I had never heard of the "stolen generation" until I arrived in Australia. Shortly after I arrived two Aborigines, Gunner and Cubillo, filed suit against the NT Government. They alleged they had been stolen. They lost their case.

Later I read Keith Windschuttle’s "The Fabrication of Aboriginal History". I found it convincing. I was especially impressed by the fact that Windschuttle referenced PRIMARY sources. To the best of my knowledge Windschuttle’s claims have never been refuted.

I also read "Bringing Them Home". See:

http://www.hreoc.gov.au/social_justice/bth_report/index.html

Quote:

"The Inquiry is not limited to considering only those removals which could not be‘justified’, for example, on the ground of protecting the child from injury, abuse or neglect..." (p9)

In other words many of the cases considered are not strictly about people who were "stolen".

The commission does try to justify this stance in the rest of the paragraph I quoted. Ultimately, however, they take anyone who claimed to have been stolen at their word.

Thereafter I forgot about it until I chanced upon Janet Albrechtsen's piece in today's Australian.

See: http://tinyurl.com/yjocygp

As Albrechtsen points out, Windschuttle demonstrates that the movie "Rabbit-Proof Fence" played fast and loose with the facts. Windschuttle also demolishes the account of the mistreatment of Aborigines depicted in Luhrman's movie, Australia.

Part of the reason for my scepticism is this:

-- Australia is a litigious country.

--There are many young lawyers eager to make names for themselves.

--If there were any substance to the claims I would expect a slew of lawsuits directed against various agencies.

--Such lawsuits appear to be very rare.

So what does the evidence say?

--Is Windschuttle right when he says much Aboriginal history has been manufactured?

--Was there in FACT a large scale removal of Aboriginal children on "non-legitimate" grounds?

--If your answer is "yes", how do you know?

A few additional comments

I do not question that many aboriginal children were removed from their parents. That fact is well documented.

I am questioning the motives behind the removal.

Was the removal "justified" according to the thinking of the times – ie would a white child in similar circumstances also have been removed?

Note the "BRINGING THEM HOME" report specifically declined to look at "justification".

I also do not question the fact that many Aboriginal children were treated abominably after they were removed. That is a separate issue. It seems to apply equally to many White children and may still be going on today.

What first hand experience do you have with the Indigenous population involved?. Leaving aside your examples of interpretive entertainment and 45th page blogs...

its amasing how dirty you can make things sound<< two Aborigines, Gunner and Cubillo,..filed suit against the NT Government...They alleged they had been stolen...They lost their case>>

what isnt revealed is the lawyer dropped the case...not them...see its afunny thing....lawyers dont weant their scam unwound.

the defacto law...and the legal aid system...is designed to enforce its invasion status..behind words...its all about getting...their powers...and keeping any with a stronger claim...down..with legal aid..that gives support...but only so far.

i have..,met many betrayed..by the invader...often because of basics..that seem benevolent...but the care they got...was the minimum...thats where it wasnt done by out and out racists

the statistics sopeak for themself...22/100 ab/origonal men reach 65 years of age...33/100...for female...one in 5 die before the age of 5...i think only palistinians have about the same...

either way its the same perversions...that house the true indigenie in gulages...while doing their best to oppress...those who's lands are stolen

stolen generations..is about theft/repression of their culture..what better way...to do that..than to raise their kids/..white inside...sepperate them from their families...why not take the whole family

Dear Steven,

Keith Windshuttle is the Australian equivalent
of the David Irving denialists. He is a little
known academic who tried to make his reputation
by setting out to demolish the emminent
historian's - Prof. Henry Reynolds reputation.

For anyone really interested in the truth about
the Stolen Generation they have to go no further
then reading the work by Prof. Colin Tatz,
"Genocide in Australia." Professor Tatz is one of
Australia's foremost scholars in the field of the
politics of race and genocide.

Also, Prof. Henry Reynolds has written considerably
on the subject, "Why weren't We Told?" and
"The Other Side of The Frontier," are two highly
recommended works.

Some Australians would agree with John Howard's
and Keith Windshuttle's view
of Aboriginal history - being the "Black armband of history."

To those people I would merely suggest -"Do a bit
more research from more emminent and reputable sources
like the ones I've cited here.

Then decide.

There's enough evidence including oral
histories available at State, National, and Local
Libraries.

Keith Windshuttle is as relevant to Aboriginal history
as David Irving is to the Holocaust.

Foxy

Amen! sunshine.

Steven,
Be careful old son, this is well land mined territory.

I might question your choice of reference Albrechtsen? Despite her self opinion to being more, she is, a Conservative opinion columnist not an academic. She and her ilk are the unofficial policy section of the conservative Liberal party.

I'll think you'll find that the whites did have one attitude and laws for the aborigines, 'half-cast' children and another for the white.
Keep in mind the aborigine has only had the vote in their own country since the late 60's.

As for the movie, what did you expect? it was fiction 'based' on one story not a documentary.

I would suggest to you that 'the apology' had more to do with healing and sociology than hard science.

In short, if you want to know the truth you would be wise to follow Foxy's sagely words.

StG

Most of the people I've met who believe passionately in the stolen generation have had little to no contact with Aboriginal people. So far as I can see most non-Aboriginal Australians have little to no contact with Aboriginal people.

I do not understand the relevance of your question.

Foxy,

Whenever I raise this issue someone mentions the Holocaust. Let's get a few things straight:

--The murder of millions of Jews, Gypsies and others in Nazi death camps is well-documented.

--The forced removal of many Aboriginal children is also well-documented.

The difference between Irving and Windschuttle is simply this:

--Irving outright denies that Jews were killed in their millions in the death camps.

--Windschuttle does not deny that many Aboriginal children were forcible removed. In this case he is NOT a denialist in the Irving mode. The analogy is entirely false.

Windschuttle does question the REASON for the removals. At heart he asserts that in most cases the removals were justified by the conditions in which the removed child lived. He implies that White children living in similar circumstances would also have been removed.

If this is true the removed children were not stolen – they were removed for their own safety.

Windschuttle appears to me to make a persuasive case – one that so far as I can see has never been effectively rebutted. Perhaps you can point me rebuttals of this SPECIFIC point.

What I find most persuasive is the absence of effective litigation. If children had been stolen I would expect to find hundreds of lawyers willing to take up the cases just as there is no shortage of lawyers to plead for asylum seekers.

Can you explain the absence of litigation Foxy?

Why are lawyers willing to argue the cases of asylum seekers but almost none willing to argue for damages to stolen children?

I have been unable to find any reference on Amazon to the Tatz book you recommended. The closest I've come is this one:

http://www.amazon.com/Intent-Destroy-Reflections-Genocide/dp/1859845509/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260509165&sr=1-1

Is that what you had in mind?

stephen quote,,<<What I find most persuasive is the absence of effective litigation.>>thats so funny...as i heard spoken...by a judge in the high court...re keven buzzacot/coat of arms case

''why are you comming to me if by your..i forget the egsact terms...if by your reconing we have no legitimate right...to be running things..''

<<If children had been stolen>>.if jews did get killed in the labour camps...[noting recently obama.visited one of them[beuchanwald from memory]...anyhow only on sbs was the speach of a surviver recorded...revealing of the 35,000...who died there...ONE THIRD WERE JEWS...

one third...what of that TWO THIRDS...that..dont rate a mention on any other news organisation...to feed the myth/legend/excuse for zionist occupation...by the not homeless northern zionist blochovic jews...that look nmore northern than semite

your scating on thin ice either way..you are free to hold your opinion...as i am to hold mine...the truth lies in the middle..NO ONE is all good...nor all bad...when we judge...we reveal we have bias/hate/fear/contempt/loathing...of others

all land belongs to god
who sustains each life ...all land is gods holy land...all people are gods people...that we do/did to the least..we did/do to god

god is the love living life giver
we serve life...or we serve death
[by their works do we know which one we serve]

look at the fryit of the first people...drunks oin park/./living like culturless..lost oputcasts in their own lands...SOMETHING HELPED THIS OCCURE...some how their culture was stolen...thus they are the stolen generation

IM stolen gen...my parents were trickled to these lands..but effectivly i got only my immediate family..so i too[and many of you are stolen/generation...IE divided from your cultural roots...go try to prove it in court

<<I would expect to find hundreds..of lawyers willing to take up the cases>>>yes funny boy ..you imaginer all you like

but there shall not be any...except those willing to take a dive..if they begin like looking like winning...this invasion state cant have that...just like those needing to people any holy land...first need to dislodge them from their own land.culture

<<Can you explain the absence of litigation Foxy?>>can you reveal these thousands of constitutional/litargy..indigenous lawyers?

