Keith Melville

I agree, in part, with your correspondent John Capener’s last paragraph of his Beacon letter on Friday, when he says the words, “leftie” and “woke”, are not the insulting terms some people think they are.

I disagree when he claims those words resonate only in right-wing echo chambers.

Lefties can be seen as supremely proud when sloganeering, singing and chanting the propaganda and platitudes they believe.

If you’ve been to a socialist or trade union conference and heard their delegates sing the universal socialist anthem, The Red Flag, you will know what I mean. Such performances hardly take place in right-wing echo chambers.

I don’t think lefties mind being identified as lefties, but will almost always become defensive when reminded of socialism’s failings.

The failed socialist states of Venezuela, Cuba, and the Soviet Union come to mind as prime examples.

We have our own home-grown examples, too. We once had a left-wing prime minister, a very woke one not so many years ago, who repeatedly told us she was going to solve child poverty, but was never able to deliver on what her mouth was telling us.

Socialist slogans are usually exposed as lies when reality comes home.

I regularly use the word, “leftie”, as a term of endearment to describe someone who is politically naive – a dreamer – someone so totally detached from the practical realities of life that they think their own slogans are the foundation blocks of truth.

As for the word woke, that term is now part of mainstream lexicon, although its meaning has changed.

The word originated in Black American culture of the 1960s and earlier when one Black might say to another with an underlying element of anger “stay woke bro”. In other words – always remember your origins are the injustices of slavery.

These days, the woke word has taken on a sarcastic and disparaging meaning of someone or an organisation with a sickening and nauseating sensitivity to issues of social justice.

Some Kiwi companies, in my view, deserve to be branded as woke for adopting DEI (diversity equity and inclusion) policies, despite the fact that the law protects people from discriminatory practices.

Kiwibank, Air New Zealand and Fonterra, and our own Whakatāne District Council are organisations that believe it is important to publicly declare that they do not discriminate on sexual orientation or on other grounds.

They are virtue signalling or hand-wringing in a highly public way to try to convince the world they really do care.