The meaning of Lest we forget is 'it should not be forgotten'.

That sounds all fine and reasonable with Remembrance Day held recently, with many recognising those who have partaken in military service. Many people lost their lives and others have been permanently affected from war related trauma, the loss of loved ones, and through homelands still suffering from ongoing wars and conflict.

This link shows first nations and aboriginal people recognised on Anzac Day also.

http://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/remarkable-indigenous-diggers-take-the-lead-on-anzac-day-at-last/i4nvso9n3

When it comes to recognising other things though, let's say British colonisation and the impacts on those living here first in Australia, some conveniently want to take a different approach.

For example, Pauline Hanson delivered a callous swipe at Invasion Day protesters, telling the tens of thousands of people who stormed Australian cities in Australia to “get over it”.

http://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/get-over-it-pauline-hanson-takes-brutal-swipe-at-invasion-day-protesters/news-story/246d869f717ab2a7dc726a24997db021

This is despite the fact British colonisation led to the loss of lives, brutality, torture and appalling treatment of first nations and aboriginal people.

So why do some people hold these double standards? Why is it one or the other? Why can't Australians recognise both as appropriate, Remembrance Day and Australia/Invasion Day?

Dear Nathan,

Thank you for this discussion.

We were taught at school that the British Empire was
wonderful, giving India trains and cricket and
saving the savage Africans from the eternal fires of
damnation and all that. Most of us never viewed this
as being simply wrong. We simply accepted what we were
told.

As far as our Indigenous
people are concerned - we weren't really taught all
that much about them. They were considered feeble
savages who would die out. Therefore it shouldn't come
as a surprise that many people don't like facing
the truth today of our colonial past and that's part of the
problem.

Many people just don't want to be
re-educated about this country's long history of exploitation and
cruelty.

Many people have always thought of England as the best country
in the world. I know, I was one of them. Well it isn't.
Only much later in life did I learn that it was cruel and greedy
and unjust, just like the rest of the world.

However, hopefully as we do become better educated and learn
the full history of this country - hopefully things can
and will change. Our First Nations people will get the truth
telling that they so desperately are asking for,

We remember and show respect on Anzac Day and Remembrance Day for people who fought and died for Australia and Australians in wars to defend Australia. End of story.

There is no such thing as 'invasion day' except in the minds of a few idiots. There will never be such a stupid thing.

There is no "double standard". If a few twisted nutters want to make a fuss over a particular bee in their bonnets, they are entitled to make fools of themselves - and they certainly do that.

Comparing their nonsense with the solemnity of recognising people who saved Australia - so even idiots were free to act stupidly - is an insult.

The same applies to those other idiots who want the Australian War Memorial to include so-labelled 'frontier wars' within Australia.

The War Memorial is not a theme park catering to the latest fads.

However, the whole thing seems to have excited Nathan so much, that he forgot to finish his title.

There is no such thing as 'invasion day'
ttbn,
You must admit invasion does invoke the sympathy of those who don't work for a living much more effectively than saying violent objecting to settlers & by settlers caused atrocities galore on both sides !
As to what the solution could be, I'll leave that to those who believe the Australian Indigenous would be better off with colonists from Asia or Africa ! Whichever they chose, one thing is certain, things would be vastly different now !
Anyone who believes wishful thinking will change the Past should state so here how !
As to the term 'Lest we forget" well, it took me years to grasp the meaning of it whilst trying to grasp basic English and, I like the term ! I wished it'd resound more & constantly in the empty craniums of the radicals in society !

Dear Nathan,

First just a small concern about your use of language:

I find calling aboriginal people "first nations" to be insulting them since nationalism (like alcohol) is a Western disease - while aboriginal people lived freely on their land before the Westerners came, they were not infected by it!

Now to this topic of "remembrance":

I honestly believe that you do not remember world-war-I, that occurred before you were born.
I even more firmly believe that you do not remember the earlier days of British colonisation either.

Then why this talk about "remembrance"?
Who is it that could possibly "remember"?

- Well, here this same disease shows its ugly face again: it is the "nation" which is supposed to remember these things and it is these memories which are supposed to keep that virus alive. Let us support neither!

Let us support neither!
Yuyutsu,
I agree that those who don't respect the sacrifices of those who were manipulated to their deaths should also disrespect the benefits they enjoy due to those sacrifices & reject them also !

