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Issue No. 128 15 March 2002  
E D I T O R I A L

Why I'm Marching
If you haven�t guessed already, I'm no Labor apparatchik. In fact my entry into politics was through the old Nuclear Disarmament Party.

F E A T U R E S

Interview: The Wedge Buster
Labor's immigration spokeswoman Julia Gillard talks about her job of developing policy to blunt Howard's wedge.

History: Fighting for Peace
Was the first Palm Sunday parade a celebration or a protest, asks Neale Towart.

Unions: Rattling the Gates
When Pacific Power workers traveled from Newcastle to Macquarie Street this week life-long loyalties were on the line, as Jim Marr reports.

International: Facing Retribution
Serious fears are growing for the safety of Zimbabwean trade unionists after the tainted election defeat of their former leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

Technology: How Korean Workers Used The Web
Electrical power industry workers in Korea are relying on the internet, and mobile phones, to successfully organise a militant nation-wide anti-privatisation strike.

Industrial: Working Futures
Can an assortment of economists, lawyers, historians, industrial relations specialists, unionists, journalists, sociologists and psychologists help us develop a decent future for work and social relations in Australia?

Review: Rumble, Young Man, Rumble
To compress the full and exhilarating life of The Greatest to film-length is no easy task but Ali makes a reasonable fist of the job writes Noel Hester.

Satire: GG Survival Doomed: Fox-Lew In Charge Of Rescue Bid
The hopes of embattled Governor-General Dr Peter Hollingworth took a battering last night, after he learnt that the rescue bid for his survival is being headed up by Lindsay Fox and Solomon Lew.

Poetry: PSST
From Sue Robinson to Michael Kirby, some things in politics are constant...only the names have been changed to defame the innocent.

N E W S

 Girl's Maiming Sparks Entry Plea

 More Time Off for Babies

 Workers Break Bank Cartel

 State Law Push For Virgin Sites

 Outrage at Privatisation by Decree

 Woomera - Flames, Razors, Rope and Despair

 Bus Drivers Block ALP Funds

 Crean Gets on Front Foot

 Nurses, Teachers On The Money

 Asset-Stripping Sparks Walk-Out

 Opposition Grows Over Howard's Freedom Attack

 Heffernan Prompts �Right of Reply� Demands

 Della Dumps Dunny Blues

 Smith Flies Into Turbulence

 Guards Force Drinks Break

 Levy Struck to Support Rockhampton Meatworkers

 ACTU Assists former Ansett Staff

 Activist News

C O L U M N S

The Soapbox
The War on Terror - Impunity for Abuses?
Federal Labor MP Duncan Kerr argues that governments are using the fears of the post-Septmeber 11 environment for thier own ends.

The Locker Room
Oh, The Humanity!
So, sports people are human after all. Now there�s a headline.

Week in Review
Tomorrow, The World
Jim Marr picks over the entrails of a week in which world domination, or at least hegemony over that part of it in which the principal operates, is a recurring theme.

L E T T E R S
 Carr and the Fire Fighters
 On Inequality
 Harmony Day
WHAT YOU CAN DO
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Editorial

Why I'm Marching


If you haven�t guessed already, I'm no Labor apparatchik. In fact my entry into politics was through the old Nuclear Disarmament Party.

It was the mid-eighties and the super-powers were facing each other off with the geo-politics of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction).

In our tie-dyed T-shirts and masseur sandals, we'd debate US foreign policy with lapsed CIA operatives who Bay of Tonkin incident was a set-up.

We took our peacenik signs down to Woolloomooloo Bay when the USS Missouri was in town, but got stampeded by the Mums and Dads taking their kids to climb all over the military hardware as if it was a fun park.

And every year we would march through the streets on Palm Sunday, along with the families and churches and community groups who believed there must be an alternate way to run the world other than threatening to blow each other up.

Without realising it at the time we were arguing for globalisation before it had become a term to be demonised. We believed we were all in it together and no cowboy on an A-bomb had the right to end the party for all of us.

We weren't very cool and we weren't very electorally successful, but we were right.

When the Cold War ended so did the super-power face off and the imperative of the movement seem to be resolved. The marches stopped and Palm Sunday just became a weekend before the Easter break.

Now more than a decade on, we have a US President drawing up a nuclear hit list against a swag of 'rogue' states that may or may not have their own capability.

In the post September 11 environment we have a military-industrial complex again in the ascendancy, with a US administration committed to expanded defence spending.

We have an Australian government elected on 'border security', now shown to have manipulated the issue and misrepresented its advice from the military to feed the populous;' fear and ignorance.

Underneath it all we have forgotten the truth that drove the peace movement of the eighties - we are all on this planet together and until we can show compassion to the Other we can not expect security at home.

That's the message behind the Palm Sunday march and it is why the organisers are to be congratulated for reviving the event. I look forward to marching with you on March 24.

Peter Lewis

Editor


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