Culture and Life

by Rob Gowland

No comment!

I must share with you a lovely observation from Joan Coxsedge in the 
Australia-Cuba Friendship Society's June Newsletter: "George W is a 
dangerous goose.

"Not exactly a revelation. German protestors said it with their banner 'IF 
YOU CAN READ THIS, YOU'RE NOT THE PRESIDENT'."

That is just so apt.

* * *

The "free press" at work

Did you see where eight members of the cast of the long running English 
television soap Coronation Street tried and failed to put a 
political ad in a local paper?

Concerned that a low voter turn-out could help the neo-Nazi BNP in local 
elections, the popular and well known actors were part of a group that 
sought to place a full-page ad in the Oldham Chronicle.

The proposed ad quoted Edmund Burke: "All that is necessary for evil to 
succeed is for good men and women to do nothing." (Burke did not actually 
mention women but the ad corrected this oversight.)

The ad concluded: "Please use your vote wisely".

The ad could have been quite influential, but the paper refused to run it 
unless it named every supporter (an invitation to fascist thuggery and 
other forms of victimisation). Intentionally or not, the paper successfully 
aborted the ad.

* * *

Arrested, courtesy of McWho?

We are all familiar with the reprehensible (but oh so capitalist) 
practice of using sponsorship to fund sporting events and teams. The 
sponsors cough up the funding and in return get their name plastered all 
over the stadium or the players.

In Yorkshire, a local lawyer has gone one better (or worse?). He has 
proposed a sponsorship deal to South Yorkshire police: in return for 
funding that would allow the police to pay for new items like handcuffs, 
prisoners would find that the handcuffs they were wearing were adorned with 
the name and address of his law firm.

Obviously, a lad to watch.

* * *

Legal terrorism

Did you see that report from the International Labour Organisation 
(ILO), a division of the UN, on the number of people killed in industrial 
accidents or by work-related diseases?

It makes a trenchant commentary on the callousness and sheer brutality of 
the quest for profit. According to the ILO, more people world-wide die from 
work-related accidents and diseases each year than die from wars, alcohol 
and drug abuse combined.

The ILO named agriculture, construction and mining as the most dangerous 
occupations. And, contrary to what you might expect in this modern age of 
consciousness of health and safety issues, the number of work-related 
deaths is escalating.

Two years ago, 1.2 million people were dying each year as a result of their 
employment. Now it is two million per annum.

The ILO points out that the work-related death rate is equivalent to a 
September 11 tragedy every day. So why doesn't George W launch a "war on 
unsafe workplaces"?

Because, as Joan Coxsedge puts it, "he's the 'front' for the ultra-right 
hit-men in the military/oil establishment". So long as they can get away 
with the cheap option of simply replacing dead or incapacitated workers, 
that's what they will do.

* * *

Stale food

According to the British paper The New Worker, "Former Soviet 
leader Mikhail Gorbachev has opened a restaurant in Moscow which offers, he 
claims, dishes that were served to him by world leaders when he was in 
power".

I make no comment.

* * *

Privatisation off the rails

Closer to home, trains on the NSW Central Coast were disrupted several 
times over the last couple of weeks as "emergency repairs" were carried out 
to the rails.

Two weeks ago, there was a broken rail discovered near Cardiff. Then a 
track monitoring vehicle was put over the line between Wyong and Newcastle 
and found several faults in the rails, faults that were serious enough to 
close the lines to normal daytime passenger traffic while emergency repairs 
were carried out.

Then the track monitoring vehicle examined the track south of Wyong and 
discovered more faults requiring closure of the line and emergency daytime 
repairs. With no advance warning, passengers were tipped off the trains 
onto buses, producing much grumbling on why people are turning away from 
public transport.

Rail workers are asking why the rails came to be in such a damaged state. 
After all, the lines in that area have been the subject of extensive 
upgrading work over the last couple of years. They can't have deteriorated 
to this extent in such a short time.

The rail workers point out, however, that the sudden appearance of damaged 
and faulty rails follows closely on the privatisation of Freight Corp, the 
NSW railways freight train operator.

The workers are moved to wonder whether, in the quest for bigger profits, 
Freight Corp's new bosses have been overloading the trains. After all, 
excessive loading of interstate trucks is a constant headache of the 
private road freight industry.

These rail workers have such nasty suspicious minds, don't they?