Dear Steven,

I'm all for getting things straight.

When you've done a broader amount of
research we can then discuss David Irving,
and Keith Windshuttle. Until then may I
humbly suggest you don't speak on something
you seem to know very little about.

I have cited enough references for you
to point you in the right direction.
I'm sure that you're able to use a computer
and can google and find the given references.

As for your question on the Stolen Generations
and Litigation - may I humbly refer you to this
website (there are however - many more to be found on the web
for those really wanting to know the truth of the matter):

http:www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/MULR/2008/13.html
The Stolen Generations & Litigation Revisited...

Oneonaboutgod, this thread is not about God is it?
Foxy, I admire your stand and good sense.
I think this is a dicey thread that could descend into a racist discussion.

However, I have worked with many Aboriginal people over the years, including working on missions in the Northern Territory, Darwin and Derby, as well as the town camps in some capital cities.

I have noticed the sadness that comes from some of these people that were not brought up in their normal family environment.

Many stated that they felt like their culture was taken from them as children. They were some really sad people.

On the other hand, I also noted that many Aboriginal people who were brought up in missions or in children's homes or in white families (or their descendents) were leaders in their communities.

They were more likely to have had a good education and healthier life and to have employment than their other relatives. They were now doing plenty of good for their people that maybe they could never have done if they were brought up in their original family.

Whether this outcome is good or bad for Aboriginal people is up to them now.

Foxy,

Thank you for drawing my attention to the case of Trevorrow v South Australia Here is a better link:

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/MULR/2008/13.html#Heading13

Based on the evidence presented it appears clear that Bruce Trevorrow was "stolen" in the sense this word is used in the phrase "stolen generation". Judge Gray found for the plaintiff and awarded $450,000 in damages and a further $75,000 in punitive damages. I would have considered double that amount inadequate.

I should add that it has never been my position that no Aborigine was ever "stolen" – merely that it MAY (repeat MAY) be stretching the facts to talk of a stolen GENERATION. I should have made that clear.

With that out of the way let's deal with some facts.

--Trevorrow was, to be blunt, an unsympathetic plaintiff. It is obviously unfair that a plaintiff with Trevorrow's unsavoury background should find it harder to get justice; but it is a fact that any experienced lawyer will confirm.

--Yet despite his background Trevorrow did win. And he won big. Damages of $525,000 are sizeable by Australian standards.

--Judge Gray accepted ORAL testimony. This represents an important breakthrough in these cases.

--The case is now two years old

Yet, despite the precedent set by the Trevorrow case, despite the large award, despite the plaintiff's criminal background, despite the acceptance of oral evidence, there has NOT, so far as I am aware, been a slew of cases. I would have expected that, at the very least, lawyers with more sympathetic clients would have given it a try after Judge Gray broke the ice.

This not happened.

Why?

I do not think the Antonio Buti, the author of the paper you linked, really addresses this question.

Foxy,

I am what you might call sceptically agnostic when it comes to the question of a "stolen GENERATION". So far the evidence for a stolen GENERATION – as opposed to a number of stolen children – appears to me to be scant.

NB: I am NOT denying that Aborigines have suffered great injustices since the Europeans took over here.

Keith Windshuttle is the Australian equivalent
of the David Irving denialists. He is a little
known academic who tried to make his reputation
by setting out to demolish the emminent
historian's - Prof. Henry Reynolds reputation.
Foxy,
I'm uncertain re Windshuttle but from what I have seen on TV & read about Reynolds I'm more inclined to view the latter as no different than the former. After all, both are academic historians & academics in general do not have a realistic view of reality & more often than not invent history rather than quote. I think you're overly generous with eminent.

stevenlmeyer: << I had never heard of the "stolen generation" until I arrived in Australia. >>

You've been here for quite a while, haven't you Steven, like more than a few years?

How come it's taken you so long to look into the Stolen Generations? It's an issue that has been quite intensely and publicly debated for years in Australia, which culminated in a quite famous Apology by our very own Prime Minister. I'm sure you were resident here while much of that was going on.

You work at a university, don't you? I cannot believe that you're unaware of the 'History Wars', in which the odious Windschuttle was a leading protagonist. And Albrechtsen's beneath contempt.

So I guess this is just another narcissistic stevenlmyer troll, eh?

Everybody - look at Steven, look at Steven!

No matter how you try and spin it and despite all the current window dressing, the specific policy of the Government of the time was to eliminate the aboriginal race by assimilation and by "breeding them out" and was expected to take only a few generations.

Even when I was in school during the sixties we were told that they were a dying race and would not be around much longer.

It was no so much a matter of stealing the children of a generation but stealing their childhood and families from them.

Interesting to see the lack of dispute and cries of potential litigation when it was the turn of the British immigrant children for recognition.

Better if you had stayed out of this one Steve, foxy has described your champion very well.
Along with Quantum, Howard, and camp followers truth mattered little to those who denied it.
While I am not exactly ancient I did live in the 1950,s as a child.
A white child from a big family.
Different ideals ruled then, at the drop of a hat welfare took loved and cared for whites into custody.
It is true, some thought, you may even have been one of them if you had been in control, half cast Aboriginals should be taken away.
Children taken away, whites too, always in my experience, got harsh cruel treatment.
At the public swimming pool in a southern highlands town, white kids in care not more than 10 years old, got what was a public bashing for no more than splashing water on each other.
Separate the fact we are far from resolving the mess that we helped make, the failure even today to get a better life for our first Australians.
If we stole kids, and we did, we failed them and our selves look at the results of that Church driven crime.
While no Christian, and actively blaming them for much of todays troubles, I think we must do far more than talk about the past, concentrate on todays failure.
Look at failure to truly commit to change, from both sides.
And do not hide our past, both sides have to feel some shame.

I need to correct something that CJ Morgan wrote.

I severed my last links with academe two years ago. While I continue to have many friends in the academic world, and while some still do me the honour of asking my advice about their research, I currently have no official ties to any university. All going well within two years I shall have no official ties with ANY organization that requires me to work. :-)

CJ Morgan

As usual you indulge in ad hominem attacks but decline to address the issues.

Windschuttle does not appear to me to be in any way "odious". On the contrary he displays a quality I admire; to wit, a healthy scepticism towards the received wisdom in his field coupled with a determination to get to the bottom of things.

That is not to say – and I cannot repeat this often enough – that Aborigines did not suffer at the hands of the European settlers. Plainly they did.

Also let me repeat again what I should have made clear in my original post. I do not take the view that no Aboriginal child was ever stolen.

I do profess to be sceptical, repeat sceptical, not denialist, about there being a stolen GENERATION. To me the evidence for this seems scanty but I am willing to be convinced otherwise.

Albrechtsen strikes as being no more "odious" than any other journalist with strong opinions. I would put her on a par with, say, the ABC's Tony Jones. Albrechtsen and Jones appear to me to be opposite sides of the same coin.

Suzeonline,

Interesting perspective.

Wobbles, Belly,

I am sure everything you say about White attitudes towards Aborigines is true. That Aborigines, and others, who were removed from their parents were often treated atrociously is undeniably true. But none of that proves the existence of a stolen GENERATION.

I am certainly not going to believe in stolen generations just because Kevin Rudd (and others) say I'm a nasty horrible "racist" if I don't.

