Honestly, you can see John rubbing his hands together with glee .. another opportunity to denigrate and lambast Australians ..yay!

Official - at last! The leftist ruled Sydney City Council has said it .. but to read John's account, you'd think 5M people of "Sydney" voted this, they didn't, it was a 7 - 2 vote, John, 9 people voted, 2 against. You can get a bigger turnup at any BBQ (that's an Australian social gathering John)

Such is John's shopping list of things he dislikes and must get into the article

"counters a cowardly movement of historical revision in which a collection of far-right politicians, journalists and minor academics claimed there was no invasion, no genocide, no Stolen Generation, no racism."

Ah John, Julia Gillard, PM, previously of the Socialist Alliance, of the Union movement, of the ALP Left faction declared when asked, "there was no invasion, Australia was settled"

One fact alone is all we need to show you're in a dreamworld ignoring the facts. Your obsession that everything bad in Australia, is the evil far-right, is embarrassing, for you.

Here's what happened at the meeting "Lord Mayor Clover Moore and several other councillors had wanted the word "colonisation" considered for the council's 2030 corporate plan, saying "invasion" was divisive.

But they eventually voted to retain the word after members of the city's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Advisory Panel threatened to quit"

You see, they were bullied into it, and I can't see how anyone would be proud of that .. but it is useful isn't it, being divisive? You have reacted exactly the way the council feared and used the word to demonise Australians, again.

From way over in Europe, you are disconnected with us, you see problems we do not, nor do we care about .. we have bigger problems than whether the Sydney City Council has had another stupid moment and painted itself into a corner by inviting every minority interest group into it's undertakings.

it's politics, stupid

Ammonite.

"Some on OLO actually argue that Australia is a "white" country" really! Perhaps you could show where. Or are you just making it up?

Talk about leaping from the vague to the ridiculous.

SM

Really?

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12221&page=0#210788

Does the council exclude all people brought to Australia against their will (i.e. convicts) from the accusation of invasion? If not, perhaps they also claim that African Americans also invaded the USA.

If the council blame all the people who arrived during this period based on their racial origin (Caucasian Europeans) then this may be considered racist, no? If one was to claim that their was an asian invasion occurring during our generation (as some do) then this is considered a racist comment.

Is seems that people believe they can change the past by making racist comments, and seem to think that racist comments do not count if you are criticizing your own race.

P.S. The article itself does not even deserve comment, if Pilgers writing style degenerates any further his next article will consist solely of fart jokes.

Excellent article and Kudos to Mr Pilger for having the guts to tell it like it is - again.

Until we can come to terms with our past and this is a step in the right direction (Being from Sydney originally - this makes me proud!) - definitely - what hope is there for us to look to the future with pride. Children in Australia still suffering with
preventable diseases? It's mind-boggling.What the hell is wrong with our government and why is this the case? It's not enough to acknowledge the past - it's time something was done to get rid of problems like these. It's time that there was equity for all of this country's citizens - and certainly for the nation's First people's.
No more excuses - please!

Ammonite:

From your link, I did not see any direct claim that Australia was "white" so I read a few more posts (not all)

From the same poster in the same thread:

"So no, apart from the fact that it's impossible to go back to the old White Australia policy it's also, from my point of view undesirable"

While I don't agree with what he was saying the gist of his gripe seemed to be that only whites were labelled as bigots.

My point has nothing to do with racism, rather an irritation with the use of extreme language to over egg the point.