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Although obviously disillusionment is widespread, there are many important reasons for progressives and popular sectors to support the Maduro government.

In recent weeks, a number of Venezuelan specialists on the left side of the political spectrum have published and posted pieces that place them in an anti-Chavista, ni-ni position that consists of a plague on both your houses with regard to Maduro and the Venezuelan opposition. I consider myself a critical Chavista.

RELATED: We Will Never Give Up: Venezuelas Maduro to Marco Rubio

Its not an easy position to be in, particularly because the last thing I would want to do is to act in any way that would favor the right (that is the Venezuelan opposition and its allies abroad). On the other hand, I have always opposed (even in my writing) the position of some people on the left who feel that U.S. leftists should not publicly express criticisms of socialist governments. Criticism (including public criticism) is necessary as it is part of the process of assimilating lessons. Nevertheless, at this point, I believe there is a conclusive need to support the government in spite of the numerous criticisms that I have (some more profound than others).

The recent articles that harshly attack the Maduro government have been published in Jacobin magazine by Gabriel Hetland and another by Mike Gonzalez as well as Hetlands piece posted by NACLA in which he uses the expression que se vayan todos. More recently NACLA posted an interview with Alejandro Velasco that was originally published by Nueva Sociedad.

I know a number of people both in Venezuela and U.S. academia who I used to see eye to eye on with regard to Chavez and I now find them expressing total rejection of and even animosity toward the government. The only thing that binds us now is our common support for the need to defend Venezuelan sovereignty, and sometimes not even that.

What are the arguments of the ni-ni position that I agree with and what are the ones I disagree with:

Agree:

1. Corruption is an extremely serious problem in Venezuela which the government has not done nearly enough to confront, though some timid measures have been taken (eg. over the last six months in the oil industry).

2. The government has violated certain democratic principles the decision to strip Henrique Capriles of the right to participate in elections on grounds of corruption; and the delay of the gubernatorial elections; but not the decision not to hold the recall in 2016 (since the opposition didnt have their act together on that one).

RELATED: Heres Your Guide to Understanding Protest Deaths in Venezuela

3. The negative role of the state apparatus and the Chavista elite Velasco begins his interview with these words. I agree that the state bureaucracy and Chavista elite have stifled internal Chavista democracy and in doing so have discouraged mobilization.

Nevertheless, I also recognize that this bloc (the Chavista bureaucrats) buttresses the Chavista hold on power as it has a mobilization and organizational capacity that would be lost should Maduro unleash a revolution within the revolution.

Hastily turning power over to the rank and file would have disastrous immediate consequences. Thus, for instance, Chavezs decision to implement the Plan Guayana Socialista with the worker presidents of state companies was a failure, because the labor movement in those companies, almost 100 percent Chavista, went at each other's throats.

4. The Chavista movement has lost a large number of its active supporters. In addition to the factors named by the ni-nis (corruption, government bungling, etc.) there is the factor of "desgaste" (wearing down process over time) which is inevitable and doesnt in itself reflect negatively on the Chavista leadership. Eighteen years is a long time.

Disagree:

1. My most important disagreement at this moment is the statement that the Maduro government is authoritarian or heading in an authoritarian direction. The ni-nis who make this statement never acknowledge the importance of context. They recognize, though in some cases they play down (not so in the case of Hetlands Jacobin piece), the violent activity unleashed by the opposition, but dont relate the states actions to the challenges it is facing.

Just to provide one example. A totally anti-government hostile media encourages the audacity and extremism of the opposition for two reasons. First, the police and National Guard are held back from responding firmly and thus they lose their dissuasive capacity.

And second, the protesters themselves feel empowered. Both factors have a dialectical relationship. In the U.S. or any other country, the corporate media (and some of the alternative media) would be completely sympathetic to the actions of security forces, even their excesses, in a situation of urban paralysis and urban violence over such an extended period of time (its been three and a half months).

Furthermore, to use the term authoritarian when the local media is so supportive of the opposition, is simply fallacious. It is true that the national TV channels (specifically Televen, Venevision, and Globovsion) are less hostile to the government than in 2002-2003 but they (perhaps with the exception of Venevision) are still more pro than anti-opposition. But almost all of the important written media both nationally and locally are vocally anti-government. And in the case of the international media, the bias has no limits.

