News flash from the Marketing Director of Penguin:

'We've ordered another 5000 copy reprint today after over 2000 copies left our warehouse in the last seven days! When this reprint arrives we'll have 29,000 copies in print which is a fantastic achievement, well done. Total sales OUT of our warehouse are now at 22,000.'

Bill Bryson and Bill Clinton had better watch out!

Margo, I particularly noted the comments from Gary Johns on pages 261-2 and your remarks on the neo-liberal ideology they express. I clearly recognised them from the study I made for my recent book 'What's Right?'

Here's an outline of some of the features and philosophy of neo-liberalism which your readers might find of interest. They are epitomised in Johns' statements and in an assertion made at the same time by the egregious Tony Abbott - that 'capitalism is just another name for freedom'.

The main exponent and theorist of neo-liberalism is Friedrich Hayek. Even neo-liberals themselves may not understand the values that lie beneath their social philosophy, so transforming it into an ideology, a pervasive cast of mind that dominates social policies and actions, one backed by the political, economic and media power it benefits.

Gary Johns laments that NGOs threaten 'to mediate the effects of individualism and self interest in the cause of the greater good'

I found my way to your website via a bumper sticker I sat behind at the lights today. I'm in Canberra, I work for the Commonwealth and I LOVE the sticker. Tell me, where can I get one?

Margo: send your postal address to defendingourdemocracy@yahoo.com and we'll send you one. They're scarce at the moment, but more are being printed.

Am only 20 pages into the book but wanted to share a link with you - I had not heard of the book until I joined a ring for it on bookcrossing.com.

You might want to check out what others think of it -

www.bookcrossing.com/journal/1815478

I plan to write with something more constructive to say soon.

Dear Margo - I enjoyed your book over the weekend. But I reckon you do better on critique and analysis than on solutions (that said, you do better than most journalists). However, a book I really thought had some great solutions is: IMAGINING AUSTRALIA: IDEAS FOR OUR FUTURE, by four young Australian blokes. I'd be interested to know what you thought of it, and whether you agreed with their ideas. I'm recommending it to all my friends who liked your book, but finished it wanting more.

NHJ!(JR): Dunno about Margo, but I haven't read it yet, although it sounds very enticing - albeit (as my lefty scone understands fings) IA generally imagines Oz from a pro-market perspective (but hey, w/o the blessed market-beasty-thingy I 'spose NHJ! wouldn't be shifting so many units so fast, so go figure...). Besides, anything with the words 'imagine' and 'Australia' in the same sentence at this national juncture has got to be a winner.

Check out the 'Imagining Australia' website arced

John Howard was right. We cannot blame flawed military 'intelligence' or under-resourced agencies for getting things wrong on the presence and potency of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

The blame rests on John Howard's shoulders. And he readily accepts the responsibility for committing Australian defence personnel to an invasion of a sovereign country that was no threat to Australia.

What is most alarming about these events, in our recent history, is just how easy it was for Mr Howard to dance to George W Bush's tune and join this barbaric assault on Iraq. It seems that Australia was committed by John Howard to this invasion, the ongoing conflict, the human tragedy, the environmental destruction, cultural vandalism and financial burden to Australians without needing the consent of the Australian Parliament.

Why was it so easy for our Prime Minister to commit us to a war against a country that did not threaten us?

If the Constitution gives him

NHJ continues to connect with readers around the country. Our mounting emails tells us this, so please keep sending your events, actions and ideas.

In just-in book chart news:

Abbey's Bookshop - Sydney. Bestsellers for July - number 3, non-fiction behind Paul McGeogh's Quarterly Essay & Bill Bryson in paperback.

Better Read Than Dead, Newtown, Sydney. July bestsellers - number 4, all books. (no separate fiction and non-fiction)

Gleebooks, Glebe, Sydney. Bestsellers for July - number 1, non-fiction!

Dear Margo, having just finished reading your book with my husband, I wanted you to know the extent to which your work has been important to us. We are the 'insignificant citizens' who live in the small villages around Australia and are forgotten by people like Howard.

My husband is a recipient of the Disability Allowance and I am his carer. He has been chronically ill for over 13 years. He worked for Telecom ( pre-Telstra) and was made redundant upon its changes and his illness. I have been an activist full time home maker and carer and our children have only just left home. So at 50 years of age we are on the ' dust-heap' of this great and prosperous nation.

Ever since Howard has attained power we have been made to feel in succession, thankful, guilty, shame, sorrow, useless, guilty, useless, unimportant, lazy, guilty, bludgers, takers, guilty, depressed, lonely, sad, guilty, alone, poor, struggling and, yes, guilty. This as well as dealing with poor health an

I read the book in one sitting last night, what a depressing read...From a middle class aspirational voter who is earning 100k plus and has been in a union for the last 20 years you would expect that I would be loving JWH's warm and comfortable Australia; far from it - I am very worried for the future of our young Democracy.

John Howard takes Aussies good natured lack of public activism too lightly. If the Peace Rally in Canberra had been full of Czechs or Bosnians or Indians, they would have stormed the Parliament house and tossed him out on his bleeding ear for ignoring 200,000 pissed-off citizens. That he could have marginalised almost a million of his constituents Australia-wide by implying that they didn't represent the views of the 'silent' majority was a cynical swipe at a marvellous display of public activism - it was broad based, well behaved and constructive.

What would I have liked to see in the book?

Why did JH want this war so badly? He isn't a stupid