Letters: Hippies

The hippies were naive, but they did change the world

Sir: Contrary to what Andrew Gumbel says ("The summer of self-love", 2 June), the hippies did change the world.

In the area of the sexual revolution, it is now acceptable to have sex before marriage and for both men and women. Homosexuality is much better tolerated and the age of consent has been equalised.

On racism, it is now inconceivable, for example, that an election leaflet could have the slogan "If you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Labour" as was the case in Birmingham in 1967.

Hippie flower power was partly responsible for the importation of numerous eastern religious groups into the west; multiple Buddhist groups flourish here now and yoga is practically mainstream.

Hippies challenged, for the first time in western popular culture, the hegemony of humans over the rest of nature. This period saw the burgeoning of groups like Greenpeace, Animal Aid, Hunt Sabotage, and Friends of the Earth; vegetarianism was boosted and some people went "back to the land" to become organic horticulturists.

Numerous land and residential communities were established as well as worker co-operatives. Some of these survive and continue to inspire new attempts at co-operative living and working. Hippies introduced us to whole foods; most towns still have an independent whole food shop run as a worker co-op. The whole food movement is even now gathering strength.

The hippies may not have stopped the Vietnam war - but the US can still not risk intervention on anything like the scale it then did. The anti-war movement has continued with movements such as CND and

Swords into Ploughshares. In so many ways our world has benefited from the beautiful naivety of the hippie era.

PATRICK BROWNE

DERBY

Putin loses sight of human rights

Sir: Russia's own human rights record is hardly excused when President Putin attacks (however justifiably) the US over Guantánamo Bay or even (implicitly) the UK for its illiberal counter-terrorism measures (leading article, 5 June).

Ten years' of atrocities in Chechnya, growing racism in Russia's big cities, the widespread torture of suspects in police detention, the muzzling of journalists already fearful after high-profile colleagues were murdered - all these point to a country losing sight of basic human rights values.

While Russia's economy has undoubtedly prospered, Mr Putin has also presided over a slide toward authoritarianism which needs addressing, not side-stepping.

TIM HANCOCK

CAMPAIGNS DIRECTOR AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL UK LONDON EC2

Sir: Why are the Americans so determined to reinstate the Cold War? Does even Bush seriously believe that we will not all fall about laughing at the idea that the US could be attacked by North Korea?

The rogue state that is the US has such a record of interfering with sovereign states (look only at South America) that one can hardly blame Putin for taking measures to defend his own land.

K R BRISBOURNE

DORKING, SURREY

Sir: If we are starting a new Cold War, then would it be all right for Russia to arm the Afghan resistance with sophisticated ground-to-air shoulder-launched missiles? Perhaps on each one they could write "See how you like it."

KEVAN HANSON

READING

Sir: Now that the Cold War is back shall we stop picking on Muslims?

BARRY TIGHE

LONDON E11

Counter-attack by the anti-war brigade

Sir: Ian Maude makes large charges against "the anti-war brigade" (letter, 5 June). He belongs rather to the Greyfriars Bobby Tendency, loyal to Tony Blair long after the death of his reputation. He is solicitous of Prime Minister and President having to make decisions instead of watching television. Such dedication! Such consequences!

He says that the Netherlands, Italy and other fringe participants in the Iraq invasion are accused of lying. They are not. Their leaders believed what they were told. Blair did the telling. The dodgy dossier was a British confection, commissioned by Mr Blair and, with the glint of an astute tear, sold by Mr Blair. He is a liar. Those who believed him are not.

As to getting rid of Saddam, does Mr Maude not know that the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88, fought by Saddam at the cost of about 800,000 lives, was, at the lowest estimate, welcome to US leaders, notably Rumsfeld and Kissinger, and given financial support by them? When mustard gas was used against Kurds in that war, no protest was made by either the US or British government.

Greyfriars Bobby was a charming creature but some of us prefer not to be loyal dogs.

EDWARD PEARCE

THORMANBY, NORTH YORKSHIRE

Sir: As one of the anti-Blair, anti-war brigade I do realise that the world has been rid of a despot responsible for many deaths, but the Iraq war as not sold to us on that basis. Indeed we were assured that that was not one of the aims of the war.

Where I take issue with Mr Maude is in his assertion that the lack of WMD came as a surprise to Mr Blair and his fellow leaders. They were urged to give the UN inspection team more time to find them. Had they done so, the fact that Saddam Hussein did not possess any WMD or any means of threatening us within 45 minutes would have been established and the illegal invasion would have been shown to be unnecessary.

ALAN DAVIES

KINGSWINFORD, WEST MIDLANDS

Sir: So the 93-year-old Norwegian Fredrik Jensen has been confronted with his Nazi past (report, 5 June). No doubt his defence is that "hand on heart, he did what he thought was right" at the time. He might add that at least he placed himself rather than others on the front line.

PETER PHELPS

HINDRINGHAM, NORFOLK

Sir: One had only to listen to the masterly resignation speech by Robin Cook on the eve of the Iraq shambles to know that Tony Blair was lying. The intelligence wasn't flawed, it was altered. If only Robin Cook was still with us - the only true statesman in the Labour Party.

EDDIE JOHNSON

LONG MELFORD, SUFFOLK

Capitalism is not beyond reproach

Sir: Dominic Lawson protests too much about anti-capitalist protest ("These foolish howls of indignation", 5 June). Capitalism fills our shops with all manner of things but it is not utopia. For every happy east German who can buy more ice cream at the corner shop, a parent in Africa will bury a child who has died of Aids - because of the monopoly power of pharmaceutical companies who refuse to allow affordable copies of life-saving drugs.

