Imagine if an Australian university decided to no longer describe or talk about the age of the universe because it might upset those folk who think the universe was created 6000 or 10000 years ago.

Ridicule would be the least of their problems. Forests would felled to get enough paper to criticise the decision. Law suits would probably fly. The leaders of the protected group would be interviewed and held up for disdain.

Well.............

The University of NSW has issued a guide for the correct terminology to be used when addressing aboriginals and discussing issues to do with aboriginal matters.

Among many egregious and, at times, funny instructions, staff have been advised that they shouldn't suggest that aboriginals have been here for 40000 years because "the beliefs of many Indigenous Australians [is] that they have always been in Australia, from the beginning of time, and came from the land". Therefore teachers and staff should talk of aboriginals being here "... since the beginning of the Dreaming/s".

Get it? Don't talk about facts when they might upset the sensibilities of this or that aboriginal or aboriginal group. Instead pander to their notions that they grew out of the dirt and have always been here.

I guess the out-of-Africa theory of human evolution isn't going to get too much support at the university any more.

Read the thing here... http://teaching.unsw.edu.au/indigenous-terminology

There's lots of laugh out loud instructions about how to lie to protect the sensibilities of the natives.

Oh, and weep for education in this country.

I wonder how many people were actually asked how long they thought their ancestors had been here. About .... none would be my guess. It's more likely to be the brain storm of some nutty academic.

the whole evolution and big bang theories are nothing but fantasy by those to blind to accept the obvious. You need much irrational faith to believe we evolved from chimps or that the wonderfully designed creation does not require a Creator. Lies told over and over don't make it true. Uni's have been lying ever since they denied the very obvious. All they can do is mock the truth as their own explantions are so much fancy dressed in pseudo science.

It's more likely to be the brain storm of some nutty academic.
ttbn,
I aways wondered if an un-educated person could ever be so stupid ?

I must be missing something here. I don't understand
what all the fuss is about.

It appears that the University of New South Wales
as part of their Indigenous Australian Studies for
Primary Pre-Service Teacher Education has adapted
a list of correct terminology in teaching
the teachers for Indigenous Australian Studies.
And you guys are having a problem with that?

This is not anything new.
This is common practice involved in teacher training
in a variety of faculties in training teacher staff
to make suggestions
about appropriate terminology to be used.

It's part and parcel of teacher training. Whether you're
studying Indigenous studies or astrophysics or a PhD
or Masters in English. Appropriate language and
terminology is part of the course.

The University of Sydney staff and students provide help
to develop academic and professional writing skills.
For example, the Learning Centre is part of the
University's Student Services and assists students to
develop the generic skills which are necessary for
learning and communicating knowledge and ideas at
University.

The Law - legal writing and exams require clear and
precise writing skills and terminology for today's
lawyers. This resource is produced by the Law School and
aims to being together an array of knowledge advice tips
and resources about legal writing and skills. It includes
information about legal essays and case notes.

mhaze,
I know nothing about this new claim but I must admit, your reference to them promoting the idea that they 'grew out of the dirt' and have always been here, since the dream time, (that's their words not mine) which is a fictitious myth or bed time story, is one I have heard mentioned a few times in the past.
As the word aborigine means 'from earliest times', it does not fit comfortably with the notion that they have been here since, what I think they want us to believe, the beginning of time itself.
Now there had been a low brow joke going around a few years ago that agreed with their suggestion that they came from the earth, because they were always filthy and disheveled and they appeared never to have showered or washed.
And so it was that they earned themselves the image they still convey today.
Those who got up and moved into the 21st century, like the 'stolen generation' have benefitted immensely compared to their backward or traditional cousins, who decided to remain living in the past and therefore in a transient and nomadic lifestyle, but today they have included some very bad social habits like drugs and even petrol sniffing.
So how to believe these people when there is such dissent and disunity from within their own ranks.
And they want their own 'voice' and to be able to run their own affairs, make their own decisions.
HAH, yeah right!
They don't want to acknowledge their shortcomings, failures and inabilities.
They cannot be left to their own devices, as we have witnessed how badly they have managed what has been GIVEN to them thus far.
So maybe, back to the land is where they are happiest and perform the best, as that is what they are most familiar with.

I must be missing something here. I don't understand
what all the fuss is about.

Finally ! An admission !

I keep telling you all it's semantics, and it's a part of the agenda to push us towards global government.

And it also seems like a kind of precedent where we are forced to accept or respect other peoples religious beliefs.

It's a creeping agenda, a process of accumulation.
It happens one small piece at at time.

You see what they are doing here?

In the past, everybody had the right to 'freedom of religion'
- Meaning YOU were free to hold whatever religious beliefs you wanted; eg about God, the creation of the world and what happens when we aren't here anymore.

The law was about 'YOUR' right to believe whatever you chose to.

Now they're extending one persons beliefs to others.

- Now 'IM' the one in the wrong for not observing another persons
personally held beliefs -

(And that's a form of theocracy, but more importantly it's an attempt to beat us down and confuse us with new rules, as well as empowering people on their minority beliefs and force others to self-censor their own beliefs)

'Because some believe in the Dreamtime, now I'm being forced to accept it';
It's the same crazed ideology as the gender identity issue.
http://www.charismanews.com/world/75163-mother-arrested-in-front-of-her-children-for-using-wrong-pronoun-for-trans-activist

What happens when the indigenous person says "You're making insulting, generalised and discriminatory statements about me that I don't agree with.
I don't believe in the Dreamtime"

When are you people going to see that the game is forcing people into new entrenched beliefs where they don't identify as national citizens anymore but identify with race and identity politics and social and political leanings.

- With the end result being 'we're all disunified and entrenched in our gang mentality thinking' and disagreements will need to be worked out and decided arbitrarily by courts and other third parties.

Its my belief that all this is about 'the pyramid and the eye' on the bloody US dollar bill.
All this about 'religions' is no hide or obscure the will of one religion.

Talmud, and Jewish religious beliefs and plans to rule over mankind.

individual,

What is an 'educated person'? One who learned things useful to himself and others, or someone who has been brainwashed with ideological and political balderdash that leads him to be a devisive, contrary idiot in what passes for universities these days?

Life's not about wrapping everyone in bubble wrap.
It's unhealthy for our nations people.

You know what is healthy?
- Being criticised or offended for something;

- ANYTHING -

Do you think you're the perfect human and beyond criticism?

One SHOULD be criticised rigorously and regularly.
It helps one to be well-grounded, and ensures one doesn't gain a 'head up their backside' attitude;
Or lose touch with reality considering themselves 'beyond reproach'.

Being offended by something is healthy.
It reminds you the 'World isn't all about you, and that others exist in it'.

BS'ing is essential too.
It helps to not take things so literally and seriously all the time and find some humour in life;
And it's good practice to ensuring a kind of resistance to other peoples lies.

Pro's and Con's to everything....

All the ideas imparted upon people these days are exactly that;
- Other peoples ideas -

It highlights an 'end result'.
- That people are essentially losing the ability to think for themselves -

Individual,

You carry forever the fingerprint of being
under someone's thumb.

The same old sausage, fizzing and spluttering
in your own grease.

ttbn,
There are educated people who become useful to society & then there are the educated who can't comprehend their education i.e. indoctrinated & they're a massive burden & an ever-increasing danger to society !
So, as far as I can tell there are two kinds of educated people. Intelligent & pragmatic & the merely indoctrinated pseudo-intellectuals.