2. Velasco says the government is not sincere about dialogue there is no evidence one way of the other on this one.

3. The Chavista rank and file has little reason to actively support the Maduro government and for that reason 2 million of them abstained in December 2015.

Although obviously disillusionment is widespread, there are many important reasons for progressives and popular sectors to support the Maduro government: nationalistic foreign policy, rejection of neoliberal type agreements with international financial institutions, social programs that involve community participation; zero-sum-game policies that favor the popular sectors (example: the Bus Rapid Transit, BRT, that in Barcelona-Puerto La Cruz reserves one of two lanes on the main drag connecting the two cities to accordion-type buses at the expense of automobile traffic); and finally Maduro (in spite of all of his shortcomings as an administrator and failure to take necessary bold decisions) has proven to be a fighter and to convince his base that hes not going to go down without a struggle to the end.

RELATED: Abby Martin Busts Open Myths on Venezuela's Food Crisis: 'Shelves Fully Stocked'

He has also attempted to mobilize his base; the failure to attempt to do so by Lula and Dilma Rousseff is a major reason why the impeachment against the latter went through.

4. Venezuelas economic difficulties are not about low oil prices but about government ineptness. There are three causes of the economic crisis and they all have approximately the same weight: low oil prices, the economic war (with Julio Borgess public campaign against multinational investments in Venezuela the existence of an economic war is clearer to see than in the past), and erroneous government policies. With regard to the latter (and here I probably diverge somewhat from Mark Weisbrot), I believe that decisions on economic policies were necessary and urgent, but that there were no easy and obvious choices and anyone that was made would have come with a price both politically and economically.

5. Government intransigence is due to the fact that the Chavista leaders dont want to lose their privileges. This statement is misleading, even while there is undoubtedly an element of truth in it. But the statement assumes that Chavista leaders are all cynics and without any sense of idealism. Where is the scientific evidence to support this statement?

6. Luisa Ortega Diaz represents a neutral position which the Maduro government is unwilling to tolerate. In fact, regardless of her motives, she has assumed an explicitly pro-opposition position. In such a critical situation in which the opposition openly proposes anarchy as a means to unseat Maduro, it makes sense that the Chavistas are attempting to remove her from office.

Steve Ellner has taught economic history at the Universidad de Oriente in Venezuela since 1977 and also teaches in the Sucre Mission. He is the editor of "Latin Americas Radical Left: Challenges and Complexities of Political Power in the Twenty-First Century" (Rowman and Littlefield, 2014).

Excerpt from:
The Venezuelan Dilemma: Progressives and the 'Plague on Both Your Houses' Position - teleSUR English

As progressive populists have been flexing more muscle within the Democratic Party, some Democratic CEOs have decided to fight back. Unfortunately for the CEOs, their checkbooks havent bought them the ability to land a punch.

Last week, Silicon Valley billionaires Mark Pincus and Reid Hoffman launched Win the Future, an effort to advance the agenda of an ethos that is pro-social, pro-planet, and, most grating to the lefts ears, pro-business. Their political ambition for WTF is to act like its own virtual party within the Democratic Party, shaping the platform and launching candidatessimilar to what Senator Bernie Sanders is doing in his quest to gain control of the party, through his Our Revolution political action committee and Sanders Institute think tank.

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Pincus makes no bones about his desire to sideline the Berniecrats. Im fearful the Democratic Party is already moving too far to the left, he told the tech industry news site Recode. I want to push the Democratic Party to be more in touch with mainstream America.

Those words were greeted with incredulity and widespread mockery throughout the increasingly cocksure left. The rich peoples social milieu is to think that the swing voter is kind of like them, which is to say progressive on social issues and regressive on corporate power, and thats not actually where the bulk of median swing voters in America are, said Jeff Hauser of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Social Security Works Alex Lawson went in for the kill: The weakness of the Democratic Party is not due to an underrepresentation of venture capitalists and tech company board members. WTF, indeed.

