Dear sonofgloin,

It's Karl Marx not Carl Marx. In Zabriskie Point it was Carl Marx but in real life it was Karl Marx.

There are some errors people will let pass. But definitely not that of thinking that Marx's christian name is Carl. That tells everyone who is trained in sociology, history and anthropology that you don't know who he was and that your knowledge of his works and theories was picked up from listening to conversations by people who probably know even less about Marx than you do.

I guess you probably also think that Karl Marx had three brothers called Groucho, Chico and Zeppo.

Dear o sung wu,

Australians have been involved in many wars. Some of the speeches made on ANZAC Day seem to me to be encouraging Australians to have the same spirit as the ANZACs and to be as ready to go to war if called upon. I would rather the remembrance of Australia’s wars be a day of reflection and questioning.

Some questions:

How many of those wars could have been avoided?

What could have been done to avoid those wars?

What did each war gain?

What did each war cost?

What is Australia doing to prevent future wars?

We know some things that can be done:

The prime minister of Australia can put the country into war by his or her decision alone. This is not right. Unless the country is attacked Australian troops should only be put in action with a parliamentary debate and possibly a referendum.

We can promote critical thinking in our schools and train people to recognise propaganda that pushes people into war.

We know that wars can come because too many people are fighting over too few resources. We can support a more equitable sharing of the world’s resources and promote efforts to control population growth.

We can support international organisations set up to settle conflicts without resort to arms.

We can make Australian arms sales public and no longer commercial-in-confidence. As military advisor to Senator Woodley I have written legislation to that effect. Since Woodley was an Australian Democrat the legislation was not passed, but it was read in parliament.

https://www.caat.org.uk/issues/arms-fairs tells about the arms fairs.

“Arms Fairs ... promote weapons sales by giving arms dealers the chance to meet and greet military delegations, government officials, other arms companies and a host of individual visitors.

Unsurprisingly, the guest lists for arms fairs frequently include regimes who abuse human rights, and countries actively involved in armed conflicts.”

We can oppose the arms fairs.

My father was a soldier in WW1. I was a soldier in WW2. Neither of my sons have been soldiers. I hope none of my descendants will fight in any war.

Dear david f,

The ways things are going in the Middle East you may not have to wait too much longer for a WW3.

Dear David,

Years ago I read what must be, along with accounts of the holocaust and life in the Soviet Union under Stalin, one of the most depressing books - "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins. That book attempts to describe how we, even when we seem to act morally, are nothing but helpless puppets at the hands of our tyrannical genes which only care for themselves.

However, Darwin said nothing, good or bad, about our origins - he only researched and wrote about the origins of our bodies. Similarly, self-knowledge cannot be gained by science, only the knowledge of our bodies. If we are to agree that we have no influence over our bodies which are controlled exclusively by our genes and the blind forces of physics, then what the hell are we doing in these bodies? why do we continue to identify ourselves with those bodies and fail to forsake them? If that's indeed the case and we have no say, yet remain identified, then we have no right to hide behind our genes but are guilty and are to blame for all the evils launched by them.

I deliberately avoided mentioning religion, knowing well of your tendency to accept all sorts of poor behaviours by impostors who claim to be religious as if that was religion itself, subsequently attacking that straw man. You seem to have done so again despite me doing my best to avoid that track.

Runner does not want to celebrate the life of Charles Darwin on Feb 12th but will go along with celebrating the life on St Valentine on Feb 14th. You all recall the life of that wonderful 3rd century Roman, and the monumental contribution he made to the world, makes Darwin's contribution pale into insignificance. That is assuming Valentine actually existed at all.

If you want to celebrate the lives and times of mostly mythical nobody's just get a copy of the Catholic Church's 'General Roman Calendar' People like Runner would much prefer to celebrate the lives of such luminaries as St Blindif and St Yeshak and don't forget that man of men the great one himself St Mungo, you do remember St Mungo? Don't you,

Runner will be along soon with an updated list, there certainly is no shortage.

Hi (again) DAVID F...

I couldn't agree with you more when you say '...I would rather the remembrance of Australia's wars be a day of reflection and questioning...'? I also recognise that you too were a soldier in WW2, so you thoroughly understand the futility of fighting wars. And I'm a veteran as well.

Both of us agree wars are failures, when nations can no longer communicate their grievances, therefore they resort to armed conflict to solve that, which seemingly cannot be solved by discussion and mutual detente. Nevertheless ANZAC day is just such a day for all Australians to come together and, to reflect and question the overall failure and uselessness in fighting a war - there are absolutely no winners in any armed conflict. Just insurmountable material destruction, and indeterminable numbers of dead, and broken men and women.