Foxy, yes it's me, and as usual it's you, still pushing some pansy arsed unrealistic agenda, and still saying what is obvious to one and all.
Just for the sake of balance, I'll call your bull and raise you one truth.
You did not have to repeat what the UNSW terms of reference are on this subject, as if we are all illiterate, and of course it makes you look like the only one who knows about it because YOU put it on OLO.
No-one else did because we already knew what it's about, and we don't care.
So let's recap, firstly you explain what is already known and accessible to anyone, as if you are the bearer of some new and vitally critical information that without it, we the people will suffer some major catastrophe.
Then you proceed, as usual, to randomly bag anyone for daring to question the information.
The truth is, it's just another useless topic or piece of information, and I'm not getting sucked into this one, as it renders no real value, one way or another.

What the university had done is support indigenous religious belief. Do they support all the other religious beliefs in the same manner?
Are students offered correct terminology to use so that they don’t offend Christians, Jews,Buddhist’s, Scientologist etc?
And what about the atheists? Is there correct terminology to avoid offending them?
Boy, what a Gordian Knot they have created.

Big Nana, spot on.
I must appologise for gatecrashing this topic to make a 'GOTCHA' statement to all those who have been conflabbing on about PASCOE and as I called it his fictional, bed time story book praising the blacks for 'no good reason'.
Well thanks to Loudmouth, he has blown Foxy and Co out of the water with his link which basically debunks Pascoe and his book and all the so called new discoveries.
I have run out of posting time on the appropriate site, but I will most certainly want to post, hoping others don't get in before me.
I don't as a rule gloat or make a fuss when I am proven right about something, but because I have NEVER encountered such a belligerent, petulant, stubborn person like Foxy before, she needs to be told the truth and perhaps she will begin to question things and not take them at face value.
Thanks for your patience.

Dear Big Nana,

What the University has done is adapted using
the right words and appropriate terminology for
Indigenous Australian studies in teaching the
teachers. in the Indigenous Australian Studies
for Primary Pre-Service Teacher Education -
School of Teacher Education at the University of
NSW. It is an appropriate thing to do in that
particular department as it deals with their
area of specialisation.

Just as the University of Sydney in their Law
Faculty advises appropriate terminology to be
used in law - legal writing and exams.

ALTRAV,

I can't be held responsible for your lack of
comprehension. I can post my opinions - but I
can't understand them for you.

Hi Altrav,

Do you mean this link:

https://www.dark-emu-exposed.org/

There's quite a bit there, still going through it. Brilliant !

Joe

Joe,

Talking about a "nasty piece of work?"

Altrav,

Many people around the world believe they have always been wherever they happen to be now. I remember a Samoan bloke explaining that to me.

I suppose the Uni of NSW has a geology department. Perhaps they should be teaching the many theories about the Earth. My favourite is the Burmese one which declares that the Earth is a huge plate resting on the back of four elephants. The elephants stand on the back of a giant turtle. Somebody asked, what does the turtles stand on ? The answer: it's turtles all the way down. Of course, outside the borders of Burma, the earth is variously round, flat, square and pear-shaped.

Obviously, for any sane person, the sun goes around the earth. Maybe if I lived on the moon, I would assume as obvious that the earth and the sun both revolve around the moon. The Ngarrindjeri used to believe that the moon, a young woman, travelled across the sky from one camp to another, from its rounded full-moon state at first, then as she went from camp to camp and let the blokes all have their way with her, she withered up into an old woman, until she was re-born again as a young woman. After all, it's obvious that all the stars are camp-fires of alien tribes, perhaps of departed elders. Everybody knows that.

We should respect everybody's crackpot beliefs and teach them to our kids, like so much other rubbish, so that they can take their pick. After all, there's no such thing as 'truth', it's a bourgeois concept; 'truth' is all relative. 'Knowledge' too: it's all an illusion. Nothing is true or knowable. Including this statement. And that one. And that one too.

'Science' - pah !

Joe

You carry forever the fingerprint of being
under someone's thumb.
Foxy,
If anyone is under a thumb it's you, the thumb of indoctrination & delusion !
People would take you more serious if you came up with your own ideas rather than just referencing some academic gits in some University !
Why do you never bring up links that lead to the work & statesmen/women & real, proper scholars ?
Is it out of your league to find such ?

Individual,

Poor thing, You think you know it all and have
no way of finding out - you don't!

Foxy, sweet, half-wit child,

Individual has worked for many years in Indigenous communities and has more solid experience in his little finger than you will ever have. Try to learn from such contributors. No ? Didn't think so.

So now we await your smart-arse 'rebuttal'.

Joe

Dear Foxy,

You are wasting your time trying to explain things to the likes of mhaze, Loudmouth, ttbn, individual, etc. They don't even know what a university is let alone asking them to come to grips with the epistemological underpinnings of a higher education.

Loudmouth, you sir are a man amongst men. (I hope you are a man) well I don't know, BAZINGA!
Go to the top of the class.
You see I pretty much don't care about the outcome of the link you have suggested, only the fact that someone has, (in Foxys words 'dared to challenge the book or Pascoe').
I never say something is right or wrong unless I have proof or have experienced it for myself.
My postings have always been of an enquiring nature or questioning nature because something about the topic has led me to enquire.
Foxy, it seems is a sore loser, so I would not invest too much in her and her antics.
I must however warn you of a 'slight of hand' she seems to practice rather well, and that is, just like one of her topics she proudly proclaimed it had a very good response as rebuttal to my criticism of the fact it was a nothing topic.
She proudly offered 380 comments as proof the topic was in fact very well received, until I brought her back to earth in telling her that pretty much ALL of the 380 were just a few like myself and other regulars simply arguing back and forth trying to convince her that she was wrong.
And that has a real chance of happening hear again, so I for one will be posting with one foot out the door from now on, if this is the kind of thing we are to endure in future.

Mr Opinionated,

Strange, I've worked at universities, usually in Indigenous Student Support. I built up the numbers at one campus from eight to forty one (one year up to fifty), and six graduates each year. How's your university experience ?

They were the best years of my life. My late wife (it's her birthday today) co-ordinated Indigenous Student Support on eleven sites, overseeing sixteen staff providing support to about three hundred students. You think we didn't talk ceaselessly about our students ? A wonderful Indigenous woman, we had 43 wonderful years together. We ran what we called Careers Aspirations programs in maybe fifty towns, from Brewarrina to Leigh Creek to Ceduna, in schools going down to Year Six, and marvelled at the lights in the eyes of maybe a thousand lovely kids: their hopes and dreams about what they wanted to do with their lives was incredibly inspiring, lovely, lovely kids.

So what have you been up to lately in that area ?

Joe

Mr O, come on now, stop showing off.
We also know how to Google, we don't need a uni degree for that.
Anyway judging by your response, I take it you might be a uni grad?, would I be close?

Dear ALTRAV,

Let's just say that I am considered to be one of the most educated men in the country.

Dear Loudmouth,

Hit a nerve, did I?

Loudmouth, your presence on OLO is a blessing.
You keep coming out with these fantastic stories, each one entrenching you further into the position of 'top dog' or the 'go to guy' on the subject of the blacks and their REAL status, and not some fanciful, or romantic notion of what life was really like for the blacks in Aus.

Mr O, oh, you can't say that and expect to just leave without some further expansion of your comment.
You have successfully wetted our curiosity, now we must press you for more information.
C'mon, let's hear it.

Dear ALTRAV,

I thought it was obvious from my posts.

higher education.
Mr Opinion,
There isn't one in our group that wouldn't acknowledge a highly educated person who built upon their natural ability to comprehend new & complex information AND, knows how to apply it & be a useful member of society.
The everyday BA carrying pseudo intellectuals do not fall into this category ! You find them at McDonald's & in the Public Service.

Individual,

Therein lies the difference between your group and mine.
In my group a BA is just the starting point. Everyone
has gone further and applied their knowledge and
expertise to higher degrees and positions. None work
in MAcDonalds or the Public Service.

