Immigration
In his article "Dawkins revives Immigration debate" (GLW 10/7/91) Peter Boyle implies that support for migrant welfare and support for the immigration program are equivalent. This is not the case.
The real estate sharks strongly support the immigration program so as to have more migrants competing against each other to pay for accommodation. Employers of migrant labor strongly support the immigration program so as to have more migrants willing to accept poorer working conditions.
In contrast AESP (Australians for an Ecologically Sustainable Population) strongly supports the rights of migrants and recognises the need for affirmative action in favour of non-English speaking migrants. AESP is however opposed to further migration since each additional person in Australia ultimately has to have their needs met by exploitation of the Australian environment. The Australian environment is already deteriorating more rapidly than the environments of most other countries. Population growth whether by natural increase or by immigration will further increase the rate of damage.
Australia does have a duty to the people of the third world. This duty is not fulfilled by the immigration program which assists just that minute percentage of people who actually migrate. Australia's duty would be fulfilled far more effectively by decreasing extravagant consumption ourselves and using some of the resources saved as appropriate aid. The economic cost of infrastructure to cater for just one migrant in Australia would be sufficient to provide basic needs for hundreds of the world's poor. The only case in which aid is not more effective than immigration as a humanitarian measure, is the case of political refugees fleeing in fear of their lives. Otherwise AESP believes that the immigration program should be phased out, with due consideration for pressing cases of family reunion.
Socialists must not follow the mistakes of the capitalists in assuming that the environment can ultimately provide unlimited wealth for an unlimited number of people.
David Kault
NQ branch of AESP
Townsville Qld
[Edited for length.]
Cot deaths
Many researchers are critical of Sudden Infant Death research organisations in Australia and overseas. "Red Nose" research groups refuse to investigate conclusive evidence which exposes the causes of SIDS.
Biomedical scientist Dr Glen Dettman is one of many researchers, critical of further research, and who offer proven methods to prevent cot death. He and associate Dr Archie Kalokerinos have conclusive evidence that babies die of subclinical scurvy, the result of immunological insult. If ascorbate is fully depleted, cellular function ceases. The child dies.
Many scientists share this belief, including Dr F.
Klenner (USA), dual Nobel Prize Winner Linus Pauling PhD, Irwin Stone PhD and Dr R. Williams (Texas University).
One reason for official disregard of the facts is that vaccination is the main single immunological insult. This was confirmed by the late Prof. R. Mendelsohn who claimed vaccination causes 10,000 SIDS deaths annually in the USA. Our authorities deny this, but the US government compensates parents for vaccine-SIDS under Public Law 90660. Drug companies even admit it. Connaught Laboratories' 1986 DPT vaccine insert read "Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) has occurred in infants following administration of DPT ..."
Official SIDS groups ridicule such claims, refusing to look into the evidence. In 1978 Dr Williams published research in the Medical Journal of Australia, damning the theory. But he used the wrong methodology; Mercks Ascorbate Test, designed for testing vitamin C in food and drink. When applied to babies' urine it gave false positives in the presence of uric acid. Children die from scurvy, and Dr Kalokerinos' success in preventing all SIDS in the highest cot death region of NSW proved this.
Those in power must be made responsible for their inactions. Contact: Health Care Reform Group, PO Box 421, Glebe 2037.
Greg Rose
HCRG Co-ordinator
Glebe NSW
[Edited for length.]
Reproductive rights
Congratulations to GL for doing a good job on covering reproductive rights issues. I especially appreciated the excellent article about the battle to defend and extend reproductive freedom in Poland.
Women still have not won the right to control their own bodies. In the US the right wing are attempting to reverse the Rowe vs Wade decision which legalised abortion. In the Philippines women denied access to safe legal abortions are butchered. Irish women can't even get contraceptive information. Black and indigenous women are forcibly sterilised in many parts of the world — as are women with intellectual disabilities in Australia.
We've got many fights on our hands in this country. This year we've seen the Webster Bill introduced in Federal Parliament, the Brindal Bill in SA and now Fred Nile says he'll introduce an anti-abortion private members bill in NSW and the Libs have promised him it'll get debated. The Goss Government has failed to deliver the promised repeal of anti-abortion laws in Queensland and governments in every state and territory continue to fund anti-choice propaganda outfits while women's services with a feminist perspective face brutal funding cuts.
The Campaign for Women's Reproductive Rights (CWRR) has decided enough is enough. The Menhenitt ruling, which makes abortion legal in Victoria if a doctor deems that the continuation of pregnancy would be detrimental to a woman's mental or physical health, is a long way from our call for free safe legal abortion on demand. Menhenitt paternalistically subjects a woman to a doctor's prejudices. But it's her body: it must be her choice.
We are planning a huge pro-choice demo later this year.
