Col Rouge says,
" Like the Normans versus the Anglo Saxons and Celts before them" .

Fair go Col ,Is this is your lame and archaic excuse to withhold help to those most in need ?

Donald McGauchie of the National Farmers Federation talked about his Scotish background and their history in the same way to excuse the NFF's and Howard Government's disgracefull behavior in "overturning" the High Court's WIK Native Title decision, by bringing in new legislation with their 10 point scam .

It won't wash Col- time and Ideals have moved on for most people .

Just look at Obama's Election if you need proof .

kartiya jim, “Fair go Col ,Is this is your lame and archaic excuse to withhold help to those most in need ?”

it is not an excuse, more an observation.

It is the same as asking the question, for all the aid and all the technology and support which has been pumped into Africa, why is Africa still a social and economic basket case?

For all the aid and preferential treatment which has been heaped upon aborigines, in comparison to the welfare available to non-aborigines, why do they remain a social and economic basket case?

The ‘lameness’ is not in what you suggest is my “excuse’. The ‘lameness’ is in the inability of aboriginals to stand on their own feet (metaphor intended).

As for "fair go", how much more affirmative benefits are needed to give aborigines a "fair go"?

“It won't wash Col- time and Ideals have moved on for most people”

The idea that “time and ideals have moved on for most people” is something which aboriginals, who are constantly carping for a state of existence and land rights which prevailed before Captain Cooke arrived, should seriously consider.

Or do you think ‘moving on’ means some ‘renaissance’ of the dreamtime?

If so, what do you intend to do with the 20+ million non-aboriginals who make up what Australia is today?

The sooner aboriginals accept the fact that the first fleet has not only landed but its children have prevailed in populating this land, the sooner aboriginals will be able to move forward themselves.


“Just look at Obama's Election if you need proof .”

Obama has been elected more because the American voters are punishing themselves and the Republicans for the shortcomings of GWB and the age of John McCain, not because of some fundamental shift in US politics.

Dear Kartya Jim,
I have many brothers and sisters in Christ of all nations, races, and creeds. We meet together in many different places and have fellowship with our father and one another with love.
Love covers a multitude of diferences and we don't major on our diferences. As we have fellowship and get to know one another with grace for others always not patronising we learn that we have much more in common then we have diferences.
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach him to fish and you feed him for a life time. If money and ownership was the answer we would see a far diferent world. You can only sell your house once then it is no longer yours to sell. Until we accept the fact that we have a very temperal hold on this world and are just the caretakers not the owner we will continue to bark up the wrong tree.
Read Jesus parable of the vinvard starting at Matthew 21- 33 . Most people on this site on both sides seem have a very narrow point of view and if we hadn't have had men of vision in the past this place would have been still uninhabited
I will finish on a lighter note, an athiest was having dialog with God about ownership of the soil and God told him to make his own .

Col Rouge,
When one considers the social disadvantages, including lack of services that Aboriginal people endure, we whites would have to spend a whole lot more to get Aboriginal people a reasonable level of housing and health .

We continually underspend on health, welfare and transport when one compares their levels of dissadvantage and you then complain they are not going ahead .

Your Darwinian Theory of Evolution for Aboriginal People trying to live in an alien white world, is a cheap "do nothing" position that I believe is indefensible.

...and as for Americans "punishing themselves " by electing Obama that defies logic .

I suggest that the minority that DIDN'T vote for him are the ostriches .

They will quickly head out into the mountains and shoot something to make themselves feel a bit better.

Dear kartija jim,

I'd like to quote from the book by
Henry Reynolds, "Why Weren't We told?"

"Much has changed in the thirty-four years
since I walked across the tarmac in Townsville
airport into the close embrace of a humid
tropical night...

... The great majority of the Indigenous families
which settled in Townsville in the 1960s and 1970s
have been successful in the difficult and linked
tasks of living in a city ... Many families are
still poor and struggle to make ends meet, but others
have established themselves securely in the community.

The educational standards of the young people are
far higher than those of their parents who grew up
on remote settlements or cattle stations. They have
had longer and better schooling.

Hundreds of Indigenous students from all over North
Queensland have passed successfully through the
university and what was the Townsville College of
Advanced Education before amalgamations in 1983.

Many local Indigenous organisations - schools, medical
and legal services, a media company and radio station,
housing cooperatives, cultural societies - have sprung
up in the last generations. Some have failed, but others
have been highly successful..."

This indicates that things are changing
and much has been achieved. It seems
that tolerance and understanding have broadened out.

What I don't understand is the attitude of some people,
who wouldn't dream of criticizing the huge amounts of
aid that the government continues to provide
to white communities, yet
when it comes to providing aid to our Indigenous people,
it's suddenly seen as a 'problem?'

Why?

cont'd

I agree with you regarding Barack Obama.

The Americans chose an election that was all
about the politics of hope instead of the
politics of cynicism. They chose to elect
a President not by the colour of his skin but
by the content of his character.

As Barack Obama told the people,
"America, this is our moment. This is our time.
Our time to turn the page of the policies of the past."

John McCain lost because he simply didn't get it.