We move in different circles - obviously.

I read those guidelines for terminology at NSW uni. Funniest thing I have read in ages.
Many of the guidelines don’t even make sense. For example, students are told not to use the word “tribe” because tribe is a western concept and not in keeping with indigenous understanding. So students should use the word “ nation” instead. Lol lol lol
Another section, don’t use any terminology that may suggest that any differences occur between types of aboriginal people. Ie don’t use the word “ traditional “ when referring to an aboriginal person because that implies a traditional aboriginal is different to other aboriginal people, such as fair skinned urban dwellers.
That’s not just funny, it’s a huge insult to those people still living on their land and speaking language.
Who makes up this stuff?

Big Nana, why I'm surprised you have to ask.
Foxy just finished telling us, it's her lot.
I thought the entry was meant to be a play on words, but ultimately it was someones idea of a humorous construct, intended to amuse.
Oh, I see it is a serious attempt at describing certain black fellas words.
Well it more suites an attempt at comedy than anything serious.
So much for academia.
BA was once mistaken for BS, as the two were so closely related in the academic structure and formulation of the curriculum.

Who makes up this stuff?
big Nana,
The Foxies of this brave new World !

Mr Opinionated,

No, sorry, just reminiscing. Thanks for letting me bring up all those wonderful memories, on a special day.

Big Nana, the notions of clan or tribe or 'nation' are pretty useless down this way: people have long forgotten what clan they may be related to - family, yes, and it's ironic how closely the clan names (as, for example, are set out in detail in Berndt & Berndt's 'A World That Was' for the Ngarrindjeri) correspond to people's modern-day surnames (and even that knowledge is fading as people inter-marry). But of course, people have also forgotten the essentials of what went with 'clan', i.e. the country that the clan controlled, the names of camping sites, etc.

And let's not even begin to go into whether people were patrilineal or matrilineal or bilineal, given the huge amount of inter-marriage etc. with non-Aboriginal people, and how they can properly trace their clan links.

So the rather nonsensical notion of 'nation' is even less appropriate if it is applied to something like clan-level of organisation. What seems to be happening is that entire language-groups are being called 'nations' for convenience, a level of organisation at which perhaps nobody ever had much authority: Ngarrindjeri, Narangga, Bangala, Barkindji, Wiradjuri, Bandjalang, Gunditjmara, etc. - 'clan' or family group, was the most salient level of everyday life. And still is.

And of course, each 'tribe' pushes out its boundaries in typical imperialist fashion: 'Ngarrindjeri' now extends up the Murray to the NSW border, when traditionally, it didn't even reach Murray Bridge, i.e. hundreds of kilometres down-stream. Even Kaurna country, i.e. around Adelaide, now is claimed to extend over other people's traditional territory in all directions.

So it's probably just another one of these whitefella brain-farts that somebody has borrowed and run with, no matter how it is irrelevant to most Aboriginal people. Sit back and enjoy the squabbles.

Joe

"Many of the guidelines don’t even make sense."

If they don't make sense it's because you're not seeing the bigger picture.

You need to instead focus on how these things DO make sense, not how they DON'T, only then will you see the bigger picture.

Western Nations politics (and national religion of political correctness) is this:
They play both the left and right against the middle;
Whilst the goalposts are continually shifted 2 steps to the left.

"When are you people going to see that the game is forcing people into new entrenched beliefs where they don't identify as national citizens anymore but identify with race and identity politics and social and political leanings.

- With the end result being 'we're all disunified and entrenched in our gang mentality thinking' and disagreements will need to be worked out and decided arbitrarily by courts and other third parties."

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=8862&page=0#287271

The bigger picture, 'the goal' is global agendas in support of forwarding global govern-ance;
Which itself is just a small step away from global govern-ment.
Why do you think we have 2030 agendas?
Obviously someone has a plan;
- And it's above all our pay-grades.

Only when you start to see the bigger picture will things make sense.

"For example, students are told not to use the word “tribe” because tribe is a western concept and not in keeping with indigenous understanding."
"don’t use any terminology that may suggest that any differences occur between types of aboriginal people."

(It's contradictory considering they actually say referring to their tribal name is more appropriate btw)

The bigger picture is that they don't want white nationalists identifying as Australian, and they don't want indigenous identifying as their tribes either, but they can use the issue divisively to create conflict, so they empower the minorities.

Really the end game is that we all identify as 'global citizens'; and succeed sovereignty to a higher global authority.

Where does the curriculum come from?
http://www.acara.edu.au/

And who guides them?
http://www.acara.edu.au/news-and-media/acara-update-archive/acara-update-archive-2018/acara-update-march-2018

"ACARA has been working with leaders of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Education 2030 project."

http://www.oecd.org/education/2030-project/

Dear Loudmouth,

What are you doing? trying to give us a lecture in Anthropology 101? Clan, patrilineal, matrilineal are not Aboriginal constructs. Why don't you add in moiety, Crow-Omaha, etc. These are all anthropological kinship terms, not Aboriginal linguistic and cultural definitions of traditional social organisation. Can you please come up with something a bit more original? Or are you content to let your paranoid delusion dominate you totally!

AC,

What do hotshots mean by

"don’t use any terminology that may suggest that any differences occur between types of aboriginal people" ?

Are Indigenous people just an undifferentiated mass ? Or do they come, as it were, in all shapes and sizes, like other people ?

Of course, like anybody else, Indigenous people may be urban, rural-town, remote or very remote. There are probably some at this moment who are out at sea (and certainly many currently in the air on their way to the US and Canada, the elite destination of choice).

They may be well-educated or poorly-educated. They may live in their own homes, or in public housing or (extremely few) traditional shelters. I'd estimate that 10-20 % of the indigenous population has been overseas, some people dozens of times, with a history going back to the 1790s. I'll bet that currently, there are choirs, dance groups, artists and sundry elites who are currently overseas.

Like other people, some Indigenous people are currently at university (around twenty thousand), some are in hospitals and some are in jails. It may come as a surprise to some posters (oh hello, Foxy, I didn't see you there) but Aboriginal people are human beings like the rest of us, with abilities, foibles, interests and problems like the rest of us. They're no better or worse than the rest of us. They are equal human beings, and thank god they have equal rights to the rest of us: no more and no less.

Joe

Loudmouth,
I've been meaning to ask, and you might be one of few on OLO who's answer I might consider.
I have always maintained, in the context of a liaison (or marriage) between an aborigine and a European, as is also confirmed by some blacks of note, the likes of Bropho and others, that the offspring of such a liaison is not an aborigine, but an Australian, with the caveat that one parent is aboriginal, but never-the-less they are first and foremost, and must go by the title of Australian.
Even the constitution, section 127, stated that "such an off-spring was in fact a 'half caste' and therefore was not an aborigine".
I have always maintained that if both parents are of a particular race then the off-spring is also clearly of the same race.
Anything else is something else.
Where they are born is a matter for immigration or more specifically to do with ones passport.
I use myself as point in case.
Both my parents were Italian, I was born in Australia.
I have been described by others, mostly media, and mostly abroad, as "an Australian born, Italian.......".
Which co-incidentally co-insides with my interpretation of the issue.
What's your take, or anyone's for that matter?

University's don't teach common sense.

Dear Big Nana,

In answer to your question - who makes this
stuff up?

According to the "beleaguered mainstream of
ordinary Australians" and the Right-Wing media
outlets - it's - unrepresentative all powerful
politically correct, Leftist cultural elite.
The endless man-hating feminists, Leftist
University Lecturers, biased ABC journalists,
and the grant-grabbing scientists, and of course
we need to include the - handout addicted
Aborigines.

There I think that covers it.

