"...it is the politics of the mediocre, the envious and the small minded underachievers."
Sigh.
I don't think I was lecturing you Col Rouge but even if I was I hardly think it warrants this style of school-yard name-calling.
You make so many presumptions about my background it staggers me and I don't recall the IRA 'troubles' being part of the Cold War to which I refer.
Perhaps it would surprise you to discover that I too lived in London during that period but I am annoyed at myself for saying so - I am dignifying your vitriolic post when I should be ignoring it.

"Don’t bother to lecture me on communism/socialism, it is the politics of the mediocre, the envious and the small minded underachievers."

You sound like a freak. If you can say communism/socialism in the same sentence and cite examples where those ideologies were hijacked by corrupt, authoritarian dictatorships, then you should never be surprised if others use nazism/capitalism in the same sentence. Let me tell you something. Capitalism without socialism is pure, unadulterated exploitation. If you don't care if poor, disabled or just plain unlucky people die of starvation on the street and rot in ghettos in your country, go right ahead and declare your god to be capitalism and socialism to be satan, but you are an ignorant fool for doing so. If someone like Einstein was born to poverty in such a system, he would have a high chance of dying from disease or starvation, or become an indentured servant as a young child for the rest of his life. You should really make an effort to snap out of your hate for the left side of politics. It's given you protections you take for granted.

Rainer. You say: “My point is that like any fundamentalist groups they are prone to be attacked by all and sundry at any given time. Not just the right or the left, but by anyone who sees their posturing as nothing more than an urban political fashion statement.”

Rainer you’ve drawn false assumptions to take a poke at conservationists. Now that is fashionable.

My whole para: “Charles example of conservationists being both left and right is a great example -however, it has been the conservationists who have had to endure the attacks from the far right for their political incorrectness in the eyes of the right. This is despite the fact that a lot of conservationists main interest was in safeguarding the environment rather than politics.”

This is based on my experience when I was involved in environmental issues. I am no “true believer” with regard to politics. Yes our group were attacked from all quarters. Evil Marxists etc.. I even had to put up with physical attacks, threats, harassment and defamation because of my views on the environment. It nearly cost me my marriage. They got real dirty.

It was the right that lampooned people concerned about their environment and the environment generally; and to suggest a better way you had to live in a mud brick house and eat lentils or some such nonsense. Thus the right accused us of hypocrisy because we weren’t fundamentalists. We lived in a house and drove a car. Mind you this was twenty years ago in a rural town that was and is redneck to the core – you probably come from there. So our groups position was by no means “fashionable.”

No one can escape ideology hence I said a “lot” of conservationists’ “main” interest is the environment. Utopian naturalists, wilderness romantics, Hobbian zealots sort of fall into the ideology bracket but their concern with the environment is similar to Indigenous peoples – more cultural than political.

Rainer says that few of them (conservationists) connect to the environment. What can only the Indigenous peoples’ connect to the environment? What racist nonsense

Col Rouge makes the point that young people's values are 'untested' (i.e. not as good, strong or valued?) because of a lack of conflict. He seems in favour of increasing conflict or terrorist threats in order to 'smarten up' the youngsters! What, somehow we're spoilt by not living under the threat of violence? Then he launches into a bizarre, "I had it tougher then you" speech that would make Monty Python proud, further missing the point about the Cold War and Australia (um, not the UK). More revealing about Col than anything else ...

Yes, Col, incomes have risen but guess what, so have prices!
You're wrong - household debt has almost tripled as a percentage of family income since 1989, when interest rates were 17 per cent. At that time housing interest payments made up 6.1 per cent of household disposable income. Now they make up 9.1 per cent of household disposable income. Those figures are from the Reserve Bank by the way.

Finally - funkylamb was talking about your 'fantasy' of communist rule in Australia, not other countries (and not 27 years ago). This discussion, and the article, was about Australia. Today.

I think Col's a living example of why Charlie's over it ...

Col_Rouge you have bought your experiences and transplanted them holus bolus in another country on the other side of the planet. At the time the IRA was blowing up Hyde Park, Australia was extracting itself from its [voluntarily] involvement in the Vietnam War and the CIA was involved in removing the elected government of Australia. refer footnotes in Why Do People Hate America?: by Ziauddin Sardar,Merryl Wyn Davies. Davies is the BBC religious affairs reporter.

So in my experience the Liberal Party and its supporters has done more to curtail freedom of speech in this country than the left.

Australia differs from the UK because large infrastructure projects were initiated by government. The government established the CSIRO and CSL which I bet you're glad you have shares in now that Gardasil is coming to market. The government underwrote the establishment of the car industry here in 1947. It was a Labor government that introduced free health care and free university education.

I agree with Charlie that neither political party are addressing the pertinent issues for Australian voters, like health, education, aged care, sustainable environment, liveable cities, adequate food supply when transport costs increase, employment for australians in a globalised economy, making big business pay their fair share of taxes. Tax a corporation's turnover not its profit. And some businesses need government to establish a blueprint for the future so that they can make large scale capital investment to carry them thruogh the next 10 or 20 years.

Funkylamb, You asked me a direct question, I take no responsibility for you disliking my reply.

The point I was making is your suggestion “So what's the war on terror” alludes to an assumption that the contemporary “war on terror” is something new. My response was to enlighten you that it is not.

The Cold War was a war on terror, the terror of the KGB, Stasi and other official organizations of repressive politics.

As for the “IRA troubles” (oh what understatement) The IRA was and is a terrorist organization and also plays the role of a Mafia in Irish society with a significant involvement in drug distribution, bank robberies and other organized crime.

Steel “You sound like a freak” – well I hold the freakishly democratic view which allows you to disagree with me. The risk I face is the likes of you do not live up to similar standards and would attempt, through censorship and worse, to stop me expressing my “freakish” views.

It ain’t gonna happen so get used to it.

Errol “household debt has almost tripled as a percentage of family income since 1989”
So what. That merely means people who could have paid down their housing debt have extended it for reasons of their own choosing.

What they spent the money on was a private decision. The relationship between housing debt and affordability being influenced by the amount of car and credit card debit refinanced into “house debt” saving significantly on interest costs.

Ultimately, what has happened is the range of uses “real estate security” has been applied to has spread beyond the family home and now includes cars, plasma TVs and holidays etc.

The 30% affordability test remains constant and is what matters to new home buyers entering the market. With progressively increasing property valuations (at average 6% pa) after 10 years even an interest only mortgage (the lowest cost of servicing), which started out as 100% LVR would be, 56% of market value but the amount the property owner could borrow would still be constrained by the 30% affordability calculation.