You sum things up very well Dane. Many who work in communities who orginally had different ideologies now agree with you 100%

amicus,

To be honest I don't think most indigenous people in remote NT, where I work, follow mainstream media debates that much. If they are aware of a debate they will tend not to comment too much. When everyone lives so close together you really try to get on with people and avoid unnecessary controversy - there is enough conflict as it is.

I just think today's academia and media are out of control. Look at one of the plaintiff's, Geoff Clarke. He was found guilty of rape in a civil case and it was his nepotism and mismanagement which in large part led to Howard abolishing ASTIC. And academics and the media defend him over someone trying to ensure a 'hand up' goes to the people who really need it?

I mean really, am I even allowed to say that now? Clarke must be having a good laugh thanks to that myopic judge sitting in silk and horse hair.

Dane if you live and work in a remote community then how is your world any more of a real world than academia or any other city-based profession? Being poor might be a reality for some people. But, that does not mean that the lives led by the middle and upper middle classes are any less real. Poverty does not give you any special insight or credibility.

How can you say that academia is out of control? There hasn't been an intervention into a university as yet. But, there had to be an intervention into some of the remote communities. I saw the Bolt decision as being more about the law which is their for all Australians. It wasn't about Indigenous politics. That is a different matter altogether.

There might well be an issue about people getting the benefits of affirmative action when they really shouldn't. But you don't need to racially vilify them or defame them to fix that problem. Every point that Bolt wanted to make could have been made in a more moderate manner. Had he done that he then would not have been sued. Whether Bolt is a racist or not is neither here nor there. The issue was whether what he wrote amounted to racial vilification. There is a big difference.

david,

You missed my point. I'll spell it out.

1. Bolt criticised carpet baggers for accepting benefits allocated for disadvanted people

2. Carpet baggers see this as a threat to their income stream and want to shut Bolt down.

3. All of society sees this practical implication except myopic jugde and useful idiots in academia and middle classes.

4. Myopic judge applies letter of the law. Feels good about himself. Upstanding citizens like Geoff Clark (alledged gang rape leader, bankrupt, former leader of ATSIC) win.

5. Bolt and anyone critical of hangers-on taking money from people who really need it are shut down permanently.

6. Hangers-on get to keep on riding the gravy train while impoverished get to keep on living in poverty.

7. Myopic judge and useful idiots get to keep feeling good about themselves.

8. Rest of society thinks judges spend too much time in horse hair and that academics got their PhDs in the same way that kylie Minogue did.

9. David misunderstands whole point. It is not about law or vilification. It is about money and vested interests.

David misunderstands whole point.
dane,
yep, along with thousands of others.

The recent court decision re Andrew Bolt is just one of the externalities of our state sponsored multiculturalism.

It is not by any means an isolated happening and needs to be seen alongside revelations like this, from a previous OLO article:

"I have seen such differences, however, when police are asked to intervene in domestic violence cases where ethnic groups such as South Asian or Middle Eastern couples are involved. Police often keep greater distance in such cases, some believing that cultural factors are at play and the families and communities should be left to their own devices. We do not officially have parallel laws for other groups, but variable enforcement can have the same effect."
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=12700

And, the push by some for special laws (Sharia & others).

And, the willingness of most on the left to accommodate anything just so long as it is seen to dent the prospects of their ideological opponents.