SYLVIA -“You and Yours may not be a target now, but these things have a habit of expanding by the process of contagion”

This is very true, but to me it’s a choice of the lesser threat , (a choice between two evils so to speak..

Terrorism has as its ultimate goal, the overthrow of western society . I/ll take draconian laws under a western government over that any day.

At present road accidents etc. may kill more people but terrorism is ethnic cleansing in smaller numbers. Taken to its ultimate goal it could result in the killing of millions, namely people not of the same ethnic origin as the terrorists.

Road accidents don’t have an agenda to ethnic cleanse.

sharkfin,

But terrorists do not have the resources to overthrow Western Society, and they never will have. The worst they can to is make life a bit more dangerous than it already is.

The only way Western Society could be overthrown is from within, as a result of people in that society changing it in response to the terrorist threat.

I doubt that the agenda of the terrorists is really that clear cut anyway. I suspect most of it is just blind hatred, with the killing of westerners seen as an end in itself.

Sylvia.

Sharkfin,

What we once considered to be 'western society' is being 'overthrown' before our very eyes by our political rulers who are now imposing their agenda of 'free' market neo-liberalism on the whole of society. Basic rights such as the right to work (and not as a casualised traffic controller breathing in poisonous car fumes in the hot sun for many long hours each day, or a telemarketer), the right to affordable shelter, health services and eduction and to to have adequate time for leisure, rest, cultural activities and self-improvement, are being taken away from us by this Government. If Howard has his way, most of us will be living in conditions akin to third world poverty as a consquence of housing hyper-inflation, destroyed wage levels and working conditions and a ruined natural environment.

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Sylvia Else, I would have to disagree with you to a small degree. I don't doubt that there are elements within the Islamic community who would impose an Islamic theocracy on the rest of us if they could, just as Howard and his ilk are right now, by unconscionable and undemocratic means, imposing their market fundamentalist program on our society.

I simply don't think that giving Howard police state powers will succeed in stopping Islamic Fundamentalism the long run, anyway, assuming thqt that threat has any prospect of success. In the short term, those powers could just as easily be turned against unions and grass-roots political movements who would be in opposition to Howard as well as to the Islamic fundamentalist agenda.

Sylvia,

I actually came onto OLO in the first place to find people who disagreed with me. Its so much easier to just preach to the choir. You are really gutless.

Dagget

You are joking right. America is still a major part of the western world and yet they have very few of the protections you described. The west isn’t defined by its monetary and fiscal policies

Where are they legislating to take away the right to work? That’s just hyperbole. Are you suggesting that no one should have to work as a telemarketer? It would be nice if we could all be CEO’s and senior public servants but I don’t think that’s possible.

Health and Education are STATE issues, but I imagine you already knew that.

Housing prices aren’t set by the gov’t. They are high because a lot of people want to live in places where there aren’t many houses. They aren’t making any more land in central Sydney.

Free trade has the potential to bring the third world out of poverty. It gives them the ability to build a future that is not based upon aid handouts. For many years we have used trade restrictions to keep our wages high and as a result the third world has not been able to compete. As can be seen from the newly emerging middle classes in India and China, free trade can work. It also means that we have industries in this country that can now compete in a global economy without being propped up by the taxpayers.

I am not a fan of work choices legislation. I believe in unionism. John Howard was re-elected four times, I think it’s fair to say that the majority of the people agree with much of what he is trying to achieve. So it’s hardly undemocratic.

Howard will be gone at the next election, without doubt. The idea that the anti terror laws could be turned on “unions and grass-roots political movements” is ridiculous. If you actually go through the legislation you will see that they could not be applied to any group which is not suspected of a terrorist act. Any definition of terrorism that does not include the potential for lots of dead people will be laughed out of court.

Police states are very successful at putting down internal insurrections. We are SOO FAR from a police state that it makes me wonder if you even know what one would look like.

Islamic extremists measure success in the number of dead bodies they leave behind them. They won’t stop unless we make it clear to them that they won’t succeed. That we will fight them all the way. There is no negotiating with terrorists, it just encourages them.

Paul.L

(So much nonsense. I could fill a bookshelf with responses.)

Yes, there is obviously relatively 'low' unemployment at the moment, that is, until this economically unsustainable boom peters out and if we disregard the statistical fiddle such as regarding everyone who works longer than 1 hour per week as 'employed'. Nevertheless, most of the jobs on offer are low-skill, casualised with low rates of pay and little career prospect. The jobs on offer only a generation ago, which offered career advancement sometimes to people who had not even finished secondary eduction, are no longer there.

Howard and his neo-liberal ilk (including the previous 'Labor' governments of Keating and Hawke and, before them, Malcolm Fraser) have transformed a prospereous and relatively compassionate society into an economic basket case. They are only able to cover up this reality to some, such as yourself, who choose not to look too hard, because they have the good fortune of being able to sit upon an endowment of mineral wealth that rightly belongs to all future generations and not just to this one. Instead of looking after it they are recklessly digging it up and shiping it off to countries who are even more reckless and irresponsible with their environment than ourselves. As a consequence, nearly 1 million Chinese die each year breathing in their poisonous polluted atmosphere. I have written more about this here:

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6002#86770

... and on the same page, here:

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6002#87297

... and here:

http://candobetter.org/node/86

I suggest you read "Planet of Slums" (http://www.versobooks.com/books/cdef/d-titles/davis_m_planet_of_slums.shtml) if you truly believe the myth that globalising capitalism will raise poor third world people out of poverty. As of 2002 1billion people lived in shanty towns on the edge of major megopolises with absolutely no economic role to play in their societies. Many had formerly been farmers but had been driven off their land as a result of inappropriate environmentally-destructive and, ultimately, unsustainable mechanisation. It is because of the existence of so many desperately poor people in these countries that they are able to pay factory workers so little.