Kerry Wright, Bangalow
Jeff Poole, (Letters 16 October) thanks for your enthusiasm in your apparent backing of nude beaches, presumably including the community defended space at Tyagarah which you drive down from Qld for.
I think you must have watched ‘Wide Wide Country’ on Netflix, made by two keen young men who were not there (or alive at the time?) to be so wide off that mark. Your letter contained lots of ‘alleges’ and ‘exposure’… but are you actually friends with any of the lawyers, doctors, nurses, baristas, dentists, artists, electricians, real estate agents, mechanics, counsellors, kinesiologists, yoga teachers, herbalists, teachers, meditators, carers, writers, businesspeople, film-makers, singers, citizens and neighbours etc around here who were part of that massive brave experiment?
Stick with the tabloid versions if you must, but do not think for a moment that you are informed enough to plant your final seeds of ‘religious’ conspiracy inappropriately. While there are many many books written by people who were there, in India and the US, and probably more first-hand accounts to come, it is just too hard for those on the outside to appreciate the extraordinary depths of that never to be repeated experience – much less evaluate it. And good luck trying to work out which religious groups were/are the most deluded and corrupt!
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