"We remember and show respect on Anzac Day and Remembrance Day for people who fought and died for Australia and Australians in wars to defend Australia." So we should not remember those who died in Australia's many foreign wars? Australia has participated in two kinds of wars, the earlier wars were fought in support of British colonialism and empire, WWI for example, the later wars such as Vietnam were fought in support of American imperialism. As Hanson would say; "Get over it!" No, you don't get over history, you truthfully recognise it and learn from the mistakes made in the past. Once you have done that you move on vowing not to make the same mistakes again.

Australia's first war, and the one that was fought entirely on Australian soil was The Frontier War in support of British colonialism. The estimates put the death toll among Aboriginals at 40,000 and Europeans around 2,000. The Boer War may have been viewed as a "glorious adventure", the Frontier War as a "shameful genocide", both should be remembered.

I think Invasion Day is every bit as valid a reality for indigenous Australians as Anzac Day, I mean after all the British colonised this continent, without any care for the people who already called it their home.

It's really just a case of 'might is right'.

As Paul points out many tens of thousands of indigenous were killed for no other reason except that they were here first.

But as much as I acknowledge this, and I accept the indigenous view, I DO NOT buy into the argument that I as a predominately white person (with a tiny bit of indigenous) am in any way responsible for what happened back then.

I prescribe to the argument that 'Nobody is responsible for anything that happened before they were born', so trying to make me feel guilty for these things that happened just isn't going to work.

I could by all rights identify as indigenous and take the indigenous position but I don't.
(I wasn't raised indigenous, I was raised in a white family)

As for Pauline Hanson, I think she might have her position on this one a little wrong.
- It's a sensitive issue, and telling the Invasion Day protesters to get over it might be insulting in the same way it would be insulting if a child of institutional sexual abuse was also told to get over it.
I think it just inflames the situation.

[Cont.]
One of the bigger problems is that the people who did this to them are no longer alive, there's no one who is actually responsible for what happened in those days alive now to take any responsibility for it.

I see it all as a kind of post traumatic stress disorder on a grand scale.
Wrongs were committed against these people, and they have suffered for it.
- They keep these wrongs alive in their memories and stories, it's a part of who they are.
And anyone that has these unfair things happen to them in their lives through no fault of their own is likely going to feel a sense of duty to oneself to stand against the wrongs.

Pauline though, in being ignorant and arrogant does however have some arguments based on merit on the 'Get over it' side.
Invasion Day in and of itself is a decisive protest against white colonisation, it's never going to promote unity.

Maybe there's a valid argument that we are depriving ourselves of the potential for unity so long as we celebrate the day that white people took this continent for themselves, at great expense to those existing people.

Russia probably has more right to Ukraine, than white colonists from England had any right to Australia.

It wasn't really ours to take, it was already occupied.

Paul, you simple soul: all of Australia's wars were fought on foreign soil. Apart from Japanese bombing in WW11, have I missed a war on Australian soil?

Oh look! There it is - the myth that skirmishes between settlers and natives were wars. The utter rubbish that some want represented in the AWM. They were not wars, Paul. The 'war stories' being concocted lately are no more genuine than the smoking ceremony and welcome to country larks are.

And, just by the way, the 40,000 natives killed in the set-tos between them and settlers is absolute bunkum, as you would know if you read something apart from the Greens newsletters.

And to you, Armchair Critic, thinking is free; but if you think that any government in Australia is going to endorse an invasion day 'celebration', you have really lost your marbles.

Your "without any care for the people who already called it their home", is grossly ignorant, as you too would know if you read history. Governor Philip was given explicit instructions to treat the original inhabitants with kindness and respect. So, the wheels fell off as they always will and do occasionally: people were just as human then as they are now. But, once again, if you read history you would know how much better British settlement (not invasion) was than that carried out by any other country and culture.

On the positive side, you don't accept responsibility for what happened two centuries ago. Leave that nonsense to the likes of Kevin Rudd and Green Marxists who will do and say anything to denigrate their own country and culture.

And, Pauline Hanson isn't the only person with the right ideas. She is the only politician who expresses them. With very few exceptions, like her,
Australian politicians are not interested in what is right, being concerned only with themselves.

