Deadly threat to democracy
I was surprised when I opened my 2 June Guardian Weekly to find no letters in reference to the amazing article (19 May) linking Trump to some even dodgier people in what looks like a plan to take over the world (no joke). It’s the most important story of the year or even of the decade. All the players are implicated in gobsmacking manipulation of governments, media, constitutional law. They want to smash it all up and play their own game of ultra-rightwing new world.
What frightened me the most was the extent of private information collected, the military tactics in mind control, the multinational plan tried in developing countries and then unleashed in a supposedly democratic country. And succeeding.
How would it be possible to rein in this group when they are friends with key government officials, big business and everything to do with surveillance? They have to look after each other, don’t they?
Virginia Handmer
Rylstone, NSW, Australia
• In your front-page article China shapes a vision for Asia (19 May), you mentioned the assembling of world leaders to celebrate Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road plan, and listed Vladimir Putin, Nawaz Sharif and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Isn’t it amazing how autocrats seem to rise to the top of the political pyramid, and how there are no mechanisms to get rid of them once they are there: not a great prospect for democracy.
Then the same issue featured a brilliant article of investigative journalism by Carole Cadwalladr, which indicated that such dictators also team up with billionaire rightwing control freaks who are intent on using technology to manipulate elections in various countries. Another blow to democracy!
All of this is scary because to save the human species in the next century we need to redistribute wealth drastically, not use nuclear weapons, lower population and create a new energy regime to effectively combat climate change. As the top is so full of reactionary, misogynous autocrats, democracy, particularly social democracy and all kinds of creative action, must come from the bottom up.
This has always been true, but in the 21st century it is an urgent necessity for citizens to be active and take responsibility, as the stakes have never been higher. Do it for the children!
Laurel MacDowell
Toronto, Canada
Climate change is here now
Shame on us for dwelling on how President Donald Trump’s attitude to climate change threatens the economy in the coming years (2 June). Climate change is here. It is destroying the lives of millions of starving north Africans, contributing to the thousands of corpses bobbing in the Mediterranean, and enabling the spread of insect-borne tropical diseases. How can we regard that as “business as usual”?
If the whole world were adrift in a monstrous Titanic, Trump would be the lunatic on the bridge driving us headlong into an iceberg field. To save the economy and to keep America great, he has decided that a whole lot of people will need to be jettisoned – even those of us who are manning the bilge pumps.
Peter Scott
Elora, Ontario, Canada
Progressives and economics
Giles Fraser (26 May) is mistaken if he thinks the concept of the Progressive Alliance has anything to do with economic growth. Candidates with minority support in a constituency are invited to stand down in favour of a single candidate who is committed to electoral reform. It is simply an attempt to reduce the likelihood of any party securing a massive parliamentary majority with the votes of only 36% of the electorate.
This strategy is doomed to failure, of course, because each of the two main parties gains disproportionate representation using the first-past-the-post system, and is unwilling to disturb the status quo.
Graham Davey
Bristol, UK
Mental illness isn’t a strategy
Oliver Burkeman’s column has heartened me many times with the knowledge that there are others who share the same tentative hopes and mystifying conduct that I do. However, his 26 May mind-bender left me feeling a little perturbed, as there seemed to be an assumption that mental illness constitutes self-seeking behaviour. It would be unhelpful, to people who have been diagnosed with a mental illness, to place them on a spectrum of self-advancement that includes anyone from a despot to a remote-control monopoliser.
The important thing is to acknowledge that a mental illness is clinically defined as a particular symptom-complex in the same way that any other recognised illness must necessarily be delineated.
Pauline Harris
Lydney, UK
Briefly
• I beg to disagree with the use of “remote” in your article A home in the north for Trump refuseniks (28 April). Your use of the directional noun is incorrect. Canada’s north includes the Arctic region, and is defined in terms of isolation. May I suggest that your study of our geography be more rigorous. The latitude of Cape Breton is about 46 degrees: hardly a northerly location.
Of course I have read the Guardian with great satisfaction for a number of decades. Please continue your admirable efforts, regardless of the machinations of the US president.
Mary Harris
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
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