Well it's not been a good week for democracy in this country.
Last Sunday in Melbourne a rally by a legitimate and registered political party had to cancelled because a group of screaming thugs launched a violent attack on free speech.
Well it gets worse.
Apparently encourage by teachers and given the blessing by sections of the media and in some cases apparently even permitted or even persuaded by their parents, today we will seed a collection of apprentice thugs wagging school around the nation to protest against Pauline Hanson's One Nation party.
According to a breathless article by some fool journalist earlier in the week, the student's message will be "No to Hanson, no to Howard, no to racism".
Note how John Howard gets roped in no matter what. Now this outfit is being organised by a group called Resistance Socialist Youth Organisation. This organisation holds Cuba as its model of democratic freedom. In other words it wants a socialist system based on the Cuban system. No one can question the right of these people to publicly air their views - that's not the issue.
The issue is that these people are recruiting school kids who quite frankly don't know what these people are about. Yesterday school children as young as 12 were folding pamphlets and making placards for today under pictures of Karl Marx and the Cuban flag. Make no mistake our kids are being manipulated for political purposes
Its mantra is not maths, its banners is not books, its slogans not spelling, its thuggery not thoughts.
These are the catch cries. Surely to god education ministers and high school principles And the Catholic education service and the boards of private schools have a responsibility. Schools should be inculcating tolerance and respect for the right of others to hold a dissenting or minority point of view.
Surely Australians are not going to cop a situation when students are being used as pawns in a fairly dirty political game.
I'm Alan Jones