DreamOn,

Do you have evidence for your assertions ? Or just a comfortable, proof-less, Paradigm, from which all assertions flow ?

Like you, I once believed, fervently. Forty years ago, my wife and I were making Aboriginal flags. We lived in a community for four years. But since then, I have learnt, slowly and painfully.

Here in South Australia, Aboriginal people's rights to use the land as they had done traditionally were recognised from the outset, in the 1837 Letters Patent, and then in legislation, in the Pastoral Acts. I'm told those rights are still recognised in the Environment Act, although people now have to apply to a committee, and can go on land only if they can show some family link.

The one-man 'Aborigines Department' - i.e. the Protector - had as its major task, the supply of around sixty ration depots, mainly for the elderly, sick, infirm, nursing mothers, and orphans Able-bodied people were expected to make use of their land-use rights, and go out and hunt, fish and gather, or work for farmers and pastoralists. In droughts, they were also provided with rations.

The Protector provided around a hundred 'canoes', 15-ft long, 5-ft wide, and fishing gear, for people on waterways, even on Cooper's Creek. For those who couldn't work, he provided guns and canoes free, with repairs free. Working people were expected to pay half the costs.

It appears - to my surprise too ! - that nobody was driven off their lands in South Australia. The Protector (all of his letters can be found on: www.firstsources.info ) was told of a new pastoral lessee who intended to drive Aboriginal people from his lease; the Protector immediately reminded him that he would be in breach of his lease conditions if he did so, and would lose his lease. Later, that particular station had a ration depot. Many times, the Protector in his letters reminds police to try to keep people in their districts, and gives out free rail and coach passes for people to return to their districts.

[TBC]

[continued]

Nobody was 'herded' onto Missions in SA. I don't think there were any children 'stolen' either. School records don't bear out that myth.

The problem with assertions is that there IS evidence one way or the other, and often not in the way people expect. Thirty years ago, I did an income study of an Aboriginal community and found parity of income with average Australians. Who would have thought ?

So, if you want to run off at the mouth, you need to have some evidence, not just suspicions. Or of course, you can just dream on.

Joe

Dream on, you're Clinging on to a culture that if left along wouldn't have even invented a wheel by now. Perhaps it's time Dream on, that you Moved on.

I heard a comment recently from an indigenous man who was at the apology speech, he said when he was approached by a total stranger that told him he was sorry, this indigenous guy said, no need to appologise, you didn't do anything, you can say you're sorry for what happened, but you can't appologise for something you didn't do. Exactly what the so called apology should have been.

Of cause now they're going for compensation. For what, being saved from inner family abuse.

Move on dream on.

Poirot, you can twist words as much as you wish but to allow these people in, along with their garbage was a huge mistake and one that is just now beginning to surface.

Dream On,

I should have added something crucial: often, especially in relation to Aboriginal affairs, policies have 'perverse effects' - effects which were not expected, which create more problems, and perhaps even aggravate a situation.

For example, early administrations in South Australia set up a major ration depot, 'the Native Location', about half a mile along the Torrens in Adelaide, which from the end of 1839, included a school, teaching in Kaurna, the local language.

But at the same time, the administrations expected able-bodied people to keep hunting, fishing and gathering, camping on their lands, etc. However, unexpectedly, the people congregated around the ration depot on the Location, leaving the surrounding country mostly empty, effectively unused. The administrations soon declared those lands to be 'wastelands', open to settlement by farmers, not just pastoralists, and sold off the land as more or less exclusive and free-hold, not under annual licence or longer-term lease.

Meanwhile, the people settled more firmly on the Location, where medical services and reliable food supplies continued, as well as education (and food and board) for their children. The people may have thought that they were on a sweet deal, with no perception that they were being colonised until much later.

There is a multitude of perverse effects of well-intentioned policy across Australia. At the same time, some seemingly minor policies have had amazing results: for example, the funding for Indigenous student support at universities from the late seventies until around 2005 (after which those funds seem to have been transferred to the teaching of Indigenous Culture etc. to non-Indigenous students) has now produced nearly forty thousand graduates, one in every eight or nine adults. Nothing's rock-solid in policy implementation and outcomes.

Joe

the left through their revisionist history has taught the blacks to hate the whites. When Africans and others come from overseas they can't believe how they had been conned about white racism. They see things for how it actually is instead of the perverted narrative of the left.

What type of person sees themselves as an individual and everyone else as part of a group? That's the way many sociopaths see the world.
Most people are either collectivist or individualistic in outlook, individualists see themselves and everyone else as individuals, collectivists see themselves as part of a group living among other groups.
What we see in Dream On's posting is the split personality found only in the misanthropic elements of the far left or the far right, they self identify as either "Racists" or "Anti Racists" and then place themselves outside society from where they fire off missives or abuse at all and sundry.

I had a great post come in on my Facebook this morning from one of the bands I follow, it's translated from Portuguese but you get the drift:

"Recently I have received some stupid messages of Brazilian guys, accusing me and accusing Nargaroth for political content (Leftists accusing me of being Nazi, and right accusing me of not being Nazi enough). Threaten me and my musicians. This all sucks. And I'm not afraid! Any of you guys! If they want to kill me, kill! And let my musicians alone!
I'm tired of being accused by liberals of being Nazi, and right is not Nazi enough! I love my nation and would fight for him until the end! If that makes me a Nazi, so be it! I've been in the army for my nation, and I had many problems at home for being patriotic, if that does not make me enough German, little me care. I do not care about the charges. I am what I am - just a man!"