Is ‘critical balance’ now humbug?
It’s heartening to have a columnist from the Right discuss neo-Marxism, hardly a topical subject of inquiry (NeoMarxism moving into all areas
of our lives, June 28). Thanks for introducing activist Rudi Dutschke and Marxian philosopher Antonio Gramsci to readers, prompting us to investigate further; such is their significance in the development of political ideas and praxis.
Highlighting the terrible examples of Communist dictators like Stalin and Mao continues to be necessary. But to dismiss a whole philosophy because of the actions of its most pathological adherents is disingenuous. Should the wisdom of Christ be likewise dismissed?
Where is Karl du Fresne’s critical examination of capitalism? Or is ‘‘critical balance’’ postmodern humbug? Isn’t man-made ‘‘climate change’’ proof of capitalism’s biggest failure? Should we wait for the sixth (and ultimate) “big extinction” without critically examining its authors?
Free market regimes bailing out predatory, “too big to fail” banks, or basing our entire economy on not factoring in the catastrophic downstream costs of dairying, indicate governments which represent their interests, not “ours” .
Neo-Marxism remains a useful way of examining these and other significant issues.
Karl Marx said: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” Makes sense to me. Kia ora. Tom White, Island Bay Please explain why Karl du Fresne (June 28) appears to have lifted his column (or at least done all his ‘‘research’) from the neo-Right, no doubt American, corner of the web.
The ‘‘cultural marxism’’ thesis is a fictional trope, promoted by such sites as Breitbart and 4chan, along with birtherism, and pizzagate.
I’ve never had much time for Karl, but I could understand his point of view. But this is poor even by his standards.
It is disappointing to see this content given oxygen by a credible New Zealand paper. This discourse is not part of New Zealand’s political landscape. Chris Boys, Berhampore
Pure fiction
Russell Tregonning’s letter (June 29) is exactly the uninformed type of response Enterprise Miramar wanted when it fed you its highly loaded and misleading ‘‘photo’’’ mock-up of what Shelly Bay might end up looking like.
Interesting that not only does it vastly overstate the developer’s planned development but also wipes all existing housing from the hilltop behind. Pure fiction.
The facts are that some considerable time ago the National government, without public consultation, designated Shelly Bay as a Special Housing Area. This enabled the iwi owners to sell their land to the developer.
The council approved the proposal. By the time the public were consulted it was only on whether the small councilowned area should be gobbled up by the development, and what contribution the developer and council needed to each make to infrastructure.
Enterprise Miramar started bleating after all this had happened, and took a bound-tofail High Court Review (ie, challenging procedure, not substance).
It is now pursuing a Court of Appeal challenge which is also bound to fail, but persists in order to delay.
Instead of being dishonestly disruptive the group should be actively helping to mitigate some of the obvious problems with the proposal. Graeme Buchanan, Karaka Bays
No to natural gas
Sean Devine (Letters, June 29) repeats a commonly made but fallacious argument that burning natural gas emits only half as much carbon, per unit of heat energy recovered, as other fossil fuels.
The first mistake is in lumping ‘‘other fossil fuels’’ together, which ignores the greater emission of CO , per 2 unit of heat energy recovered, from mining and burning coal rather than oil. Coal is the dirtiest of the three main fossil fuels.
The second mistake is ignoring the huge emissions of CO2 when natural gas is mined. This ‘‘unwanted’’ CO2 contributes nothing to the heat energy recovered from burning natural gas, but adds very significantly to total CO2 emissions.
The pollution caused by mining fossil fuels is one more reason why the Government was right to ban the issuing of new exploration consents.
New Zealand may not be able to influence the world’s worst atmospheric polluters, but at least we can aim to set a better example locally and regionally. Bill Sutton, Napier [abridged]