Foxy,

I totally agree with you that posters should attack the opinions expressed by othwer posters, but not them personally.

You may, however, be able to explain to me an apparent inconsistency on the part of the bleeding lefties on the site.

From what they say, the British should not have come here uninvited in 1788.

But the current illegal immigrants are different; they should be able to come.

What is the difference? Please explain.

As far as Keating is concerned, causing an arrogant politician like him to be humbled is the essence of the Australian character. When a colleague of mine remarked "What a pity Keating was not dismissed by the Governor-General" I replied "But he was! He was Minister for Northern Australia (for three weeks) and was dismissed along with Whitlam and the rest of his cabinet on the 11th of November 1975. I have noted that no mention of his dismissal is permitted to appear on his wikipedia page.

From a philosophical point of view, feel that most of the Posts take the view that lessons from history are unimportant, which means that John Howard was correct in believing that the social science section of the Humanities should only mainly concentrate on what concerns our future wellbeing.

Looks like Rudd will be treating the past not much better, Julia Gillard not seemingly the consciously historical type, neither.

Furthermore, with our full reliance now on quarry economics and the resultant pitstock politics, an old feller like me wonders what the Aussie long term future really holds?

Cheers - BB, WA.

Dear plerdsus,

I can only speak on my own behalf, I can't speak or explain what other posters mean.

As Malcolm Fraser pointed out - the history of the past is in Government files or in the archives. He states quite clearly, "Look, what we were taught at school, what we understood of the past is not true..."

Adding, "I've seen the ordinances, I've seen the powers they've been given the protectors and the way those powers could be delegated down to a patrol officer level, and the powers were massive. They, in a sense, could dispose of Aboriginals in a way that nobody else in the whole community would have tolerated for one instant. For example,... there was a power to send, put it in inverted commas,"delinquent young Aboriginals" off to a place of detention without a trial, without any judgement, without any evidence, just if a policeman or a patrol officer says this man or woman is delinquent and needs to be put in a place of detention. That is absolute power over somebody..."

Malcolm Fraser was asked, "Has your stance cost you friendships?"
He replied, "Not so far." "It also makes some friendships and makes some friendships in the Liberal Party because people say that we're glad that a Liberal is saying these liberal things.

I mean, Menzies always emphasised that the Liberal Party was a liberal party. He specifically rejected conservatism as a force within the Liberal Party. Now, reading those particular Menzies speeches today, conservatism seems to be --well, the whole political spectrum has moved to the right...And I think social issues, human issues have become subsidiary to economic and financial issues...
Yet, people say to me, 'I didn't realise that was the reality, I didn't realise that that was happening--I'm glad you told me.'"

The sad reality is - some people don't want to know!

Poor redneck,
I know I am wasting my effort but I think you should do a bit more research.

You see the breakdown in Aboriginal communities is part of the whole genocide arguement.
Paternalism was introduced into these communities.

Before invasion men and women were equal, each had different roles and functions but equal.

Look to the early reports of the behaviour of settlers and you will see clearly that non-Indigenous sexual abuse of Indigenous children was endemic. The little children are sacred report noted that up to half of the perpetrators of child sex abuse in the NT communities was by non-Indigenous people.

Col 'Margaret' Rouge wrote:

"I would suggest some “real world” experience would not go amiss rainier, then you might hold those from that “real world” with some regard, instead of just mouthing off your hollow judgmental sneering."

Are you saying you don't love me anymore Col?

In one post Democritus says:

"I also said that the world today is built on bloodshed, some of the worst of it was caused by socialists in their crusade against non believers. No Marxist state was ever maintained without purging the non conformists, and most have collapsed when they lost the stomach for brutality."

I think Democritus is confusing Stalinism with Marxism. Stalinism represented the defeat of the Russian revolution. What Stalin set up was a form of capitalism in which the state became the collective embodiment of capital, exploiting the working class and expropriating the profit the workers made. For that reason some on the Left describe the Stalinist regimes as state capitalist.

The revolutions against the Stalinist regimes were fantastic, but they were political revolutions, not economic ones.

In my view the solution to the question of aboriginal sovereignty, because it may challenge the idea of private property, can only occur after a democratic and socialist working class revolution in Australia.