When we have so many parasites with so much time on their hands, that they can come up with this sort of stupidity, we really are sitting on the tail end of the once great western civilisation.

Hi Altrav,

Probably 'Italian-Australian'. I'm 'Celtic-Australian' myself, with suspicions of other bits as well.

People don't necessarily describe themselves biologically, as half-this, or quarter-that. If your mother is, say, Italian, and all your siblings think of themselves as Italian-Australian, and if your neighbours and friends defer to you as an Italian-Australian, it would be no surprise if you thought of yourself as Italian-Australian. So it is with Aboriginal people, regardless of how dark or pale they may be. Certainly my wife thought so, and our kids do too, not that it's done them much good.

Cheers,

Joe

Foxy, I know who doesn’t make these things up, and that’s the actual full blood aboriginal people of the north who find these ideals highly offensive and who have certainly never been consulted in regards terminology.
My Opinion, if you don’t think the worlds patrilineal or matrilineal relate to aboriginal culture then I suggest you don’t have much experience of said culture.
All tribes have a system of land access and it’s either through their mothers side or their fathers. Each tribe is different. In the Kimberley, land claim is patrilineal but in other areas it’s matrilinial.
Like the knowledge of the extensive ramifications of skin groups, land inheritance is something the average part aboriginal has never learnt, only those in the north retain some of this knowledge.

Anyone who has read (and understood) 1984 will understand why language matters. Why some are so anxious to alter the language to suit the politics. For example, if you change the language so that its impossible to call 1788 a colonisation, it will, in a generation or two, become impossible to think, let alone argue, that it was anything other than an invasion....

"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten.

"By curtailing frivolous and "fighting" words, the Party seeks to narrow the range of thought altogether, such that eventually thoughtcrime will be literally impossible. The same goes for disruptive or subversive behavior." 1984.

This essay also explains the concept ...http://peggynoonan.com/what-were-robespierres-pronouns/

Its happening all around but subtly without much push-back. This year we laugh at those pushing what is clearly a daft range of directives. In 5 years those who fail to follow those directives will be unpersoned. In a decade they'll be excommunicated. Within a generation students won't even know its possible to think it was anything but an invasion.

In another thread, Mr O maintained that 50% of Sydney residents were Chinese. When point out that the Bureau of Statistics said it was 5% he just ignored the information. Didn't mount arguments against it, mind you. Just pretended that the data didn't exist. He was incapable of understanding the contradiction in his view as against more persuasive data and didn't have the wherewithal to even try to reconcile his position with the actual data.

Elsewhere Mr O asserted that all scientists accept CAGW. When pointed out that there were links in that very thread to scientists who didn't accept AGW let alone CAGW, Mr O just carried on as though the data didn't exist. He didn't mount arguments against it,mind you. He simply pretended the data didn't exist, even after having it pointed out several times. He was incapable of understanding the contradiction in his view as against data that was right there in front of him and didn't have the wherewithal to even try to reconcile his position with the actual data.

Now we find Mr O asserting "Let's just say that I am considered to be one of the most educated men in the country."

One wants to laugh but its all very sad.

I for one feel less than comfortable making fun of this poor bloke. Showing up his sheer lack of cognitive abilities is no longer fun, but instead just plain cruel.

So pointing out Mr O's foibles is now of limits as far as I'm concerned.

Dear Big Nana,

You have misinterpreted what I am saying. I'm not saying for example that a man wouldn't have chosen a M-M-B-D-D from people A of X totem as a wife but saying that he would not construct it in the way that an anthropologist would by using kinship terminology to describe exchange between matrimoieties. Do you get what I'm saying?

Dear mhaze,

Please don't include me on the list of those who are lying to you and trying to do you harm. I sympathise with you for having paranoid delusions. Just keep taking your medications and eventually everything will come back to normal.

MHaze,

Of course, what happened was inevitable and it was both an invasion and a program of settlement. It was an inevitable invasion because no other major power, then or into the future, would have left Australia alone (France, Spain, Russia, the US, Japan, China or India, to name a few); and it was clearly the settlement of millions of people, employing far more effective forms of economy.

Would Aboriginal people like to go back to their former foraging ? Well, of course they can right now, but does anybody ? In communities, is the cry for fewer (European-style) houses, or for more of them ? Would people rather go out and collect kangaroo-grass or get money from the ATM , which of course is their right ? Do people travel by foot between communities, or by car ? And plane ?

It's been that way for a long time. When Albert Namatjira was sked in the thirties what he liked to do in his spare time, he said "Hunting". Oh, right, with spears and clubs ? No, of course not, on the back of a truck with a .303. People often adapt amazingly quickly to new opportunities.

Back in the 1880s, when Melbourne was planning for its fiftieth anniversary by putting on an Exhibition, the Protector of Aborigines in SA was asked to send over some fishing spears. But nobody knew by then how to make them: people had got used to fishing lines and fish-hooks and netting twine for nets, probably within hours or days of first discovering them, so no need for fishing spears ever again.

People adapt; they make use of new opportunities. They may remember old ways, even fondly (although I don't think women missed the sixty thousand years of collecting bloody grass-seed), but they don't necessarily want to retain them.

Joe

Mr O, naturally we use different terminology and concepts to describe aboriginal customs than the original people did, however people like me who have lived with aboriginal people in remote areas can come to understand how the kinship system works. Different tribes have different skin systems. Some are very simple and only have two skins, whilst others are far more complex and can have up to 16 skin groups, which requires quite complex u derstanding of relationships and is taught to every child from the moment of birth. Everything they do ,everyday, is seen in contex of skin. And no, totems have nothing to do with kinship system.
However, you seemed to have missed my original point. If aboriginal people don’t see the word “ tribe” as a concept they can accept, , then how the hell would they think the word “ nation” was any more acceptable.
In actual fact, aboriginal people who still understand the concept of country and culture do use the word tribe but they more readily ask what country someone comes from, rather than asking what tribe.

Dear Big Nana,

Do they see 'tribe' in terms of their political-economy or in terms of kin group social organisation?

Dear Big Nana,

The University of NSW rejects any notion that a
resource for teachers on Indigenous terminology
dictates the use of language or that
its designed to be politically correct.

Their guide does not mandate what language can be used.
Rather it was a more appropriate/less appropriate format
providing a range of examples.

This is an important distinction to make.

Also, an Indigenous historian has said the attack on the
new set of UNSW Indigenous guidelines is proof that
Australia has a long way to go in education about the past.

Shock jocks and of course "The Daily Telegraph"go to town
on these kind of issues. It's newsworthy and sells papers
and keeps people in their jobs by shyte stirring.

mhaze,

I just read your post on Mr Opinion.

He seems to have touched a nerve.

You protest too much, methinks.

Do they see 'tribe' in terms of their political-economy or in terms of kin group social organisation?

To my knowledge Qld indigenous generally identify as 'Murri people'.

Foxy,

What an appalling bunch of politically correct posts.

There is a huge difference from determining terminology (usually in place to simplify and standardise terms) and what is clearly an instruction from the University on ideology.

SM,

The University explains its Indigenous guidelines at the
following link. It may help to clarify things for you.
Sir:

http://www.abc.netau.news/2016-03-30/UNSW-defends-indigenous-guidelines/7285020

cont'd ...

