Hi O,

Thanks for that, no, I didn't mean that anybody was an out-an-out racist, just that the notion that 'we' - us Anglos - have some sort of imperial power over the every movement of Aboriginal people may be somewhat up themselves in believing they have that power. But the people you refer to made the easy choices, perhaps a long time ago, the choice to go down a dead-end road from which ultimately there is no returning. Ghastly. But they made those unfortunate choices. I have relations in that situation.

Others didn't make the same choices, in the same families. They battled on, working whenever they could find it, studying when they could, getting better jobs, seizing work opportunities. Sometimes it didn't do them a hell of a lot of good, and sometimes their kids fell back onto the Welfare Option. Nothing is guaranteed and, given the racism in terms of employment which funnels blackfellas into blackfella jobs, many Aboriginal people have been cut out of decent and well-earned careers.

My point was that power relations have never been perceived by Aboriginal people as all on one side, none on the other. At least, not until the last forty or so years, when the victim industry really got going. Sometimes I wish I could be a victim of some sort, perhaps as a left-hander, but no, not really, one has to surrender so much of one's humanity.

Meanwhile, 120,000 Indigenous people have gone to university since 1990. Nearly forty thousand have graduated and fifteen thousand are currently in the system, and most of those will graduate. I'm too old to worry needlessly about the rest. They make their choices, the soft options, they take the consequences of those choices.

I'm currently typing up a document from 1968, the first conference of the Aboriginal Affairs Council: they discuss housing, education, etc. But very little about health. Why is that, I wonder ?

Choices - consequences - health consequences.

Joe

Thank you DAVID F. for once more giving us all a peek into your vast intellect, in your thread directed to PAUL1405. I hadn't the foggiest idea that some religious faith's, attributed to aboriginals had some alleged satanic connection, a statement emanating as you indicated from some Christian groups ?

It's little wonder the poor buggers became screwed up with all the 'white' help they receive, and unquestionably not wanted ? I was always under the impression their own religions had been observed for centuries, given anthropologists have often described them as being amongst the oldest ethnic groups on earth, with no biological similarity to that of the African negroid ? Anyway it's all above my 'pay grade' as they say ? Thank you DAVID F, I've learnt something !

'It's little wonder the poor buggers became screwed up with all the 'white' help they receive, and unquestionably not wanted ?'

actually they have become far more screwed with since the secularist took control. They insisted on supplying the grog in the name of equality, took away any moral base which should of involved caring for ones own children and encouraged the perenial victimhood. They also poured billions into dead end schemes that had negative outcomes. You really do know how to twist the truth and deny reality David f. You really do demonstrate the mindset that has led to suich misery for the INdigeneous people.

Thank you JOE for qualifying your earlier statement. You obviously have a far greater knowledge of the 'big picture', where mine was merely a snapshot of the most disadvantaged groups I've come across.

Something that's always puzzled me ? We (again) take them off the street, and put them before the Court (a JP), usually AM the following day, to have them bound over for the next visiting Magistrate. More often than not he/she shows great leniency, dispensing justice with liberal quantities of tolerance and forbearance. Usually accompanied with a direction, to the nearest Base Hospital for a (mandated) treatment assessment in accordance with a judicial direction. This is done to assist the Magistrate in determining the penalty phase. Generally involving a brief custodial stay for blacks, thankfully less onerous for them now, then in the past ?

The sergeant I/C, is usually required to pull the various strings together, to ensure the offender receives ALL the benefits the State can provide him/her ? With everybody concerned legitimately helping; the police; the judiciary; the Medical people; probationary officials; special indigenous consultants - everyone all pulling for the individual in a most positive way ? Yet within 36 or 48 hours you're putting the same completely inebriated individual, back in the secured F150 again. Why ?

They've got the entire judicial, medical, and social security fraternity 'pulling' for them ? Yet within a matter of just a few days, they're back exactly where they were before. Why ? To my untrained mind, it's almost like a death wish, as it were ?

I suppose I'm as puzzled as anybody about what we are supposed to be supporting in this 'Recognise' campaign. There are so many options and levels that perhaps it is useful to actually put them in writing, and see at what level or option, if any, you and I might say: 'Yes, that's about it':

1. R [seriously]

2. Recognition.

3. Recognition of Indigenous people in a parliamentary resolution.

4. Recognition of Indigenous people in the Preamble of the Constitution.

5. Recognition of Indigenous people in the body of the Constitution.

6. Recognition of the special rights of Indigenous people in the Constitution.

7. Recognition of the need for a single treaty with all the 'first nations' and clan groups across Australia.

8. Recognition of the need for individual treaties with all 100,000 Indigenous clan groups across Australia.

9. Recognition of the prior sovereignty of clan groups over all parts of Australia.

10. Recognition of the current sovereignty, now, of Aboriginal groups across Australia.

11. Recognition of the current sovereignty, now, of Aboriginal groups across Australia, with commensurate payment, each year, for loss of sovereignty to be paid by non-Aboriginal people.

12. Scrapping of all programs supposedly involved in Aboriginal areas which cannot show any improvement (i.e. KPIs) over the latest period for which they, obviously, must have been keeping records and who have been receiving, between the4m, $ 30 billion.

How the hell did that get in there ?

Hi o sung wu,

My partner can testify that she got a belt at school, and more than once, when she was 5 or 6 for talking Maori, and not using her "new" pakeha (English) name they gave her. They told her she got that pretty name, because her Maori name was too hard to pronounce, 60 years later she still has two names. Her little country school was 95% Maori with all white teachers. She sat in weekly scripture class while the old white minister railed against those false gods, and the idolatry that people still practiced, it seems he was very much a fire and brimstone type of minister, and that was in the early 1950's. Yet she does not hold any sort of grudge against white people, not even for all the land taken from her family and others through lies and being too trusting, that is another story in itself. Would you give your 200 acres of prime land for $500 worth of store credit, only if you thought you were leasing the land and not selling it, but then it pays to be able to read and write "T's" father could do neither, and was trusting of a white man "friend", as were many other families in the valley. Only to see their small farms taken and their homesteads they were supposedly going to keep, after they were done up, burned to the ground, to stop people from returning. The fire brigade reported their homestead burned down because of an electrical fault, yet the power had been disconnected, the regular arsonists, the son of the new land owner, was clearly identified to police, by eyewitnesses, as he was several times, but nothing was done. The people lost everything in those fires, photos, keepsakes, all irreplaceable items.