The car taboo
"Too many cars?" asked GLW #12. The "Yes" answer, however, was somewhat half-hearted, indicating a reluctance to really give up this environmental monstrosity.
The hope of "greener" cars which use alternative fuels was raised. This is a furphy. All alternative fuels are polluting at some stage in their production or use. Even if a "clean" fuel (like the oft-touted hydrogen) were developed there would still be mining, manufacturing, roads, parking and other car infrastructure to pave over and blight the Earth.
There was also an assumption lurking in the article that there is nothing we can do about the car other than political action for proper public transport. Whilst this is by far the best social solution, any talk of personal responsibility was presented as "unfair", "impractical", a form of eccentric hermitism — "to be without a car is to go without all the things that can give city life its cultural richness". Not having driven since 1971, and having spent most of the two decades as an "outer suburbs" student and worker (and the rest in the car capital Canberra), I would disagree.
Life (political and cultural) can go on in a healthier, wealthier and (hopefully) wiser way without "driving to and from work ... to the hypermarket to load up the boot and backseat, to the drive-in bottle shop, the corner shop, the video shop".
Green socialists should not cavalierly dismiss that which can be done at a personal level. If we don't transgress the car taboo in our ideology and behaviour, we run the risk of being labelled hypocrites.
Phil Shannon
Narrabundah ACT
Spray 'n' Wipe
I wonder why it takes Tracy Sorensen twenty times as long to clean with baking soda and vinegar as with Spray 'n' Wipe. I clean my house with vinegar and baking soda and wash my clothes with soap flakes and washing soda and neither of these activities take me any longer than they did when I used less environment-friendly products. And i ain't a woman.
This said I would however agree with her that guilt is a very destructive emotion. It is guilt, paradoxically, that lies behind humanity's destruction of nature and also the acts of violence that many men commit against women. Guilt leads us to fear and hate those more innocent than ourselves. This is why it is so futile to try to make people change by confronting them with the results of their destructive behaviour. The guiltier we make them feel, the more destructive becomes their behaviour. Only compassionate understanding can change people for the better.
David Munn
South Brighton SA
Moralistic hypocrisy
As members of the Catholic Worker movement who were active in resisting the war against Iraq, we would like to strongly condemn the article by Ian Bolas. The basic argument of his article is that "The only correct position for a socialist in the anti-war movement to adopt was unequivocal support for Iraq."
While it is very important to have a good analysis of the world situation acknowledging the "continuing pattern" of US imperialist violence, there is a large section of the peace movement that may have this analysis but still not accept the means that Ian Bolas believes in.
An attitude that thinks it necessary to ignore the mass murder and torture of the Iraqi regime (referring to "their past activities" as if it all happened in Saddam Hussein's misspent youth) is the same attitude needed to ignore the mass murder of the US bombing raids.
While it is true that the US is a much larger imperialist and perpetrator of violence on a world scale, failure to oppose a smaller violent imperialist will not assist us in eliminating violent imperialism. In fact, it will only ensure the continuation of violence and imperialism throughout history.
It is quite obvious that Ian Bolas believes in a violent solution to the problems of US imperialism, and is prepared to accept almost any means to be "genuinely effective".
If Ian would care to make an analysis of the theories of non-violence and those who believe in it, he might find that their thinking does not reflect moral queasiness but involves the taking of a strong stand against the violence of what appear to be "genuinely effective forces" in our world today.
The attempt to lay a guilt trip on those with a "moral pacifist position" for not speaking out strongly enough about the post-war suffering of the ordinary Iraqis (while perhaps partly true — some pacifists have and continue to speak out about the Iraqis in the cities as well as the Kurds), betrays a moralistic "bankruptcy and hypocrisy" on the part of Ian Bolas.
Ian's article is obviously written out of anger and frustration at the results of the Gulf War. This is understandable. But his generalisations and insults about pacifists, as well as his support for the bloody Hussein regime are totally unacceptable.
Anthony Gurther
Anne Rampe
Jim Dowling
Rachel Harrison
West End Qld
Lefter than thou
Ian Bolas, in his zeal to be lefter than thou, seeks to impose on the socialist movement political support for the Iraqi government as the "only correct" position (GLW #9).
Since when do socialists give political support to reactionary regimes — whether under attack from imperialism, or not?
Ian's theorising seems to confuse the brutal dictatorship with the oppressed masses. Yes we should support the people of Iraq against the attacks of imperialism and likewise against the Iraqi Ba'athist regime.
This dangerously naive notion — my enemy's enemy must be my friend — would have seen the revolutionary movement lending political support to the stalinist regimes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. It would have seen political support going to the despised Argentinean dictatorship during the Falklands/Malvinas war.
Was it anti-imperialist of Saddam Hussein to massacre thousands of socialists and other progressives in connivance with the CIA?, or to do the bidding of US imperialism by waging war on the then revolutionary Iran?
The Iraqi Ba'athist party government and its leader have been the willing agents for imperialism. Remember the invasion of Kuwait was undertaken after Iraq was led to believe that the US would not respond. The invasion of Kuwait was not prompted by anti-imperialist Arab nationalism but rather was a direct result of the massive costs associated with the Iraq/Iran war.
