Bastard of OLO?

So does the following constitute an excuse for young Australians to join IS?

"A leadership that deliberately traumatises asylum seekers from the Middle East and Asia as part of a policy of deterrence can hardly be surprised when young men, with the least stake in racist Australia, head overseas to fight for crusading Islam."

Should "Urging violence and advocating terrorism offences" ever apply to non-Muslims or journalists? https://www.ag.gov.au/NationalSecurity/Counterterrorismlaw/Pages/UrgingViolenceAndAdvocatingTerrorismOffences.aspx

Is this present article just an extension of a We Australian's are to Blame for Islamic Terrorism line? This notes December 19, 2014's "Monis and our duty of care" = Monis (the Bastard of Martin Place) was a victim of Australian society line http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=16957

Or is the author just being provocative to make an otherwise dull OLO offering interesting?

Haigh's article is nothing more than a lefty rant against everything wrong with this country without a one iota of positive suggestion how to improve things (he even bags Shorten). His conclusion is it will get worse before it gets better.

The funny thing is, his worries are mostly out of step with the general public's thinking. Only those who already believe this sort of non-productive rambling will think this article has something meaningful to offer.

You may postulate that he is out of step with the general public`s thinking but he is probably well in step with the general thinking public.
We just hope that the latter is greater than the former.

Bruce could scarecely be described accurately as "left wing" simply because he lists a number of national shortcomings.
I disagree that things will become much worse before they get better, because articles, such as Bruce's, may probably alert the thinkers among us to the problems we are facing, in time to do something abut fixing them.

We risk being swamped in orthodoxy and conformity of thought unless those with first hand experience of national administration speak out about the shortcomings which they have observed. Lest we forget!

"The decline of the lucky country"

Maybe not so much - as Donald Horne pointed out when he coined that term, it was meant as a negative.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lucky_Country

"The Lucky Country is a 1964 book by Donald Horne. The title has become a nickname for Australia and is generally used favourably, although the origin of the phrase was negative...."

Horne's intent in writing the book was to document Australia's climb to power and wealth, basing it almost entirely on luck rather than the strength of its political or economic system, which Horne believed was "second rate".

Australia is a lucky country run mainly by second rate people who share its luck. It lives on other people's ideas, and, although its ordinary people are adaptable, most of its leaders (in all fields) so lack curiosity about the events that surround them that they are often taken by surprise.

Horne's statement was an indictment of 1960s Australia. His intent was to comment that, while other industrialized nations created wealth using "clever" means such as technology and other innovations, Australia did not. Rather, Australia's economic prosperity was largely derived from its rich natural resources. Horne observed that Australia "showed less enterprise than almost any other prosperous industrial society."

"When I invented the phrase in 1964 to describe Australia, I said: 'Australia is a lucky country run by second rate people who share its luck.' I didn't mean that it had a lot of material resources … I had in mind the idea of Australia as a [British] derived society whose prosperity in the great age of manufacturing came from the luck of its historical origins … In the lucky style we have never 'earned' our democracy. We simply went along with some British habits.

In the decades following his book's publication, Horne became critical of the "lucky country" phrase being used as a term of endearment for Australia. He commented, "I have had to sit through the most appalling rubbish as successive generations misapplied this phrase."

I wondered how long it would take before Tony Abbott was blamed for the barbaric, satanic beheadings we are seeing daily on our TV screens, in one case of a Muslim somehow rounded up who was so inspired by the fortitude of the 20 Christians beheaded with him that he apostasised and joined in their martyrdom..WITHOUT the expectation of 17(is it?) virgins awaiting him.....but this surely is record breaking time?

What a lot of nonsense...but then the freedom to publish nonsense, however boorish (a small price to pay for our Australian freedoms)is one we cherish..one Mr. Haigh would not have in countries to which even he, I wager, would not travel today (unless in an armoured vehicle?) let alone live. Countries from which people risk their lives to escape. Another situation 'down' to Tony Abbott..as are the rows of African Refugee Camps in which 1,000's sit patiently awaiting their turn to escape their grinding poverty and persecution. All Tony Abbott's fault... while we sit and pontificate...rather than search for and promote solutions...