Labor Party 1
The Democratic Socialist Party review (GLW #154) avoids a rational analysis of the Labour Party — offering a conspiracy theory in its place. The tone is set in the introduction to Max Lane's "daring to win" article: "As the ALP's national conference in Tasmania's Wrest Point Casino nears, Labour Party 'lefties' pretend to 'debate' privatisation". A pretend debate (one that appears genuine) would be much harder to organise than a real debate — how does the ALP do it?
Lane attributes a collective will to the ALP — without ever explaining how or when this collective will was established. The ALP's will is alleged to assume the form of "tactics", and ALP actions are explained by the facile method of giving a name to these actions and adding the word "tactic".
Why does the ALP have factions? Lane explains: "For those who are angry enough to want more fundamental change, the ALP presents its most sophisticated tactic. The ALP knows that such people are not going to be inclined towards the pro-privatisation, pro-enterprise bargaining, pro-Suharto Keating leadership of the ALP. In order to try to keep as many of the angry working class and young people oriented towards the ALP, the party keeps what is called 'the Left' up front and alive. This is the basis of the ALP's factional system".
No need to examine the connections between the ideas of the opposing factions and the conflicting interests represented in the ALP. If the ALP has a left faction, this is because it has [and has always had?] a "keep the left faction" tactic.
Lane reinforces his "analysis" with the following statement: "However, the DSP rejects the approach that the broader left should support the ALP left in its faction fights inside the ALP. This would foster the illusion [?] that the 'debates' and factional fights in the ALP are in some way [!] related to the real struggle in society to fight the policies the national ALP government is implementing".
Is this the same DSP that has comradely relations with the New Zealand NewLabour Party? In New Zealand a struggle developed within the old Labour Party against the economic policies of the Lange-Douglas government. By recognising this struggle as real and by joining it, New Zealand socialists ensured that when the Right resorted to expulsions, a new party of a credible size could be formed. Was this fostering illusions?
Left fakery is a real (and revolting) phenomenon in the ALP, but believing fakery to be the sole explanation of any action by the ALP Left has the consequence that the further left they are, the more dangerously plausible their trickery will seem to be. Lane suggests that the DSP could be satisfied if the ALP Left carried out a systematic campaign among the public for progressive policies, but in a world filled with fake-left demons this would be dangerously naive.
Would the DSP fall so easily for the "campaign for progressive policies" tactic? Hang on — the DSP must be part of the plot! When they were the SWP, they had members inside the ALP — and so must have been in on the plan to have pretend debates and pretend factions.
Lane makes a welcome concession to reality when he says: "It is true, and the DSP firmly holds to this view, that there is no political group on the Left or any campaign committee that is strong enough to win its demands or achieve real change without combining with other like-minded people". It should also be recognised that many of these like-minded people will come from the thousands of members and supporters of the ALP.
An analysis of the ALP that is just a rehash of the Stalinist "Social-Fascist" theory, is an obstacle thoughtlessly placed in the way of building the unity that can win real change.
Roger Clarke
Brisbane
[Abridged for length.]
Labor Party 2
After reading Max Lane's vicious polemic against the ALP Left in the DSP Review (GLW #154), I could not help but shudder with rage. Like many others, I am sick of the bitter, sectarian divisiveness on the Left. Nevertheless, I could not bring myself to simply let Lane's absurd allegations go unanswered.
Presently, the ALP Left — in particular comrades of my club, the LaTrobe Labor Left — are preparing for the fight of our lives against privatisation. Lane's assertions that we are only "pretending" to debate privatisation, and that our Leftism is simply "fakery" is a case of vile opportunism.
The suggestion that the current struggle within the ALP is nothing but a stage-managed "illusion" was particularly infuriating, as was Lane's suggestion that all the hard work done by the Left is nothing but an elaborate hoax to pull the wool over peoples' eyes.
If Lane wants to go around throwing absurd allegations at ALP socialists then he ought to at least go out and see what we're doing. At La Trobe we have been actively campaigning against privatisation from the day we formed. We have been campaigning in solidarity with the Austudy 5, encouraging the growth of an alternative press by distributing Frontline, participating in the fight against VSU, and otherwise seeking to build bridges with the broad left so that the Right can be taken on and defeated.
