wife owns the largest batik factory in the country, which probably also makes shirts for APEC leaders.
Independence for East Timor ? Nah. Never. The whole thing might fall apart.
Gil White
Earlwood NSW
Stone in the shoe
John Pilger paraphrases it, Helen Todd quotes it (GLW #169) — even the Far Eastern Economic Review reported it.
Yes, Indonesia's Foreign Minister — Ali Alatas — described East Timor as "the stone in Indonesia's shoe".
Normally human beings take an irritating stone out of their shoe — in this case: Indonesia's military boot.
Can any Indonesian "security" agent who happens to be a closet 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ reader, please tell me why his/her country does not act normally with this irritating stone — East Timor ?
Why not simply give East Timor independence?
Rid yourselves of further pain, embarrassment, ridicule, discomfort, and slaughter — I've read 10,000 Indonesian troops lost their lives while your generals tried beating Fretilin. Not to mention 200,000 East Timorese.
And still East Timor fights on.
But hey — we've been here before!
During 1976 Indonesia's then Foreign Minister Malik gave Jose Ramos Horta a letter promising East Timor independence — not worth the paper it was written on.
Now Jakarta/ Canberra are sweet-talking "autonomy" — i.e. Gareth Evans' diplomatic footwork for dealing with this troublesome stone.
But look at the two "autonomous" regions — daerah istimewa — already established in Indonesia.
One — Aceh — is in revolt, and a killing field of at least 2,000 Indonesian army victims.
The other — Yogyakarta — enjoys popular support because of its unique position during Indonesia's own independence struggle.
Anyhow Yogya is controlled by Suharto's Golkar party — i.e. a situation that is total anathema to East Timorese.
Talk of "autonomy" can be a wedge to break up the stone.
Indonesian generals divided UDT and Fretilin prior to invading in 1975, and will try divide-and-rule tactics again.
Chris Beale
Darlinghurst.
ALP left
The left within the ALP are not the enemy, as at least one of the earlier contributions in the ALP and the left debate in 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly suggested. The ALP left's "main role" is clearly not to cover for the majority right. Such an assertion attributes this as the conscious strategy of the ALP left and leads inexorably through outrageous conspiracy theories to the old Stalinist position that characterised social democracy as "social fascist".
Progressive people are not flooding into the ALP; nor will they while Labor remains in government federally and the bitter experiences of various state Labor governments continue to sit uncomfortably in the collective mind.
Joining the ALP, in the opinion of this former member, is not an effective course of action; the chances of reforming the ALP remain as dim as ever. But ultimately, people will make up their minds about whether or not to join the ALP without regard to my opinion or that of others, including that of Vladimir Lenin who lived long ago and far away.
If progressive people are to be successfully discouraged from joining the ALP, a credible alternative, or alternatives, to that party must be forged. Action speaks louder than words.
Sadly, there isn't much serious action in that direction.
In the meantime, the reality is that a minority of progressive people will join the ALP (amongst them a number of careerists), a few more will join the various small left and green groups and the majority will continue to abstain from organised left politics.
Frank Noakes
Sydney
Third runway
As an active socialist and supporter of the anti-Third Runway campaign currently in motion in Sydney's inner west, I have been pleased to see the clarity with which the community that's involved has seen through and rejected the rampant dishonesty of the ALP around this whole issue.
Whether it be the pre-runway assurances from the federal government that the level of noise from the runway would not increase markedly, or the present cynical attempts by Labor politicians, local and state, to defuse the anger and independent organisation of the community by stacking public meeting platforms or declaring particular public actions "unofficial", the ALP has been acting true to form as the "true deceivers".
The only anti-Third Runway campaign activists who don't seem to see this yet, apart from loyal ALP members themselves, are the members of the International Socialist Organisation. At the many well attended public meetings around the campaign over the past month, the ISO has consistently colluded with the ALP in attempting to deflect community activists' energy and attention away from independent action and organising structures towards collaboration with the very party which is responsible for creating this mess.
From calling for local, state and federal politicians to be invited to be "patrons" of the campaign against the runway, to falling in fully behind the short-sighted and opportunistic "alternative" being proposed by the ALP Mayors and local Councillors of fast-tracking Badgerys Creek airport, the ISO's conduct is an anathema to socialists and all angry residents looking for a genuinely democratic alternative to politics as usual in NSW.
The community has to date refused to be conned. If the anti-Third Runway campaign is to be successful, such attempts to direct genuine movements into the sphere of influence of the ALP must continue to be rejected.
Karen Fletcher
Democratic Socialist candidate for Marrickville