Hi Cossomby, OTB & Jodelie,

Another article yesterday touched on the split between those who want Sovereignty NOW ! and those who want a Treaty NOW ! which must make the elites, with their slight change to the Constitution NOW !, feel a bit squeamish, including Mundine and his Nations NOW ! approach and Pearson and his Third House of Parliament NOW !

What strikes me is that all parties believe fervently in the One Magic Bullet theory - their particular Silver Bullet is the One and Only remedy that will work, and work 100 % to solve all known problems. There is something pre-modern, medieval, about that way of thinking. As well, these brilliant ideas seem to be two-second thought-bubbles which their 'thinkers' think are actually so brilliant that they don't require any sort of explanation, on the principle that if you have to ask then you don't know. Which only goes to show how brilliant the 'thinker' is.

I think that the 'Recognise' thought-bubble falls into that category: it was so manifestly brilliant to the 'thinker' that it didn't need explaining. Sometimes you wonder if some of these 'thinkers' have the mentality of six-year-olds, they 'think' that you can know what they are thinking and how they arrived at their particular thought-bubble. And that their 'thought' is so brilliant that they can live well on it for the rest of their lives.

[TBC]

[continued]

Yesterday in The Australian, an article cited another Great Aboriginal Thinker pushing for Sovereignty, BUT actually explaining in part what he meant, i.e. a separate Aboriginal State and Government, with Ministers, Parliaments, ambassadors overseas, its own university, etc. [No, he didn't go quite that far.]

Since I used to believe something similar until late 1972 [thank you, Buffy], I suppose I can't laugh. Back then, that 'thinker' would have been about 12. Maybe that shows the level of current political sophistication amongst some Aboriginal 'Thinkers': whether they are still locked in a medieval, one-shot-will-do-it, Magic Bullet, mindset, is not for me to say.

What might the Referendum voting paper look like ? Will it be trimmed to just a handful of options ? Or - in order to be representative of all Aboriginal 'thinking' - should it include all the options - from the most anodyne: a mention in the Constitution's Preamble - right through to a call for Indigenous Independence, with their own State or States, Government/s, etc. ?

Of course, this assumes that there WILL be a Referendum, sooner or later. My suspicion is that the whole 'Recognise' process is already a dog's breakfast, and it will get even more so in the coming months, regurgitated again and again. So who knows ?

Joe

Loudmouth (Joe), "What strikes me is that all parties believe fervently in the One Magic Bullet theory - their particular Silver Bullet is the One and Only remedy that will work, and work 100 % to solve all known problems"

I don't think they do. The activism and demand will never stop but will simply morph into more and more excuses for not taking responsibility and care of themselves and being accountable for their own choices. There will be endless recriminations and demands.

The same as has happened with removal of discrimination, real and alleged, against homosexuals. It morphed into Queer Politics and Queer activism.

The drivers are firstly, activists are very often people who derive their sense of being and get perverse satisfaction from making 'authority' and the community bow and preferably cower to the activists' wishes.

Secondly and lapping over the first group, are the thousands who are swinging from the taxpayer's teat. {articularly the professionals and bureaucrats including academics who make their daily bread from maintaining separatism of indigenous. -Enlarged to ATSI, yet the Islanders have always hated Aborigines as lazy and having poor hygiene. No love lost there and very long memories, combined with the usefulness of such conflict as a time-passing activity (in lieu of a real job).

Interesting how the elite have now positioned themselves to get guvvy grants forever and make a claim for eternal 'ATSI'(sic)* victimhood by recasting the settlement of Australia as a 'war'.

*ATSI - needs better definition. Which none of the avowed activists want and contrary to the wishes and demands of 'full-blood' Aborigines, who also object to the 'indigenous' tag. I have never met an 'indigenous' outside of those who have grown up in the 'burbs of the metropolitan cities who accepts the 'Indigenous' tag and all are livid about the many self-entitled opportunists as they see them who are claiming to be aboriginal and cruise on guvvy benefits.

Is recognition divisive?

Yes, absolutely! That is aim is it not of the activists and the cynical self-serving opportunists especially politicians, professionals and NGOs who ride the wagon for secondary gain.

Does anyone imagine for instance, that the Greens 'Protest' Party would ever want to lose a club they can batter their political opponents with? The game of the Greens elite is to get those comfy Senate seats and the income and entitlements that go with it and forever through that golden handshake courtesy of the exasperated taxpayer.

Hi OTB,

" "What strikes me is that all parties believe fervently in the One Magic Bullet theory - their particular Silver Bullet is the One and Only remedy that will work, and work 100 % to solve all known problems"

"I don't think they do. The activism and demand will never stop but will simply morph into more and more excuses for not taking responsibility and care of themselves and being accountable for their own choices. There will be endless recriminations and demands. "

Of course, because there is no Silver Bullet and never will be. So yes, there will be still more demands, more One True Silver Bullets, as there has been ever since the 1967 Referendum itself. My point is that the constant search for one, and settling temporarily on this or that panacea, is an expression of pre-Enlightenment, semi-medieval thinking akin to something out of Monty Python. And this coming Referendum, if it happens, will be the daddy of them all, a rich smorgasbord of panaceas.

It really is time to admit that even panaceas like 'self-determination' and 'community' have shown themselves to be bankrupt. I write as a bitterly disappointed devotee, after all :)

Ultimately, there will be no Indigenous alternative, no Cargo, to sheer, boring hard work, based on skills, on rigorous education for children, wherever they may be (which is not likely to be in 'communities'), and on genuine personal self-determination. Whether Australia was invaded or settled or occupied or colonised or liberated is neither here nor there in the lives of Australians, Indigenous and otherwise: one can't constantly drive into the past in order to find the future. We can only be genuinely reconciled when we all admit the pros and cons of the past and on how to go forward into our common future, together. I'm not interested in picking at the scabs of history.

Joe

Loudmouth (Joe),

Agreed and well said.