Write on
Atlanta and executions
Next year the Olympic Games will take place in Atlanta, Georgia, and no doubt there will be a great deal of hoop-la surrounding these games and the citizens of Georgia will be celebrating the peak of human achievement. Unlike readers of Green Left Weekly, many people around the world will be unaware that just a short distance away from all the pomp and ceremony in Atlanta, prisoners on death row in Jackson are strapped down onto a large wooden chair and electrocuted to death in the name of justice.
Execution by electrocution involves passing several jolts of high-voltage electricity through a prisoner's body. His head is covered by a hood so that witnesses will be spared the ghastly sight of his eyeballs and face being burnt. He is made to wear a napkin so that the expelled faeces will not make a mess on the chair. The smell of burning flesh is terrible and the prisoner cannot yell out because all his muscles are paralysed.
The majority of deathrow prisoners in Georgia are African-Americans and were sentenced to death by racist all-white juries. Some of them are innocent and some are mentally retarded. All the prisoners are poor and could not afford expensive lawyers to defend them. The barbaric killing of these people is going on at the present time and will continue through 1996 and beyond.
I urge all decent minded people to protest this double standard behaviour in Georgia and other US states by writing to the USA Embassy, Yarralumla ACT 2600 and also to Governor Zell Miller: 203 State Capitol, Atlanta, Georgia 30334, USA
Stephanie Wilkinson
Australians Against Executions
Seven Hills NSW
Memories
During "free speech" fights in the domain, the issue was right to sell literature on a Sunday when Domain orators were on the go.
My husband, a tall man, saw a man arrested and being taken off to the "House of Fascism", a small brick building in the Domain.
He went over saying to the arresting constable, "It's all right, constable. I'll take him up" and when a bit away, set him free.
An old friend of ours was sent on a trip to Russia on behalf of the Sydney Trades and Labour Council to find out about the Russian Revolution.
It was decided that he should go via the Far Eastern Railway. His name was Jack Ryan and he was told that he would be contacted on the train, but, on no account, to try and find the contact himself.
All he ever knew was that a Chinese man was taken when the train stopped, and was beheaded there and then. That of course was in the days of the Kuomintang.
When in Russia he was asked to do an article for Pravda on Australia and money was sent to him. There upon round he goes to the said newspaper to return the same. Where upon he was asked, "What do you think the revolution was about?".
Jean Hale
Balmain NSW
Bisexuality
The article by Kirsty Chestnutt (GLW #198) certainly brought up some interesting points to which, as a bisexual woman, I would like to respond.
First, I don't believe that there are "so few of us out there". Many of my friends are bi, or open to the possibility and enjoy the freedom of expressing their sexuality in those terms.
For me bisexuality are is a very natural state of being. We only have to look back into early Greek, Roman etc history to find that sharing sexual relations and affection with members of the same sex, as well as the opposite sex, was both widespread and accepted.
I believe there is definitely a backlash from the strong gay and lesbian movement, ie a tendency among some of the less accepting to label hets and bis as they themselves have been, and are labelled.
Does this attitude of sexual superiority really get us anywhere in our fight for sexual freedom, whatever the preference?
Personally, I don't identify with the term queer, and I am proud to call myself bi, although I feel that the term "fluid" more completely describes my openness to sharing intimacy with whomever I am attracted to, whether they be male or female.
Love and sexual attraction is a common ground for all of us. The individuality within that is what makes it such a beautiful experience. We all need and deserve to respect and accept ourselves, whether we identify as straight, gay, lesbian, tranny or fluid.
Jewels Starr
Sydney