I can understand the frustration of seeing imperialism win another battle. But hitting out at the Australian anti-war movement (from the outside) because it did not like "magic" develop overnight a socialist consciousness doesn't "face up to the realities of history."
We should be thankful that the Australian anti-war movement didn't adopt Ian's "socialist" position. "Ideologically pure" rallies of half a dozen people throughout the world would not have helped the Iraqi people but rather would have further encouraged the rapaciousness of imperialism.
You are right, Ian, when you say "you cannot short-cut history by an act of moral will" — not by the liberal, nor the ultra-leftist variant.
Frank Noakes
Perth
[Edited for length.]
Statement of principle
We the undersigned, as Christian Peace and Environmental activists from Brisbane, unequivocally condemn the article by Ian Bolas in your paper on the 24th of April. As anti-militarism and non violence are principles of Christianity we must condemn the violent socialist idea that "the only correct position for a socialist in the antiwar movement to adopt [is] unequivocal support for Iraq."
I. Murrell
J. Mackinney
L. Dowling
N. Thomas
Greens defamed
The May 8 edition had 5 articles about "The Greens" — each defaming with negative criticisms.
This may otherwise be acceptable but not when comments are unfounded, out of context and deliberately misrepresentative.
Gelber and Threlfo both wrote about abortion in Tasmania and both slammed the Greens. As an activist I have been working with the Greens on this very issue and had Gelber and Threlfo researched instead of assumed, a more accurate report would have been discovered.
For a start, the Greens initiated and invited women activists to discuss abortion with them as part of a Legislative Steering Committee with the interest of addressing law reform. Gelber saying "some of them are known not to be in favour of abortion on demand" is completely untrue. Did she ask them? Because I did and that's definitely not the case!
The Greens' practice participatory democracy Mr Threlfo: They are constantly liaising, meeting and working with, representing and in dialogue with a spectrum of grassroots groups!
It would seem "Red-Left" would be a more appropriate name for this farcical "broadsheet".
Helen Stannard
South Hobart
Reply
[GL's practice has been to leave it up to individual writers to decide whether to debate political disagreements with their articles expressed in letters to write on. However, since Helen Stannard's letter challenges the factual accuracy of an article, we have asked Kath Gelber to reply briefly. — Editor]
Helen Stannard ought to know that the statements in my article were not "unfounded". She was present at the meeting where green independent MP Gerry Bates made it clear abortion reform legislation would not be pursued because some of the green independent MPs were opposed to abortion. Helen herself reported this to me.
It also is a fact that the constitutions currently being drafted and implemented entrench the conscience vote. Given the history the Labor Party has on the conscience vote, particularly on the issue of abortion, it is important to highlight the problems that can and will be faced by green alternative political organisations entrenching a conscience vote.
The most negative aspect of Helen's letter is its implication that any criticism should be avoided. I think it is important that in this process of developing a real, broad, democratic green alternative in Australia we are all able to critically assess ourselves and what we're doing.
Although some people believe that those independents who personally disagree with abortion rights would still vote in favour of a bill when the time came, I don't believe this is good enough. Why not have a more democratic structure in the first place, so that regardless of a politician's personal views, they must represent the views of those working to put them in a representative position.
If we remove this accountability, we run the very great risk of heading down an undemocratic path, from which it will be much more difficult later to remove ourselves. Let's not make the mistakes now, and let's be honest and open enough to accept criticism without seeing it as an attack.
Kath Gelber
Hobart
Active Employment Strategy
I wish to comment on Peter Chiltern's appraisal of the Active Employment Strategy (#11). While I know as little as anyone about the proposed scheme, and cannot speculate on its likely effects, I feel that his unmitigated criticism of the spirit at least behind the initiative is inappropriate.
I was unemployed from 1976 to 1983, fresh from school, and without marketable skills. Such were my prospects and morale that I would have been pathetically grateful to learn anything, whether to type, drive a truck or fix toasters. My personal resources were so thin on the ground that I stood little chance of impressing any prospective employer.
I therefore found Chiltern's attitude a touch extreme. He describes the move as "part of the drive to relieve employers of much of the cost of training." Since when has business, if it can possibly avoid it, spent money on training?!
Governments subsidising employers in order to give the long term unemployed a shot at the action is hardly a new thing, and current unemployment levels, with many very highly skilled people on the dole, is not likely to make them choose the less-skilled. A financial incentive is thus necessary to create any sort of affirmative action (and no, this term need not only apply to issues of ethnicity or gender).
Finally, any "attack ... (on) labour and working conditions" cannot profit from the provision of more skilled workers. On the contrary, the resultant influx of government subsidised labour could, in fact, help decrease the reliance of many employers on casual and outworkers who are seldom unionised or covered by awards and consist largely of those who fail to compete successfully in the mainstream job market and therefore have the most to gain from training.
How the CES will be equipped to deal with this initiative may remain to be seen. However, creating some sort of push to get the long term unemployed into the workforce — and a year or more on the dole when you want to work is no joke — may at least offer some hope for many.
Magenta Deluxe
Richmond Victoria
[Edited for length.]