The other paranoid nation
Perhaps it won’t be so “strange for [Shaun Walker] to follow what happens next in Russia from outside its borders”. Walker’s incisive comments and quotes in his piece (A correspondent’s life under Putin, 2 March) distil the essence of an elite mentality in a highly militaristic, oligarch-captured “democracy”.
These same comments apply with comparable vigour to that other “wounded nation that [has] had few victories to celebrate in living memory”, having lost in Vietnam and still being wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. Likewise, America’s “understandable search for national pride [has given] way to jingoistic chest-thumping” and “war rhetoric”.
Similarly “the idea that [Russia] was working for regime change in [the US], and that the foreign media were merely an arm of this policy, [has become] more widespread”, especially among the high-placed such as the anti-Bernie Sanders, anti-democratic, Democratic party elite. One can easily imagine a MSNBC talking head exclaim: “Why can’t you just leave us alone? Why can’t [Russia] just stop interfering in our affairs? You did it in the [50s], you did it in [1962], and now you are again trying to bring the country to a collapse.”
Such a “paranoid outburst” reveals “the curious duality so often present in the [militaristic] psyche: aggression and insecurity”.
While Walker may be “ready to leave” Russia, “I suspect that one day [he’ll] be back” in the (US)SR.
Dan Maitland
Guelph, Ontario, Canada
New Zealand is for sale
New Zealand is portrayed as the golden isles in the article To the Ends of the Earth (9 March). For too long the economy has been propped up by rich investors like Peter Thiel. It has been relatively easy for billionaires to purchase plum land. The Overseas Investment Office, which vets prospective buyers, has been a rubber stamp.
Far from being flattered, as the article suggests, by the interest of Silicon Valley billionaires and celebrities, many New Zealanders like me are outraged. I am dismayed at seeing our best and most beautiful land falling into the hands of wealthy overseas buyers. Land is the building block of agriculture, on which the country’s livelihood depends. Who owns and profits from it is of vital national importance.
It is difficult to know precisely how much of New Zealand land is now foreign-owned. In 2011 the Campaign Against Foreign Control in Aotearoa estimated that 8.7% of farm land, including forestry, was owned by foreign interests. Sales have escalated since then.
Viola Palmer
Waikanae, New Zealand
Tobacco: not in our name
It is thanks to investigative journalism from the Guardian that its readers are aware of what tobacco companies are doing in their name (16 March). Yes, most of us are likely to be passive investors in tobacco through our pension and savings funds and other investments.
There may be some ghoulish people who couldn’t care less where their money is invested as long as they get a decent return. However, most are probably unaware where their savings are being channelled.
Unfortunately, it is to non-readers of the Guardian that the message must be transmitted: you may be shocked at what tobacco companies are doing but the companies are owned by tens of thousands of individuals like you. Unless you take an interest in your investments, they may be aiding companies you can’t morally support.
Geoff Naylor
Winchester, UK
Follow the German example
Reading Aditya Chakrabortty’s piece on the German town reclaiming its electrical power station (9 March) swept me back to my boyhood. I recall all local authorities were responsible for their local infrastructure. My own (Huddersfield Corporation) owned and operated its own power and distribution system, which was connected to the national grid; it owned its own gasworks and distribution system, its own reservoirs and pipework for the water supply, and operated its own public transport system. It all seemed to work.
What was wrong with this system? The profits of a public service should be of benefit to the local people, not some remote shareholders. I wonder if there is any local authority in the UK bold enough to follow the German town’s example.
Denis Brook
Huddersfield, UK
Briefly
• It’s ironic that in an issue with the cover story Can coral paradises be saved? (2 March) you have a feature story on the Dubai tourist project. The Dubai article has no depth, analysis or context. It is a breathless advertorial for a real estate developer. Is this part of the Guardian’s “good news” project? God help us.
Bill Stewart
Westmount, Quebec, Canada
• It seems the boffins at Apple Park have been so lumbered by the building’s too-clever-by-half designers with ultra-transparent glass doors that some have walked into them (16 March). Of course, you’ve got to feel sympathy for their predicament, but the image of employees now navigating their workplace like the mime Marcel Marceau in his invisible cage is somewhat diverting.
Lawrie Bradly
Surrey Hills, Victoria, Australia
• Send letters for publication to weekly.letters@theguardian.com. Please include a full postal address and a reference to the article. We may edit letters. Submission and publication of all letters is subject to our terms and conditions.