SM,

OOOOps - another typo. Here's the link again:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-30/unsw-defends-indigenous-guidelines/7285020

OK I've read enough rubbish.
The last straw on this thread is, of course, none other than the famous "knower of all things obvious".
I ultimately promote physical persuasion to failed verbal attempts at trying to correct stubborn morons from their blinkered mindset.
I would like to administer a painful lesson to those who insist on misleading or lying continually, for personal ingratiation and satisfaction.
If I read/hear one more person say or even hint that we, the white man 'invaded' Australia as in a war.
There was no war, other than the blacks doing what they or any other person would do if someone decided they did not want others on their patch.
That is not something unique to the blacks, everyone even animals naturally act the same, so unless someone can tell me the first people to set foot on this land were military people, at war with Australia, then shut up!
If anyone attempts to use the fact that there were soldiers amongst the first arrivals, yes they were there to keep the prisoners under control.
As it turned out the soldiers did have to do some shooting in defending themselves and their charges, but not as if in a war, far from it.
So to be clear, we did not "invade", we settled, migrated, just like the blacks did when they came from lands to the North, when New Guinea was attached to Australia.
All this is a matter of record, and yet there are still the morons with some sick sense or beliefs and emotional attachments to a romantic notion of what they see history to be and not the true history.
Anyone trying to suggest we invaded Australia is only looking for fodder to boost their own sick and twisted mis-guided agenda.
If the natives get upset about the truth, too bad, GET OVER IT!

Foxy says: "He [MR O] seems to have touched a nerve."

Well anyone who thinks that strolling around the CBD counting Asian faces is a better way of calculating the Chinese population of a region than checking the Australian Bureau of Statistics figures is a moron.

Refusing to even look at the ABS numbers multiplies their moronosity and does touch a nerve.

Then claiming to be highly credentialed simply indicates someone who is totally out of touch with reality or at least someone who has no compunction about monumental lies, and is therefore someone to be ignored and pitied.

"You protest too much, methinks."
That's become one of your go-to phrases. But it indicates that in fact you don't. Think, that is.

Loudmouth wrote "Of course, what happened was inevitable and it was both an invasion and a program of settlement."

Yes. I've written many times that the aboriginals were spectacularly lucky that it was the British who settled here. It was going to be someone from among those nations you list with the probable exception of the US.

And if it had been any of the other nations, the aboriginals would have been treated far worse than they got under British rule. Indeed had it been any of the others, there probably wouldn't be an aboriginal problem today, because the aboriginals would have long since been wiped out.

"Well anyone who thinks that strolling around the CBD counting Asian faces is a better way of calculating the Chinese population of a region than checking the Australian Bureau of Statistics figures is a moron"

Absolutely correct, mhaze! But we probably have to show a little compassion for someone who brags about being a sociologist, the most useless of all the 'ologists' coming out of brain-washing centres that used to be universities.

Ttbn,

What ?! isn't telephone sanitizing a university course yet ?!

And with some little kid winning four million on some computer game, do you think there won't be a massive expansion of relevant uni courses ? And, of course in film direction ? Art and design. Sometimes, in a very spiteful mood, I think that young people will deserve what they get.

Joe

mhaze,

You give the impression that Australian Aborigines have
thrived under colonial rule when actually they are barely
recovering from the devastating consequences.

As a direct consequence of British colonisation,
western diseases like smallpox, appropriation of land
and water resources, outright murder, Aboriginal population
falling - reaching all time lows in the 1920s when it was
widely expected they would go extinct.

Even today Australian Aborigines have yet to reach
pre-colonial population levels. They have little to cheer
about from British colonisation.

cont'd ...

According to many historians, the British colonisers
were the ones who caused the most damage around
the globe and were the last I believe to grant
independence to their colonies.

Even today, they still won't let go by establishing
the British Commonwealth.

Foxy,

You have a gift for believing bullsh!t without question. You would have made a good altar-boy. Why do you think the population was all that high in pre-colonial times ? Maybe a quarter of a million, up to half a million after long periods of very good climatic conditions, dropping again to the lower level in 'ordinary' conditions.
As for the 1920 figures, it's very likely that many people were 'passing', or simply weren't counted in any survey, or most likely were simply counted as Australians.

The rapid 'growth' in the supposed Indigenous population after 1971 when a special box was allocated in the Census, from barely 150,000 up to 300,000 and 400,000 and currently around 700,000 has a lot to do with people re-identifying, plus a bit of number-fudging.

And by the way, the smallpox epidemics all seemed to have come down from the north, sometimes long before whitefellas were in the vicinity - one down the east coast around 1788-1789, another through the Channel country from the Gulf in about 1828-1829, and another down the north-west coast in the nineteenth century, as Judy Campbell has exhaustively shown:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10314618308682899?journalCode=rahs19

and in other papers. Perhaps people did not have the immunity to the disease that Macassans and Timorese had. Get your facts right, not just from Google.

Joe

Dear Joe,

If I believed bullshyte without question I'd
be swallowing yours.

No chance.

cont'd ...

Dear Joe,

As for my having the qualities of a good altR BOY.

I know that you meant that as an insult knowing
full well that females don't qualify for that job,
yet.

However, Thank You for that. I take it as a
compliment.

Have you ever been to Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve?

It is breathtaking. Magical, and truly wondrous.

I envy the altar boys.

My husband was one as was my father.

So again - Thank You. You Sir, are a gentleman, and
ever so gracious - with such a big heart.

A true Brit.

mhaze,

Donald Horne in his celebrated book, "The Lucky
Country" meant the title as irony.

"Australia is a lucky country run by 2nd rate people
who share its luck," he lamented in 1964, describing much
of the Australian elite as unfailingly unoriginal race
obsessed and in thrall to Imperial power and its wars.

Nothing much it seems has changed for some.

Loudmouth,
as I have said before, you are miles ahead of all of us on the Aussie blacks and all things about them.
I also advised you to not waste your time with the likes of Foxy, SteelRedux, Paul and some others.
There appears to be a theme emerging, that shows them to be objectionable people both in attitude and in reality.
They seem incapable of understanding clear and concise facts or truths.
You have answered all the questions thrown at you and more and yet these fools refuse to eat umble pie (yes UMBLE)and instead of accepting that you know what your talking about and just shut up, they keep wasting everyones time with continual unsubstantiated rebuttals.
I have warned you previously of Foxy and this being her tactic.
She brags about her topic receiving over 400 postings.
Unfortunately nearly all of them are in attempting to sway her and her opinion on the topic, that she is wrong or mis-leading.
Her manner is a very irritating and counter productive one and we should not facilitate her because of it.
Anyway, don't let them get you down.
I only listen to or take advise from those more aware and knowledgeable than myself, and am happy to say there are many.
Sadly, foxy, Paul, SteelRedux and one or two others that don't come to mind at present, are not amongst them

ALTRAV,

Glad to see that you have finally seen the futility of having dealings with any of the people you mention. It's a total waste of time, and only encourages them and gives them the the attention they crave - attention that they don't get in real life because they are losers and nobodies.

Foxy

Me, a Brit ?! Take that back ! That's an appalling thing to say. Yes, I have to admit, I do have English ancestry, from convicts raised in Shropshire (maybe a Gypsy) and Cornwall and Warrington and Staffordshire (I get all the shires mixed up), and Norfolk, and my granny raised in a workhouse in Hull (Sculcoates), but I try to minimise them in favour of my better ancestors from the Celtic world (except my granny). They also were mostly convicts (but only thieves) and from workhouses. In fact, I think all of them were either convicts or from workhouses, one way or another :).

But 'a Brit'. That still hurts.

Joe

Sear Loudmouth,

I thought you were Aboriginal.

I see mhaze and his disciples are still raving about their ABS bible and telling everyone that one cannot work things out from observation. Talk about an attack on one of the principal methodologies of modern science.

I suppose mhaze would even argue that we should not believe in Darwin's theory of evolution because it has its roots in his observations in the Galapagos Islands. And then mhaze would tell us that his theory of evolution can be shown to be wrong because Darwin did not have any ABS figures to back up his theories. Good on you mhaze, I'd say you're one of a kind but I have to include Hasbeen, individual, ttbn and Loudmouth in your group of denialist thinkers.