Interested pro-choice women and men are invited to attend the next meeting of CWRR at 6.15pm on Thursday 15 August. We meet in Meeting room 1, 4th floor, building floor Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. Write to CWRR PO Box 141 Carlton South, Vic, 3053. Ph 03 386 5065 or 03 479 3287(w).
Alison Thorne
Carlton South Vic
WA mining
In 1989 mining companies, supported by Sir Charles Court's Liberal government, drilled for oil at Noonkanbah.
Then an organiser with the Amalgamated Metal Worker' Union, I took part in the blockade trying to stop a convoy carrying an oil rig reaching Noonkanbah.
Since then, companies operating in the Pilbara and Kimberley regions have taken great pains to avoid another confrontation, preferring negotiated settlements.
The so called "resources boom" in WA resulted in a mining invasion on land inhabited by Aborigines for over 40,000 years. Aboriginal sacred sites are being destroyed, fenced and cut up and fishing holes and hunting grounds are being decimated. Aboriginal culture is being sacrificed to the golden calf of profit.
CRA began exploring the Rudall River area in 1972. Initially its main target was base metals — lead, zinc and copper. In 1979 CRA identified the Rudall River area as uranium bearing.
Two big WA ventures — CRA's $500 million Marandoo iron ore project in the Pilbara and Dominion Mining's $350 million Yakabindie nickel project in the goldfields — have become the focal points of the WA media.
Karinjie Aborigines are attempting to negotiate Aboriginal employment at Marandoo when iron ore mining is eventually started in the Hamersley National Park.
If the mining companies will not meaningfully negotiate with Aboriginal people then the WA taxpayers will be left with communities that will not have the benefits of resource development available to them. A campaign of misrepresentation of the Aboriginal people is taking place in the daily press over the struggle to break free of this degrading position.
Intensified machinery in the Pilbara iron ore industry has resulted in a reduced workforce. Redundancy has reduced those directly employed in the iron ore industry to less than 10 000. Tough economic times are being used as an excuse to allow unfettered mining development in WA.
Denis Day
Goldsworthy WA
[Edited for length.]
Madonna
[The following two letters, abridged from the US Guardian, concern Elayne Rapping's review of In Bed With Madonna, reprinted in GLW #19.]
I was not surprised that Rapping found radical and positive elements in Madonna's image and message. What amazed me was Rapping's near-complete failure to criticise the film and her claim that unqualified enthusiasm for Madonna represents a feminist
perspective.
Has she forgotten that the commodification of women's bodies and women's emotional dependence on men are key aspects of sexism?
Madonna is hardly a proud symbol of female power and progress. Her appeal relies on aspects of her image that are oppressive: she is "sexy" and "beautiful" by dominant standards; she can afford expensive clothes; and of course, she is sexually available to men. Her body is a commodity and she's making a lot of money. What's radical about that?
I agree Madonna presents a powerful message of sexual liberation. But in the film, scenes of an ACT UP/Queer Nation demonstration are intercut with homophobic comments by a straight man. Several gay dancers are presented in a nasty light. And while Madonna is, to some extent, a symbol of bisexuality, she comes across as emotionally focussed on men and dependent on their adulation.
Madonna seems to want to be anti-sexist and anti-racist, but her understanding is superficial. How can images of domination over people of color (her dancers) possibly be radical? Some of the scenes closely parallel images of slavery.
Madonna's almost tearful soliloquies about "America" are way off base. They also struck me as obnoxiously opportunistic in these days of flag-waving and yellow ribbons.
Emily Susan Manning
Washington
Madonna perpetuates the "thin is in" body image that has women throwing up their food and starving themselves. She is part of a continuum of images that sexually objectifies, degrades and confines women. This begins with beauty images like those we see in mainstream advertising, movies and MTV; progresses to soft-core porn; and then degenerates into hard-core porn flicks showing women enjoying rape and torture.
Madonna straddles the first two parts of this continuum. She makes her millions from the perpetuation of a gender role for women — the sex goddess and the beauty queen. The stereotype Madonna has created is just one of many that contribute to a patriarchal social milieu that first objectifies, then discriminates, then intimidates, and ultimately rapes and assaults women.
Having been raised as a heterosexual male in this society I know a sex object when I see one. Traditional men turn on to Madonna, not off. She is one of the images of choice to fantasise and masturbate to, so that these men can fulfill in their minds a need to dominate women.
If Madonna is any different from her sex-object forebears, it is because she is a better capitalist than they were. Madonna is director and manager of her own body and she profits off it immensely.
Madonna has the women's movement to thank, and the gains that allow more women to be their own bosses. Too bad Madonna is actively undermining these gains by perpetuating images of women we would all be better off without.
Steven Hill
Bellingham,
Washington.