Hi there FOXY...

Good to hear, all is well with you. I was concerned you may not have felt very well either? anyway take care please FOXY. There are far too few ladies on this forum, yourself, POIROT and SUSEONLINE, and one or two others, names I can't recall at this time?

Without your (collective) calming and conciliatory influence, many of us rowdy blokes would probable resort to slugging it out, and that would transmute Graham's Forum into a real dog's breakfast!

Nick said;
Aboriginals travelling to Europe before 1788 was Bazz comment and seems irrelevant.

I never said anything like that at all and I object to you writing
something and trying to say I said it.

The aborigines had been living a hunter gather existence and never
even built huts.
The arrival of the First Fleet pushed them into the 18th century
some 2 to 3 thousand years ahead of their then current state.
It had to happen sooner or later.

Loudmouth, I think there is something wrong with Nick, he does not
seem to be able to keep track of what is said.

Dearest Foxy,

As you say, " .... we should not deride the evidence .... "

But first we have to have evidence. We can't just run with plausible stories. There are so many of them around. But the Bible is full of plausible stories: does that make it 'gospel' truth ? I don't think so.

For example, the Stolen Generations story: Evidence ? One case, and even in that one, if I had been the social worker, I probably would have done something like Marj Angus did.

The rabbit-proof fence story ? Not the slightest written evidence from the times, from the West Australian newspaper, from Trove, from Neville, even from that wonderful communist Mary Bennett, always a thorn in Neville's side. Nothing at the 1934 Moseley Royal Commission. Nothing in Paul Hasluck's memoirs, and he was at the forefront of support for Aboriginal causes at the time, and worked with the Royal Commission. [The Royal Commission Evidence, nearly 900 pages, is on my web-site: www.firstsoures.info]]. Nothing.

Surely we should hinge what we believe to have happened from evidence, not from yarns, rumours, hearsay and stories. We can't just " .... alter [.. the truth] to suit the popular version."

Sorry, Foxy.

Love,

Joe

Dear Joe,

There's enough primary sources available - so that
we can verify what's true and what's not.
Go to any National or State Library and they will be
more than happy to help you. It's a question of
doing the research and taking the time to find out
if you're really interested. There's no need to be sorry.
Just take the time to do the research.

Foxy,

"Just take the time to do the research."

Thank you, Foxy.

What do you think I've been doing these last few years, sitting in the State Records and State Library here in Adelaide, bashing away on a faulty laptop ? And the many, many years before that ? Actually going back to the seventies ?

Do you have the slightest actual evidence of stories that you believe in, say, the rabbit-proof fence story ? Any at all ? So what do you base your 'evidence' on ? Hearsay ? An unwillingness to ever contradict or offend any Aboriginal people ?

The Stolen Generations yarn ? Don't be swayed by the sad, quavering voices of people who may honestly believe that they were 'stolen', as the only explanation for how their parents could ever, possibly, have been neglectful, or unable to look after them.

It happens. It certainly happened before single mothers could get any benefits before 1971 - thanks by the way, to the McMahon government, not the Whitlam government. How the hell my mum got by in the late forties and kept us kids together, I don't want to contemplate.

Evidence is what you need, not just a good heart :) We should never be afraid to search for the truth, even if it loses us friends. Although I would hate to lose you as a friend :)

Love always,

Joe

Dear Joe,

You won't lose me as a friend.

But it's best we leave it at that.
You believe what you believe - I heard too many
oral histories at the State Library of Victoria
to doubt them - including from the writer -
Thomas Keneally.