Redneck, I hate to remind you again, but terrorists also hate multiculturalism.

The idea that muslims are in Australia enjoying our privliges and making friendships with infidels like you and me is, for them, abhorent. They're saying "Redneck, send them back to us!"

A true Redneck would be suspicious of government no matter what party was in power. Wasn't it the Liberals who took away everyone's guns? Now they want to gaol people without a fair trial and your family and friends can be also gaoled for speaking about it!

You're not a terrorist are you? Neither am I.

Let's make a personal declaration that we shall will not be silenced. As Henry Thoreau said, it is better to be a free man in gaol than be a slave to an unjust law (or something like that.)

The IR and Anti Terrorist legislation about to go through parliament places Australia at a huge risk in relation to the kind of nation Australia becomes. Remember the legislation passed now, unless revoked, can be the underpinning of a Fascist leader in the future. Perhaps in 3 years, in 6 years or whatever; some are arguing that we are already there. It being Mr. Howard's use of wedge politics, use of scare tactics, and secrecy; that have people now genuinely believing that we have already stepped over the line.

Something that worries me is that University students are notable by their absense in political debate. In the past they have represented the moral conscience of our Nation.

Ant “Remember the legislation passed now, unless revoked, can be the underpinning of a Fascist leader in the future. “

And this legislation is being passed with a sunset clause. It is being tested through process. The nearest we got to a any “dictatorship” was 1975 when Whitlam instigated his “government of two” and the governor general ultimately held the instrument to ensure that "autocracy" ended where it should – back with the electorate.

“It being Mr. Howard's use of wedge politics, use of scare tactics, and secrecy; that have people now genuinely believing that we have already stepped over the line. “

only that minority of wallies who still think the Latham and the labor party has a divine right to govern feel that way.

”Something that worries me is that University students are notable by their absense in political debate. In the past they have represented the moral conscience of our Nation.”

I would only rely on university students to play up and protest, such has been the level of their political ineptitude of throughout time. Ultimately the worst excesses of political extremism fester in the wannabe mindsets of uni students, full of passion and no skills (acquiring passion is instant – like making coffee, acquiring skill in democratic methods of representation takes a lot longer.

David Latimer, did Thoreau have anything to say about avoiding being a terrorist bomb victim?

As for “true Redneck” maybe redneck uses such a logon to make a small jest in the nature of sardonic humour. Such things have been known to happen before and might be seen to actually flank, although not abut your last post (or do I have to translate for you).

Part One

In a dream a post-grad political student meets his favourite political writer, George Orwell, finding that this ghost of the great thinker already can read the student’s mind, telling him that he is not surprised that the world is heading for trouble again, as economic and political greed has again appeared on the agenda, even despite the end of colonialism and the finish of Soviet Communism.

The student had already learnt that colonialism and economic imperialism had simply appeared in a new form, less honest, and more sinister, some of the former prominent freedom fighters themselves becoming colonisers, aping their former European masters and grabbing most of the productive loot like the colonial overseers had done to send home to the Mother Country.

Land of Hope of Glory and Mother of the Free, the old swansong of British colonialism and the earlier free-market, has been now replaced by the Stars and Stripes Forever, carrying on Cecil Rhodes nightly prayer, that America would carry on the global role that Rhodes surely believed a Wise Almighty had predicted for the English-speaking Anglophiles, with the United States of America now top of the list, Britain and Australia, proudly by her side.

The student has learnt that social revolutions are now not seen as necessary for the defeat of fascism. Neither do people believe in the possibility of promoting individual liberty and self government by means of even a social democrat government. In fact, socialism has ceased to be a part of public debate, even Labor leaders more interested in satisfying powerful pressure groups backed by big corporates, including the mass media.

Part Two

The worried student in his dream asks the shadow of Orwell for an answer - realising it was already in his mind, but he would not have had the courage to announce it to a world so sure of itself because the neo-liberal free market was keeping even battling consumers happy, with the allowance of cheap imports from countries like China with low-cost labour, as well as dumped frozen or tinned fruit and veges from numberless other countries.

What was already in the student’s mind was that low priced imported goods meant a call from government for a change in arbitration laws to enable employers to lower worker’s wages in order to compete. The student realised then how much that globalisation as part of the capitalistic free-market, was failing - the insightly student under Orwellian influence, knowing that a major crisis in global capitalism must surely cause a return to some sort of socialism, be it right or left.

The student discerned that the likely change initially would be fascistic, with a democratic government banning all opposition for the good of the country, similar to earlier post-war Singapore with big corporates still calling the tune as in Nazi Germany.

The student feels that the best answer from an angry left out left-wing, rather than taking up arms, was at first to challenge for a new globalisation, not based on corporate power and an ersatz free market but on the ethical precepts of a genuine global democracy based on a fair go for all, not survival of the richest as the fittest

To all you bleating lefties & anyone else who goes on about freedoms
I agree with Col Rouge & Redneck. We can only protect our freedoms by destroying them first. Rouge has asked where the death camps are? you have the process back the front comeraden. First the political prisoners then the concentration camps. Then finally when we have established a police state [of the right of course, the left would only infringe on our liberties] we will be truely free.
Best wishes on your enlightened political experiment.
Adolph Hitler.