The lefts reactions to Pincus and Hoffman, however, were tame compared with the near-universal derision and personal invective that has in recent days been aimed at Mark Penn. On Friday, Pennthe founder of a private equity firm who is best known as the chief strategist and pollster for Hillary Clintons failed 2008 Democratic presidential primary bidpublished a New York Times op-ed (co-authored by a Democratic Trump supporter) counseling Democrats to move to the center and reject the siren calls of the left.

In progressive circles, Penn is the personification of the third way, 90s-era neoliberal policies that they argue drove working-class voters to Donald Trump two decades later. Moreover, some progressives argue, hes a political incompetent who drove Clintons 2008 campaign into a ditch by fundamentally misunderstanding what voters wantand hasnt learned much since.

Penn is used to being wrong, wrote New Republics Sarah Jones, Barack Obama ran to [Clintons] left at the time and is mostly absent from Penns version of history, despite uniting the partys factions and winning the general election twice. Esquires Charles Pierce was unsparing: If this guy gets within 10 city blocks of your campaign headquarters, call the local hazardous waste unit immediately.

If the Penns, Pincuses and Hoffmans of the world are to survive the Democratic civil war between the populists and the pragmatists, they must learn fast that their money and stature are not assets, but burdens to overcome. And more substantially, they must develop ideas that serve the public good, not just their own bottom lines.

***

The progressives swipes at the Democratic corporate class might be dismissed as the usual griping from the online peanut gallery if our CEO saviors came equipped with compelling ideas that compare favorably with whats being peddled by the populist left. But the CEOs showed up with little more than cocktail-napkin policies that excite almost no one.

Penns policy advice to win back working class voters is full of dissonant left-right pairings, which may work in a focus group, but lack coherence. Youd expect the left to cheer Penn when he writes, the new tech-driven economy has been given a pass to flout labor laws with unregulated, low-paying gig jobs, to concentrate vast profits and to decimate retailing. But he confusingly juxtaposes this with a hysterical claim that the old brick-and-mortar economy is being regulated to deathas if government regulation, not the inherent convenience of e-commerce, was the source of the retail industrys woes. Likewise, Penn actually accepts the populists political diagnosis on trade: Democrats should recognize that they can no longer simultaneously try to be the free-trade party and speak for the working class. They need to support fair trade and oppose manufacturing plants moving jobs overseas. But then he ties it to a big tax cut for multinational corporations, arguing Democrats should link new taxes on offshoring with repatriation of foreign profitsthats wonkspeak for letting corporate profits that had been parked abroad to escape taxation come back to America at a discounted tax rate.

Over on the West Coast, the WTF brigade began its centrist advance by encouraging Twitter users to post and retweet ideas with a #WTFagenda hashtag, with the best ideas to be slapped on Beltway billboards. (One week in, the groups Twitter feed has about 650 followersa paltry number that has to sting the Silicon Valley whizzes.) But the WTF leaders are putting their thumb on the scale with their own suggestions.

Most of what the founding team members posted is inoffensive to the left, but isnt particularly original or innovative: such as Healthcare is a right, not a privilege and Congress: Fire Trump ... or Youre Fired. But Pincus raised eyebrows with an out-of-the-box proposal to Offer every [A]merican an engineering degree for free. On Twitter, Jamison Foser, of NextGen Climate, noted that the idea is narrowly tailored to serve the interests of Pincus and his fellow Silicon Valley CEOs: Limiting this to engineering makes it seem like tech billionaires dont care about education or inequality: just want to pay engineers less.

The self-serving proposal validated Matt Stollers BuzzFeed takedown of WTF, and the Democratic Party generally. The New America fellow and former policy adviser to Sanders places WTF in the long history of wealthy, highly connected, and powerful people trying to fix Democratic politics going back to the Atari Democrats of the 1980s.

Stollers essay summed up the progressive populist view of establishment Democrats, who have repeatedly positioned themselves to curry favor with big business, to push away questions of regional inequality, labor rights, small business rights, family farms, and genuinely open markets for goods and services. He argues Democrats need to go in the exact opposite direction, since, Changing politics is about refocusing democratic deliberation on the places where power exists. And right now, power exists exactly where Hoffman and Pincus made their fortunes: Silicon Valley.