I had a singular experience in my fourteenth year. My father, who was a bit of a gad-about, managed to install me for a period of three months in an aboriginal mission (he was working on a mine site in central WA at the time) I am not aboriginal and have no idea how he achieved this.
However - it does give me firsthand experience, at least in observation, of how some of these children seemed to be affected.
This Christian mission consisted of a series of houses, each populated by a white Christian family, and each house also contained about five aboriginal girls (the boys at that time were accommodated in a hostel in a nearby town).
The domestic arrangements and general daily life here was fairly well organized and I saw no cruelty or questionable treatment during my time at the mission.
What I did see, however, was a complete dislocation of emotional connectedness by my aboriginal counterparts between themselves and their caregivers. suzieonline mentioned a "sadness" and I'm sure that applies - after the fact- to me it was more of an ingrained silent resentment. Most of the children in "my house" were full blood aboriginal. I don't recall them having any contact with their families or their culture in the few months that I was there.
They "parents"of our house were a couple with two young children. they had separate quarters within the house for their own use. The mother cooked the meals and loaded the washing machine and looked after her two young children. Apart from this the only other thing she did was delegate all the other work in the house to her charges.
I think that many of these girls felt like navvies - I know I did.
These children were well fed, well dressed and yet had no spiritual or cultural connection with the people or environment around them.
I don't know if any of them grew into strong leaders for their people - it seems unlikely from my standpoint as they seemed to be lost and totally adrift between two cultures.

Yes it could be justified on one level at times. There are many variables. I see it along the lines of celebrities adopting African children in a sort of way. I always think if you care for a child in Africa and want to parent that child then you move to Africa and raise the child in it's environment. That way you also contribute to the local economy. I see overseas adoptions as a sort of stolen generation.

If this had occured in Indigenous society then they perhaps would have been able to modernise at their own pace and in their own vision. A sort of bridge without being dominant. Offering only what is needed without patronising.

So yes the removal of a child from a family can be justified but not the outright removal from community and culture. I also do not agree with religous cultural imperialism...at least I am consistant on that front..not like many.

I do think Windshuttle served some purpose in strengthening the academic rigour of our modern historians, some of whom had gotten sloppy and possibly a little over indulgent of their ideologies.

However I had problems with the man very early on when I had read one of his first pieces in Quadrant back in 2001/2(?).

In it he appears to make the claim that one massacre, Forrest River from memory, didn't happen because a search much later for human remains found only some human teeth and other indeterminable remains.

However a reported series of killings that Windshuttle acknowledges did happen, yet also saw no bodies being found, because, he says, they were removed and buried by their tribesmen.

I felt at the time and still do that it smacked of the same ideological massaging of the facts he had been so keen to accuse others of.

I have taken him only with a very large grain of salt ever since.

*CSteele*

One of the favourite methods of those who first hand participated in the massacres was a technique that they copied from some of the Original Australians themselves, and that was to wrap up the bodies bush style as if in a burial hammock and burn them swinging between two trees leaving very little evidence, a fact about which has made it to prime time Al - Jazeera. (snicker, snicker)

http://www.comlaw.gov.au/ComLaw/Legislation/ActCompilation1.nsf/current%5Cbytitle/37BA4B1F187B70ABCA256F71004F4FA9?OpenDocument&mostrecent=1

Genocide Convention Act 1949
Act Compilation (current) - C2004C00496
Number: No. 27, 1949

Article II
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Some of you may care to note (e)

Because of this, in part, you have bogus Historians, the suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act, and a long held and ongoing media campaign which serves largely to re-inforce the negative stereotypes of the Original Australians, with the overall repugnant spin being to propagate the falsehood that everything that has been done to the Original Aussies post WWII was "in their best interests."

I have done a quick hack of the Mabo case referenced below. I'll leave it for others to comment further:

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=9768&page=6

I think CJ is likely correct about StevenlMyer, as if he is an academic, or at least was, then why if he has not himself perused the evidence, or at least what is left of it, does he adopt a skeptical position? Part of Abbott's Army perhaps?

C J Morgan has you about right Steve, on the evidence your posts give you are a troll.
You can say what you like we did have a stolen generation.
Wind shuttle is of no worth in looking for truth on this subject.
Fact is both sides have done very little to fix this problem, even now.
But grow up without education or hope, maybe no real house.
Grow up knowing if you try your guts out you may still not get a job.
Not trying to hurt you Steven but bloke in your own words you came here long after the event.
You constantly remind us of events in the middle east but try to white wash a problem my country had and has not yet fixed.

Dear Foxy,

you sound well read on this subject. To give us an idea of what you're talking about, can you give us say three specific examples of Windschuttle's denialist crimes?

You know, something that often wonder is, would aboriginal children be better off away from thier families today.

Sure, there are some great AB families who care and look after their kids, but we also know there are many who don't.

So in essence, they have been provided with free housing, provided with the means to provide for their families and, one must admit that many of them have failed.

So perhaps these should be known as 'the wasted generation', given the level of support provided to them from the tax payer, only to see them piss it away.

Now, do you recon we will ever see an appology?

I doubt it!

Remember, this is happening here and now, not way back before any of us were even born.

Dear John Dawson,

If you've got the inclination and the time,
I'd feel much happier if you did your own
research on Keith Windschuttle instead
of accepting my opinion.

You can google Keith Windschuttle and find
quite a few websites to choose from.

Gerard Henderson did an interesting article
in, 'The Age,' entitled, "The trouble with
Keith Windschuttle," that may be of interest.
There's also many Koori websites that are
interesting.

Keith Windschuttle like so many denialists
asserts but doesn't demonstrate. He disapproves,
but doesn't ever disprove - he criticizes others
for having a political agenda, but his work
invariably produces findings consistent with
his own political views. His original sources
are selectively quoted or misquoted, with a few
texts actually re-written in order to advance
his ideological thesis.

Anyway, seeing as you did ask me to list three
examples - I'll oblige - but as I said - I'd
be happier if you did your own research as well.

Denials are:

1) That 19th Century European settlers
launched a bloody war of extermination against
Aborigines in Tasmania. Claims no such war took
place.

2) Denies widespread genocide against Indigenous
Australians.

3)The - 'Bringing Them Home' material.
Claims Stolen Generations were not stolen.

4) Denies Aboriginal Rights - Land Rights.

5) Denies the degree of racism in Australia's
history.

6) Denies the value of oral histories.

7) Denies the work of other eminent and
reputable academics and historians,for example,
Prof. Henry Reynolds.

8) Denies that there was any resemblance between
racial attitudes in Australia and those of South
Africa under apartheid and Germany under the Nazis.

And so on ...

John Dawson

Are you the John Dawson mentioned in the piece Foxy urges us to read titled "The trouble with Keith Windschuttle"?

Quote:

"A new front was opened last night in …the culture wars. Columnist Frank Devine launched two books published by Macleay Press - Keith Windschuttle's The White Australia Policy and John Dawson's Washout…."

Here is a link:

http://www.kooriweb.org/foley/news/wd8dec04.html

Foxy,

Gerard Henderson's piece does not exactly support your claims. For instance he writes:

"As with The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, the strength of Windschuttle's latest book is that the author goes back to the original sources to make his points and to discredit his opponents…."

Precisely the point I made and the reason why I tend to put so much credence on Windschuttle's writing.

Henderson then goes on to criticise Windschuttle for instances in which he did not refer to primary sources.

I have come across many sources that slam Windschuttle. However those I've seen level all sorts of accusations at Windschuttle but do not back these up with evidence. Mostly it seems Windschuttle's critics simply don’t like what he writes.

In general I tend to believe historians who refer to primary sources. I tend to distrust those who engage in overblown rhetoric without the evidence to back up their claims.

But I could be wrong. When it comes to Australian history I am a tyro.

QUESTION

Why the almost exclusive focus on a stolen generation anyhow?

Assuming there was a stolen generation, at most a relatively small minority of Aborigines would have been affected. For the vast majority of Aborigines it would make no difference to their lives.

It seems to this observer that there is plenty to apologise to the Aborigines about IN THE HERE AND NOW about matters which are beyond dispute and which affect the majority of Aborigines.

Example: A life expectancy almost FIFTEEN YEARS below the Australian average.

Could it be that focussing on what may have happened in the past is a cop out, an excuse, for not facing up to the rather awful present?

