Pericles alluded to it:

I dont really know what Mal expects: at the end of the day after being fed steady diet of limited journalism and freeze dried news the preponderance of witty sloganism is a predictable side effect.

And as Mal reported when he pointed out the limitations to the slogan all he got was a "so what?" - well......so what. The world is not populated with political scientists - most people are to busy getting on with it to care; or when they do they only have time to respond in the way Mal describes on the cafe wall.

If nothing else in your face assertions - whether right or wrong - at least give food for thought; In fact it gave rise to Mals article and a number of responses in these pages and he ought to give thanks for that.

When presented with a one dimensional image uncomplicated, cropped and edited for easy consumption it is no surpise pop culture develops stereotypes that might be considered uninformed and limited.

In many ways GW set himself up for criticism with his the stereotypes of his own making - his with us or agianst rhetoric when it came to Iraq and the broad Wild Wild Wet approach he took to international policing.

However it is somewhat arrogant to tag these views as masquerading as political thought. In the context of a large community it is a valid as any other type of comment.

There is no doubt our society is in serious decline and most would agree with David ,Redneck and myself that the terrorism is happening on a daily basis in our suburbs.No matter how they massage the statistics,crime in NSW is increasing.Crime is part of our terrorism problem.It is all part of the agenda to divide and destroy the present status quo.

If this is not the case ,why do certain groups live in denial and not admit or condemn this suruptitious undermining of our society?

Why?Because privately they condone it.

"Crime is part of our terrorism problem"

Er. Right.

So all societies, everywhere, at every time, clearly had a terrorist problem?

While having your purse stolen is clearly an unacceptable crime, not to mention highly annoying and frustrating, I think it a gross misrepresentation to say that such occurences should be grouped with flying planes into buildings or activating car bombs.

Anyway, I think this article gets it wrong that all young/innercity/lefty/educated people are anti-US. I would suggest that most people in this demographic (who are apparently always trying to take over the world, if you listen to these forums) are quite capable of distinguishing between disapproving of US Government actions and the personal qualities of President Bush, and disapproving of the average American person.

That said, people do stereotype. So long as you recognise that it is in fact a stereotype and that not everyone fits that image, then its not a problem.

Again I despair: Bozic argues that knee jerk resposnes to stereotypes fails to contribute anything of value to the politcal debate.

Yet arjay et al see another conspiracy where apparently dissident thinkers are trying to undermine "our society". And yet again the notion of terorrists gets inserted into the thread.

Mal could have used an example of being affronted by a brash assumption in another business house that lambasted stereotypes of leftist thinkers - possibly equally uninformed and stereotypical - ie latte drinking, chardonnay swilling elites.

So what might that suggest? Just the same thing. Far too many people from all segments of the politcal spectrum hold prejudicial and preconceived ideas with their genesis being in a relatively homogenous humdrum media.

SO where is the conspiracy? and so what if there are seditious groups out there? that is the way things are - why are there so many so terrified that any statement with a political reference becomes a springboard for nonsense about our bloody way of life and the attendant threats - it is the paranoid resposnes to the allusion of a threat that poses the biggest danger.

I like our way of life - it is dynamic, evolving and challenging: Opponents to it offer me no threat as I am confident we can sustain ourselves in the face of these "threats" ( such as they are) but we can do it with out running around saying the sky is falling

"Crime is part of our terrorism problem"

I think that is, in fact, the wrong way around.

It should read
Terrorism is part of the crime problem.

Terrorism is, for those with criminal intent, nothing more than an excuse to pursue their individual agendas regardless or their responsibility to other people.

Don't accept that any terrorist has some ordained right to blow up someone else - or as those pigs in Indonesia did, behead schoolgirls. Accept that when he tries - he is attempting murderer and treat him as such - the sooner we bring back with the death penalty for such heinous crimes, the sooner we will resolve the problem - oh and for all the limpwristed "death penalty don't work" advocates - it will sure stop that one terrorist - and news these days means his "martyrdom" will soon be forgotten.

Baeder Meinhoff and the Red Brigades were bunches of bankrobbers, kidnappers and murderers who also suffered from political delusions - but before the delusions of revolution set in they were just common criminals.

For those who allude to conspiracy theories in my seeing terrorism and certain aspects of crime in our society being linked ,let's do a quick analysis.Tim Priest who Mike Carlton and many others branded as a racist ratbag has been proven right.The rise of Middle Eastern crime on NSW has had enormous negative impact on our society.The sheer aggression and violence of this criminal culture has seen it overpower the Chinese and Vietnamese drug barons in but a few years.

While the Middle Eastern culture is complex and varied,there are underlying religious attitudes that permeates all of their culture.
Males are superior and dominate over females and Muslims are superior to the infidels.They are allowed to lie and be two faced to the infidels since we are the enemy to be subjugated or destroyed.

If you don't believe it,just go to the south west of Sydney and experience the hate and bile.It is not the small 1% that many would have us believe.When 9/11 happened there were reports of many dancing in the streets in delight.I'm tired of hearing criminals of Middle Eastern appearence be described in our media.

The left are in denial since their weak attitudes have been the conduit for the disintergration of our society.They will defend the indefensible since their power base will be erroded if they acknowledge the truth.