Next, Lane will be harking back to the good old days of Weimar Germany where the German Communist Party attacked reformist socialists as "social fascists" — and we all know where that enlightened strategy led.
If you want to talk about commitment, then all you have to do is look at the example set by Brian Howe who has put his career on the line for what he believes in. Perhaps Lane would have us believe that Brian's stand is nothing but part of some conspiracy. Fortunately, few are so gullible to fall for such a line.
The task of rebuilding a viable socialist alternative to economic rationalism is too great for us to indulge in such petty polemics and hatreds. La Trobe Labor Left is doing the work necessary to build trust and cooperation on the Left — including cooperation with the DSP in many instances. It is to be hoped that in the future criticism of our position will take the form of analysis and not groundless, vicious polemics.
Tristan Ewins, La Trobe Labor Left
Melbourne
[Edited for length.]
South east Queensland tollway
An open letter to Wayne Goss:
This is to register a complaint about the routes for the government's tollway options. Both proposals cut through significant koala habitat, will undermine quality of life in the affected areas and will do little to alleviate traffic congestion. Both have met by enough opposition, I believe, to cause your government considerable harm at next year's election.
I am writing as a resident of one of the affected areas and as a long-time (20 year) resident of Logan City. I share a similar background to you, and in media coverage, since I won the Australian/ Vogel Literary Award last year, I have been continually written up as "working class ethnic makes good".
You would know, as I do, that poor places like Inala and Logan are very ugly. The first thing that strikes you is the visual poverty of the built-up environment. Roads and by-passes everywhere. Ticky-tacky boxes built on raw, bulldozer-blitzed outer suburban estates, cris-crossed with duckboards over the yellow mud in winter and ballooning with dust like a nuclear cloud in summer.
You notice the absence of trees. Developers in Logan City have been infected with a peculiarly virulent strain of "arboraphobia"; their chief desire is to banish all shade from everyday life. The urban ugliness has an effect on the people who live here. There is little sense of community or civic pride. What civic pride we have is concentrated on the Daisy Hill State Forest, Logan City's only refuge from the arboraphobes.
You would also know that areas like Logan lack infrastructure and services. And because of Logan's distance from the city, people are forced to rely on their cars. They are usually poor, so their cars are old and use leaded petrol. They would like to rid themselves of the car and save themselves both time and money, but there is no bus or train service nearby.
The government's response is to build more roads to move more people faster to the amenities provided by Brisbane and the Gold Coast. VETO and other environment groups have already demonstrated that this is taking the easy (but not necessary the cheap) way out.
There are alternatives: many are cheaper in both the long and the short run. A tollway is not even a good short-term solution to South East Queensland's burgeoning population problem. People will only live here while it is attractive. A tollway will do nothing to maintain that attraction.
Helen Demidenko
Rochedale South Qld
[Edited for length.]
Justice
Brandon Astor Jones recently drew attention to the denial of justice in the US, in the case of Daisy Jane Benson, who received massive doses of mind-altering medications prior to and during her trial for murder. Daisy has now served seven years of her life sentence, her courage undimmed, determined to fight for justice, not just for herself, but also for forty other women. In many cases these women also accepted plea bargains, not in their own best interests, while under the influence of powerful anti-psychotic drugs administered to them without their informed consent and without due process of law.
When Benson refused to take the medication, she says she was stripped of all clothing and placed naked in the "rubber room" until she submitted. "In the coercive and frightening jail atmosphere, I quickly learned to do as I was told", she writes, despite the terrifying side effects she endured, such as audio and visual hallucinations, anxiety, paranoia and headaches. It was in this state of disorientation she faced trial and was convicted of murder.
Benson's case has been taken up by Peter Breggin, of the Center for Study of Psychiatry Inc. and author of the book Toxic Psychiatry, recently reviewed in GLW. Breggin has agreed to speak to a court hearing concerning her pre-trial record of medication and has been following up her complaints with respect to her case.
Benson has submitted affidavits in her defence to the US Court of Appeals from two individuals, one from Sharon Stevens, an employee of the Lake County Jail, a substance abuse counsellor, who claims to have witnessed the violence against her, but was warned to mind her own business.