Yes I've read all the books Foxy, and all the attacks on Windschuttle. And I've read Windschuttle's book. He backs everything he says with facts and figures and logical analysis. The academics hate him because he exposes their fabrications. But even with the whole pack of them baying for his blood they can't counter his book on factual grounds, so they huff and puff and misrepresent and slur. And people like you swallow what they dish up without checking it out by reading Windschuttle for yourself. Then you go round calling him a David Irving without knowing what you’re talking about. I investigated the accusations made by Windschuttle against the academics and those made bt the academics against him. With a very few exceptions, his stood up to scrutiny and theirs didn't. For details read my book: Washout

Interesting post John Dawson if that's who you are. I mean no offence. You may be John Dawson. But, realistically, there is no way I can verify your identity.

I want to make it clear that unlike Winschuttle and John Dawson I am not contesting ALL of Aboriginal history, merely one aspect of it.

Was there a "stolen generation"?

There has been much vituperation. Most posters don't like Windschuttle. They don’t like my suggesting that maybe, just maybe, he has a point when it comes to the stolen generation. There have been ad hominem attacks aplenty but nothing in the way of new sources of evidence that would discredit Windschuttle's thesis on THIS topic.

Foxy, all my Google searches on Windschuttle revealed is that he has outraged a lot of people. So in his time did Charles Darwin. In fact he still does.

But outrage is not evidence.

However I would like posters to consider a DEEPER QUESTION.

What would be more meaningful to Aborigines, the vast majority of whom are unstolen?

"Sorry we stole you?"

"Sorry you are deprived of 15 years of life. We are going to do our best to close the gap between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal life expectancy in Australia within a generation."

Quote from:

http://www.aihw.gov.au/mortality/life_expectancy/indig.cfm

"…Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have a much lower life expectancy than the general Australian population. Indigenous Australians born in the period 1996-2001 are estimated to have a life expectancy at birth of 59.4 years for males, and 64.8 years for females. This is approximately 16-17 years less than the overall Australian population born over the same period…"

"…Australia appears to compare poorly with other countries for Indigenous life expectancy at birth. For example, Registered Indians (Aboriginal people) in Canada have an estimated life expectancy of about 6-8 years below that of the non-Aboriginal population."

Unlike stolen generations the truncation of Aboriginal lives as an undisputable FACT.

oh lordy..now we got stolen gen..'''deniers''...just like im a holy cost denier..and a man made global warming deneyer..

now we have the stolen generation deneyer...for what a a sceptic...but one in denial...the dead cant reveal the reason for their abuse...

its beyond despute that colenisation of others land...by murder rape genocide..oppresive policing..de facto courts...are all sure signs...

look at the prisons...where 2/3 percent of the general/population become 65 percent of the prison/population...their abuse is revealed by the simple facts of them dying and being in jail..clearly there is sepperation..from their birth right...

but that is incidental..to the blind...who must support oppresive/genocidal..colinisation of others lands

believe as you chose...there have been genicidal hollow costs all over the globe...those who favour these powerplays...are in denial..sceptic...to justify its ongoing perversions/globally..

and specificly ..in the 'holy'..lands that belong's to god alone..and thus to us all..

not just you with the guns/the cynanide/and sulpherous..cluster..atomic/bombs...and a lobby that controles media and global poli-tricks...war policing finance ebtre-taint-ment..the arts and any other agency...that favours its own...with belief..and any other with sceptisim

Windschuttle is a pedantic toad who gained notoriety by finding relatively minor errors in the footnotes of the work of his academic betters. He became the darling of the racist lunar right during the Howard years by providing them with the appearance of historical evidence for their denialism, and the pretence of intellectual substance to Howard's refusal to engage in the act of reconciliation of the Apology to the Stolen Generations.

As far as I can tell, John Dawson appears to be a nobody who has attempted to cash in on Windschuttle's moment in the sun. Albrechtsen's just a lunar right media shill attempting to make as much noise as she can while she's still got a column in which to do so. Both Albrechtsen and Windschuttle were blatant political appointees to the ABC board.

With respect to the Stolen Generations, the overdue Apology given by Kevin Rudd on behalf of the nation was a welcome first step along the path to healing and reconciliation. It's unsurprising that someone like Albrechtsen or even Dawson would want to reopen those old wounds, but I'm wondering why a South African immigrant like stevenlmeyer wants to belatedly put the boot into the appallingly treated Indigenous people of his adopted country.

The Stolen Generations debate has been done and dusted, and the racist denialists lost. Apparently some of them still have axes to grind.

Yes, they don't seem to be able, amongst other things, to provide a legal basis for their assertions.

We could of course examine the legislation as it provided for:

1. Full Bloods
2. Half's
3. Quartets
4. Octets

And an examination of the ideology of the race scientists could lead you to conclude that they believed that once the original people were bred out past 1/8 that they were "white enough."

We could also have a look at the legislative underpinnings of, what was the title, something like, Chief Inspector of Aborigines and examine the directives pertaining to the office.

The film, was it called "Rabbit Proof Fence" shed some light on the history?

..

What concerns me is that the simplistic and unfounded in historical and legal fact assertions made by the deniers do appeal to the general prejudice of the ugly side of Australia. And they seem to have a considerable war chest for propagating their vile puke in the media in a variety of psychologically cunning ways.

..

All things said and done, if we are all Australians, what does it matter if the Original people have a lion's share of the wealth? Hmmm .. alas .. the prejudice of ill gotten gains and power.

*Chancellor Palpatine*
" ... All those who gain power are afraid to lose it. ... "

Incidentally, is their any truth to the rumor that a seriously significant vein of gold has been discovered under the Perth region?

I think it should be classified as *Woggle Poo* and Birth Right Inheritance for the Swan River people to ensure they are, well to do.

;-)

Dear Steven,

May I suggest that you re-read the Henderson article.
You seem to be missing the points that are being made.
You also omitted to add in the quote you gave
about, "an essential weakness in the author's approach."

Dear John Dawson,

One moment you compliment me on being well read,
and knowing the subject under discussion
and the next you infer that that I'm nothing of
the sort. That I'm gullible and easily taken in.

I could imply that I have a professional disdain
for inacurracies and self-serving manipulations
and I therefore disregard falsehoods, fictions,
fables, furphies, fantasies, fallacies and
fabrications and have no
intention of focusing my attention on what you and
your colleague and publisher Keith Windshuttle
decide I should.

But I'll leave that sort of language up to you Sir.

I answered your questions to me, openly and honestly.
You took me in Mr Dawson, however, it won't happen
twice.

All I will do is blow you a great big raspberry
and bid you farewell.

Well Foxy, you were telling everybody that Windschuttle is just like David Irving, so I thought you must have read what he said. So I asked you for specific examples of things he had said that he couldn’t back up - who knows, I might have missed something. But your reply told me that you have never read Windschuttle, you just mouth off slurs you pick up from the academics he embarrassed.

Dear John Dawson,

You're making wrong assumptions about
me Sir. I do my research. It's part of
my occupational training, as well as
my nature.

The conclusions I've drawn are as a result
of my findings. I don't have an axe to
grind or a particular political agenda.

And I don't mouth slurs. I don't need to.

As I stated to you in my earlier post -
do your own research on the topic, and it
just may broaden your outlook on the subject.

Have you actually read, "Why weren't We Told?"
by Henry Reynolds or even the autobiography of
Margaret Tucker, "If Everyone Cared.?"
There's so much evidence and resource material
in our State, National, University, and Local
Libraries. If you find academics not to your
liking - try other resources - including oral
histories.

The historian can establish that an act took place
on a certain day, but this, by historical standards
constitutes only chronology or "factology."
A historian has to look critically at motivation,
circumstances, context, or any other consideration.
And above all, a reputable historian should
not try to deny events that actually took place
or produce findings consistent only
with their political views.

Foxy
"I do my research. It's part of my occupational training, as well as my nature."

Prove it! Name specific faults in Windshuttle's work. Exactly what did he claim and exactly why is he wrong? Name members of the stolen generation. The examples that you have used so far provide little evidence that you know this subject as intimately as you claim to.

Good Afternoon benk,

Been there, done that.
Please read the eight examples I've cited
earlier. I was asked for three - I gave
eight. I have no intention of giving any
more - if you're not satisfied - you're
welcome to do your own research.

This discussion isn't about my opinion, (at
least it shouldn't be).

What does matter is setting the record straight.
And, for that you don't have to take
anybody's opinion. Simply do your own researh
on the subject.