Mr Opinion,
Have you ever actually seen/met a real Australian Aboriginal ?

"You give the impression that Australian Aborigines have
thrived under colonial rule "

Well I actually don't give that impression...but I get that you need to misconstrue my point in order to attack it.

There's no question that the natives suffered severely after 1788. My point is that the suffering was far less than had the country been occupied by any other of the potential occupiers at the time.

It always comes back to this lack of historic knowledge. Understand what happened in the various conquered lands around the world and you'll see that the British were far and away the most congenial of conquers as compared to the other powers up to that time. Just read up on the consequences of the Spain getting Central America.

Its simply a question of facing the real world as opposed to the disneyfied world of the historically ignorant. Colonialism happened for good or ill. It was going to happen here. It was just a question of who was going to be the first. The aboriginals were lucky it was the poms

Thank you, Mr O. :)

mhaze,

The Aboriginals were lucky it was the "Poms?"

Not many would agree!

Foxy,

Since 'invasion' or settlement would have been inevitable, which imperialist power do you think might have done a better job here ?

The Spanish ? Perhaps not, they still had slavery in their colonies until 1898 or so. And not such a great record in the Americas for four hundred years. And in the Philippines.

The French ? Perhaps, but even the French Revolutionaries fought against the slaves in Hispaniola for ten years, to keep them in slavery. It seems fraternity only goes so far, let alone equality.

The Russians ? The Japanese ? The Dutch ? The Yanks ? Even if they had all left Australia alone for another two hundred years, how do you think the Indigenous people here would go up against the Chinese ? Or the Indians ? Or the Indonesians ?

History is a miserable bastard, but it rolls on.

Joe

Joe,

And you're not a Brit?

Well like Andrew Bolt and mhaze, you certainly rise
to the occasion.

Still, as Randy McDonald, writing in Quora (June 17,
2017) points out so eloquently:

British colonisation was not good for the people who were
already living in Australia at the time of the First Fleet.

The Aboriginal population living in Australia at the time,
communities with tens of thousands of years in history
in their continent were devastated by the impact of
British settler colonialism, the effects of disease and
displacement being compounded by the effect of armed
conquest and an active effort to break down Aboriginal
cultures.

Some estimates make it entirely possible that even now,
after accelerating population growth in Aboriginal
populations over the 20th century and into the present,
there might still be fewer Aboriginals alive now than
before the First Fleet's arrival. From their perspective
British colonisation was an outstandingly negative
experience with irreparable effects.

The vast majority of Australia's population is not
descended from the Aboriginal population of the continent.
From the perspective of the non-Aboriginal majority, things
are fine.

From the perspective of the Aboriginal minority, things are
never going to be fine again.

Any evaluation of the British colonial experience in
Australia has to take these two perspectives into account.

Not many would agree!
Foxy,
Yes, I know those types only too well.

Foxy,
what's wrong with you?
Your stance is just nonsensical, what do you want?
What do you expect US to do about, what exactly?
Why do you push this relentless, unproductive agenda?
If you think we (Aussies) are going to give another inch to the blacks, just because bleeding hearts like yourself say so, you're delusional and misguided.
When will you get it into your stubborn head that we are here now and we don't owe anyone anything, so stop pushing this guilt trip and continual virtue shaming.
Call it an invasion, call it squatting, call it what you like, myself and 25 odd million people, don't care about the plight of a very confused and egregiously demanding few people, when they do nothing but continually make demands and unfounded claims to justify their demands.
As I said before, we don't need records to tell us the blacks were not some advanced techno culture, well ahead of the rest of the world, because there is no evidence to suggest they were/are.
As for the number of REAL a borigines, the notion that their number could or would have returned to pre-settlement numbers is ridiculous.
From the moment of settlement the blacks were reduced to a minimum, and then because of intermarriage, as time went on, those who married or lived together, any offspring would have been half castes, so that put an end to that line of blacks.
In time the blacks and whites have coupled up to the point that we now have a generation of Australian blacks or half castes.
So the lineage of true a borigines, ended some years ago, unlike the misnomer that there are hundreds of thousands of blacks and that tens of thousands are going to uni.
The true description if basing on colour is they are GREY.
Now that best describes them, as they are neither black nor white.
So yes indeed the number of grey Aussies has increased.
The number of blacks has decreased dramatically and I would guess now total less than a few thousand, with less than 100 at uni.

Poor poor Foxy,

The subtlety of the issue just eludes her.

Again, please try to understand. No one is saying the colonisation of Australia was a bed of roses for the natives. It wasn't. It was, at times, brutal and the forced transfer of a backward stone age peoples into the modern world is never pretty.

All we are saying is that it was less brutal than had the coloniser been any nation other than Britain. Why is that so difficult for poor poor Foxy to understand?

If you compare the Spanish/Aztec situation (for example) to the British/Australian situation, then the point becomes clear. 90% of the Aztec peoples were wiped out within one generation. Their culture, religion, way of life utterly and permanently destroyed.

I've commented before that the lack of historic knowledge and understanding often leads people down the wrong garden path.
Here's another prime example of that. I'd encourage Foxy to acquaint herself with some of this history...but alas, there's little chance of that.

Foxy,

Terminology like claiming Aus was invaded not settled is politically correct not technically

Foxy you stated “ from the perspective of the Aboriginal minority, things are never going to be fine again”.
What a pompous, delusional comment.
Have you never met any of the thousands of highly successful aboriginal people who are living contented lives and who would never want to return to the life lived by some of their ancestors?
Do you honestly think aboriginal people are sitting around mourning the loss of their hunter, gatherer life, having to go out in all weathers to try and find something to eat? Are they actually missing having to suffer the pain of injuries and illness without the benefits of modern medicine to ease their pain. Or perhaps they regret not having the option of killing the newborn babies they can’t feed, and wow, just think, back then they could have abandoned their frail aged and left them to die, rather than the onerous duty of having to find a nursing home for them. And of course, all women would much rather return to being property, belonging to men, being physically punished at whim, and being promised in marriage to some smelly old man when they were very young girls. I mean, what woman wouldn’t want to return to that?
I cannot understand your motive for wishing eternal victimhood upon aboriginal people, and certainly I teach my aboriginal descendants to remain a long distance away from people like you, who seem to want them to fail, but I do wonder if you ever consider how racist you really are by assuming aboriginal people will never be successful in life

mhaze,

The Aztecs were a mighty empire in the 14 and 15 hundreds.
They were one of the most advanced civilisations in the
Americas and they built cities as large as European cities
of that time.

In 1521 Spanish invaders destroyed the Aztec empire yet today
the Aztecs left a long and lasting mark on the Mexican
culture. They founded the city of Tenochtitlan. We've visited
the site - most impressive. The Aztec culture is very much
respected in Mexico today and cannot be compared to the
way Aboriginal people have been treated in Australia.

We have both the Aztec Calendar (bronze plate wall hanging)
and a vast collection of Aztec bark paintings in our home.

In 1520 the Aztecs rebelled and drove the Spanish out of
their capital. There are many thousands of people today in
Mexico who have Aztec ancestry and also many descendents
of Aztecs live in California and Texas.

The achievements of the Aztecs have been fully recognised
and supported by the Mexican Government and the Museum
of Anthropology is a fascinating place to visit in
Mwxico City. We travelled extensively throughout Mwxico
while working and living in California for over ten
years.

Shadow Minister,

I've stated in the past that if "political correctness"
is the first cry out of someone's mouth then the chances
are that that person is part of the problem, not the
solution.

Dear Big Nana,

You need to read what I actually do write and say -
and not make assumptions that are not correct.
I shall try to do the same for you - and not make assumptions
about you or your intentions.

cont'd ...

