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Issue No. 149 23 August 2002  
E D I T O R I A L

Our Historical Mission
It has often been argued that unions would cease to exist when employers civilised workplaces. Our historical mission would have been fulfilled and we could pack up and spend out time enjoying the equitable society that would be the fruit of our victory.

F E A T U R E S

Interview: Something Smells
The Postal Union's Jim Metcher lifts the lid on the very strange goings-on in Australia Post

Cole-Watch: Credibility Crisis
Counsels Assisting the Cole Royal Commission face a humiliating public back down in an effort to bring some balance to proceedings, reports Jim Marr.

Unions: Union Cities
Labor Council's Adam Kerslake has returned from the USA with some new ideas on community unionism

Industrial: Lib Men Gang Up Against Working Mums
Working women are in danger of missing out on an adequately funded paid maternity leave scheme, if recent bleatings are acted upon says ACTU President Sharan Burrow.

History: Eureka!
Neale Towart finds an alternative to Baden-Powell�s imperialist scouting movement, where the youth of Australia was fed such radical ideas as solidarity, collective action, equal rights and internationalism.

East Timor: Don�t Rob Their Future
After 24 years of often brutal Indonesian occupation East Timor on 20 May 2002 finally achieved their independence, writes HT Lee.

Review: Black Chicks Say It All
Dorothy can be whatever colour she wants to be and black chicks can talk about anything, writes Tara de Boehmler

Poetry: Self Regulation
While President George W Bush,leader of the heart of unregulated capitalism, has responded to the recent spate of corporate cowboydom by whipping out a swathe of new corporate controls, Australia's Prime Minister has responded with a feathered touch.

N E W S

 Cole to Hear of Criminal Takeover Conspiracy

 Mad Monk Stamp on Aussie Post

 Calls To End Woodlawn Logjam

 ANZ Fined Over Freedom Of Speech Breach

 Hotels Eat Up Living Wage

 Qantas Union's Gorilla Tactics

 Shearers Black Ban Their Hall Of Fame

 Democrats Fire Shot for Workers

 Teachers Walk Out At Aust College of Technology

 Rail Operators Off Track

 Airport Security Worker Spat At And Assaulted

 CBA Workers Say Enough Is Enough

 Union Made Songs For Masses

 Doco Dishes Dirt On Howard�s Gas Wrangle

 Activist Notebook

C O L U M N S

The Soapbox
Cole Comfort
The election of a federal coalition government in 1996 marked the advent of an aggressively anti union agenda that continues to be played out to this day, writes Paul Davies

The Locker Room
Salary Crap
Phil Doyle goes wading through the hypocrisy and hubris, and discovers where the smell is coming from.

Postcard
All At Sea
It�s on again - the coastal battle between the maritime unions, the government and the shipowners, reports Zoe Reynolds.

Week in Review
The Dogs of War
The battle drums were a-rattling across this wide, brown land and Jim Marr was getting a bit tetchy

Bosswatch
Speak No Evil
The majority of Australian firms stay silent on options they offer their executives as John Howard continues to stonewall corporate law reform.

L E T T E R S
 Shit Sheets
 Susan's Soccer Outrage
WHAT YOU CAN DO
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Week in Review

The Dogs of War


The battle drums were a-rattling across this wide, brown land and Jim Marr was getting a bit tetchy

****************

"Invading Iraq: defiant Howard says he'll go it alone" the Sydney Morning Herald declares. Unfortunately, the article doesn't quite back up the headline but war, nevertheless, is high on the week's agenda.

You know your claim to hawkishness has sprouted wings when Henry Kissinger and General Norman Schwarzkopf are counselling caution. That's the position Dubya, his Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfield, and Howard find themselves in.

Rumsfield tells Americans they don't need evidence of Saddam Hussein's weapons programs to justify an attack. Just as well probably, because any serious attempt to adduce evidence would lead to the inescapable finding of US complicity.

According to a 1994 US Senate Committee Report, between 1985 and 1989, American suppliers provided Baghdad with the core ingredients for a chemical and biological arsenal. Amongst the US "goodies" identified by the Commission were: Bacillus Anthracis (anthrax); Clostridium Botulinum (botulinum poison); Histoplasma Capsulatam (cause of disease attacking lungs, brain, heart and spinal cord); Brucella Melitensis (bacteria which attacks major organs); Clostridium Perfringens (highly toxic bacteria); E.Coli; human and bacterial DNA.

Dozens of other pathogenic biological agents were shipped from the US to Iraq during the 1980s. The Senate Committee described these as "not attenuated or weakened and capable of reproduction".

Despite reports that Iraq used chemical weapons against Iran and biological warfare against Iranians, Kurds, and Shi'ites, these exports continued until the end of 1989.

....................

Retired US General Paul Van Riper quits the biggest war games in US history, claiming the result was "almost entirely scripted to ensure a win".

Poor old Van Riper had been brought out of retirement to head enemy forces and was piqued about being denied the opportunity to probe defensive weaknesses in his opponent's game play. A real adversay, he warned, may not feel so constrained.

......................

The war on women, being conducted across much of the Islamic world, gets an airing when a pregnant Nigerian student is granted asylum in Cyprus because returning home would likely mean being stoned to death.

Under one view of Sharia law that is the prescribed punishment for adultery. In reality, it is rarely, if ever, imposed on the male of the species.

In northern Nigeria, a Sharia court rejects the appeal of a 21-year-old against her death sentence, ruling she will be stoned after weaning her child.

..................

The war on workers being pursued by the Howard Government resumes with the Cole Royal Commission's return to Sydney. Counsels assisting see no need to introduce balance or fairness to their modus operandi, slating the CFMEU largely on the "evidence" of discredited former officials.

In an opening picked up by papers, television channels and radio stations across the country, Nicholas Green doesn't even bother to acknowledge that the weight of evidence before the commission, to put it mildly, questions the credibility of those he chooses to rely on.

The sublime turns ridiculous when counsel assisting and the commissioner get their maths wrong and produce wildly inflated figures for a wage claim settlement. Not that that prevents their loyal messengers at the Sydney Morning Herald running it all as fact.

......................

As for internecine war, the Democrats showed them all how do to do it - shafting each other left, right and centre until the only prize was stewardship of a rotting carcass.

The little known WA gay activist Brian Greig slipped through the, eh, centre and got the nod as interim leader after Aden Ridgeway realised that being in a Gang of Four doesn't necessarily make him a pop star.

One can only wonder how the Democrats would have fared if they were sticking to the salary cap. But that's another story.


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