Dear Jayb,

I was going to thank you for dialling it back, then I read your second post.

Firstly you pontificate;

“This is one of the stories of Gallipoli. It is not the ANZAC myth.”

I never claimed it was “THE ANZAC myth” but that it was AN ANZAC myth. Do you need the difference to be explained to you? It was not a story, war stories are usually acknowledged as embellished. This has been portrayed as fact for almost my entire life. This was a myth. I am not afraid to regard it as such and if that means I am regarded as a coward by some ne’er-do-wells as yourself then so be it.

One of my great-grandfathers spent 6 months, mostly in delirium or a coma, in a French hospital after being gassed and severely wounded on the Western front. I remember as a kid putting my forearm in the groove ploughed deep in his back by an artillery shell. One of his sons was beheaded by the Japanese for daring to escape a second time knowing full well the consequences.

I have no need to be reminded of what so many Australians went through in our wars but perhaps you do. Many of them laid down their lives to fight fascism in Europe and North Africa. Yet here you are lock step with someone who is a self proclaimed friend of local Nazi loving fascist Nationalists and probably, if he were truthful about it, one himself. And on cue here he is to back you up.

That is how you choose to honour their memory.

Brilliant.

I am reminded of the following Blues Brother's scene.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouHkL7u9qLw

You my friend deliver the last line.

Dear davidf,

My apologies for getting diverted by pest control issues.

Sorry also if I have given the impression that I think there should be no government spending on the arts or sport. This is not what I believe at all. I think any government that is intent on serving the best interests of society at large would recognise distinct benefits in funding both sectors. Money devoted to supporting participation rates in sport may well be easily justified by an increase in the general health of the population and the consequent reduction in lifestyle diseases. And just think of where our film industry would be without government support.

Further I'm sure your book must have had a degree of merit, not only because I know the author but also because those bodies deemed it worthy of funding.

My reason for raising them was to try and tease out what is or isn't indoctrination. Is there acceptable indoctrination if so what does it look like? Is it only the unacceptable that is labelled indoctrination? Our military services involve themselves in high level indoctrination of their recruits, but we hardly ever call it that instead using the euphemism 'training'. Our political parties do the same although they call it 'informing'.

Can one be fully human without some form of indoctrination? I suspect not.

Dear csteele,

Funding for sport isn’t for the health of the general population. Funding the Olympics, Commonwealth games, the Institute of Sport, athletic venues for professional sports and similar outlays are for prestige, popular amusement and the production of elite athletes. The general population even has become couch potatoes watching the elite, professional athletes perform. If sports funding were for the health of the general population I would not object to it.

Literature, the visual arts, music and drama have produced greatness without public funding. Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Dickens, Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Picasso, Michelangelo, Leonardo, George Eliot and other luminaries were supported by the general public, patrons, the church and other non-governmental sources. I don’t think government funding has resulted in anything better than the afore mentioned.

Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Dickens and George Eliot were all primarily funded by the general public who did a very good job at recognising artistic genius.

I did not object to indoctrination per se. Those who perform a function where indoctrination is necessary are to be indoctrinated.

However, I think the public schools are primarily to:

1. Prepare students for work or further education.
2. Help students to think critically and ask questions both for their personal development and their function as citizens in a democracy.
3. Learn about arts, sciences and ways to care for their minds and bodies.
4. Bring students in contact with students of other backgrounds so they can have a broader view and awareness of our cultural differences and similarities and are prepared to live together as adults.

I don’t think indoctrination has any place in education.

The US Supreme Court has found racial segregation brings inequality. I think the same is true for religious segregation. Religious schools are the choice of the parents as is religious training or indoctrination. For public school students such indoctrination if their parents feel it is necessary or desirable should be done by the parents or the parents' religious institution not by the public schools. If parents want religious indoctrination in a school that school should not be funded by the taxpaying public.

Csteele,
Eh? I thought I was repudiating Jayb's thesis, not backing him up, posts about race relations which assert that "Our ANZACS fought for.." are invariably wrong,they were NOT Nationalists in the sense that you're using the term. Believe me, I'm no friend of local "Fascists", they all hate me because I insist that they tell the truth about what sort of society we really have in this country and it's liberal roots.
The reason Fascism didn't take root in Australia is because most of it's initial demands were already everyday realities in Liberal democracies, these movements sprang from extremely dysfunctional and oppressive societies and both Fascism and National Socialism would eventually have liberalised had they matured over time.
To believe that "Our ANZACS" fought for "White Australia" is to accept the lies the Left tell about what sort of society they came from, there are two competing and contradictory mythos here.

Belly>> But want to highlight a view long held, it is not normally those Muslims, the educated Muslims that are of concern.
Unfortunately, in my strongly held view, one I am not ashamed of, uneducated Muslims that bring western concerns.<<

Long held view? Give me a break....who fed you that line sport. Have a peek at the inbeciles involved in 911...more than a few of them were uni students. Do you have any original thoughts tiger?

somofgloin as expected of you.
I think strongly as I said, and always have.
I am reluctant to assist the Author by turning this thread in to our usually long and heated one on this subject, not the intended one apparently about education.
To hate a whole group can not be seen surely, as sustainable.
My views are strongly against further Muslim migration.
Yet while I can more than make a case for ALL my views are we fish?
Do we need to expand this thread to yet again visit an issue we will have ample time after the next international event .