BTW:

For me this discussion has run its course.
I don't enjoy being insulted and attacked
for my opinions - which are based on my research
of recorded history. I shan't be responding to
any more posts. And I hesitate now about responding
to anything concerning our Aboriginal people in
the future. All of you have claimed at one point or
another to be pro - "freedom of speech," yet you
seem to deny this to people whose views don't
agree with yours.

Poor show all round! Not cricket (more like rugby).

Dear Big Nana,

BTW - I know several successful professionals
of Aboriginal ancestry. I've worked with quite
a few of them - especially through Magabala Book
publishers. So don't assume - ask.

Foxy,

Like every other poster here, you should stay and learn something. But if you want to go, spend some time learning about the realities that Big Nana writes of, and perhaps meet some 'ordinary' examples of 'our Aboriginal people' - real life is usually a better teacher than Google.

I hope you come back better-educated. See you soon.

Joe

Joe,

Now I get the last fart of your hypocrisy.

When you are prepared to learn something
only then do you have the right to lecture others
about our First Nations people.

As for Big Nana? Words fail me. Everything that
woman accuses me of - is the exact opposite to
what my intent was in raising this subject in the
first place. I want nothing but the best for our
Indigenous People and of course I want them to succeed
and know that they are capable of doing so. I've worked,
studied with, and taught their children. Big Nana
should not make assumptions and read things into
what is not being said. Her own prejudices are coming
through.

But enough said. I could not ignore your last kick in
the guts to me.

successful professionals of Aboriginal ancestry.
Foxy,
So, we're not talking about them, we're talking about Australian Aboriginals. The ancestry ones weren't around when the show started.

Foxy,

I would never accuse you of farting. Women don't fart. And as even Alexander Pope wrote,

I think I'll lose my wits,
To think my darling Celia
Sh!ts.

Or that either.

But It's a matter of regret that you can't understand what Big Nana has been writing about. Forgive me but, in Aboriginal matters, you really must understand that you can't teach her anything (and neither would I dare). Nothing replaces fifty years of multi-dimensional life on the front-line, as it were. Please try to learn from someone who has done it tough, 24/7/365/50.

Joe

Foxy, I read exactly what you wrote. Aboriginal people will never be fine again.
That’s even presuming they were fine to begin with. Western people certainly weren’t fine 300 years ago. I doubt you would want to live the life your ancestors lived, none of us would. We all want better than what they had.
But to say that aboriginal people will never be fine again means exactly just that. Unless you have an alternative explanation for me.
You are predicting a lesser life for aboriginal people, whilst I, the mother, grandmother, and great grandmother of dozens of aboriginal people predict that those who aren’t already fine, are going to get better and better, despite people trying to tie them down in past regrets.
But I guess that someone who promotes aztecs as a superior society, despite the fact that their religion demanded human sacrifices, is unaware of the realities of life.

Wait a minute.
"what my intent was in raising this subject in the first place"?
You mean this is one of Foxy's topics?
Ah great, another waste of time!
I had a feeling, as the same theme was emerging, even though I don't believe it to be so, but there you have it.
Unless someone can tell me who authored this topic, I fear the same old battles coming on with the same old people with the same old attitudes.
I am truly disappointed, to read Foxy's latest abusive language and demeanor, I did not intend for her to become emotionally invested in these jousts and jeers to the point that it would affect her to the extent of lowering her guard and revealing a more "normal" person within.
A word of advice to you Foxy, as I know you read every posting.
I would not dismiss Loudmouth or Big Nana.
From where we all stand, we would be more the wiser to heed to such experience.
To reject or ignore them would be to our own detriment or peril.

Dear Big Nana,

A couple of things need correcting.

Firstly kindly go back to page 14 and read what
I wrote. What you attribute to me was actually
being quoted from a post by Randy McDonald who posted
it in Quora on 17th June 2017.

You did not read exactly what was posted. I did
acknowledge the post taken from Randy McDonald.

As for the Aztecs? I was merely responding to
mhaze's post in regards to the differences in the
cultures between them and the Australian Aborigines
and in how the Aztec legacies are cherished to this
day.

I trust this clarifies things for you.

I am constantly amazed by the number of supposedly educated and intelligent people who seem to revere traditional aboriginal culture as though it was a lifestyle we should be lauding.
Does it never occur to these people that traditional aboriginal culture is identical to European Stone Age culture and when was the last time you heard anyone extolling the virtues of Stone Age culture?
Certainly we should accept that traditional culture was the way of life in this country before European settlement and naturally we should attempt to preserve those parts of culture that are socially and legally acceptable as they are a valuable insight into history.
But to deny people the right to remove themselves from that culture or use it as an excuse for lower standards in childcare, education, housing etc is totally wrong.
When children are left in conditions you wouldn’t leave a dog in because they need to remain with their culture is an atrocity, a stain on the conscience of all of us.
When children in remote community schools finish primary school barely literate because we don’t demand that their parents get them to school and in a condition to learn because that’s not part of culture, we as a society have failed.
When culture, or it’s destruction, is used as an excuse for everything from prison rates to educational failure or poor health, then perhaps that culture needs to go the same way of European Stone Age culture.

Foxy, I don’t care if you wrote it, or quoted it. You put those words on the page. If you didn’t believe them, you shouldn’t have pasted them.

ALTRAV,

With the greatest respect to you, I have to say that you are still enabling the woman. How you and other reasonable posters can be bothered trying to reason with the egomaniac is beyond me. This is Online Opinion, not Online Battling a Wack Job. Let's get back to expressing our opinions, no matter who likes or dislikes them, without constant back a forth bullshite that is not going to change anything or anyone. The world doesn't swing on what a dozen or so posters think about anything.

ttbn,

I do agree with you and am inclined to appologise, only because I can't help myself.
As I tried to explain to foxy, that firstly her OPINIONS are not her opinions.
Secondly as Big Nana just pointed out, if your going to post something, have the conviction of the message, don't say it was someone else's opinion.
Thirdly, I cannot let a breach of any kind be allowed to go unchallenged because it will be construed as correct or acceptable.
I'm with you guys on this one, but how does one stop misinformation being promoted.
She will make a comment and no matter how many times or people challenge and try to correct her, she is like a broken record and merely keeps repeating the same material ad nauseam.
This is not the act of a mature and objective person, but one of an immature, petulant child.
I am torn that she steadfastly refuses to open her eyes and at least give some consideration to the propositions thrown at her constantly.
And finally her bragging about one of her topics garnering over 400 postings.
She refuses to see that nearly all of them are challenges to her comments, and not, as she would like us to believe, in finding her topic interesting.

Foxy,

If it walks like a duck!!

If anyone claims "if "political correctness" is the first cry out of someone's mouth then the chances are that that person is part of the problem, not the solution."

Then that person is part of the problem.

Try reason instead of stupid quips.

ALTRAV,

A 'broken record' is a good description of her. 'Petulant child' also rings true. A broken record should be discarded; it can't be fixed.

Anyone who counts the number of responses she gets to her posts would be better off on Facebook where 'I ams' and the immature apparently value 'likes'. Of course, there is a way to put a stop to that nonsense on a civilised site like OLO: don't respond; don't read; don't encourage. We all know what regulars think about everything, and nothing is going to change. Anyone who seriously thinks they have the ability to change society should be in politics or contacting politicians on a regular basis. This is just a but of fun. It would be more fun, with more posters, if certain people didn't take themselves so seriously and think that they had the power to change people's minds.

Dear Big Nana,

No one is suggesting a return to the Stone Age,
or to have human sacrifices, or the return to the
high human cost that the building and maintenance
of the British Empire entailed. Of course I believe
that our Indigenous people should be able to be
part of this country on an equal basis.
That is precisely why I have argued for and
support a fairer relationship with
our First Nations of this land by giving them a voice
in Parliament and recognising the true history of their
past.