The other affidavit filed pertained to V. Meenakshi, MD, who has testified against the California Department of Corrections in other drugging cases, specifically three men who died from mind-altering drugs and heat prostration. Although her writ to enlarge her record with this new evidence was denied, she was granted permission to refile. Her continued request for counsel has been denied.
Benson and the other women have been denied their constitutional rights to a fair trial. They need help. Benson can be contacted at W-28860 Miller-B-117-L, State Prison, Frontera, CA 91720. USA.
Margaret Setter
NSW
Greenhouse
Advocates of the enhanced greenhouse effect hypothesis have presented the observed warming "since the industrial revolution" in support of their case (see Phil Shannon GLW #150 and #154). This is certainly an important piece of evidence whose implications deserve careful attention.
However presenting the evidence in terms of only the last century or so lacks historical perspective. Readers could easily form the impression that the climate was bumping along, with only the typical droughts and floods, when suddenly there was this marked temperature rise in the 20th century. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Over the 2,000,000 years humans have inhabited the planet the climate has gone through about 18 glacial/interglacial cycles, each with a period of about 100,000 years. These cycles are driven by changes in the earth's orbit mediated through feedbacks in the climate system. Levels of C02 vary synchronously with these cycles but to what extent this is a cause or effect of temperature change is unclear.
For instance, after the last glacial maximum 20,000 years ago, the subsequent warming saw temperatures peak at about 1-2oC above present around 7000-5000 years ago, before declining to present levels. (Note that agricultural civilisation arose under a climate warmer than present.) Yet C02 levels did not peak until 4000 years ago. There are plausible mechanisms in terms of geochemical sources and sinks to explain the temperature dependence of C02 levels on this time scale.
Superimposed over this long-term trend are fluctuations of shorter duration whose causes are less well understood. Considering only the past millennium we see that temperatures were 0.5-1oC warmer from 1100 to 1300 AD before declining to 1oC cooler after 1500 AD during the "little ice age". The warming observed over the last century marks the end of that ice age. If one wants to attribute the end of the little ice age to an increase in C02 then it would be helpful (though not mandatory) to find the decrease which led to the cooling. There wasn't one. There is quite reasonable evidence to suggest that the little ice age was due to a temporary decrease in solar output — the Maunder minimum.
The recent temperature increase is not exceptional in terms of either its size or speed. Yet we would like be able to say more about its cause than we can about historical changes. Unfortunately analysis of the data is fraught with difficulties, leading some commentators to dismiss all such attempts, and even the researchers do not claim statistical significance.
However, a series of such analyses found that about 40% of the variation could be attributed to volcanism, 20% to the sun and 30% to C02. Notably the best fit was obtained when a climate sensitivity to C02 nearly half that used in most models was assumed. So the best which can be said is that the warming can (or cannot!) be explained by volcanism and solar variations with the same confidence with which it can (or cannot) be explained by CO2.
None of the above in any way disproves the greenhouse hypothesis, far less makes it a myth. That is not my purpose. I am interested in seeing a better informed environmental movement which can develop, and justify, an appropriate political position on this issue. This requires appreciation of both the strengths and weaknesses of the greenhouse hypothesis.
David Wheeler
Wollongong NSW
Specieism
I found Neville Spencer's letter regarding humans and other animals (Write On #150) laughable without being amusing. Does this person actually know anything about animals? He sounds as though he is quoting from some dull textbook. Or perhaps he is the reincarnation of Descartes.
If he opened his eyes he would see immediately that animals are not the dreary machines he seems to regard them as. So we are capable of using language are we? Well, what does he imagine their voices are used for — mindless babble? They, too, have learned and passed on their own knowledge over millions of years. Just because we do not understand it doesn't make it any the less true.
The fact that we have evolved our brains far quicker than they have is not at all to our credit, despite all our marvellous inventions. And his comment that animals cannot possibly know what death or even life is — where on earth did he pick up this gem? The other animals cling to life just as desperately as we do. Can he genuinely think that they go happily to death in the scientists' labs, the slaughterhouse, or anywhere else without having the slightest inkling of what was going on? And even if it were true, and they do have no idea of death, they certainly know what pain and terror are. Or doesn't that matter to Spencer, seeing as they are not human.
