Watermelons are in season

I took a passing interest in the blockade of the International Mining and Resources Conference, held in Melbourne this week. In media interviews, such as the one with Andrew Bolt on his Sky News Australia television programme, blockade organisers haven't done much to win people to their cause, nor does their penchant for allegedly punching police horses. While they may have raised some valid points about the environmental impacts of the mining industry, or whether its business and taxation arrangements are ethical, most of the protesters are radical Marxists.

When asked about the aims of their movement, they want to close down the mining industry by enacting a Marxist revolution. Presumably, ending mining and the use of all fossil fuels is also the only way to avert ecological Armageddon, and there's no way to do this without also ending capitalism. Never mind that Marxism has failed wherever it has been implemented, and it is well documented that communist countries have or had appalling environmental records.

To add to their historical illiteracy, speaking as a nitpicking, annoying pedant, I question the credibility of any political activist group that runs a website containing spelling errors.