I strongly support the Uluru Statement from the Heart.
I believe that they should have a guaranteed say in
the laws and policies about their affairs so that they
can take responsibility. The current system is not working
and reform is necessary. It presents a
way through Indigenous engagement without transferring
power to the High Court.

BTW: My quoting from Randy McDonald was because the point
he was making that any evaluation of the British colonial
system in Australia needed to take two perspectives into
account. One from the non-Aboriginal point of view and the
other from the Aboriginal point of view. I thought that
this was a valid arguments - hence I quoted him.

ttbn,

You advise ALTRAV, -" don't respond, don't read, don't
encourage." Yet you can't resist to continue to bite.

And this from you who's called me all sorts of derogatory
names, from a neo-communist, to a feminazi, and worse.
So now being described as merely a "petulant child" is
flattering, coming from you.

Counting the number of responses on my other discussion was
in reply to ALTRAV's claim that the topic was rubbish,
and that no one was interested in it. The number of responses
was (and still is) clear evidence to the contrary.

My aim in all the time I have been on this forum is not to
try to change people's minds but simply to present information
and have people make up their own minds. Of course it
doesn't work for those whose minds are rusted on, to their
comfortable ideologies.

Foxy,
you know, you're a classic.
A classic what, I don't know, but you project an attitude that does not bode well with reasonable people.
You say you merely present information, and yet you then say that some people 'who's minds are rusted on to their comfortable ideologies'.
Does that sound like someone who is just presenting facts?
I on the other hand am not one who is rusted in any way, so I cannot be influenced nor can I influence anyone.
But unlike you, I will challenge a falsehood, you will promote it, and with such fervour and conviction too, it's almost eerie, (but entertaining) to witness.
Oh, and BTW, I'm not letting you try to wriggle out of your latest pho-par, ie; your topic IS rubbish and until you accept that and that the high number of postings were due to your inability to stop preaching bull, you remain tainted and a marked person of questionable relevance, such that your comments and any topics you author will be treated with a large degree of skepticism and doubt.
This appears to be the current view of your status on OLO, and it would seem that until you atone for your attitude and indiscretions, you will remain in that commentors 'doghouse'.

ttbn,
I know, sorry can't help myself.
I know you told me to ignore her, BUT!
I just cannot let wrongens' get away without being told, so they can't say, 'I didn't know'.
The reason I condone the continual scrutinee and following responses to such people is because slowly other commentors begin to see the flaws and faults, and slowly they are exposed and seen for what the really are or what they really stand for or believe in.
If someone had brought down Hitler, what a different world it would be today.
I'm not saying for the better or maybe worse, but the people would not have to listen to his tripe and evil ambitions.
Foxy's not quite in that league, but never-the-less I would hope you would concur with my evaluation and assessment of her and her antics.

ALTRAV,

You have just proven my point.

Thank You.

cont'd ...

ALTRAV,

Just a few more thoughts to "entertain."

You say that MY attitude does not bode well
with "reasonable people." I assume you place
yourself in that category.

You tell me that you are allowed to challenge falsehoods.
(my doing it makes me unreasonable - I get it).

You indicate that you're not a rusted on in your ideologies
yet you continue to tell me my discussion topic is
"rubbish"and my views are tainted (yet yours are as pure
as the driven snow). And, finally, you say that my
status on this forum is in the "dog-house."

Taking all that into account - what else is there for me
to do but laugh out loud (you're right it is entertaining)
and say -

"WOOF, WOOF!"

ALTRAV,

Each to his own, as they say. Ignoring works for me. I've been around long enough to know what she is going to say about everything; so, I just sail past her name at the bottom of those ridiculous columnar posts and find something interesting to read. What you say about the complaint is much more interesting than the complaint itself.

Foxy,

you did it again.
I thought you were a fox?
Now I am confused because if you are now saying you're a dog, you've just,...... no I'll just come out and say it, it's pretty obvious.
So then what do we call a female dog?
Yep, you got it.
Anyway back to correcting you yet again.
I think I have to appologise to ttbn, because I think I actually enjoy this, I don't think I have ever engaged in so much futility.
So yes I am a reasonable person, next point.
No you don't get it, whay you continually perport is the world according to Foxy, what I continually state is that your take on the world is wrong.
You use semantics and other peoples comments or opinions, which in any way you look at it is cheating.
You quote someone then dig your heels in as though they, and therefore you, are right.
I rarely present a case, only a challenge to your case.
I continually question comments, I don't sponsor or invest in them like you do, next.
The reason your topic (singular, as that particular topic) is rubbish, is because it was based on your subjective view of the book, the author, and the veracity of the information within.
Where-as I merely question the things you accept at face value, because you WANT to believe and choose to not want to question anything.
I don't recall saying anything about my comments being as white as the driven snow, but I get your drift, and NO, I don't.
What I do is simply question, and sometimes offer an explanation and even the correction.
You have been an impossible commentor, and not a very good team player if only because you refuse to consider that your champions might be wrong, which then in your mind, would imply that you are wrong.
I understand we are all wired the way we are, but I merely ask that you give even the slightest bit of consideration to those who have proven themselves in life, or a particular topic.

ttbn,

Yet here you are still commenting, and
spending hours on the forum.

Who would you have to attack, if I wasn't
around?

Seriously, imagine how dull this forum would
be without me.

You guys might actually have to come up with something
more than just attacks, something of
substance, to show us how not "rusted on" you are in
your ideologies. You might even be forced to have
a genuine discussion. Wow - just imagine that.
Actually, to be frank - I can't.
Continue biting. I'd miss it.

ALTRAV,

Still blathering I see.

I didn't say I was a dog.

You were the one who put me in the "dog-house," I merely
responded with woof, woof.

BTW - you have no idea of who I am, what I have experienced,
or anything about me. I know who I am. You don't.
But one thing's for sure. I am not one-dimensional. There's
a great deal more to me than just this forum. I, also
find it entertaining to say the least.

You should also be aware that among foxy ladies the word
"bi!ch" is not offensive. It's considered a form of praise
of women who aren't door-mats.

Now back to the topic of my take on any subject. All I
will say to you is - when you provide evidence to dispute
what I am saying is wrong, then I shall be happy to continue
this conversation. Until then your rants, and blather
don't interest me. Especially your passing judgements on
books you have not read or on subjects that you know nothing
about.

As you were.

And now it's the Aboriginal Flag and who can use it, which is upsetting many of the perpetually-aggrieved. A group in Victoria is calling for the copyright over the Aboriginal Flag, originated and owned by Harold Thomas, to be taken from him and made available free to Aboriginal groups, for clothing, ear-rings, underwear, etc. - that his intellectual property rights can be over-ruled in favour of Aboriginal groups.

Would some aggrieved working-class group take Jimmy Barnes to court to get rights to his song 'Working Class Man' and his book royalties for 'Working Class Boy' ? Of course not: he has the intellectual property rights to those creations.

So how could anyone think they can take those rights away from an Aboriginal man ? Because, their warped thinking might go, he's only a Blackfella ? He doesn't have the same rights as whitefellas ?

But of course, he does: he designed the Aboriginal Flag, as a symbol of a united Indigenous population. He's taken out the copyright on it. It's his property. He can license its use to whoever he likes.

Doesn't racism pop up in strange places ?

Joe

Saw some pictures in the ABC articles about the Northern Indigenous meeting happening at this time. I was utterly amazed at the transformation the Australian indigenous are undergoing. There were seven rather light-skinned grown ups & one little black child. So, finally after 60,000 years something's happening !