Petition against Allende visit

Press, 23 April 1980, Page 20

Petition against Allende visit

Sir, — The sad thing about this petition is that the young women presenting it do not realise they are supporting a world-wide attack on democracy. The people behind it have a firm purpose and could be shown, by a psychological test of attitudes, to be at the conservative end of a scale, generally supporting capital and corporal punishments, private armed forces to fight unionism, freedom to exploit the weak, censorship of ideas, and discrimination on the grounds of race, colour, religion and sex. Father Consedine must know that unfortunately these disciples of oppression ascribe to Christianity, Islam, or other local brands of organised superstition. Allende was

overthrown, and the Chilean holocaust ignited, by an evil coalition of the C.1.A., church and big business. Misguided New Zealanders would support the Olympic Games if held in Santiago, and welcome Chilean rugby tourists. — Yours, etc., VARIAN J. WILSON. April 21, 1980.

Sir, —Are not T.I.F.F. and their 6000 forgetting that President Allende was elected with as great a majority as Mr Muldoon, and that Mr Muldoon, would not tolerate in New Zealand the way that the illegal Government of General Pinochet came to power?—Yours, etc., , . J. V. PETERSEN. April 21, 1980.

Sir, —Why does anyone who believes in free enterprise and individual freedom get labelled as a Right-wing extremist, as have adherents of the League of Rights, T.1.F.F., etc. The traditional Right-wing/Left-wing scale is really a joke, because extreme Right and extreme Left , are virtually identical—both forms of extreme Government control. Hitler’s “Right-wing” Nazism was called National Socialism. A more accurate scale would have total government (communism, socialism, fascism) at the Left, and no government (anarchy) at the Right. The middle would be democracy, free enterprise. On this scale, the abovenamed conservative organisations are quite middle of the road, whereas all our major political parties are decidedly Left of centre. Clearly, the extreme Left are, as usual, / attacking anyone who seeks v to expose the obnoxious nature of their “Big Brother” ideology.—Yours, etc., FRANK A. SMITH. April 20, 1980.