Porn backs up the Puritans

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those most dramatically affected - the millions of passengers whose fares doubled and whose services were cut from one day to the next; as well as the LT unions. A class rather than a sectional fightback was necessary as well as being desirable.

If the LT union leaders had called all-out action against the Law Lords, certAn ultra-right gang in the New Zealand Labour Party has publicly come out with four propositions which in Can't Pay, Won't Pay' - were ainly they would have got a response. But the leaders had no wish for such action; and the shop stewards' conferences showed that there was not spontaneous militancy sufficient to force them into action. An organeffect would make the whole New Zealand Labour Party a clone of the British Social Democrats.

harl we right to back it? ised opposition had to be built in the unions.

The London Labour Left's failure to link up with organised left wings in the unions - its one-sided focus on fighting within the Labour Party — was crippl It is highly unlikely that they will succeed, but there is a distinct possibility that a quarter of the Parliafrom.

The left councillors' main responsibility in such an all-round fightback was to do what only they could do, and do at will - i.e. vote down the budget including the fare rises.

None of this was done. And Socialist Organiser's real failing, it seems to me, lies here. I know individual Socialist Organiser suppmentary Labour Party wil! split off and form a separ ate party if they cannot capture power in the present Labour Party.

Against this background, some Labour Party members have got together to launch a 'Committee for informed decision making'.

The committee notes that elections within the Labour Party take place at present under conditions where members weighing up the merits or demerits of candidates have nothing beyond the barest biographical details to assist them in making a choice. It proposes reforms to remedy this, and in the meantime suggests a questionnaire for Labour Party branches to circulate to candidates on their own initiative. ANN EVANS (Letters, Socialist Organiser no. 76) tries to reduce my arguments on pornography to the absurd by saying that the fight against sexism must include the closure of all newsagents because they sell the Sun, the tearing up of the Militant, and the destruction of Turner's erotica.

What she ignores is that the fight against pornography, 'ripping up and tearing down' as I suggested, is an attempt to change people's consciousness by drawing attention to an oppression and an injustIce, not to impose some narrow-minded doctrine on an unsuspecting public.

In my view, women's consciousness has changed markedly over recent years, largely by-passing the revolutionary left. Hence it is ludicrous to suggest as Ann Evans did originally that sexuality could be driven back into the closet - women would not allow that.

The fight against pornography is a fight to free sexuality from sexism, from the sado-masochism • of 'normal' sexual relations, a sado-masochism which reflects the oppression of women by men.

There can be no genuinely 'open sexuality', which both Ann Evans and I believe in, until both women and men realise how sexism and its propaganda in pornography distort and mutilate sexuality.

My argument originally was against sex shops, which are as pernicious with regard to sexism as the National Front is to racism in my view. The examples made Ann Evans are involved with other things as well as sexism, and can therefore possibly be changed rather than closed down.

Newsagents, for example, usually sell sweets to rot your teeth and cigarettes to give you cancer, as well as selling the Sun.

I would not be opposed to workers in the printing or distribution industry refusing to handle the Sun or other papers and magazines because of their sexist content. This type of action has happened before, for example with the Jak cartoon in the Evening Standard during the electricians' strike or more recently the banning of the Sun by the train drivers.

But to call for the closure of all newsagents would be ridiculous, as Ann Evans said.

Erotica

The case of Turner's erotica is a different question again. I'm sure that John Ruskin did not destroy those paintings as a contribution to women's liberation, and even if he had done so, it would have been a sexist thing to do - very patronising.

We read great literature and view great paintings because they tell us the truth about life at a particular time. Pornography does not do that - it provides an escape from reality, it reinforces accepted ideology (including puritanism and monogamy of which it is merely the flip side), it is the male equivalent of Mills and Boon.

Like Ann Evans, I would like to have seen Turner's erotica. Given his other paintings, I am sure his erotica would be quite different from your average blue movie, since he would treat all human beings with dignity and not despise and degrade women for profit.

DAVE SPENCER, Coventry. le in Lancashire as Steve pointed out, th stoppage had near-una imous support, much great. er than that at Scotts at the start. There was a cleal basis for pushing forward.

• Your paper throughout through the strategy and Lacule win Unlike • Socialist Organisel you failed to hammer home centa argument: 'You're dead wrong, only a corporate-wide rebob in tachine in in sponse can beat a corpora jobs in Lancashire'.

• Increasingly the focus seems to be them uncritically suppor serious workers welcome fraternal criticism and honest, there was no dif erence between your cover ge and that of the Mornin Star What would have been your position if the Scott 'elected plant leadership' had accepted the July 10 sell out that Boyd and Duffy attempted to impose? Had the CP had more influence in Scotts, this would have happened. Would you then have argued it was necessary for Socialist Challenge to be 'with the strike committee'?

• Leyland is a greenfield site. The Scotts workers come from Openshaw, which has 'more than century's experience of reformist domination' The Scotts workers seem to have done a good job in breaking from it. For ex ample, there was more horse sense in Steve Longshawe's open letter calling on Leyland workers extend their fight than in your whole coverage of Leyland.

Socialist Challenge endWolsey po playing Cardinal Mick Henry VIII. And we know what happened Henry's mates, don't we?

T.Hart, GWU convenor, Ak hemie, Rochdal