Melaine Phillips

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2024690/UK-riots-2011-Britains-liberal-intelligentsia-smashed-virtually-social-value.html

<For most of these children come from lone-mother households. And the single most crucial factor behind all this mayhem is the willed removal of the most important thing that socialises children and turns them from feral savages into civilised citizens: a father who is a fully committed member of the family unit.>

Typically the feminist approach will be something along the lines of "it is the fault of the patriarchy".

Merinda Devine wrote
Radicals' ire is misplaced, children need fathers

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/radicals-ire-is-misplaced-dads-do-count/story-e6frfhqf-1226116976732

<THE reaction to my column last week pointing out the perils of a fatherless society is a case study in how intimidation, vilification, distortion and outright lies are being used in an attempt to silence unfashionable opinions.

Peter wrote: "Those of us who grew up in the fifties and earlier under those tight controls can't understand today's free-ranging kids. "

Can't understand the kids? And yet, he has written an article about what to do about them?! I grew up in the fifties and the behavior doesn't surprise me. The way I see it, the attitudes of the 50's created these problems.

So who benefits from maintaining a long-term welfare-dependent population in the style to which it easily becomes accustomed ? I'm sure that there are many, many well-intentioned social workers and counsellors and liaison officers and education workers and community officers and recreation workers and community development workers and family well-being workers and home-maker workers and various other bureaucrats, as well as teachers and nurses. But imagine what might happen if - presto ! - every able-bodied person on long-term welfare had a job tomorrow: how many professionals might be out of work by next Monday ?

So how can they ensure their lifelong employment, which they studied so hard and long to earn ?

I'm certainly not saying that there is any conscious manipulation of people's situations, but more likely a sort of gut feeling, a tendency, to avoid 'solutions' in favour of issue or problem 'management'.

But the question of class exploitation is unavoidable: the possible exploitation of the under-class by a professional class, funded from outside that relationship by governments, who take the advice of those professionals through their peak bodies.

Is it healthy ? Is it necessary ? Is it too late to repair the damage ?

Joe

Tossing out statistics relating to the gender of parents who are raising these kids, does not prove that the problem is a result of 'fatherlessness' or of single mother parenting. There are other things that might be taken from these statistics. Perhaps 'children who have been rejected by fathers' are having trouble with moral choice? Or maybe it's to do with 'fathers who refuse financial support for children, showing kids how to evade adult responsibility'? Or 'violent fathers can get what they want from their kids, through the courts, so why shouldn't I throw my weight around?' Or some other thing altogether.

I personally wonder about the thoroughgoing marketing our kids are exposed to from the womb, these children are being born to consider that 'getting stuff' is a most important life goal/activity. No doubt various class and economic factors can then line up as the ones that have created cohorts of children who think that rioting is a good thing, given that some groups in society will never be able to have the stuff the telly tells us we need to get, so that we can be the people we want to be and/or have a 'good life'.

Then of course there's the fact that single mums often live in poverty. This means that their kids also live in poverty. Maybe poverty is the problem.

To quote from a post of mine on another thread,

In 1923 half the Victorian police force went on strike over better pay and conditions. From Wikipedia;

"On Friday and Saturday nights riots and looting occurred in the city, resulting in three deaths, trams being turned over, plate glass windows being smashed and merchandise looted from stores. Constables on point duty were jeered at and harassed by people until they retreated to the Town Hall, where the crowd taunted them to come out. Tramways staff and uniformed sailors helped to direct traffic in the absence of police."

"The rioting and looting was quickly attributed to Melbourne's criminal element by all of Melbourne's newspapers, but subsequent court records show that most of the offenders who were apprehended were young men and boys without criminal histories. "

Note "young men and boys without criminal histories". This was not an era known for its unsupervised children nor fatherless homes nor indeed social media. So why so strikingly similar to the English riots?

Last night I was shown a Melbourne Sun newspaper from 1956. The headline story was about two 15 year old Melbourne teenagers who had used knives and a slug gun to kidnap eight young schoolboys who they subsequently  stripped naked, tied to a tree and over a period of time tortured them by shooting them with slugs, beatings and branding them with red hot knives. 

