Dear Rainer.... another insult :) ‘bless you’

“You are out of your depth”.. we can add that to
‘go away pious old man’ and
‘You are a meddler’ and I could regurgitate
“Well you are not going to be around much longer” (that you said to another rather terminally sick poster )

One cannot help but be attracted to the conclusion that the ‘deleted’ one is more indicative of your hmm.. lets be kind here.. Lofty sense of self importance ? :)

I’m wondering old son, -if "this" is how you speak to those supporting Indigenous rights, how would you treat Keith who is telling me Hollllld on a minute thar ma boy.. thars money in that thar land...agricultural money..lets not be too hasty to give it back”

Ranier...I truly wonder how many average Aboriginal people who simply have a longing in their hearts for dignity can relate to your ‘intellectualization’ of their situations ?

The technical point of ‘Terra Nullius’ in various documents probably means zippo to those who just want to get on with ‘being’ Aboriginal and catch a Murray Cod without being chased off by some farmer. But there I go again..’meddling’ :)

Keith.. just to address your reasonable question b4 I run out of breath counselling young Ranier here... I don’t advocate huge slabs of land being suddenly given back at unsustainable cost to the country. I DO agree that most things can be worked out in a realistic compromise way, but I am also of the view that there are certain areas, like that of the Yorta Yorta, which could benefit GREATLY by the government buying out some properties around the area, (close to the river) and for Aboriginal people to have opportunity to actually live more akin to the beat of their hearts.

When I drive though areas on the Murray which have been commercialized to the nth degree by our approach to land use, I feel rather depressed. The land has lost it’s soul.

I value your sarcasm... its a stepping stone to better understanding as dialogue continues.

Back to Ranier..... Next post.

Keith,

All religions attempt to explain one thing: the transcendental reality. That's why, at Vatican II, the declerations on religion were so very necessary, because they explained why there are similarities between religions and also why there are differences. Basically, it said that we are all trying to understand this one thing, and therefore there is a grain of truth in all religions, whilst it stated that the Christian message is the holder of the most true Truth. Aboriginal spirituality is based around the image of the rainbow serpent, a localised belief only appropriate for this one island (and that anomaly to our south), that creates the world, and all things stem from that. It is only adaptable to the hunter-gatherer lifestyle which people had before settlement. By replacing the serpent with God, and adding the challenges of the Gospel, many Aboriginal people have found that their culture can continue in the modern word, as it taps into the underlying profundities of Aboriginal spirituality, and perfects those imperfections. Thus, one cannot see Christianity as having a portion of Aboriginal spirituality, but the parochial Aboriginal spirituality speaking something of the universal Christian one.

Whilst I did not say that only Christians have moral standards, what I referred to was the attempt at moral improvement of society that is owned by Christianity. Aboriginal spirituality asks only for tradition, Christianity asks for tradition to be critiqued (son turned and father...) yet also respected (honour thy mother and father), to allow for moral improvement. That is the fundamental difference, and is why progress as an idea which holds sway over all of Western Christian culture, now extended into the scientific and material. Aboriginal society wouldn't bat an eyelid at a girl being promised to and duly raped by her uncle of three times her age, because that was tradition. Those areas of Aboriginal culture that were Christianised, much like those areas of Islander culture, have allowed tradition to be maintained, but also improvement made to it. To think otherwise is to fall for the myth of the noble savage.

Thankyou DFXK. I am digesting your much clearer explanation. Initial impression is it has a 'ring of truth'.
We've advanced greatly from the theories of Rousseau's noble savage and Shakespeare's Caliban.

Following the publication of Lorenzo Veracini’s “Terra nullius and the ‘history wars’”, Captain Kookaburra sailed forth to discover Australacademia. Finding no sign of intelligent life he declared it cognitus nullius, and dug a flag hole to claim sovereignty – or so the myth goes. Cognitus nullius gained remarkable currency in a number of public discourses, but when Lorenzo searched the hallowed halls he could not find cognitus nullius, and concluded that it was fabricated. Lorenzo is a necessary contribution to the dialectic process but does not understand that cognitus nullius had very different applications at different times (relating to Hilda Hegel, Daffy Dewy, Wilting Wittgenstein, Chumpy Chomsky and the Marx brothers). But the fact it did not enter public discourse and was not academically specified in words only means that its application had gone without saying. Cognitus nullius was not seen because its existence was not in doubt: this is one proof of its existence, not the contrary. Ironically, Lorenzo’s search actually confirms cognitus nullius’s pervasive existence. How else would you prove a cognitus nullius except by not finding it? One of its characteristics is that in its operative logic and by definition cognitus nullius covers its tracks. Indeed, Lorenzo proves how his cognitus nullius successfully ruled cognition out of academia.
Lorenzo exhaustively shows how cognitus nullius was bred through and by way of academia at a much later stage: but this is because cognition constitutes its dialectical counterpart. Lorenzo collapses the process of academic resurrection with the “fabrication” of cognitus nullius because he misunderstands both and their intimate and mutually constituent relationship. Put another way: cognitus nullius is one of those things that the more it is effective, the less you get it. It must be frustrating: Lorenzo believes he was demonstrating absence of cognition while, really, he put forward compelling proof of a cognition of absence. This absence, again, ultimately proves the very opposite of the opposite he intended.

