Quite right. He should have named names: the AEU, cultural studies departments, the Australian film industry (not games). Reads like an inside hatchet job.

The cultural left ain't dead yet. If Baz Lurhman's film 'Australia' croaks - which I hope it doesn't - then pull the shades on the old CL.

If anyone needs or wants a daily dose of unrelenting toxic sour grapes whining and whinging, and thereby wishes to become thoroughly depressed and disheartened about everything altogether, then just check out some of the multitude of right wing (whinge) blogs that infest the net.

You should read their collective whingings about the election of the shock-horror "marxist-socialist" 44th President of the USA.

Try Ann Coulter to start with and follow the multiple links and you will be overwhelmed by the irrational psycho-pathology that these wing-nuts revel in.

Not a shred or trace of even the possibility of any intelligent cultural, religious or historical analysis or perspective.

Ho Hum, it's your turn now to listen to the whining and whinging of folks who feel the world is run by idiots - we've been listening to you and your mates for years - get used to it, what goes around comes around.

You'll get your turn soon enough to return to whining and whinging about who's in charge. I wonder how long it will be before you are unhappy with the present lot, I suspect long before the world turns back to a more sensible running mode.

It's the human condition is it not to complain about everything, the only problem is trying to focus.

There seems to be a rule book somewhere, called something like: ‘The Right-Wing guide to writing articles about the Left.’

Basically, there are two standard rules:

1. Use a lot of ‘war’ vocabulary. Everything is a war between Right and Left and thus every social issue has a ‘victorious’ side and a ‘defeated’ side – no prizes for guessing which side is which. Culture must never be seen as a collection of images and stories reflecting the inner soul of a society. Oh, no. It’s Operation Desert Storm of the public mind, and the Left is Al Qaeda hiding out in a cave somewhere.

2. Use lots of ‘irrelevance’ vocabulary. It’s important to keep conveying that the Left has lost its relevance … every day now, and for several decades. Paradoxically, this is why the Right has to keep writing about them. Eternal vigilance is paramount. If there is any weakness in the Right’s relevancy defence (like a single day in which the Right doesn’t publish an article about the irrelevance of the Left) the Left will break through and steal all the Right’s relevance.

Fighting a culture war is a tough business. But someone's gotta do it.

Boy the "cultural wars" are getting so tiresome; if the people the right wingers continually complained about existed, were a group, were actually interested in their ravings and responded I suppose it would be a bit more interesting.

Well said SJF. Since the barometer has run hot to the Right of politics over the last 20 years the influence of the Cultural Left in the film, art and academic sector, should be of no concern to people like King.