Of course, the economic power that has accumulated in Silicon Valley has not always been easily leveraged into political power. When Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg rallied his fellow tech executives behind the pro-immigration effort FWD.us, the $50 million project ran into a brick wall of Republican partisanship and anti-immigrant, right-wing populist sentiment. Tech leaders found out that while most Americans eagerly consume their apps and devices, that doesnt mean they are perceived to be the political good guys. Their agenda was not presumed by critics to be an altruistic attempt to give immigrants a crack at the American Dream, but a selfish ploy to hire coders at lower wages. Now Silicon Valley is learning its motives are considered suspect by elements of the left as well.

This is what the centrist CEOs, from Silicon Valley and elsewhere, need to grasp: they are facing a force that wants their kind banished from the Democratic Party. Thats not hyperbole; Hauser told HuffPost that Pincus and Hoffman should become forces within the Republican Party rather than water down the message of the Democratic Party.

Pincus, in an interview with Fast Company, responded to the criticism with a dismissive shrug: We just want to help, and Im sorry if were not the best messenger. I cant help it.

But if the disrupters want to successfully disrupt, thats the wrong answer. The answer is to become better, more credible messengers. That will require CEOs to do two hard things:

One, become policy wonks. Work with public policy experts to develop fresh, substantive ideas that tackle the pressing issues of the future and outshine Sanders heavily ambitious, light-on-details democratic socialism.

Two, become class traitors. Shine a light on bad corporate practices. Offer proposals to rein in irresponsible behavior and to ensure everyone pays their fair share in taxes.

Pincus and his partners could take a cue from Penn: the lightly regulated gig economy is causing great uncertainty about the future of work. The populists left main responsestronger unionsmakes sense on paper but has gotten little traction from the workers themselves. Unionization in America is at an all-time low, accounting for only 6.4 percent of private-sector workers. That wont turn around on a dime, no matter what new laws, if any, are enacted. If our Silicon Valley gurus have some better ideassophisticated ones that benefit from their intricate knowledge of the tech industry, but are not ruses to fatten corporate profits at the expense of labornows the time to share.

Democrats dont need business leaders demanding a pro-business agenda. Democrats need business leaders who can show how smart regulations can help workers, consumers and executives simultaneously. Democrats need business leaders who can make the case that taxes on wealth and carbon pollution wont stifle entrepreneurship. Democrats need business leaders who can offer their expertise in shaping policy relevant to their field, while having the humility to understandas our current CEO president does notthat business expertise in a single industry is not equivalent to public policy omniscience.

For the nations CEOs to save America from the zero-sum populism of both the right and the left, its going to take far more than a few sanctimonious swipes, bullet point proposals and hashtag campaigns. These corporate honchos need to internalize that for many Americans, they are the problem, and they will have to work double time to prove they can be part of the solution.

Bill Scher is a contributing editor to Politico Magazine, and co-host of the Bloggingheads.tv show The DMZ.

Read more here:
How to Lose a Fight with Progressives - Politico

A national organization will establish a local presence this evening. The New Leaders Council (NLC), a nonprofit focused on bringing fresh names and faces into progressive politics and other leadership positions, launches its Columbus chapter tonight during a happy hour at Strongwater in Franklinton.

We want people who dont look like or do the kinds of things that those kinds of people who are already in politics engage in, said John Tannous, NLC Columbus Co-Director. Right now if you want to get involved in politics in Central Ohio, you need to tread this really narrow path of certain kinds of jobs, volunteering for certain kinds of people. Ideally, itd be great if you had a certain name, and if you dont have connections in that space, there is no way for you to get involved.

I think what we want to do is create an onramp for people who are really passionate, but they dont know the right people. They dont know how to get involved, he added.

Its an effort thats been in the works on the national level for over a decade. The NLC reaches out to those outside of the political realm and trains them on how to apply progressive politics in ways that are meaningful to the individual, creating a pathway for the unengaged to become informed and active in politics. This could mean running for office, becoming a campaign aid, learning effective advocacy tactics, or applying progressive ideas in entrepreneurship.

Training is offered through their six month Institute, which gathers progressives for one weekend each month and covers a range of topics, including entrepreneurship, fundraising, and communications, among others. Graduates then enter a community of alumni, some of whom end up becoming mentors, panelists at NLC events, or even lobbyists at their state capitals.