Gayle Haywood
Paralowie SA
Carlos and the president
So Carlos the terrorist has been captured! Like Frank Sinatra, he did it his way. But what did he do, that every gutless UK Prime Minister and gun-toting US President does not do every day?
Former English leaders invaded Ireland, grabbed its lands, starved its peoples, propped up a UK-imposed government and tried out new methods of warfare to subdue the dissidents. They're still at it. Then we have centuries of collecting/stealing the natural assets of other lands, using the British Tommy to do the killing and the torture. Foreign policies always contra underprivileged.
Former US Presidents, not to be outdone, adopted the same ideas for their invasions of Latin America and the Caribbean islands, forcing the British out of "their" domain and exporting torture and a new idea called "death squads", but using the marines/CIA to do the filthy work.
So as far as the eye can see we now have American interests owning most of the fertile lands, mines, cash crops, US-friendly governments and oligarchies throughout the Americas. The landlords and their families are always welcome in the US for education, hype and holidays. The peoples of these lands may produce only primary products, including bananas, sugar, coffee, tobacco, oil and minerals, but only on wages of $2-$7 per week. The profitable manufacturing content is reserved for US-based industries. When will this change?
It is obvious that US interests/administrations have corrupted world politicians for centuries. Every patriot daring to raise his head in the Americas, and in Africa, has died swiftly or been replaced.
England and America have contributed continuously to the impoverishment of other nations and the deaths of hundreds of millions of people. Their own poor are denied justice and health care by their wealthy. It is a dreadful crime to rob a rich man. But the rich rob all others of real existence.
Their crimes are much worse than those of Carlos. They are stuck together with dollar-glue, sharing the Security Council power, squeezing life out of non-conforming small nations. 400,000 dead children in Iraq since the Gulf "War", a living death for millions of others in Mexico, Timor, Vietnam, Cambodia, Burma, Guatemala, Brazil, etc, and a major attempt to starve Cuba into slavery.
Cuba is a true democracy with free health care and education for its people. It is sincere and honest, but some of its youth believe the lies and promises in the US' satellite media. We understand that 38 million people in the USA do not have health care. We know that vast numbers of people die from US toxic factories, either at home, south of the border, or even in the land of the Zulus.
These two capitalists imagine they are democracies! Not in the meanings of the word in my dictionaries. True democracies would not falsify voting counts in "client states", or control the world's media in their own interests, or poison the world's environment, or tighten their bully blockade around Cuba. Cuba interferes with no-one and is content with Fidel Castro, a real statesman, not another US puppet.
John Clancy
Sutherland NSW
Airport privatisation
Besides the three-mines uranium policy, the other issue that seems set to dominate the ALP national conference next month is the issue of privatisation. Some public assets that are likely get the approval to go include the nation's airports. This includes the Adelaide Airport.
In early June, South Australian Liberal Premier Dean Brown revealed plans to privatise and sell the Adelaide Airport to Asian operators. This provoked a number of responses that tells us a lot about who is who in this society.
One response came in late June from a consortium of local councils who put forward a plan to jointly purchase the airport. To be successful this consortium sought some financial backing from the state government. This option remains an unlikely possibility.
An earlier response had come from the South Australian United Trades and Labour Council. The June 13 Advertiser reported that ULTC secretary John Lesses believed the union movement was "gravely concerned about the sale of public assets" and was bemused that "Dean Brown is travelling around trying to sell something that isn't his, with no input or consultation from the taxpayers who own the airport".
One of Brown's fellow-travellers is ACTU secretary Bill Kelty who strongly endorsed the sale of the nation's airports, including the prospect of foreign ownership, at a regional development forum in Melbourne on August 19.
The August 20 Weekend Australian reported that Kelty told the forum that provided competition was guaranteed between operators, the sale of airports was a very attractive offer. Besides "there are a couple of other assets being flogged around at the moment which are much more difficult to sell".
No thanks go to the ALP, the ACTU leadership and other conservatives.
These comments and groups provide little comfort to those offering the final and most muffled response — those taxpayers who are saying no to privatisation, who are concerned that their quality of life is going to deteriorate with flight curfews, who do not count in the ALP's, the Kelty's and the Brown's who's who of this society.
Anthony Thirlwall
Adelaide SA