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Letters to the Editor:

Ruffled the feathers

I was one of the school students that visited your office a 
number of weeks ago to procure a hammer and sickle flag. We 
managed to erect the red and yellow up the flagpole of our very 
conservative middle class public school on our 'muck up' day. We 
also further ruffled the feathers of our ultra conservative 
hierarchy by displaying images of Vladiimir Ilyich Lenin all 
around the school inciting a healthy fear of revolution.

May I also register my dismay at last weekend's election 
disaster. I have tried on several occasions to write to my local 
newspaper but the Murdoch controlled local gas continually refuse 
to publish my "controversial" perspective. (Note: I live in the 
incredibly benighted electorate of Phillip Ruddock.)

I was dumbstruck even during the campaign at the ignorance of the 
major parties regarding the core issues that will determine the 
direction this country will pursue in this polarised world.

Neither addressed the appalling state of Aboriginal health, 
neither addressed the ridiculous state of Australia's foreign aid 
budget, refugees and their rights, the Iraq war, the ecology and 
sustainability of the earth's resources. 

All of these core issues took a back seat to the seemingly greedy 
worry of interest rates. The results were even more worrying and 
a reflection of the ignorant, benighted society we have become as 
a result of our nation's prosperity. Clearly prosperity breeds 
ignorance -- the more we have the more we want. We need a 
constructive and critical TRUE left in this nation, rather than 
the conformist, compromising labor party.

Greed beat conscience! A moral defeat for Australia!

Justin Morris
Sydney

OK, OK, so we have lost a battle. That does not mean we have 
lost the war. We do not stand around wringing our hands and 
crying woe. Things will get tougher yet, but we too will get 
tougher. To use an old working class saying -- we will spit on 
our hands, hitch up our trousers and get right back into it with 
redoubled effort.

Another old (but oh so true) saying is that those who do not 
learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Such a prospect faces 
the Australian people even if the majority do not realise it. 
They have to experience it first hand before it is driven home. 
Fascism could never happen in Australia. No! Watch events over 
the next few years. It is unfortunate that so many good people 
will have to die before the proletariat wake up.

Bert Appleton
Woy Woy NSW

We saw in the Federal election the Australian public being 
divided by ideologies. It is my view that Labor divides -- 
straight/gay, /public/private schools, jails/hospitals, public 
service/private sector, Medicare/private, etc.

The Labor state governments are now dividing smoker vs non smoker 
in all the states which, of course, are Labor in pubs and clubs 
where their traditional voting base congregates. My dear departed 
Dad used to say that Labor isn't for the working man anymore. 
This might be helpful to their navel gazing exercise as the old 
stalwarts desert the sinking ship federally.

In the ACT, 2 elections ago, "Smokers are Voters" took out 3 
sitting Labor members by not giving preferences to any group. 
Perhaps the Labor states should take note.

Brigitte Ballard
O'Connor ACT

The article "Where to after Howard" (The Guardian 
6/10/04) fails to deal with the key role of the Communist 
Party in bringing about a People's Government and hence the need 
to build the Party particularly in the working class.

The Communist Party's Program makes it clear that a 
People's Government is part of the revolutionary process that 
leads to socialism and that the Communist Party, as the 
revolutionary working class Party, must play a leading role in 
such a struggle which will be opposed vigorously by the 
capitalist class enemy.

However, The Guardian article gives one the impression 
that the Party is no different to any other community 
organisation. Somehow or other a whole lot of other community 
organisations will get together to form a People's Government to 
tackle the power of monopoly capitalism. It's as simple as that.

Part of the article reads:

"Many more left and progressive parliamentarians are needed at 
all levels of government. Respected, knowledgeable and active 
participants from left and progressive political parties, trade 
unions, environmental, peace, educational, Indigenous and 
community organisations, health and democratic rights bodies, all 
should be encouraged to stand for office -- not contesting 
against one another but working for the common good."

This presentation ignores the reality that classes form political 
parties and the class struggle takes place through the clash of 
such parties. To suggest that a People's Government made up 
mainly of non-class organisations can carry out the task of 
challenging the rule of the big corporations is a plunge into the 
most extreme form of idealism. It smacks of a non-class approach 
which can only mislead the working class.

It is true that just to talk about the leading role of the 
Communist Party won't make it happen. A lot of work needs to be 
done by the Party to build living connections with the working 
class and to educate workers to reach out to the middle classes 
to join the struggle against corporate power.

One of the tasks of the Communist Party is to reveal the nature 
of the capitalist state machine which inevitably will be used 
against the People's Government. An understanding of how to 
combat such a force is essential if the People's Government is to 
be established. Not to do these things would create illusions 
about an easy path ahead.

The Guardian article creates just such illusions.

Alan Miller
Adelaide