In some alternate universe, Auckland-based fundamentalist tabloid 'editor' Ian Wishart's lurid social conservative fantasies are reality. But not in this one. Wishart has a problem with the last thirty years. Put simply, he wants to pretend that they never happened. To appreciate the full horror of that statement, one need only have attended Te Papa's recent Out on the Street seventiesfest, and its lurid nightmare of flares, platform shoes, male big hair, big lapels and handlebar moustaches, the Bee Gees and Abba. And polyester was considered a sensible fabric. Anyway, on Planet Wishart, feminism is the cornerstone of the (deep breath) Giant Maori Lesbian DPB Solo Mother Morris-Dancing Conspiracy to Undermine the Nuclear Family, Christianity, and Western Civilisation. Now, this isn't very original. In fact, Wishart has recycled it from the dire work of the late conservative Catholic anti-abortion activist, Marilyn Pryor. Pryor authored a turgid tome entitled "The Right to Live" twenty years or so ago, in which she bewailed the end of the Muldoon administration and its social conservative extremism, as well as red-baiting supporters of feminism in general, especially lesbian feminists. Why did Wishart recycle this? I think it was supposed to blame heterosexual family breakdown on feminism and lesbian/gay rights, rather than unemployment, social service withdrawal, and underfunded alcohol and drug rehabilitation services throughout the eighties and nineties. Poverty destroys families, and we wouldn't have had the extremes of economic policy we did if it hadn't been for his long-dead idol Muldoon, and his antithesis, Ruth Richardson. Was Ian really so stretched for cut-and-paste articles from the overseas raving right that he had to resort to reheating old leftover conspiracy theories from the increasingly irrelevant past? Apparently. Recommended Reading (For A Laugh) http://www.investigatemagazine.com Wishart's Investigate gutter glossy monthly Marilyn Pryor: The Right to Live: New Zealand's Abortion Battle: Auckland: Haelen Books: 1985. Craig Young - 16th May 2005