Dear Joe,

Regarding our
Indigenous people - as we all know, not everything
was recorded and much that was, was under the guise of
"protection." Still, today we do have access to a great
deal that helps paint a fuller picture. And as you stated
you've got to go with what you've got - but that's the
difficult part - questioning what you've got is part of
getting to the full truth of the matter.

There's also documented archival film evidence that paints
a bigger picture. BTW - authorities do often choose the
available information (true of false) to suit their
policies and their political government agenda of the time.

For example during the Second World War hundreds of English
children were brought to Australia and housed in orphanages
where they had to earn their keep and were mistreated.
Yet there are people in denial about those times. The same
is even more true about our Indigenous people.

Dear Foxy,

Perhaps you're right: whatever documentation there might be - 8,500 letters, a million words - might all be doctored and flawed (who knows, maybe I forged many of those letters, I'm such a bastard), even if it's backed up by another couple of thousand pages of Royal Commission transcripts, mission letters, missionary's journals, etc. - while the real truth is still out there even though there is, so far, not the slightest evidence that it exists.

It's important to keep an open mind, that what you see, thousands of pages of it, may be 'false news', and the real truth is hidden or worse, deliberately suppressed - which, in turn, of course needs to be evidenced. Good luck with all of that.

On the other hand, you could run with what you've got until you get more information (five thousand pages and a couple of million words obviously may not be enough), in the complete absence of any alternative data, and given that what IS available can be corroborated and cross-referenced in many ways.

Evidence OR suspicion. We all make our choices.

Love,

Joe

Dear Joe,

As always, I can't argue with your logic. ;-)

". Those who buy
what Keith Windschuttle was selling could also be accused
of being gullible. However the number of historians who
disagree with the man far outnumber those who agree. "

Well yes, Foxy, there are a lot of historians who disagree with Windschuttle and his supporters. But then again there are a lot of historians whose careers and reputation depend on trying to discredit Windschuttle and his supporters. Specifically the people who were shown to have distorted the evidence to enhance the case they were making and those who bought that distortion without bothering to check it themselves. Those latter then built careers around the beliefs that distorted evidence created. All of these have a very great interest in maintaining the distortion and minimising the effects of the revelations of evidence tampering.

It is said that science advances one funeral at a time. Ditto history. We'll need to wait for those historians who based their 'history' around the political needs of the time to exit the scene before others more interested in the truth than the politics can set the history aright.

There are many examples of this distortion of the data. I gave three such examples since these are beyond dispute, with the perpetrators of the untruths being forced to admit it. Yet still we have the Foxy's of this world effectively declaring that since I don't want that to be true, its isn't true, facts be damned.

And this passes for scholarship.

Oh dear.

mhaze,

Oh dear, is absolutely spot on.

What passes for scholarship - another viewpoint
argued:

http://evatt.org.au/papers/whitewash.html

That's what makes it so interesting.

Yes Foxy, I agree that you can find many historians who have written articles and essays and even books trying to debunk Windschuttle's finding. Almost all of these have a vested interest in doing so.

One such is Robert Manne who wrote the article in your link. Robert Manne who is utterly convinced of the stolen generation story but unable to name even one proven member of that group. (He has resorted to going back into the deep past where records are dim and then claiming that the lack of records proves his point.)

But again we find people saying with great certainty that Windschuttle is wrong and not offering any evidence for the claim.

Did Reynolds falsify his quote? Yes. Did Ryan make up evidence about a massacre? Yes. But those of a certain leaning will just pretend not to notice and then rely on others to tell them its OK to not notice.