To start the change locally, NLC Columbus is inviting progressives of all backgrounds and levels of engagement to join their program. And while there is no litmus test for what exactly progressive means, Tannous said the typical member believes in strong democracy, equal opportunity and social justice.

Co-Director Colleen Lowry thinks of NLC as a pushback against heavily-funded conservative efforts to train and run right-leaning candidates. Organizations like the Heritage Foundation, a D.C.-based conservative think tank boasting an annual budget of $30 million, has graduated well known policy leaders Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell.

No equivalent exists on the progressive side, and NLC itself keeps a budget of roughly $1 million. Its self-sufficient, though, incorporating training on fundraising in its curriculum and applying that directly to raise the money needed for the next class.

While NLC has a fraction of the funding the Heritage Foundation receives, its managed to graduate more than 4,200 progressives from its 48 chapters, and 700 of them have run for office or are making plans to. Of the alumni, 53 percent are women, 57 percent are non-white, and 11 percent identify as LGBTQ, indicating a future of diversified candidate slates for local and state elections.

There are obviously a few exceptions, but for the most part a lot of our elected officials are older, white, and male, Lowry said, and I really think that our generation has the ability to change that, to switch up that narrative.

NLC leaders and potential fellows will have their launch party happy hour tonight, July 11, from 6 to 8 p.m. at Strongwater, 401 W. Town St.

For more information, visit newleaderscouncil.org.

Link:
National Progressive Training Organization Launches Local Chapter Tonight - columbusunderground

Education and Technology:

Microsoft Learning Tools is software that helps improve reading skills by reducing visual crowding, highlighting words, and reading text aloud, so students can engage with words in a whole new way.

Again?

Images by Gage Skidmore and Michael Vadon/Wikimedia Commons.

America and the world may be stuck with President Trump for now, but that doesnt mean progress is entirely on hold.

For many, the obvious approach is to fight Trump and his Republican allies each step of the way. But one of the progressive lefts most outspoken voices says that even in the age of #Resist, there are still opportunities to pass meaningful legislation even if that means handing symbolic legislative victories to Trump.

At least thats the view of Secular Talk host Kyle Kulinski, a popular figure in progressive politics, who says voters shouldnt completely abandon the Trump presidency, even as they plan to support their own slate of candidates in 2018 and 2020.

Image via Kyle Kulinski/YouTube.

When Donald Trump needs to be opposed, we will do everything to block hideous legislation from getting through, Kulinski tells GOOD. However, the 29-year-old pundit who supports a growing roster of anti-corporate candidates under the Justice Democratsbanner said there are several major issues where progressives can successfully lobby Trump, rather than simply oppose him.

On issues like infrastructure and trade, Trump made promises that at least on paper were music to progressive ears. The question now:Can and should activists like Kulinski lobby Trump in the hopes that hell get behind a popular idea like rebuilding the nations bridges and roads? Is it worth the time and energy to work with a president who has pushed back on somany other issues?

Of course you work with him on those issues, Kulinski says. Thats the kind of bipartisanship the American people are behind.

According to Kulinski, the problem is less about Republicans vs. Democrats and more about the bipartisan influence of corporate campaign donations and their alleged influence on public policy. Kulinski argues that the Democratic Party has fallen out of touch with the heart of its working class and progressive base by aligning with big business interests. Its a debate that was at the heart of the Democratic primary fight between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders and continues within the party today.

Three days after Trumps inauguration, Kulinski and his Young Turks colleague Cenk Uygur teamed up with former members of the Sanders presidential campaign to launch Justice Democrats, a political action committee that supports congressional candidates who refuse to accept corporate campaign donations. The groups ambitious mission statement is to build "a unified campaign to replace every corporate-backed member of Congressand rebuild the [Democratic] party from scratch," beginning withthe 2018 midterm congressional elections.

Its been called the lefts equivalent to the Tea Party movement that launched a number of conservative Republicans into office during the 2010 midterm elections. So far, theyve raised over $1 million in small-donor contributions and have an elected Democrat in their ranks: Rep. Ro Khanna(California).[

Rep. Ro Khanna.Image via Wikimedia Commons.