When one speculates about academic achievement, lack of evidence might itself be quite solid evidence. At the same time, Lorenzo’s words decisively underscore the ways in which cognitus nullius works – which is to say the way it doesn’t not-work. Cognitus nullius has the remarkable characteristic of denying itself ex post facto by its very being operative. It could therefore be detected and cognitively assessed only by way of recovering the not-knowing - as it has been not-done - also ex post facto. This dialectics of reciprocal recognition between cognition and its denial need to be understood if we want to make sense of the issues Lorenzo doesn’t not-raise.
cognitus nullius and academic non-intelligence are not mutually exclusive. A commonly received narrative has it that first one had academic cognition, second, after cognitus nullius became established, that cognition ceased, and one has no more cognitus nullius . While this narrative is in many ways unsatisfactory and should be integrated by a better understanding of the dynamics of academic practice, it should be emphasized how cognitus nullius and academic non-intelligence are mutually constitutive.
In the past, many, including Big Bad Wolfe (in "Academe and Wank: Discursive Continuity in the Post-Modern Era", Social Analysis, B4I#U2), have noted that contrary to other interpretations, actually constituted a peak in the illogic of cognitus nullius as well as its partial demise. Paradoxically, as a consequence of its inner functioning, it was only at the moment of this academically endorsed partial termination that cognitus nullius could be properly articulated. Cognitus nullius and academic funding are so dialectically intertwined that they conceptually need each other: while cognitus nullius identifies the tax paid funding so that obligation to the tax payer can be denied, academic funding establishes cognitus nullius so that it can be not-known. There is no fabrication here - it’s dialectics. This is no postmodern uncertainty - it’s solid Western rationalism of its antithesis.

Onya John Dawson.. but next time please spread it out a bit mate..easier to read.. k ?

DIFFERING PERCEPTIONS OF RECONCILLIATION.

This morning I went to Maroondah Festival 2006 at Croydon park.
There was a stall there being run by the "Council for Aborigal Reconciliation"
The Stall was manned by mostly 'white' people. One an Anglican lady married to an Indonesian Muslim, (?)a Sth African lady (looked mostly white) and various other all whites, but there was ONE Aboriginal man there, of mixed blood.

I raised a QUESTION....

"What...do you WANT" ?

NON ABORIGINAL ANSWER: (from those at the Reconciliation Stall)

Funding... Funding...and more FUNDING.

-Equality
-Employment
-Advancement
-Access to health services
-Culturally responsive banking, to facilitate better access to CAPITAL.
etc etc

ABORIGINAL ANSWER:

The primary goal is cultural. We have a connection to the land, spiritual.

It is worth mentioning, that there is a possibility of the Aboriginal answer being 'tailored' to suit my 'white' sensibilities, but I did not get that impression.

excuse me for appearing 'duh' ignorant, but what the heck has 'better access to capital' got to do with Aboriginals regaining their cultural connection with the land ?

i.e. they addressed the SYMPTOM and even then, viewed the concept of reconciliation through 'white' eyes. In fact, if one analyses what was supposed to be 'reconciliation' according to them, it meant just being 'well integrated white people' (see above list).

Whereas the Aboriginal man himself, was more focused on the 'actual' issue of alienation .. from
-the land
-the connection
-the culture.

If I may 'chirp' a bit here, this is what I've been ranting about all along.
1/ Prime issue numero uno 'Dignity'
2/ Prime cause of loss of uno.... 'Alienation'.

3/ Prime solution to the above.. 'Restoration of Dignity' (not 'better access to capital.)

Prime means of achieving 1,2& 3 above... Addressing such injustices as the 'reservation' mentality around Melbourne. (interesting story)
Restoration of significant land to Aboriginals for 'INDIGINOUS' cultural use (not capital intensive exploitation)
Educated acknowledgement of Aboriginal heritage in our relationships.

Friendship.
Social contact.
Basic human love.