There's so much material available now - you can
explore the past by a large number of books,
articles, reports, films, novels, even songs and
paintings. As Henry Reynolds tells us in his book,
"Why Weren't We told?" and I quote:

"Many voices have filled out the space once claimed
by Stanner's Great Australian Silence. We can know
a great deal about the history of indigenous-settler
relations. But knowing brings burdens which can be
shirked by those living in ignorance.
With knowledge the question is no longer what we know
but what we are now to do, and that is a much harder
matter to deal with. It will continue to perplex us
for many years to come..."

Anyway, I'm now leaving this thread and I shan't be
responding to any more posts. As far as I'm concerned
this discussion has run its course and I've got nothing
more to say on the subject. I'm currently reading
Thomas L. Friedman's book, "Hot, Flat, and Crowded,"
on the 'Energy-Climate,' question. An interesting
read - if you want a good book on the subject.

See you on another thread.

What benk might have been looking for Foxy is something like this:

On page 175 of The Aboriginal Tasmanians, Lyndal Ryan states that: “Even if only half the stories Robinson heard were true, then it is possible to account for seven hundred shot.” On page 352 of The Fabrication of Aboriginal History V1, Windschuttle states that Robinson’s diaries record not 700 x 2 but 188 shootings, many of which had been disproved. To this day neither Ryan nor any other academic has published any defense, acknowledgement, or correction of her 750% inflation of the record.

On page 128-9 of Whitewash, Henry Reynolds claims that during the early years of the colonization of Tasmania there were “literally dozens, if not hundreds, of references to the murderous attacks by the ‘borderers’ as they were called” against the Aborigines, but “space forbids any more than a brief reference to the extensive literature”. He then presented a 40 word quote and a 98 word discussion of a report, neither of which reported any specific killings. To this day he has not published examples or a summary of the hundreds of references he claims to have.

From your research, what specific deficiencies such as these can you quote from Windschuttle’s writings that were so egregious that they convinced you he was a David Irving? Or are you just regurgitating insults that were dished up to you by Windschuttle’s antagonists?

I see now that all this reopening of societal sores is to promote Windschuttle's latest book, curiously published as the third volume of his "Fabrication of Aboriginal History" series - curious because he hsn't come up with a second volume to date.

To balance the journalism on which stevenlmeyer apparently prefers to base his opinions about the Stolen Generations, there's been some interesting stuff in the MSM in the last day or two about the topic:

<< Historian's Aboriginal claims a distortion, says author
Nicolas Perpitch

The Australian December 15, 2009 12:00AM

DORIS Pilkington Garimara, author of Follow the Rabbit Proof Fence, says Keith Windschuttle is "distorting history" by claiming her mother and another girl were removed from their community because they were having sex with white men.

Pilkington, whose book was the basis for the acclaimed film Rabbit-Proof Fence, said her mother, Molly and another girl Gracie, were sent away because they and other mixed-race children were an embarrassment to whites. >>

http://tiny.cc/HO7Sv

[cont]

[cont]

And this:

<< Filmmakers dispatch historian to the fence over distorted history

The Australian December 15, 2009 12:00AM

THE makers of Rabbit-Proof Fence have rejected claims by historian Keith Windschuttle that the film lies about a government policy to "breed out" Aboriginality in the 1930s.

In the third volume of his The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, Windschuttle claims that two of the three girls the subject of the 2002 film were removed in 1931 for their own safety, because of alleged promiscuity with white station workers, not as part of a systematic breeding program.

Director Phillip Noyce and screenwriter Christine Olsen provided a letter from Western Australia's chief protector of Aborigines Auber Octavius Neville, which said one of the girls, Daisy Kadibill, 8, was removed to stop her from mating with an full-blood Aboriginal man.

"I agree with you that in this case it would be inadvisable to allow `Daisy' to mate with her tribal husband who is a full-blood, and as legal guardian of this child I desire it to be known that I disapprove of any such proposition and do not wish the matter to be further considered," Neville wrote to a Mrs Chellow, a farmer's wife from near Jigalong. >>

http://tiny.cc/wp6eF

[cont]

[cont]

Like I said, what I want to know is why some people want to reopen ugly old ulcers in our cultural fabric. The Stolen Generations were just one aspect of the many injustices wrought against Indigenous people in the annexation and colonisation in Australia over the last couple of hundred years. The 'Bringing them Home' report was the catalyst for the wider debate that culminated in Kevin Rudd's Apology.

Personally, while I think the Apology was a powerful act by an Australian government, like most of what Rudd does it didn't go nearly far enough. I've always thought that the Australian State should issue a general apology to Indigenous people for invading and expropriating their lands, and attempting to eliminate both them their culture for most of Australia's short history - and then when that didn't work, generally treating them like sh!t and relegating most Indigenous people to an underclass that still exists, to our collective shame.

Aboriginal people have lived here sustainably for many millennia, and we beneficiaries of the currently dominant culture have managed to stuff both them and the Australian environment up spectacularly badly in only a century or so of intense industrial activity.

I really wonder why some people expend so much of their efforts in trying to deny the historical realities that form part of our shared cultural heritage. We need to acknowledge and atone for our societal past, and move on. Windschuttle and his acolytes are classic denialists, and I'm using the term in its most pejorative sense.

Apologies for the extended post, but I find them and their project odious in the extreme.

Let me get this straight.

Daisy, THEN JUST EIGHT YEARS OLD, was removed to stop her "mating" with a "full blood".

Erk. Sorry about the links.

Something weird happened in the shrinking...

The first link should be http://tiny.cc/1unxD

The context steven needs is here:

http://tiny.cc/9qPAR

Steven should also read something about traditional Aboriginal (in this case Mardu) marriage before leaping to salacious conclusions. Tip: marriage - or more likely 'betrothal' - often happened long before sexual consummation. It most certainly doesn't mean "mating with" the husband at the time, as Neville so quaintly put it.

Now I've done my posts in this thread for 24 hours.

oh here we go again steven
let those in glass houses..know they stand on..in-firm ground's[by their deeds..will we know them]
from
http://www.biblestudysite.com/factsarefacts.htm
I apologize..for the'language'..which will appear'..here-UNDER'

from The official..unabridged..'Soncino'Edition of the'Talmud'..published in 1935..quotations..with footnotes from the Soncino Edition of the Talmud,(Book)

YEBAMOTH,60b."As R.Joshua,b.Levi related:`There was a certain town in the Land of Israel..the legitimacy of whose inhabitants disputed,
#
and Rabbi sent R.Ramanos..who conducted an inquiry and..'found'in it the daughter of a'proselyte..who was under the age of three years..and one day

,and Rabbi declared her eligible to live with a priest."

(footnotes).."(13)A proselyte..under the age of three years and one day may be married by a priest...(14)And was married to a priest.(15)i.e.,permitted to continue to live with her'husband'."

(Book)..SANHEDRIN,55b-55a:"What is meant by this?

Rab said:Pederasty..with a child below nine years of age..is not deemed as pederasty with a child above that.

Samuel said:Pederasty with a child below three years is not treated as with a child above that(2].....

55a)(he)who commits bestiality,whether naturally or unnaturally:...or a woman..who causes herself to be beastially abused,....whether naturally or unnaturally,..is liable to punishment(5)."

(footnotes)"(The reference is to..the passive..'subject'/victim..of sodomy.

As stated in supra..[54a,guilt is incurred by the active participant even if the former be a minor;..i.e.,less than thirteen years old...

2)Rab makes nine years the minimum;..but if one committed sodomy with a child of lesser age,..no guilt is incurred...Samuel makes three the minimum...(There are thus three distinct clauses in this Baraitha.

why single out pederasty:..in all crimes of incest,..the'passive'adult..does not incur'guilt'..unless the other'party'..is at least nine years and a day?

Hence the Baraitha..supports Rab's'contention'..that nine years(and a day)is the minimum age of the...passive partner..for the adult to be liable."(emphasis in original,Ed.)

Before giving any more verbatim quotations..from the"sort of book" from which..it is falsely alleged Jesus"drew the teachings''..

In'official-statement'made by Rabbi Morris N.Kertzer..that the Talmud"..IS THE LEGAL CODE..WHICH FORMS THE BASIS OF JEWISH RELIGIOUS LAW..AND IT IS THE TEXTBOOK USED IN THE TRAINING OF RABBIS".