The corporate wing is a house of cards, an illusion of successful politicians, Kulinski says. The proof is in the pudding. What are the results? Trump is president, Republican control in Congress. The Democrats have basically been wiped out at every level.

However, it remains unclear whether the left has the same kind of organized passion and anger that droveTea Party activists to the polls.

Since Trump took office, there hasbeen a handful of races where Democrats seemed primed to steal a congressional seat from a previously safe Republican. In each of those races, political analysts and Democratic leaders argued that such an upset would foreshadow larger losses for Trump and Republicans in the 2018 midterms. However, the Republican candidates have managed to squeak by in each of those races so far. Nonetheless, Kulinski says, candidates like Jon Ossoff show that an energized base is alive and well.

There was a colossal closing of a gap that no corporate Democrat would have been able to close, he says. Bernie is the most popular politician in the country. You have these ideas that are wildly popular, like a living wage, universal health care, and free college, but for a long time, the Democratic Party hasnt fought for them.

Ultimately, Kulinski says the key is for progressives to focus less on labels and more on broadly appealing issues in order to win over a majority of voters. In a sense, thats what worked for Trump,albeit with a very different approach:playing on voter resentment about jobs, free trade, and military interventionism.

Kulinski says this approach can work with someone like Sanders leading a new wave of Democrats committed to core principles. And with a little luck and lots of hard work, maybe they can even bring Trump along to support some of their more popular reform proposals.

People dont really care about labels, Kulinski says. People listen to Bernie talk about those issues, and even though they describe themselves as conservatives, they find themselves agreeing with him on the issues.

See the article here:
Why One Leading Progressive Says It's OK To Work With Trump - GOOD Magazine

Tony Walker is spot on with his comments on the Liberal Party ('Contortionists hijack Menzies' legacy', 10/7). I particularly like his Menzies quote: "We took the name 'Liberal' because we were determined to be a progressive party, willing to make experiments; in no sense reactionary, but believing in the individual, his rights and his enterprise."

Tony Abbott and the other conservatives should follow Cory Bernardi's lead and as conservatives should form a Conservative Party and allow the Liberal Party to stick to its founder's ideal of a "free go" for everyone. We all want that.

Spencer Leighton, Torquay

The presentation of a wonderful, cuddly Bob Menzies (10/7) omits hisattempt to ban the Communist Party of Australia in 1951. It wasn't liberal or progressive. The High Court rejected his proposed legislation as unconstitutional and when Menzies took his attempted ban to a referendum it was lost. Another founding member of the Liberal Party in 1949, Alan Missen,argued that banning a political party would be acting like communists in other countries and within Australia ideas had to be defeated by counter arguments. Missen's case was progressive. Menzies' case was regressive.

Des Files, Brunswick

Tony Walker rightly highlights how Tony Abbott's ideological clique have wilfully chosen to ignore their party's founder's inherent "progressivism" and unsentimental pragmatism. Menzies was never fussed about intellectual arguments as to whether he was a "Burkean conservative" or J..S. Mill "liberal".

His credo was, simply put, to win elections on behalf of what he termed the "forgotten people"; the "unorganised" shopkeepers and "home makers", for example, neglected by big companies and unions. If that meant championing women's political party participation in the 1930s and '40s, so be it. If that meant in government preserving the ALP leader Ben Chifley's social welfare agenda in the '50s, minus the ALP's nationalisation agenda, the pragmatic price was worth paying.

Menzies, if he were PM in 2017, would no doubt have embraced renewable energy, increased immigration, and even "gay marriage", because ultimately what mattered to him was pursuing those causes that ensured electoral success.

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Jon McMillan, Mount Eliza

What would Bob do? Any reading of his legacy explains why his progressive approach to many issues led to him become Australia's longest serving prime minister. Most current politicians are overshadowed by the intellect of Menzies. The current member for Kooyong, Josh Frydenberg, seems to have forgotten what made Menzies both popular and effective. Menzies' "forgotten people" speech has frequently been quoted. The voters of Kooyong have become the latter-day forgotten people.