Where was the blame laid? At the feet of an American comic that had been reprinted in Melbourne some months earlier. It had depicted tribal ritual branding with red hot knives.

Earlier times were not that rosy. I think kids of this generation act remarkably well all things considered, but so they should in a welfare society such as ours. That doesn't mean we shouldn't be making every attempt to secure decent upbringings for them, including some of the authors measures.

Let's just keep it real though folks. 

Perhaps the rich want to keep the poor where they believe they should be, this also includes many religious bodies who expound wealth on the hierarchy and keep the masses in poverty, but things can change, if we look at a recent wedding $400,000 for a wedding dress, this would seem I am sure to a poor person, materialism at its worst, they are correct, this breeds hatred, we only have to look at many now defunct European Royalty Heads that have rolled over the years, the poor eventually wake up to the excesses that these people command or the life style they are accustomed to.

Also we read about corrupt Governments, Politicians, Rich people, Film stars,etc, who seem to be able to do what ever they want and get away with their actions, George Bush, Tony Blair, John Howard should all be up on war crimes but this will never happen, so I ask why when there is so much corruption in the world the poor in their own way try to be as corrupt as their superiors, but unfortunately they are held to accountability where the others are not.

I don't know, Ojnab: I was working once at an Aboriginal community which had 40 hectares of grapes - we were pruning in the depths of winter, bleak days. On a Friday morning, at about 10.30, we noticed the Aboriginal chairman of the council, our boss, driving off to a neighbouring town, as he did every Friday. We knew he was going off to the pub and the TAB. I said something like, 'Well, if we're out here, he should he here too.' But all the other blokes said something like, 'Well, if he can take days off, we should be able to as well.'

Not much indignation at corruption there, Ojnab: more like simply wanting what others have, no matter how. Wat Tyler rather than Marx, don't you think ?

Joe

I agree with Loudmouth when he says

<But the question of class exploitation is unavoidable: the possible exploitation of the under-class by a professional class, funded from outside that relationship by governments, who take the advice of those professionals through their peak bodies.
Is it healthy ? Is it necessary ? Is it too late to repair the
damage?>

I agree. I think the solution lies squarely in the hands of government to apprentice every unemployed school leaver, refugee,or able bodied person and turn them into tradesmen and women.

Stop privatising. Redirect welfare billions and start training those disaffected youth. Real jobs, not mickey mouse, pull weeds out, work for the dole schemes. A government run National Railway would and did employ and train young lads fresh out of school by the thousands.

I believe Loudmouth hits the nail on the head when he says that professionals and business interests do advise the government to bring in already trained, cheap labour. In earlier times there was a law that any business that had over 100workers had to employ apprentices. The government itself trained thousands of school leavers to be excellent tradesmen who benefited this country and still do, but that is being tossed out the window with privatisation.

The solution lies in the hands of governments. Backed up by the community at the ballot box for implementing these schemes.

So whatever happened to the helicopter parents everyone was complaining about so recently? It's not just Catholic schools that text parent's mobile phones if a child is absent from school without explanation - my daughter's public high school does this, and I would expect this would be policy for all public highschools in NSW. In school, this is one of the most supervised generations of children ever.
As for single mums: they are out working now once their child is over 8 years old (thanks John Howard for that), so never mind access to dads - they may not see their mums much either. Most parents work (particularly in cities with expensive mortgages, which essentially require 2 incomes for a family): and it will always be easier in a family if there are two parents around to juggle everything. Families have been struggling with work/life balance since the 1970s, and still don't get concessions from most employers, including the public service. Sometimes kids are left alone after school due to parent's work hours, though most parents will do whatever they can to prevent this.
Of course there are some kids out there who go off the rails. They are not always from poor households either, though poverty increases the chances of problems.
The science and evidence has been in for a while now: if you seriously want to prevent problem youth and crowded jails in future, government commitment to early intervention is the answer - preferably identifying problem parents while in hospital just after baby is born, and providing immediate services to follow them home.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12487#215752

csteele, thank you for proving beyond reasonable doubt that fatherlessness is the cause of these problems today.

you see we also had the same problem in 1923, all be it for different reasons.

you have coveniently forgotten a little thing that occurred between 1914 & 1918 called WW1 in which an entire generation of young fathers were slaughtered for king & country. Single motherhood was rife in 1923, with all the same social problems it has always caused.