Please bear this in mind as you read further.

http://www.biblestudysite.com/factsarefacts.htm

Is further proof needed..on that question?

CJ Morgan

Yes I do know that in some cultures people are "betrothed" and the marriage is only consummated later. There is after all the famous case of 6 year old Aisha and a certain seventh century Arabian psychopath. The psychopath waited until Aisha was 9 – a year older than Daisy at the time of her removal – before consummating the marriage.

Maybe Daisy would also have had a year's grace before being "mated". And maybe not.

But then maybe you and other posters here belong to the "she knew what was expected of her" school of thought.

See:

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/dark-side-of-justice/story-0-1111119091152

Quote:

'Justice John Gallop sentenced Jamilmira to just one day in jail, saying the 15-year-old "knew what was expected of her" and her rapist was merely "exercising his conjugal rights in traditional society".'

However, as I made clear from my first post, I am not relying on what may or may not have been the motives of officials from decades ago. I am relying on the absence of law suits in the here and now.

The Trevorrow case that Foxy brought to our attention merely reinforces my scepticism. Following on the heels of that precedent why aren't entrepreneurial personal injury lawyers out there recruiting candidates for a class action suit? Could it be that there just aren’t many candidates?

I also stick to my point that focussing on a "stolen generation", safely in the PAST, is a cop-out to avoid addressing the hideous PRESENT. The life expectancy of Australian Aborigines is roughly on a par with Uzbekistan.

Now there is a REAL scandal in the here and now! There's no disputing that fact.

not sure if its sad..or other stupidity steven..but your twisting facts..from Daisy..to a link on Jamilmira..throwing in mahamoud for good measure

THIS is DISGUSTING..BELOW SHOWS THE EXTENT..some..ARE PREPARED TO GO TO TO PROTECT..FELLOW JEWISH SEX OFFENDERS AND MURDERERS.

Jewish officials..in a major Italian news agency..tried to cover the story up,..but were circumvented..by Italian news reporters,..who broadcast scenes..from the films/live..at prime time

Jewish officials..then fired the executives
responsible,..claiming they were spreading.."blood libel."..what was the coverup about?

Rome, Italy..Italian and Russian police,..working together,..broke up a ring of Jewish gangsters who had been involved in the manufacture of child/rape and snuff pornography.

http://www.ety.com/HRP/jewishstudies/snuffporn.htm

Three Russian Jews..and eight Italian Jews were arrested after police..discovered they had been kidnapping non-Jewish children between the ages of two and five years from Russian orphanages, raping the children, and then murdering them on film.

http://groups.google.com/group/soc.culture.russian/msg/568283c7f2759d33?pli=1

Throughout history,..various groups have accused sects of Jews of ritually murdering small children...One such account,..that of Hugh of Lincoln,..led to the expulsion of all Jews from Britain in the 13th Century.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1569802351/103-1175775-5239804?v=gla...

http://www.counterpunch.org/brenner05252005.html

http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2002/12/1553622.php

http://www.marxists.de/middleast/brenner/index.htm

Such accounts..have generally been discounted,..but are so widespread that Jewish/organizations..have developed a name for them.."blood libel."

Though AP and Reuters..both ran stories on the episode,..US media
conglomerates..refused to carry the story on television news,..again saying..the story would prejudice Americans against Jews.

Jewish gangsters..in Russia have become increasingly linked to traffic in.."white slaves"..and prostitutes..through Israel,..according to a recent report..in the Jerusalem Post.

Israel..turns an official blind eye..to forced prostitution,..and does not punish Israeli citizens..who choose to own.."sex slaves" as long as..the slaves are foreign and non-Jews.

IT SEEMS OBVIOUS THAT WITH THE ADHERENCE AND LOYALTY HE/SHE
HAS TO FELLOW JEWS,..HE/SHE CANNOT POSSIBLY ASSIST NON JEWS IF THERE IS A CONFLICT OF INTEREST.

AND WILL COVER UP MISTAKES,..CRIMINALITY AND PERVERSIONS IN ANY WAY THEY CAN..SIMPLY BECAUSE..THAT PERSON IS A JEW....meaning some love to cast stones...others throw them back

CHECK THE,..Talmud

http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-6657600254881054584&hl=en

CHECK THE WHOLE HOLOHOAXING BUNCH.

http://images.google.co.id/images?hl=id&um=1&sa=1&q=%2251+documents%2...

http://www.zundelsite.org/english/debate/009_jam.html

CHECK THE MORALITY..OF THIS GROUP IN THE RUNNING OF ISRAEL..WHERE BECAUSE OF..THE COMPLETE LAWLESSNESS ..0F THE REGIME FOR NONJEWS..(THAT ALSO MEANS CHRISTIANS),..THE PLACE IS A PERVERTS PARADIS

http://img483.imageshack.us/img483/3571/jrm1mk6.gi

http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=gd&q=zionist+baby+rape+ritual&hl=en-GB&rls=MEDA,MEDA:2008-36,MEDA:en-GB

Steven's dug himself into a bit of a hole here, but he certainly won't get out of it by citing Andrew Bolt as an authority on Aboriginal culture. Who's next - Pauline Hanson?

I love the segue into his more usual bigoted obsession with Islam. To paraphrase someone, you can take the boy out of racist South Africa, but you can't take the ingrained racist bigotry out of the boy.

Does anybody believe steven when he claims to be concerned about the welfare of contemporary Aboriginal people?

OUG's 'contributions' to this thread are just weird - who'd a thunk that he's an Antisemitic holocaust denier on top of being an illiterate frootloop?

I'm outta here - too much hatred and ranting for this thread to be rescued, methinks.

CJ Morgan as usual distorts my posts.

I was not "quoting Andrew Bolt as an authority on Aboriginal culture".

I was quoting a news story that happened to appear in his column. If readers want another source here it is from the HREOC website.

http://www.hreoc.gov.au/about/media/speeches/sex_discrim/violence_against_women.html

Quote:

'...the recent case of the rape of a 14 year old year girl in the Northern Territory. In that case the excuse was customary law and "she knew what was expected of her".'

Most posters here do seem to belong to the "she knew what was expected of her" school of thought.

Despite much vituperation I have seen nothing that indicates I am wrong to be sceptical of the existence of a stolen generation – as opposed to stolen individuals

I don’t much like Andrew Bolt. He's a rabblerouser.

But I've never seen him tell an outright porkie. Here's what he alleges transpired during an interview with Lowitja O’Donoghue, a patron of the "Stolen Generations Alliance".

Quote:

(My father) didn’t want to be straddled with five kids,” the former Australian of the Year said, sobbing. “I haven’t forgiven him…

“I don’t like the word ‘stolen’ and it’s perhaps true that I’ve used the word loosely at times… I would see myself as a removed child, and not necessarily stolen.”

Asked whether it would be better to state clearly that she wasn’t a member of the stolen generation, Dr O’Donoghue said: “I am prepared to make that concession.”

End quote

See: http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/odonoghue_now_stolen_again/

Publicly, as Bolt points out, O’Donoghue still claims to have been stolen.

So Bolt, one of the most widely read pundits in Australian journalism, accuses O’Donoghue, an iconic symbol of the "stolen generation", of hypocrisy or worse. This is clearly defamatory.

Is Bolt telling the truth on this one?

I did not include this in my original post because I don’t like quoting Bolt unless there is some corroboration.

However it seems he is telling the truth. See:

http://www.law4u.com.au/lil/ls_removed.html

O’Donoghue did indeed concede she was "removed" not "stolen" but, like the bible and the koran, her words require careful "exegesis" – in this case by the trained legal mind of Geoffrey Winn.

However, as Winn is forced to concede, it is possible that in 1934 O’Donoghue's "white father might have given her and her four sisters and brother to the missionary-run Colebrook Home in South Australia, with her Aboriginal mother's POSSIBLY uninformed consent" (My capitalisation)

Winn then applies 2001 legal notions of "informed consent" to deduce that O’Donoghue was indeed (possibly?) stolen!

Possibly she was in some sense "stolen". I suppose that in the end it depends on how you define stolen.

