Democrats and the New Right
@letter = Pip Hinman's article on the sorry state of the Australian Democrats (GLW #197) was indeed accurate. Last week, before seeing the issue of Â鶹´«Ã½, I severed my association with the Party. This member of 21 months saw great hypocrisy and centralization combined with lack of any genuine concern for environmental degradation. The Senators and National Executive — "Cheryl & Co" — are omnipotent and the Victorian Division is bureaucratic. Indeed, I saw a Party which is ruled as in Yes Minister!, encourages little creativity, and never ceases gazing at its own reflection.
@letter = The final straw was the refusal by "Cheryl & Co" to condemn the takeover of National Mutual by the huge AXA Insurance Group of France. If the final approval by the Treasury is given, AXA will become one of the largest property owners in Australia and New Zealand. They'll also control super funds such as that of Australia Post and become the third largest health insurer in Australia. This isn't to mention the billions of dollars in share investments we're giving away to the French. Senator Kernot, commentator on Treasury issues, couldn't care less. Neither could Victorian Senator Spindler. The Democrats had struck a deal with the economic rationalists in the Treasury.
@letter = So much for "keeping the b...s honest". So much for the anti-nuclear rhetoric. So much for caring about the overwhelming majority of Australians who insist on positive action on the French. Sorry Australia, the non-Democrats have sold you out.
Paul F. Tobias
Melbourne
Boycott
@letter = I read in your paper to boycott French products and companies, however I find this difficult to do, not knowing which products and companies have French owners/investors. For example, I neglected Heritage Cheese knowing the company was French owned and bought Lactos with "Product of Australia" written on it and an Australian flag on the box, only to be told that Heritage owns the Lactos brand.
@letter = I wonder if you are able to print a list of major imports from France and majority French-owned companies, so we can do some informed shopping? I found an ACF leaflet, "Guide to French Products & Services on Sale in Australia", but it mentioned Lactos and not Heritage. Is it comprehensive?
Denise Rowland
Richmond Vic
Serbs and chauvinists
@letter = In 1944 I was a POW in a camp named Luckenwald, Germany. The adjoining compound to us was for Yugoslav prisoners. They were all Serbs. The other Yugoslavs were on the side of the Nazis, the ones that lost.
@letter = So, you can understand that I am angry at your journalists constant denigration of the Serbs, or as you repeatedly call them "Serb chauvinists". I found them to be the opposite. I doubt that I can enthuse enough to renew my subscription, I may just buy a paper in the Melbourne Mall on a Friday, if in the mood. Several times I have told the paper people there of my complaints.
Jerome Fitz Gerald
Kealba Vic
Barry Morris
@letter = Remember Barry Morris? The Lib members for the Blue Mountains, still charged with threats to murder a BM councillor, John Pascoe, and blow up the BM Gazette office. Expelled by the Libs, Morris stood as an Independent, in the State Election.
@letter = Morris got only 18% of the primary vote, and won only one booth. Lawyer, Peter Collins, new Lib leader, said, last week, Morris "woulda won" as a Liberal. Collins, seems to me, to have a radically disturbed pattern of thinking.
@letter = Morris wants to come back. His grovel now includes this from Eureka Street (Jesuit mag): "We never knew, when I was using DDT, it left me barren". (Does he mean sterile?) And so? That's why, says Morris, "we are all greenies".
@letter = Morris has never taken one action, against any company on any green issue.
@letter = He's led the bulldozer push in the mountains, clearing the mountains for millions of rezoning, real estate profits. His trial has been long delayed, and his PR (Ken Hooper) keeps saying he's innocent.
@letter = Morris also said that police cleared him of all connection with the bombing of the BM council; yet no-one has ever accused him of doing it. I hope Barry goes back to what he does best when he says: "It's easy to make a million these days". Or is he sure that political power is the key to get windfall, real estate, rezoning millions?
Denis Kevans
Wentworth Falls NSW
[Edited for length.]
Victims of the system
@letter = Kath Gelber is correct in saying that Susan Smith is a victim of the US system, which shows no pity for, nor understanding of, such deserted mothers. ("Blame the System", August 2.)
@letter = Quite apart from the abuse she suffered as a child, which does terrible things to a child's mind, Susan Smith also had no support nor affection from her self-righteous husband. He was quite content to leave the responsibility of caring for their two young children to his wife whilst he went off with another woman only a few months after the birth of their second child. Now he is calling for her to be executed in the electric chair!
@letter = Another factor which has not been mentioned in the tabloid press is the fact that Susan suffers from deep depression and is suicidal. She was probably also suffering from post-natal depression which can affect some women for several years after the birth of a child. If someone had tried to help her, those babies would probably still be alive today.
@letter = The story of Susan Smith is typical of many other prisoners in the USA who are victims of the system and who end up on death row. They are the products of an uncaring society. As one of the jurors commented after the trial, "there are a lot more people in the case who should have been punished".
Stephanie Wilkinson
Australians Against Executions
Seven Hills NSW
ISO split
@letter = Word has it that the festering factional struggle within the International Socialist Organisation, unresolved at their last conference, has led to a series of recent expulsions.
@letter = Long time ISO watchers such as myself have seen it all before and regret that the ISO has so far failed to learn from previous inner party struggles. That the ISO should now face a political crisis comes as no surprise to anyone who has monitored their political trajectory of late and recognised that their major shibboleth — the doctrine of state capitalism — has collapsed as a result of the events of 1989.
@letter = It is always distressing to see committed revolutionists spend themselves in bitter factional disputes as they defend a new or old line imported as a universal tactic from a leadership far away. Such cominternism has always been a disaster for the socialist movement.
@letter = The comrades still in the ISO and those who have recently been expelled should take this opportunity to ponder the future of their tendency in Australia. Is a semblance of order to return to their gutted and increasingly demoralised ranks only briefly before the same issues rise to divide them again?
@letter = Revolutionists are hard to come by, and the revolutionary struggle can only succeed if we scrutinise all our actions with an open and critical mind free of schemas and rigid dogmas. To do that we need a democratic left keen to argue out its position in search of the best course of action that can be collectively applied. To do that we need a revolutionary left united in the one party regardless of the tactical differences within its ranks. Unfortunately, I don't think that the International Socialist Organisation — hamstrung as it is by its past and its allegiances, by its organisational methods and its bunker mentality — is that party.
Dave Riley
Northgate Qld