Capitalism can only exist by selling us more and more things at ever accelerating rates. Corporations that drive capitalism have a legal requirement to maximise short-term profit. Thus, while it is wrong to talk of wicked capitalists and design caricatures of evil cigar-smoking bosses, the very DNA of modern capitalism leads to a number of severe problems.

The drive to cut costs leads to outsourcing where companies with monopoly power can drive down wages to a few cents equivalent an hour. The infinite economic growth required by capitalism, where we produce, consume and waste at accelerating rates is ecologically impossible on our finite planet.

As for practical alternatives, co-operative control of factories is big in Argentina and much of Latin America and open-source production of software is growing globally. Dominic Lawson is wrong to say that critics of capitalism are unthinking or that the only substitute for corporate capitalism is dysfunctional Stalinism.

There needs to be a debate between those who believe that capitalism can be adapted to reflect ecological and social realities and those who seek alternatives. Claiming that unrestrained corporate driven capitalism has created a perfect world, as Dominic Lawson suggests, and that only fools are worried about issues such as poverty and ecological destruction, helps no one.

DR DEREK WALL

GREEN PARTY, LONDON N19

Can ancient history conquer the East?

Sir: I have much sympathy with Dr Bax's call (letter, 31 May) to add the history of ancient Egypt and of the pre-Classical Near East to the (now rescued) Ancient History A-level, but practicalities stand in the way.

At university level, we at Liverpool, like some other institutions, moved in that direction long since, by grouping in one school all those who teach and research in antiquity and archaeology, and by allowing students of ancient history or of archaeology to cross outmoded cultural boundaries by picking and mixing (within stated limits) modules alike from classical studies, Egyptology, and ancient Near East studies.

But there are severe problems about taking such cultural cross-fertilisation across into A-levels. One is the gigantic time-range of 3,000 years, carrying the serious risk of superficiality. A second is the challenge of providing access to difficult primary sources in translation, and of training a cadre of competent and confident teachers.

Time and goodwill would resolve such problems: it is not yet clear that OCR has that goodwill.

JOHN K DAVIES

RATHBONE PROFESSOR OF ANCIENT HISTORY, UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL 1977-2003

Modest fee for a classic logo

Sir: Apropos the controversy relating to the logo for the 2012 Olympic Games and the fee to the designers of £400,000, I have a copy of a hand-written account charged by the late Abram Games for the iconic Festival of Britain symbol in 1951. This totalled 150 guineas, without any royalties for its use or any other remuneration for the times it appeared on the vast amount of material and souvenirs produced for the event. How times and values have changed.

ROBIN OLLINGTON

LONDON SW3

Sir: In all the kerfuffle about the 2012 Olympics logo, people seem to have missed the fact that it already contains an admission of its own uselessness.

Look at it again and what you see is a picture of a man sitting at his computer, bashing his head against the monitor in either frustration or anger. Does he represent all the hundreds of people who have designed much better logos, or is he the designer of the official emblem who thinks he wasn't paid enough?

ALAN STURGESS

GARGRAVE, NORTH YORKSHIRE

TV and civil unrest in Venezuela

Sir: Your leading article "A show of intolerance" (30 May), failed to mention that the reason for the non-renewal of the licence of RCTV in Venezuela directly relates to the channel's non-compliance with the law.

Public airwaves' licensees should not, indeed, incite political violence and civil unrest. That was precisely what RCTV did when conspiring to bring down the constitutional government, on the occasion of the coup of April 2002, and the active promotion of the oil sabotage of December 2002, which cost the country more than $10bn in losses.

John Pilger's new film The War on Democracy (Lionsgate), which will be released in UK cinemas on Friday 15 June, clearly shows the above. Readers of The Independent should see that film and judge for themselves.

ALFREDO TORO HARDY

VENEZUELAN AMBASSADOR, LONDON SW7

Voter dysfunction

Sir: "We need to change the dysfunctional relationship between politicians and constituents," says Oona King, the "recovering politician" (Five Minute Interview, 5 June). The dysfunctional character of her own relationship with her constituents was made painfully clear at the last election.

JOHN SPENCER

LONDON SW18

British day

Sir: I feel that we should support the idea of a day that allows us to celebrate those things that are key to our "Britishness". For example, freedom of speech could be celebrated appropriately by having a day set aside when we could assemble outside Parliament without police permission. It could also serve to remind us of the time when the government and police were servants and not masters.

MICHAEL JOBY

HENGOED, SHROPSHIRE

Ghost ships

Sir: John Crooks (letter, 5 June) points out the incorrect use of "sexton" by Will Self but appears to have missed the bigger howler. The whole article (2 June) revolves around a Ralph Steadman sketch of the Cutty Sark. The Steadman sketch illustrating the piece is of HMS Victory.

JOHN RAINER

MICKFIELD, SUFFOLK

Charitable foundation

Sir: Further to Mark Steel's comments about the charity status of private schools, and Dulwich College in particular (6 June), it is interesting to note that it was originally founded by Edward Alleyn in 1619 for the education of 12 poor scholars, clearly a charitable act. Compare and contrast today when the school has nearly 1,500 pupils, all of whom are fee-paying bar a handful of scholarships; how can the school possibly argue it is still a charity while keeping a straight face?

MARK BLACKMAN

LONDON SE14

Take no notice

Sir: Can I offer a tautological example to the pantheon of misleading and ridiculous signage? In Southport at the weekend I noticed a sign advertising a "drive-in car park". I could only presume that some of the locals prefer to carry their jalopies in.

LEE SAWBRIDGE

BURY, GREATER MANCHESTER