On the occasion of his 300th column, Latte Leftie rejoices at how frequently he’s been proven to be on the right side of history
Dear LL – As a Millennial, my memories of your 2005 debut are vague. Can you explain how far society has progressed thanks to the efforts of Inner West thought leaders such as yourself? Google informs me that in 2005: an idiot was occupying the White House; the West was bogged down in Middle Eastern conflicts; the world’s political leaders weren’t taking climate change seriously despite record temperatures; the ALP was in thrall to neo-liberal economics; housing was unaffordable and Australia had a reactionary Coalition government dedicated to slashing welfare and penalty rates, smashing building unions and handing juicy tax cuts to the big end of town!
Dave, Enmore
LL replies: Yes, I sometimes wonder if you young’uns realise just how many privileges you enjoy thanks to my peers and I manning the barricades – or at the very least sounding off at dinner parties and relentlessly grilling the token conservative on the Q&A panel about their backwards worldview. For instance, back in ’05 men were men and women were women – there was no choosing among 71,000 finely graded gender options. Embarrassed as I am to admit it, back those days progressives argued that marriage was a repressive, rape-legalising, patriarchal institution that should be hurled on the ash heap of history rather than a fundamental civil right, the denial of which was driving homosexuals to suicidal despair. And, unimaginable as it seems today, many of those living in the aspirational outer suburbs didn’t see Islam as the feminist religion of peace™ it’s now universally recognised to be. They also failed to react with unmitigated delight to the prospect of teeming hordes of refugees making their neighbourhoods less boringly Anglo. Sure, it took a decade’s worth of think pieces in the Sydney Morning Herald and Guardian but we can all give thanks the lower orders were belatedly forced to see how stupid and misguided their views were!
