Write on: letters to the editor

While I agree with Tim Anderson (Write on, GLW 51) that the main fire should be directed against the police, and that the AFP are particularly nasty, I don't think people critical of the ISO's tactics at Aidex can simply be dismissed as disgruntled activists (although some of their proposals are hopelessly wide of the mark).

What was the main issue at Aidex, the arms exhibition or getting into no-win scuffles with the cops? Tim's right to point out that the ISO has been targeted by the police, but what ultraleft group doesn't get targeted? The Maoist Worker Student Alliance found itself targeted for very similar reasons during the Vietnam War protests. Like the ISO, they thought the revolution started with getting belted by cops.

I saw a lot of unprovoked police violence at Aidex, but I also saw a few protesters acting very provocatively and then letting others wear the consequences. I witnessed ISO members saying workers were encouraged into political action by violence, and others out altercations with police.

What about the politics of Aidex itself? While clashes with the cops might be unavoidable sometimes, do they help to make militarism a mass political issue the way New Zealanders did over the question of nuclear weapons? Or do the clashes themselves become the issue, partly obscuring the question of militarism?

I think one of Denis Kevans' poems provides some food for thought:

"Now anyone can wrestle a pig.

"No matter which company employs it.

"The trouble is you both get covered in filth.

"And only the pig enjoys it."
John Tognolini
Balmain

Garething

In recent weeks a new word has been coined. It's an Australian word — "gareth". Welsh in derivation ... meaning to sing in false tongues.

The verb — to gareth — meaning to abhor and ignore genocide simultaneously.

Alternative meaning (in mathematics): to accept as a credible response someone claiming that there are 50 dead people when over 100 were massacred.

Conjugating the verb — I am garething, you are garething, we are all garething together.

Synonyms: to connive, dissemble.

The noun: A gareth — a diplomatic term meaning someone totally without moral scruples, Machiavellian in the extreme.

In legal use, garething is defending the indefensible.

You might think that DAG is a scruffy individual — in fact it's an abbreviation for damn awful gareth.
John Tomlinson
Penny Harrington
Canberra

Not reckless

Michael Schembri (Write on, GLW #51) states that promiscuity is not the issue when speaking of HIV/AIDS. He is of course correct and I accept that my wording carried with it unintentionally moralistic overtones. Instead of "promiscuous" I should have written that the vast majority of gay men are not "reckless".

On the topic of promiscuity gay men are frequently portrayed by the media and others as necessarily promiscuous. It is one of a number of specific sexual behaviours stereotypically attributed to gay men. Promiscuity is a matter of choice and in breaking down stereotypes it is important to promote the fact that there is no necessary connection between sexual identity and sexual practice.
Stephen Hammond
Hilton WA

Censorship and state

It failed to draw out a single political point contained in the issue.

There was nothing in her treatment of it that would not have won immediate assent from middle class radicals and even the more liberal sections of the Australian right.

What is achieved by cosily confirming what your readers already think?

To win people over to a revolutionary perspective it is necessary to challenge their assumptions and point up the inadequacies of the existing analysis.

In this case the connection had to be drawn between the suppression of the "Fact and Fantasy File" and the authority of the state to regulate our intimate lives. It had to be shown that this kind of social control is really about containing the mass of society on behalf of its ruling elite. The interest which is served is that of the capitalist system. It is ultimately about the right of the bourgeois class to oppress and exploit us all.

Only the most theoretically developed readers are capable of making these connections for themselves, and at present there are precious few of these.

In the absence of such analysis real politics, class politics, are not advanced one jot.

In this respect Ms Petersen's article typifies the approach of Green Left. Events and situations are reported but almost never analysed in ways that make the anti-capitalist position clear.

The politics it promotes amount to no more than a generalised radicalism. I suggest that acceptability is bought at the cost of abandoning any coherent attempt at developing a revolutionary perspective.

While people remain trapped within the kind of left-liberalism Green Left promotes they will never break with the reformism which has failed the working class so completely for so long.

Failure to challenge capitalism amounts to helping to maintain it.

And if the result of adopting a genuinely anti-capitalist position is to lose readers, console yourselves with the thought that there's not much point in taking people with you when you're not actually taking them anywhere at all.
Ian Bolas
East Fremantle
[Edited for length.]