Dear Steven,

I think that this entire business is rather sad.
Australian deniers not only of the Tasmanian
genocide but the cases of the "Stolen Generation,"
attempt to revise downward the death toll of
massacres and numbers of the stolen generation,
or claim that they were fabricated altogether.

These position mirror and re-inforce that of the
deniers of the Holocaust, like David Irving,
who claims in part that he's only questioning the numbers.

In reality, genocide is not a matter of numbers.

And, as stated in other posts, today - there is
so much material in State, National, and Local
Libraries available for anyone interested in
doing serious research on the topic.

LOL Foxy,

Back in 1965 I was a "communist" according to an apparatchik of the Apartheid South African Government.* "Communist" was the pejorative description of anyone who thought Apartheid was taurine fertiliser.

Now in Australia I am a "racist" and a "denialist".

Different folks. Different epithets. Same disinclination to address the issues.

But guess what Foxy? Mostly I am someone with an allergy towards taurine fertiliser (TF). And the stolen generation is beginning to smell more and more like TF.

That being said I think it is a relatively benign form of TF. It enables those true believers who are so inclined to wallow in their imagined moral superiority. The majority of Australians don't seem to be much interested. Perhaps a few unfortunate souls will get a bit of money out of it. No great harm is done.

All in all I quite regret starting this thread. There are more serious forms of TF to tackle such as the myth that we can keep pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere without suffering any harm.

So I think I'll drop it.

*I've only discovered this recently. A former fellow student at the University of Cape Town who had been outed as a police spy told me I was one of the "communists" he was supposed to watch. My "sin" was an article in an obscure student publication that examined the likely economic consequences of denying two thirds of the population a decent education. I felt quite flattered to know at least one person had read my article.

There is of course no statute of limitations on the sorts of alleged crimes that we are discussing here. So no, the dark and heinous deeds of days gone by are only issues to be consigned to the past in populist claptrap.

Of course, with the overall thrust of some being to firmly root in the mindset of the "ordinary" Australian that everything done post WWII to the BlakFellas was "For their own good" I hope that people like Foxy will further rise to the occasion in contributing to refuting the more odious assertions in the public arena.

One song I like is Engima Deep Forest Meditation ..

For the more traditional Christians how does it go? Something about the "Armor of God."

1. The Shield of Faith
2. The Sword of Head lopping .. cough .. no hang on a minute .. that's not the right one .. The Sword of .. Truth.

;-) I can't remember the other ones

*Posted by CJ Morgan, Tuesday, 15 December 2009 9:22:28 PM*

" ... and we beneficiaries of the currently dominant culture have managed to STUFF both them and the Australian environment up spectacularly badly ... "

and to spin off CJ's most excellent contribution, I seem to recall that the last of the Tasmanian Original Australians (a granny who hid up a tree during the Dalek operations) ended up being literally stuffed and put in a museum, one in Victoria I think. Now, that shouldn't be too hard to confirm now should it?

*Posted by stevenlmeyer, Wednesday, 16 December 2009 11:09:10 PM*

" ... I am relying on the absence of law suits in the here and now. ... "

Yes but under what law do you suppose that a challenge could be made? There does need to be a law on the books which makes it illegal for these acts to have been done. Obviously, Mr Wudd's apology is half hollow without appropriate legislation to enable legal recourse to be sort, if that is the path that Australia chooses.

<< I don’t much like Andrew Bolt. He's a rabblerouser. >>

But you have so much in common... if you want to see some outright porkies from the execrable Bolt read just about any of his rants about climate change - particularly his use and interpretation of graphs.

Foxy - I don't think there's much point in trying to debate denialists of any persuasion. These days I tend to just call them for what they are and leave them to babble on. Arguing with them just provides a soapbox from which to spout their hateful and/or delusional ideas.

Having said that, nice post DreamOn :)

Ciao!

Foxy,

Climate change deniers;
Genocide deniers;
Stolen generation deniers;
Witness the latest strategy of the left.
Deniers has become the new catch-all pejorative.
It can now be used to equate any dissenting viewpoints with...
Holocaust deniers,
as Foxy has so predictably demonstrated.
And it sounds much less Biblical than heretics.
Why waste mental energy on reasoned debate,
when you can attack the man?
He denies the stolen generation which makes him the same as a holocaust denier.
This is no different than the use of terms such as:
racist,
sexist,
homophobe,
Islamophobe,
etc.
which are similarly designed to shut up the opponent rather than counter their argument.

"In reality, genocide is not a matter of numbers."

Really?
"The systematic killing of substantial numbers of people on the basis of ethnicity, religion, political opinion, social status, or other particularity"
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/genocide
Is killing one person on the basis of e,r,po,ss...genocide?
According to Foxy logic, yes.
Perhaps hate crime laws should be called genocide laws?
Frighteningly, Foxy would probably think this a good idea.
And why not, after all "genocide is not a matter of numbers".

"there is so much material in State, National, and Local
Libraries available for anyone interested in
doing serious research on the topic."

Why is it then that Windschuttle seems to be the only one doing any "serious research" on this topic?
Why can't anybody refute him with facts?
Why can't anybody demonstrate where he's got it wrong?

Because we live in a crazy, post-rational world where people can make ridiculous statements like "In reality, genocide is not a matter of numbers" and anybody who challenges the validity of their statement is a "holocaust denier".

Dear Steven,

I've been called lots of names as well.
That's what happens when you stand up
for what you believe in. So I understand
where you're coming from.

Right from the very beginning of this thread
I've said that no one has to take my opinion
as gospel - and I've consistently asked that
people do their own research on the topic.

My biggest fear in life is doing the wrong thing,
therefore I do try to put things right as best
as I can.

As far as the questions concerning our Nation's
first people is concerned - I wish you success
in your search for the truth Steven. I trust
that you will continue with your quest - despite
the unpleasant odours that you're currently
encountering (the same as I am) from certain
quarters.

Margaret Tucker in her autobiography,
"If Everyone Cared," (She, by the way was at the
age of thirteen snatched from school by the police,
taken from her part Aboriginal parents to be trained
as a domestic servant) she talks about being sent
to the Cootamundra Domestic Training Home for
Aboriginal Girls. The horror of the training, the
cruelty of her first employer in Sydney, the
loneliness, homesickness and heartache she felt
are related without sentimentality, malice of
self pity

Dear Mr Herman Yutic,

For your information members of my parent's
family were tortured to death by the Red Army,
others perished in Stalin's Gulags along with
millions of fellow countryemen. Therefore -
I'm very familiar with the meaning of genocide.

As for politics ... I am neither right nor left -
but like a lot of people somewhere in the
middle, depending of course on the issues and
government policies.

I can't be held responsible for your lack of comprehension
skills except to suggest that you re-read my post on
what I actually did say about Holocaust deniers.
You may with a bit of effort -
get the point that I was making, rather
than the misinterpretation that you seemed to delight
in assigning.

Dear Herman Yutic,

Some further clarification for you
taken from the Holocaust Encyclopedia.
"What is Genocide?"

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&Moduleld

http://www.comlaw.gov.au/ComLaw/Legislation/ActCompilation1.nsf/current%5Cbytitle/37BA4B1F187B70ABCA256F71004F4FA9?OpenDocument&mostrecent=1

Here you are Herman,as it applies under Australian Law, with a quick excerpt:

Genocide Convention Act 1949
Act No. 27 of 1949 as amended
This compilation was prepared on 27 November 2000
Prepared by the Office of Legislative Drafting,
Attorney-General’s Department, Canberra

..

The Schedule Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide

Section 3
THE CONTRACTING PARTIES,
HAVING CONSIDERED the declaration made by the General Assembly of the United Nations in its resolution 96 (1) dated 11 December 1946 that genocide is a crime under international law, contrary to the spirit and aims of the United Nations and condemned by the civilized world;
RECOGNIZING that at all periods of history genocide has inflicted great losses on humanity; and
BEING CONVINCED that, in order to liberate mankind from such an odious scourge, international co operation is required;
HEREBY AGREE AS HEREINAFTER PROVIDED:

Article I
The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.

Article II
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Article III
The following acts shall be punishable:
(a) Genocide;
(b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;
(c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
(d) Attempt to commit genocide;
(e) Complicity in genocide.

