whistler, over the last twenty (20) years, “All Governments” have allocated many “billions of dollars”
directly to, Aboriginal Organisations, Programs and Services.
Many initiatives of us Aboriginal People. And for the purpose of, and in the spirit of "Self-determination"
Or, “to enable Aborigines to contribute to Australian society in their own right”
Arthur Bell. ( aka. Bully ) www.whitc.info

[contd.]

Hi Squeers,

And: "They should see Western culture for what it is and reject and and go beyond it...." While you sit back and enjoy ? So they are your surrogate revolutionaries, destined to sacrifice themselves for some as-yet-unknown cause that you might approve of ? What if they say instead: "Squeers, p!ss off - I want what you have had for generations." Just a touch of arrogance there, dearie.

Indigenous people are as entitled to the comforts and innovations of the world as you or I are/am. They are as entitled to be corrupted by IKEA or crap food or big cars as we are. They are as entitled to go to uni, and send their kids to uni, or get good jobs in the city, or go on holidays to Bali, or to conferences in Hawai'i, as you or me. I don't mean just the Larissa Behrendts but the Bess Prices too, and her children - all Indigenous people who make the effort.

And they won't be fooled by any grandiose schemes to p!ss them off to somewhere in the north either, no capital cities, no separate states, no separate universities - no more Apartheid. I don't think either you or Pilger understand that yet, with respect.

On South Africa: well, you were using the present tense :)

On your last post, concerning the 'Stolen Generation' fraud, you could have written: " ... If it really WASN'T a beat-up someone would have laid down the irrefutable evidence by now... "

Peter Read wrote of tens of thousands of Aboriginal children stolen. Can you cite one case ? Or is just gut feeling, what 'resonates' ? 'That sounds about right, so I'll go with it.'

[TBC]

Loudmouth,

They are already corrupted by Western crap food, alcohol, etc.

It seems your yardstick for making it as a human being is to go to "uni", and then to really make it by going into debt like the rest of society, to mindlessly consume.... even to go to "Bali".

It seems to me that Aboriginal people value their culture and traditions a little too highly to chuck it away on some homogeneous "made it" consumer identity.

It's a shame (from your point of view) that not every culture is imbued with a materialist fetish like yer average superior Westerner - just think, Australian indigenous culture would have been blended out and obliterated long ago if that had been the case.

....dearie.

Patriarchies allocate funding to patriarchal enterprise, Bully, thus the problems your site http://www.whitc.info so eloquently documents. Remove patriarchy with provision for women's legislatures and not only are the problems removed, the Aboriginal contribution to Australian society accords in its entirety with tradition.

[contd.]

Poirot, when you write something sensible and stop twisting what I say, then I'll get back to you. Don't confuse relative with absolute: equal rights mean theright to do the same dopey things that others do, it doesn't mean that I am advocating that they actually do the same dopey things that others do. Everyone should have an equal right to get divorced, but I'm not advocating that everyone should get divorced. Can you grasp the difference ? Ask a primary school kid, they can help.

Squeers, to continue,

I'm sure there would have had to be many, many cases of policemen or missionaries or nurses or doctors or social workers making a judgment about the conditions of life of a particular child, non-Aboriginal as well as Aboriginal, and spiriting the kid off to some children's home 'for their own good'. Let's say ten cases per year per state - a total of many thousands over the past century. Some of those cases must have bent the rules - but where are they ? I've been racking my poor brains over this for the past fifteen years, and still don't know of any unambiguous cases where, for no good reason, children were taken away. Single mother, pre-1971, no benefits ? No mystery. Destitute family ? No mystery. Drunken father and/or mother ? No mystery. Mother died, father shot through ? No mystery. Father deserted, mother went round the bend ? No mystery.

You did write: " ... I don't think aborigines should be striving to be like us...." My point is simply: isn't that up to them ? Not really your business or my business - all we should be doing is facilitating their choices one way or the other. I'll stand by what I wrote, Squeers, and ask again: do you think you have some sort of monopoly of the comforts of life, and that Aboriginal people should for some reason foreswear all of that ? What if they don't ? Like say, Larissa Behrendt, for example ? .......

[TBC]

[contd.]

[So many lies to rebut, so little time ! ]

....... Or should only a Precious Few have those opportunities, while the rest fit back into their natural habitat, out in the sticks ?

So there's your homework for this weekend, Squeers: find a case of Stolen Generation; and provide justification why Aboriginal people should be true to their Culture and shouldn't have the advantages and comforts that you and I have had. And Larissa Behrendt too, come to think of it, which is fine by me, as long as all Aboriginal people have the same mentoring opportunities.

Someone mentioned the Aboriginal Flag: it's recognised by law as an Australian flag. You can fly it where you like. There has never been any move to outlaw it: save that rubbish for overseas audiences. Maria and I were making flags from about 1972, after the Embassy was set up, until the early eighties; I think we made about two hundred. We sent them all over Australia and around the world, and Maria used to give them to visiting artists, Roberta Flack, Buffy Sainte-Marie, B.B. King, the Drifters. Some of them, we got paid for, at least the cost of materials.

Poirot, your point about Indigenous people going to uni: we were running Career Workshops, as we called them, in the mid-nineties and I heard a couple of rumours that we shouldn't raise people's hopes since after all, 'Not all Aboriginal kids were going to go to university.' I learnt to interpret that to mean: 'I think that hardly any Aboriginal kids will ever have the ability to go to university - divert them to TAFE instead.'

Sorry to disappoint you, Poirot, but at least a third of all Aboriginal kids will be going on to uni for the foreseeable future. That will be their choice, not yours or mine. Try to get used to it. You're on the Left, you think ? Please, dearie !

Whistler,

Can't you grasp that, only in common forums, can women, or any other group, raise issues which the entire assembly must consider ?

Joe