Fighting back

Bob Lewis, the Democratic Socialist Party's candidate in the Wills by-election, is quite right to say in his election leaflet that both the Liberal and Labor Parties will want to solve the economic rifice even more. He is also quite right to point out that unemployment will continue to remain. However, his election material could have been a lot harder on the ALP, whose State and Federal policies have had disastrous consequences for people in Wills.

Voting for the Liberals is, of course, not an option. Their policies will strengthen the attack on the working class and there are no guarantees that the working class would fight against a Liberal government.

For the International Socialist Organisation the only electoral option in the Wills by-election is to vote for the Labor Party. The ALP has strong, organic links with the unions through the union bureaucracy. It is because of this link that workers have historically considered it to be their party, and have seen voting for it as the beginnings of class consciousness. So, gritting our teeth and voting for the ALP is the only electoral way we have to show we are working class and proud of it.

But of course it is more than having a Labor government exposing its disgusting politics. Melanie Sjoberg correctly writes in Green Left Weekly (18/3) that we need to "forge a much needed left alternative — one that argues against the right, that is prepared to build struggles, and helps develop people's confidence in their ability to fight back".

Unfortunately Lewis does not seem to be advocating the development of such a left. "A vote for me will be a stand on the following issues" says Lewis. The only activity he calls for is subscribing to GLW or joining the Democratic Socialist Electoral League. This is neither going to build the left nor challenge the limitations of the parliamentary system.

(It is even more unfortunate that Phil Cleary does not encourage more struggle around the issues in the electorate. He obviously has quite a deal of left-wing support.)

The recent student demos, the demonstrations against Bush and AIDEX show that there are people who are prepared to express their anger. Anger can flare up at the local level too. Nearly 100 people came to a demonstration, organised by the ISO and Melbourne Uni activists, to express their outrage at the racist response to proposed women-only sessions at the Brunswick Baths.

The left needs to be built on these events, as they develop people's confidence in their ability to fight back against capitalism. Yes, let's build an alternative to the Labor Party, but let's make it one that is prepared to fight the bastards.
Anne Lawson
International Socialist Organisation
Ascot Vale Vic

Social and public housing

Martin Mulligan's article (Social Housing: a cover for more cutbacks?, GLW 25.3) raised some important questions about housing provision. I agree with the author's remarks about the vagueness of "social housing" as used by some people, but I disagree with the way social housing was virtually written off because it doesn't address the immediate housing crisis. A massive injection of funds into public housing may ignite economic development, but what these funds build are houses and a cycle of dependency. Social housing encourages empowerment and builds houses and community. Social housing alone is not an answer to long waiting lists, but with education, people in need of housing can become more confident about meeting their own accommodation needs.

Public housing is also unlikely to meet the current housing needs of many people. Public housing bodies appear to have assumed a "welfare housing" role because of their limited supply of housing stock relative to demand and the resulting criteria for entry. This is unlikely to change in the short term. Governments are using public housing bureaucracies in a counter-cyclical manner to facilitate capital accumulation in a recession. If the economy moves out of recession, the role of public housing bodies is likely to decline.

Housing advocates can not rely on the government to provide sufficient housing that is affordable and accessible. Encouraging the development of social housing and adding the experiences, lessons and commitment of empowered people to the ranks of housing advocates is likely to strengthen the calls for affordable, accessible housing that is more than just shelter.
Phil McManus
East Victoria Park WA

Laissez faire

With regard to Peter Boyle's article "Why the New Right is divided" (GLW #48), I believe that such incohesiveness and indecisiveness among the New Right in Australia could not be anything other than a good thing. Without sounding like a traditionalist, I believe that government regulation within an economy is beneficial.

I believe that wealth encumbers a great degree of power, particularly in a capitalist society like Australia's. As such, it follows that those with lower incomes must be protected to a certain extent, by a benevolent force which we have labelled in the past as government.

Housing, medical attention and basic food supply are essential for survival, and there are many who cannot afford them.

If the economy was placed primarily into the hands of the private sector, and as New Right ideology would have it, with complete deregulation of the labour market and minimal, if any, government intervention, who would look after the poor, the sick or the homeless? Who would listen to the environmentalists or minority ethnic groups? Who would consider their interests?

Australians need the security of a government who is going to look after them, not one influenced by New Right think tanks battling for a laissez faire, and completely unfair, economy and prevailing society.
Cathy Anderson
Bangor NSW