What Thinking Australians Are Thinking (part2)…… A couple of very important letters.
Thank you, Peter Baldwin, for explaining the inexplicable (“Regressive Left puts bigotry and militant Islam on a pedestal”, 17/9). In less enlightened times we would probably have called these regressive lefties a fifth column.
What is not mentioned in his article is how this movement and its objectives — which would be risible in normal times — reached the point where it can influence a…ll those social processes that would previously been moderated by common sense and good humour. They have achieved this potency incrementally, starting with the politically correct movement in the 1990s that we all dismissed as a loopy, transient phenomenon, but which is now embedded in our cultural DNA.
Now their language is framed in absolutes, with the indiscriminate use of derogatory words for dissenters. They have enthusiastically embraced Winston Churchill’s maxim about a lie getting halfway around the world before the truth’s got its pants on.
The other worrying aspect of this rise of the Left is the identity issues they champion. This country would be untroubled dealing with any one, maybe two, of the big issues confronting it, including debt reduction, without the corrosive influence of these progressives. But collectively?
There’s a perfect storm brewing for the economy and society that we won’t be able to deal with because of the divisive issues championed by these self-indulgent, muddled poseurs who see themselves as the main event rather than a sideshow.
John McHarg, Maylands, WA
We live in parlous times, cowered by articulate left-wing “progressives” who have successfully appropriated the tactics of fascists, whether or not they recognise this. The principles of the Enlightenment are being corrupted, if not trashed, by progressives seemingly oblivious to their hypocrisy, mute on issues such as female genital mutilation and Muslim atrocities, but vociferous in their anti-semitism and in the elevation to martyrdom of perceived victims, often aided by section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. The government may be intent on fighting Islamic terrorism but it seems oblivious to the threat to our way of life posed by these left-wing fascists.
Mark Awerbuch, Crafers, SA