Left Labor conference I
Reading Lev Lafayette's letter (Write on, GLW # 456) on my remarks about the "Left Labor" conference makes me believe he might have more to offer the progressive movement as a science fiction writer than a socialist theoretician.
I counted 54 people at the session. Perhaps the other 21 he saw were already in the bar.
It is most kind of Lafayette to direct me to the (presumably edited) transcript of his talk on line, however being there myself, I did hear him decry the Nike blockades as immoral. I believe I even heard him draw parallels between the blockades of the type he did not like and blockades of abortion clinics (particularly unfortunate in the current circumstances). I remember asking him from the floor if he wouldn't like to come to the Nike blockade and explain to blockaders why their actions were immoral. Perhaps he has forgotten that.
As to the question of a phone-call to the Socialist Alliance, there are nine organisations in the Socialist Alliance, eight of which have a presence in Melbourne. Which one did he ring? To whom did he speak and when? We can both agree, however, that when a formal request was made from a member organisation of the Socialist Alliance (the Democratic Socialist Party) to have a speaker at the final session of the conference, we were refused.
Graham Matthews
Melbourne
Left Labor conference II
I haven't visited Lev Lafayette's web site to see what he has written there about the legitimacy or otherwise of various protests. However, I was at the "Left Labor" conference where he delivered his speech attacking S11 and anti-Nike protesters specifically and many other protests in general.
Graham Matthews was not the only one at that conference that took exception to Lafayette's branding of those who don't follow his "principles" of protesting as illegitimate. Veterans of the anti-Vietnam War movement pointed out to him that under his formula they too were "illegitimate".
Lafayette contended that only the workers in a particular workplace had the right to prevent or refuse entry to the site. I asked Lafayette whether this meant that the trade union action against Garuda in 1999 protesting the massacres in East Timor after the independence ballot were therefore illegitimate. Garuda pilots and cabin crew were certainly not asked about supporting the action.
By Lafayette's "principles" the mine workers in Britain should be condemned for organising flying pickets as they defended themselves against Thatcher's attacks on their livelihoods.
Lafayette showed no concern for the workers in Indonesia and elsewhere who make Nike's merchandise — their need for solidarity should be overridden by concerns about usurping the rights of the few shop assistants in Nike's Melbourne mega-store to decide who can and cannot protest outside their workplace!
Lafayette's formula is typically Laborite (whether left or right): express indignation about the issues but don't do anything effective about them and dress this all up in chest beating about workers' rights.
Ray Fulcher
Melbourne
Left Labor conference III
Contrary to the views of Joyce Wu ("Labor Left in bed with the sex industry", GLW #456), the presentation by Peter Torney, publisher of ACN was both reasoned and thought-provoking, therefore I was surprised at Wu completely mis-quoting Peter Torney with her statement "I rebutted Torney's statement that 'sexual repression leads to rape and assault'..."
His talk remained quite neutral on the subject (despite it being a left conference), sticking to material more in the realms of how current censorship laws operate in relation to giving visual material their respective ratings (G, M, R, X, etc.) with a little hedging on the subject of how current censorship laws seem more lenient when applied to things of a violent nature while most harsh with those of a sexually explicit nature.
Wu's claim that anti-pornography feminists are associated with right-wing conservatism and religious fundamentalism is, unfortunately, true. Feminism is supposedly about sexual liberation and equality, not its suppression.
M. Heath
Melbourne
Workers' comp
On July 18 in Albury, a group of trade unionists met to discuss the logistics of running a campaign in the southern NSW border region against the NSW government's workers' compensation reforms. The meeting drew a cross-section of unionists from seven unions in the area. At this meeting, various options were canvassed.
With there no longer a Trades and Labor Council in Albury, workers who attended saw this forum as a way forward. Among other things, it was agreed to seek NSW Labor Council support for the actions that this group wish to initiate.
This forum will reconvene on August 2 at a venue yet to be confirmed.
Bob Fuge
Cootamundra NSW
Aston Greens
Steve Painter from the Greens NSW (Write on, GLW # 456) launches a major broadside at the Socialist Alliance. He argues that the Greens "are already in the thick of the fight for social justice and the environment". Perhaps that is true. The article I wrote, however, went to the point of strategy.
The campaign run by the Greens for Aston was not aimed at building a popular movement calling for more public transport, the signing of the Kyoto treaty or against the burning of old-growth forest in power stations. The Greens were in fact running a campaign based on the threat of withholding their preferences from Labor; a threat they carried out at the poll, with the effect of helping the Liberals to a comfortable win.
Painter's argument that the Aston poll will not change the government is obvious, but insufficient. One would have to be blind and deaf not to be aware that Aston was part of the de facto federal election campaign now underway. The Greens' preference policy drew an equal sign between Labor and the Liberals that the whole country noticed. Undoubtedly, Labor is not much of an alternative, but that is the reason for the existence of the Greens and the Socialist Alliance. Surely, though, we have to deal with the party that is actually wielding the stick first? And that means making a conscious choice for Labor over the Liberals — even in "these circumstances".
Interestingly, I was speaking to Gurm Sekhon (Victorian Greens state campaigns coordinator) on the polls at Aston on July 14. He told me the Greens preference decision in Aston was an aberration that would not have been repeated elsewhere in the state. He praised the Socialist Alliance campaign in Aston (perhaps our well-publicised action on the streets against the GST), and wished the Greens had run such a campaign.
But then, of course, Gurm is an acknowledged left Green, isn't he Steve?
Graham Matthews
Melbourne
Greens and parliament
Steve Painter (Write on, GLW #456) says the Aston by-election could not change the government so preferencing Labor on the basis of "lesser-evilism" was irrelevant and "In these circumstances, preference-splitting is a legitimate tactic". Can we therefore assume that the Greens will preference Labor ahead of the Liberals in the upcoming federal election (which obviously will decide the next government)?
Painter's contemptuous comments about the Greens "dancing rings" around the Socialist Alliance reminded me of the German Greens attitude towards grassroots activists. The German Greens much prefer to cut deals — with the Social Democrats, with the conservative Christian Democratic Union, with the nuclear corporations etc. Then the Greens-SPD government set 20,000 police loose on anti-nuclear protesters! Go, go, go Green government!
While the Australian Greens haven't gone as far down the road of parliamentary cretinism as their German counterparts, the illusions in parliament as a vehicle for change seem every bit as naive and the tactics much the same.
The level of political debate within the Greens can be gauged by reading their open e-mail list archives at .
Jim Green
Chippendale NSW
@letterhead =
Michael Karadjis wrote in GLW #456: "The claim by Milosevic's supporters that the court in The Hague is particularly biased against Serbs is false. Some 70% of indictees are Serbs, most of the rest Croats and less than 10% Bosnian Muslims — a good summary of the proportion of war crimes committed by each."
He omits the important fact that until the recent indictment of the two Croatian generals not one person had been indicted for war crimes committed against Serbs. A court that systematically ignores crimes committed against one ethnic group is surely biased.
I am no supporter of Serbian nationalism or Milosevic. Slobo can count himself extremely lucky that the opposition parties managed to stop the enraged Serbian proletarians from hanging him and his family from the nearest lamp post last October.
Peter Jovanovic
Canberra