==
Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
==
- Original Message -
From: Graham Milner
To: sa-wa-d...@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, December 29, 2010 1:03 AM
Subject: Wed. December 15th's 'Wikileaks' meeting at the Activist Centre: Free
Speech indeed: that's the issue
Dear Comrades,
Earlier this month, on the evening of Wednesday, 15th
December, the Perth branch of Socialist Alliance held a public meeting at the
Activist Centre in East Perth to discuss the issues raised by the attempts by
the powers that be to suppress the revelations made on the internet to the
public by the Wilileaks organisation. Speakers billed included Scott Ludlum,
the Greens senator, and Kemala Emanuel for the Socialist Alliance.
I arrived a little early for the meeting and passed the time talking to a few
people and consuming cans of soft drink. The meeting room at the Centre was
only slightly filled when I saw a blue texta pen at the base of the whiteboard
on the back wall of the meeting room. I picked up the pen and carefully
spelled out on the whiteboard the legend, in fairly small, capital letters:
'Life is beautiful: let the future generations cleanse it of all evil,
oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full. Leon Trotsky: Testament;
1940'.
Before I was able to complete the inscription of the quotation from Trotsky's
testament on the whiteboard, I was interrupted by Alex Bainbridge, the
Socialist Alliance Perth branch co-coordinator. Alex was fairly aggressive.
I could not understand what his beef was, but when I had completed the
inscription of the quotation from Trotsky Alex picked up the duster from the
base of the whiteboard, and rubbed out the words.
While Alex Bainbridge was deleting the quotation from Trotsky's testament, I
pointed out to the Perth branch co-coordinator that the same quotation was
inscribed on the headstone of the founder, and for many years central leader,
of the Democratic Socialist Party/Perspective, Jim Percy, whose body is buried
in Sutherland cemetary in New South Wales. I believe I asked Alex what
political objection he could possibly have to the quotation from Trotsky, the
sentiments of which would be almost universally subscribed to, even by
liberals, conservatives and those of a religious persuasion, to say nothing of
almost all socialists.
Alex became extremely agitated while he was taking steps to prevent the Trotsky
quote from going up on the whiteboard, and attempted to bully me into exiting
the Activist Centre with him, something in which he was not successful. After
the meeting had concluded, and during the period of informal discussion that
followed it, I approached Alex again as to why he objected so much to the
quotation from Trotsky being put up on the whiteboard, but I was unable to
obtain a satisfactory explanation.
Perhaps Alex, or one of his co-thinkers in Socialist Alliance, could provide an
explanation to the members of this list as to why he behaved the way he did at
the Activist Centre on the evening of December 15, and why he considered it
necessary to strike out the quotation I cited from Leon Trotsky's Testament?
Fraternally,
Graham Milner
Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu
Set your options at:
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