One wonders why feMANazis armed or forwarned with this historical data went ahead with social engineering that they knew in advance was destined to cause child abuse, neglect & chaos.

& what is the bet that none of the fauxMANistas or other closet communists dare to try replying to this?

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12487#215731

Loudmouth, excellent comment Joe, obviously you have been reading some of Noel Pearson's great articles in the OZ.

when it comes to "social talkers" there are no doubt some idealistic fools genuinely trying to "do the right thing" at the coal face, the problem is with senior managment & the academia who train them to fail.

we will make a centrist, moderate out of you yet.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12487#215794

CHERFUL, correct in between 1945 & 1965 our education system was second to none at all levels, comrades Hawke & Keating destroyed it, Howard cut the funding a little more, worsening it a bit but most of the damage was done by closet communists.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12487#215813

Johnj, true & a cheap way to do this to go back to the tax/welfare system & family laws that we had between 1945 & 1965, promote happy, harmonious marriage for life as well as the family, extended beyond the nuclear as the primary social unit.

One wonders why socialists have promoted ANTI social policy? communists have promoted ANTI community policy?

Csteele, I was rummaging through the census data for 1911 and 1921, prompted by your mention of the Melbourne riots during the police strike in 1923 and extracted this data for you…

The conjugal condition for all persons in the Commonwealth of the Australia "(Exclusive of Full-blooded Aboriginals)" for 1911, includes:

Never married - 2,783,543 (62%)
Married - 1,469,622 (33%) Widowed, 191,743 (4.3%)
Divorced - 4500 (<0.1%) Not stated - 5597 (0.13%) Total - 4,455,005

The data for Melbourne and suburbs is:
Males:
Never married - 171,054 (62%)
Married - 97,630 (35%)
Widowed - 8783 (3%)
Divorced - 346 (<0.1%) Not stated - 143 (<0.13%) Total - 277,956

Females:
Never married - 182,786 (59%)
Married - 102,818 (33%) Widowed - 24,694 (8%)
Divorced - 475 (0.15%) Not stated - 242 (<0.1%) Total - 311,015

Which we can compare (after one World War and the influenza pandemic) with…

The conjugal condition for all persons in the Commonwealth of the Australia "(Exclusive of Full-blooded Aboriginals)" for 1921, includes:

Never married - 3,176,180 (58%)
Married - 1,998,662 (37%) Widowed - 237,821 (4.4%)
Divorced - 8528 (0.16%) Not stated - 14,543 (0.27%) Total - 5,435,734

The data for Melbourne and suburbs is:
Males:
Never married - 204,936 (57%)
Married - 142,696 (40%) Widowed - 10,628 (2.95%)
Divorced - 717 (<0.2%) Not stated - 523 (<0.15%) Total - 359,500

Females:
Never married - 223,281 (55%)
Married - 150,198 (37%) Widowed - 31,878 (7.8%)
Divorced - 961 (<0.24%) Not stated - 647 (<0.16%) Total - 406,965

[Please note the percentages and any rounding errors are mine]

In summary, from 1911 to 1921, the figures for widowhood and divorce did not change significantly. But the married proportion of the population increased by 5%.

Whatever the causes of the Melbourne riots 'fatherlessness' was not one of them.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12487#216068

WmTrevor, nicely twisted stats, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statistics the hard facts of life are that in the wake of WW1 there were more single mothers around.

Why else did this organisation need to exist? http://www.legacy.com.au/LegacyWeek you closet communists are relentless. "repeat the lie until it becomes the truth" Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.