William Chandler, Surrey Hills

Tony Abbott has been criticising Malcolm Turnbull for the same things he failed to achieve when prime minister. This behaviour goes some way towards explaining Abbott's fall from grace, and also demonstrates that he has learnt nothing from his own abject failures. The surprising thing is that he still has any following at all, which perhaps we can leave to the psychologists to explain.

James Ogilvie, Kew

The state government plans to sell valuable land under the guise of public housing renewal across Melbourne. But a meagre 10 per cent increase in units (with a focus on smaller units) will barely dent housing waiting lists.

The winners will be developers. On a North Brighton site without local services rezoning will allow 300-plus private units in towers up to nine storeys in a neighbourhood of single-storey cottages. Similar marginal outcomes are planned for eight other estates, with more mooted. Once the land is in private hands its future public value will be lost. Again taxpayers will pay dearly for government incompetence and public housing under-funding.

Richard Holt, Brighton

Deliberate violence committed on the football field is not "a grey area" (The Age, 8/7).

Football players, unlike boxers, do not consent, either explicitly of implicitly, to be deliberately struck by an opponent. It is not in the rules of the game, and footballers (professional or amateur) should be charged with the criminal offence. That they also front a disciplinary tribunal is immaterial. There is no "double jeopardy" as one is criminal, the other civil.

To say "Oh, but it's part of the game" is to condone and encourage thuggery.

Harry Kowalski, Ivanhoe

Jessica Irvine asks the question "why should today's youth be getting more anxious over time?" ('Prisoners of our own device', 10/7). Could the answer be an addiction to the virtual reality of social media and the confused need to accumulate likes and re-tweets as some form of twisted social currency. Too much of the content on social media is ratcheting up increasing levels of social envy and an irrational fear of missing out.

Perhaps it's time to unplug and turn the social media off for a while. Be alone and let your creative imagination and thoughts run wild and free and rise above the banality of social media fluff.

Paul Miller, Box Hill South

The "frontier war" research by Newcastle University and the publication of a map detailing 150 massacre sites in Australia is further proof of Australia's violent colonial history.

As the primary victim of that history of institutionalised racism and brutality Aborigines have always been acutely aware of the atrocities they suffered.

It is for the rest of Australia to acquire an understanding of our dark colonial past. And, as researcher Lyndall Ryan pointed out in her ABC interview recently, we should not shy away from coming to terms with that painful past. It will not do us any good as a nation if we act the ostrich and pretend we did not have that troublesome past.

Ryan informs us that in America that aspect of their history is openly acknowledged.

As a mature nation we should do the same.

Rajend Naidu, Glenfield, NSW

Your editorial ('Australia is being gouged by gas industry', 10/7) fails to explain how dumping our existing profits-based tax for a production-based royalty would deliver lower gas prices. It also fails to acknowledge the damage retrospective tax changes would inflict on Australia's overall investment reputation.

Comparing Australia's tax approach to Qatar's is misleading. Qatar is the most profitable LNG producer in the world. Australian projects can take decades to become profitable.

The Petroleum Resource Rent Tax was purpose-built for Australian conditions. It taxes profits after companies have recovered costs. It was designed to attract the investment needed to underpin secure and reliable energy supplies.

Your editorial also advocates intervention in the gas market to increase supply. This is likely to be counter-productive.

The best way to increase supply and put downward pressure on gas prices is to remove the bans and moratoriums that exist in Victoria and some other states.

Noel Mullen, deputy chief executive, Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association

The biggest threat to Australia (and the world) is not North Korea's ballistic missiles, but the loss of our country and biodiversity through environmental degradation, waste and overuse of resources, the increase in inequality, the disrespect for Aboriginal and post-European history and culture as everything is being built over in the name of "development", and the inevitable loss of our quality of life.

The drive for economic "growth" on a finite planet and resultant overpopulation is what is the essential ingredient of our demise. We have lessons to learn from our Indigenous people who managed to thrive for thousands of generations without compromising their country.

Jennie Epstein, Little River

The recent and impending increases in power prices is another blow to people on modest wages. Our governments have been elected to provide an environment where the average person has a fair go. When they sell off community assets such as those involved with electricity generation and distribution for an immediate financial gain but lose the ongoing income, and control over the prices that are inflicted on the public, the community suffers.