...

So, in *Foxy's* defense, she is correct in my view - in that totality of numbers is not the sole determining fact when deliberating the question of whether genocide or attempted genocide has been committed, but rather " ... in whole or in part ... "

DreamOn,

A good lawyer, if that isn’t an oxymoron, could make just about anything from the information you’ve posted, and I’m sure an activist judge one day probably will, if they haven’t already.

Genocide is…“Causing serious … mental harm to members of the group”.
This could be applied to just about any statement that any victim group finds offensive.
Under this definition, an Islamophobe could be charged with genocide for criticising Mohammed or the Koran.
I’d better watch out.

Genocide is… “Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group”.
Under this definition, opposition to homosexual IVF or surrogacy could constitute genocide, except that groups defined by their sexual orientation don’t yet appear to have achieved the status of national, ethnical, racial or religious groups, under this Act.
Still, who could have foreseen in 1949 how far we would progress.
For now we have the knowledge that sexual orientation is as immutable as race.
That’ll have to be amended.

A problem I can see though, in relation to the stolen generation holocaust (of which I am a denier), is the requirement of intent.
It is all too easy to attribute evil intent half a century after the fact, but where is the evidence?

Foxy,

You are one of the very few people I've encountered in Australia who understands that a totalitarian ideology is a totalitarian ideology, that Stalin, Hitler and Mao were moral equivalents and that communism was every bit as evil as Nazism. It is a pity more people – especially those on the left – fail to understand this.

No I don’t think I'm going to continue researching the stolen generation. As I indicated in my previous post, I suspect it's a myth but it's a harmless one

Dear Steven,

I respect your opinion and have enjoyed
your threads in the past. This however was one
you could have left alone. There's been enough
pain caused.

Australia's Prime Minister has
accepted on behalf of our Nation the fact of
the Stolen Generation - and has issued an
apology. The previous PM refused
to do that - he issued a "regret." However,
as someone remarked - you don't bash someone
in the head and say you "regret" doing it.
You apologise!

It's a pity that you still consider the
Stolen Generation a "myth," and won't be
doing any further research - especially
when there's so much material available
that can be verified through so many resources.

Still it's your choice.

Talk to you on another thread Steven -
All The Best.

Herman, it appears that you neither have tertiary qualification nor an understanding of the law as it is practiced in "Common Law" jurisdictions.

The reason I say that of your own omission you have not appraised the evidence, and I quote:

"But where is the evidence?"

and yet you strongly express a clearly unqualified and uninformed view.

And as to your assertions re the law, I assure you, the meanings of specific words and the manner of their collective interpretation is far stricter then your "loose, ignorant, associations" indicate.

As for evidence regarding "intent" how about we examine things one point at a time:

1. The refusal to include the Original Australians in the census until the late 60's.

Con:

25 Provisions as to races disqualified from voting

For the purposes of the last section, if by the law of any State all persons of any race are disqualified from voting at elections for the more numerous House of the Parliament of the State, then, in reckoning the number of the people of the State or of the Commonwealth, persons of that race resident in that State shall not be counted.

..

I don't know why you bother to speak nicely to the likes of steven *Foxy* as he is clearly a bigoted, prejudiced, ignoramus, who maintains an untenable position whilst freely admitting that he has neither appraised the evidence himself and also that neither does he wish to do so. Apparently, he is quite content in his racist ignorance.

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that he is a willing supporter of the liberal/national party?

Agreed Foxy,

In retrospect I regret starting this thread. That's why I am making no further comment on the main issue.

LOL DreamOn,

Supporting the Libs is not actually a criminal offence.

However, just for the record:

I have no particular attachment to any political party. If an election were held today I would hold my nose and vote Green since I think global warming is the number one issue facing us.

But who to preference?

I agree with the Greens that Rudd's ETS is worse than no legislation at all. So I guess I would have to give my second preference to the Libs.

So you're half right but the reasons have nothing to do with "race".

Well as awkward as it is I'm glad this thread is here. I think that for the sake of historiography that this painful issue needs exploration.

I didn't need any conversion but when I read Henry Reynolds and co. many years ago. I became deeply dismayed to read the scale of wrongdoing perpetrated by our ancestors against Aboriginal people. My heart was heavy with it for a long time. Years later I read some of the results of Windschuttle's investigations and I was angered because I felt that I'd been manipulated. I was annoyed too because I care about ethics and the practice of history.

However we look at it, many of the points raised by Windschuttle have not been refuted - many facts are beyond refutation.

http://www.sydneyline.com/Use%20and%20Abuse%20of%20Sources.htm

The fact that the Aboriginal people are here now is inarguable testimony to their endurance, struggle and the triumph of adaptation. There is no need for untruthful recording of facts and quotes or attributing motives that didn't exist.

If we consider the large number - like upwards of 500 - different clans or groups, spread over many geographically varied areas altered yet again by different patterns of settlement and so on - there would have to have been more ways of surviving than warfare. The drive to portray a warrior or victim interaction I think is a continuation of injustice. It seems to me to be somewhat like saying that someone hasn't been raped unless they've put up a fight.

The way the story is being argued now is one of over valuing conflict. No doubt there was conflict, but there were also adaptive responses like extending generosity to newcomers, quiet resistance; endurance in the face of overwhelming odds or individual threat and fear; integration; separation; attack; retreat ... persistence; acceptance and so on. I believe that the MANY ways of achieving survival have not yet been told. Not by historians anyway.

Maybe anthropologists have done more useful analyses of the methods and impact of colonization and the ways in which Aboriginal people - their societies and cultures, have survived it.

YOU WEREN'T AROUND WHEN GALILEO said the world was'nt flat,so I'll excuse you if you still think it is. However I went to school with aborigines who lived in flattened-out kerosene tin shacks on the river bank.And I knew black kids who could only get jobs when they left school, at the meat works.Some were ahead of me in intellegence.But I could be a Doctor or Lawyer or whatever.The church meant well and trained girls to be housemaids.Old Priests told me they had the kids taken from their mothers but they forgot to give them back!Skeptics can be good people but many have blind minds!

DIPLOMAN,

A point of order.

By the time of Galileo the rotundity of the Earth had long been accepted. In the third century BC, about 18 centuries before Galileo and about 17 centuries before Columbus, Eratosthenes had already calculated the circumference of the Earth. His estimate of about 250,000 stadia approximates to around 40,000km. This is quite close to the modern value.

See:

http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Eratosthenes.html

I am at a loss to know why so many people believe that educated Europeans thought the Earth was flat before Columbus or Galileo.

They didn't. They knew it was at least approximately spherical.

Thanks stephenmeyer, you are better read than I am!For the sake of a telling phrase many of us use doubtful facts in argueing our opinions. The point I'd make to those on both sides of this issue is:"Remember your Humanity, forget the rest!"Someone may be able to attribute that to the author.To be human is to be fallible.

Steven,a well argued case. I share you views on this subject and note the typical response of your detractors.

Interesting that people are happy to accept the Bringing Them Home Report without question knowing that those involved were not required to even remotely prove their cases..I pricked my ears up when Paul Keating told us not the question the findings. Louise O'Donohues admission under questioning by Andrew Bolt is a perfect example of why we should be wary.

One could go on.

Like you, I do not doubt that many hapless indigenous people had terrible lives for all sorts of reasons some of them directly resulting from actions of the white man/state BUT that does not make the "stolen generations", as currently defined, true. Many people suffered terribly in the old days just look at the kids who had their babies removed from them at birth because they were unwed - hell I was belted with a cane every day at school....where do you stop?

I have no interest in winning the argument, I am only interested in the truth because what we did or did not do IS IMPORTANT....history based on current political discourse is useless history. Why do people suspend their objectivity on this matter?

I am looking forward to Windshuttles next book which will be a forensic examination of the record, and I hope the standard of the debate improves, again in the interests of getting to the truth.

That said I do not dismiss some of the arguments of for example, Manne and Read who claim that you cannot rely only on the record...this is fair enough..not everthing is written down, but when they rely on anecdotal evidence it needs to stand up to scrutiny - they can't just make it up and expect enquiring minds to accept it.....I thought they came a poor second in their arguments last time.

Double