It promotes Aboriginal “leaders” who, by blaming their own people for their poverty, tell the white elite what it wants to hear.
The writer Michael Brull parodied this: “Oh White man, please save us. Take away our rights because we are so backward”

“Where does one start ? This article is so much Crap that it seems pointless to try to refute it: every sentence would have to be deconstructed”
I feel the same way Joe, but here goes !

“My people don’t use money the way white people do.
They don’t save, they don’t budget, they can’t say no to relatives even when they are drunks and addicted to gambling and drugs.
They need help in spending their money wisely.” Bess Price.

In an extraordinary leap of faith, Brull chouse to interpret this as “o white man, please save us. Take away our rights, because we are so backward.”

Bess Price has some relations living in “town camps” in and around Alice Springs. **Sometimes Bess interprets for them and speaks on their behalf in everyday situations.
And a lot of her relations “are” “hopeless with money” !
The same as a lot of mine here in Brisbane !
Bess is not the “leader”of the Aboriginal People in the N.T.
Or in Alice Springs. I doubt very much that she sees or promotes herself as such !

But John Pilger of course, wouldn't want to know about this !! Is he an “Armchair Expert” on Aboriginal Affairs ?
I don't know if he is Aboriginal or not, but if he is, he would no doubt come under the heading “town black-fella” !
And this attack on Rupert Murdock ! He has obviously got some gripe with the old fella ! I'd like to suggest to you John Pilger,
if you have an issue with Rupert Murdock, go and see him and “get it out of your system” ! “Proper One Time' !
Why ?
Well for a start John, it would save a lot of “media monitors” like me, a lot of precious time,
having to read Crap and, we get to avoid
being “sprayed with your bile” !

** In support of Bess Nungarrayi Price "Alice Springs News" issue 1813.28/4/2011

Ooops !
Arthur Bell. aka. bully.
Thank You !!
Also, "Have a Nice Day John" !!

<<“Where does one start ? This article is so much Crap that it seems pointless to try to refute it: every sentence would have to be deconstructed”
I feel the same way Joe, but here goes !>>

Well thanks for your posts, Arthur Bell, but you haven't actually said anything..?
So how about you start over and tell us about the crap that so offends you?
I've stated my thoughts above and am eager to learn and revise them?

I guess, Bully, nothing will satisfy the sort of self-righteous, ignorant people who believe charlatans like Pilger. But let's try:

' “N-gger hunts” continued into the 1960s and beyond.'

When and where ? One example. And 'beyond' ? The seventies ? When and where ? One example.

'The officially inspired theft of children from Aboriginal families, justified by the racist theories of the eugenics movement, produced those known as the Stolen Generation and in 1997 was identified as genocide.'

Only one case of children improperly taken into care - that of Bruce Trevorrow here in SA - has been demonstrated. I've knocked around with Aboriginal people down this way for forty five years and very few were put into care that I know of, and none that I know of were clearly and unambiguously taken for no reason.

We studied the birth, death, marriage and school records of my wife's community going back to 1860, and found that, of the 800 kids who were enrolled at the school at some time, only 45 or so were ever put into care. School-age children. Almost all came back within a year or so and eventually married local people: the only one was the daughter of a single mother who died of TB when the girl was about ten. Here was a community with many quite pale Aboriginal kids and strangely enough, the better they were doing in school (ex school records) and more stable the home, the less likely they were to be 'taken'. In almost all of the 45 kids' situation, the reasons for being put into care were similar to the reasons why 2-3 % of all white kids at the time were being put into care: death of a mother, death of a father and mother re-married (re daughters), dissolution or destitution of family.

Until 1971, single mothers couldn't get any welfare benefits. Up until then, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal single mothers had to put their babies up for adoption. Yes/no ?

Until 1969, Aboriginal people on reserves and missions and government settlements couldn't get unemployment benefit, so

[TBC]

[cont]

if they didn't work, the family was destitute pretty quickly. Didn't this happen with white fellas as well ? Yes, indeed, but in a racist and discriminatory society, this affected Aboriginal people far more. When a family disintegrates, what happens to the kids ? You don't have to invent any government policy of deliberately taking kids away.

At the community that we studied, between 1880 and 1960, 40 women died, usually in childbirth, leaving 120 school-age kids behind. What happened to those kids ? They stayed with their extended families, until that was no longer possible. Fathers away working, mothers dead - and only one kid 'taken' out of 800.

'Today, the first Australians have the shortest life expectancy of any of the world’s 90 indigenous peoples.'

Disaggregate, break this down: in the towns and cities, Aboriginal people from working families have life expectancies approaching those of whites' - it is precisely the long-term unemployed people on lifelong welfare, especially heavy drinkers, who have life expectancies of forty years less than whites' generally, but not much shorter than whites in similar situations: FORTY years.

So it's not that people are Aboriginal, but a matter of 'lifestyle': you booze, you fight, you have a lousy Western diet, you get no exercise and bingo ! you have a short life, Black or white. Short life-spans are a matter of class and access to employment, not ethnicity or 'race'.

' Australia imprisons Aborigines at five times the rate South Africa during the apartheid years. In the state of Western Australia, the figure is eight times the apartheid rate.'

And what is the rate of committing offenses ? In your city, dear reader, is there reputed to be a 'gang of 49', or 'gang of 16', of young Aboriginal people who are reputed to frequently commit idiotic crimes of car theft, home invasion, burglaries, street robberies, ram-raiding grog-shops, holding up servos for cigarettes ? Yes/no ? Again, this is a matter of class and long-term unemployment prospects, and being raised in hopelessness, in lifelong welfare families. Yes/no ?

[TBC]

Joe