Environmentalists should realise that you cannot remove generation such as Hazelwood from the grid unless you replace it with other rotational equipment to maintain system stability and therefore reliability. In the case of Hazelwood it took almost seven years from approval to the first generator being placed in service, that is, more than twice the three years' notice asked for by Alan Finkel.

Alex Brown, Ashburton

Candice Hadden Letters 8/7) suggests that I have no right to criticise the Miss Universe competition on the grounds that I wrote a book called the Princess Bitchface Syndrome. This is, as Dr Spock would say, not logical. The title was derived from the description of an acting-out 14-year-old girl by a frustrated mother and describes the skills, knowledge and strategies needed to parent a small sub-section of teenage girls who go through a challenging developmental stage. It has now been reprinted 10 years later co-written with researcher Elly Robinson and is regarded by many working with young people as a useful guide for parents.

Dr Michael Carr-Gregg, Balwyn

For those involved in causes for justice, refugees, the environment and anti-racism, the French undercover agent, Christine Cabon's role in bombing the Rainbow warrior ('No Apologies', The Age, 10/7), and her lack of remorse, is a lesson in how far spies will go to secure, in that case, French nuclear tests.

It must make those wanting a war-free inclusive world more determined to continue that necessary fight for justice despite infiltration and intimidation.

Melanie Lazarow, Brunswick

Barry James (Letters, 10/7) suggests offering interest-free home loans to new teachers for the length of their contracts, reverting to regular interest rates at the end of their contracts.

It sounds great, except that after the contract they would be out of work and unable to repay the loans. Then what?

This has been an issue since contract teaching became the norm in Victoria. Many young teachers have been unable to get a home loan at all because who wants to give a loan to someone whose job is insecure?

But improved conditions in general, that might work in tempting new people. Anyone who thinks teaching is all about long holidays and short hours has no idea how it works.

Sue Bursztynski,Elwood

No, Richard Begley ('Women bear the brunt of Islamophobia, study finds', The Age, 10/7) Islamophobia, even if one stretches the meaning beyond "an irrational fear of Islam", cannot be defined as "a type of racism".

Why? Because Islam is not a race, it is a philosophy, a political, social, cultural and religious movement. It is a choice.

Furthermore, Islam embraces people of all races, including Caucasians.

How can a white non-Muslim criticising a white Muslim be racist?

John Christiansen,St Kilda

I suspect that the reason women bear the brunt of Islamophobia is that the people engaging in this behaviour are cowards and bullies and pick on a safe target women. We have to keep calling this out until it stops.

John Massie, Middle Park

So Donald Trump accepts Vladimir Putin's assurance that the Russians never helped him beat Hillary Clinton.

Malcolm McDonald, Burwood

While visiting Portugal recently, we came across some good advice to Donald Trump in big letters on a building MAKE LOVE , NOT WALLS!

David Ginsbourg, East Bentleigh

The G20 is now the G19 because Trump got the grumps and didn't want to Putin.

Bruce Dudon, Woodend

Can someone take Malcolm Turnbull aside and tell him that if there is no rain there is no water to generate anything. The man is delusional.

Doris LeRoy, Altona

Perhaps Bernard Tomic could be employed to volley any ICBMs straight back to North Korea.

David Johnston, Healesville

Regarding the editorial (10/7) that said the country receives more from beer excise than the PRRT. I was reminded of my father telling me that he was drinking for the country.

Sean Mellerick, Croydon

Summer of male cricket? Don't really see a problem, after all we do have a world-class women's team.

Denis Evans, Coburg

Sunday morning 10am: petrol 109.9cents Bundoora; 132.9 cents Glen Waverley.

Jen Gladstones, Heidelberg

It's ironic Barnaby makes light of renewable advances and Malcolm's primary concern is power his own.

Greg Curtin, Blackburn South

Maybe Tony Abbott's training in the seminary has led to a God complex, i.e., a person who refuses to admit the possibility of their failure, even in the face of irrefutable evidence.

Julie Conquest, Brighton

Go here to see the original:
The Menzies legacy: In the beginning, it was a party of progressives - The Age