Some invasion, about 1,400 Europeans (mostly) land unopposed in a country populated by an estimated 750,000 people.
Why weren’t the “invaders” thrown back into the sea?

Hey ttbn,
"And to you, Armchair Critic, thinking is free; but if you think that any government in Australia is going to endorse an invasion day 'celebration', you have really lost your marbles."

I neither expect that or want that.
But it's been endorsed by the indigenous nonetheless, as one would expect and nothing you or I do or say will change it.
As I said earlier, it's divisive and does not promote a sense of unity.

"Your 'without any care for the people who already called it their home', is grossly ignorant, as you too would know if you read history.
Governor Philip was given explicit instructions to treat the original inhabitants with kindness and respect."

No more ignorant than expecting the indigenous to roll out a red carpet when the British started deciding which parts of the country were theirs and off-limits now and metering out justice at the barrel of a gun.

What does that which Governor Philip did or didn't say have to do with what actually happened?

- Treat them kindly as you steal their country, and shoot them if they complain.
How would you react if I came around to your place and started acting like that?
I'll be nice to you, but help myself to everything you have...
And if you complain I'll line you and anyone else like you up along the gorge to be shot, and the problem of you disgruntled complaints will be no more. [hypothetical]

Does it sound fair to you?

And when your descendants complain about it what we did to you, we'll just tell them to "Shut up and get over it"

Sound good, No?

- Not trying to be difficult btw, just saying it how I see it.

We've been taught the myth of peaceful colonisation in
our schools for as long as I can remember. We were taught
that white settlers simply tamed the wilds of the Australian
outback creating order from chaos in a natural "progressive"
historical trend. Most of what we were taught focused on
the grit and determination of early explorers as they
charted the land.

Much of the real nature of what actually took place was
edited and revised for "family viewing" so to speak.
The real nature of colonisation was anything but peaceful.
However, we did not get to hear about it - certainly not
in my youth.

Today, for those still in doubt - all you need do is visit
any number of regional towns and places in Australia and
grim stories of massacres, poisonings, and enslavement are
recorded everywhere - in plaques and in visitor guides.

Taken as an individual incident, they may not inspire epiphany,
but when considered as a whole, the myth of peaceful settlement
is apparent. Our museums and libraries are full of historical
documentation for anybody really interested in the truth.
And the full history of our Indigenous People. You don't
have to rely on Senator Hanson's version of history.
She'd be better off sticking to fish and chips - something she
just may know something about.

Very well said AC, one thing we have in common a trace of aboriginal ancestry, mine is due to my Creole/Mauritian ancestor (great great grandmother) and an even greater life story, slave/convict/prosperous land owner. Seems the girls of the family had no trouble finding husbands from within the white squattocracy, from the only pic I have seen my great grandmother was a very beautiful young woman, and in the photo also very well dressed, for the males it was a different story, a formal photo of a grand uncle shows him a little shabby in his Sunday best. One point there is none, and there should be no present day guilt attributable to modern Australians caused by the wrongs of our colonial past. What is required is recognition of the past and those wrong committed. There is two approaches, one is to sanitise and minimise what took place, claim exaggeration just as ttbn does. The other is to ignore it and say well if anything did happen its in the past, now get over it, end of story, the Hanson approach. Imagine the reaction if I said; "Well why waste time with ANZAC Day and Remembrance Day, besides Australia's contribution to past wars was minimal, lets all get over it, and consign such unpleasant events to the dust bin of history. Absolutely not!

From my point of view, the celebration of January 26th is an insult to Aboriginal people. For many years after WWII there was much consternation from many Australians with Japan, as they had not formally apologised for the war, many old diggers were bitter about that, they were demanding formal Japanese recognition of what happened, a bit of an apology was what was wonted.

Anyone care to explain why the ‘invaders’ were not tossed out in 1788?

1788, Cause, Great Great Grand Pappy Issy had a GUN! As did all the little Issy's have guns as well.

Bathurst NSW

"A massacre by settlers and convicts of Aboriginal women and children in early 1824, near the potato field of an ex-convict, sparked revenge attacks by warriors. On 14 August, Governor Brisbane declared martial law. Soldiers from the 40th Regiment joined an armed militia of settlers in a campaign of violence described in The Sydney Gazette as an ‘exterminating war’."

http://hydeparkbarracks.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/story/windradyne-and-the-bathurst-wars/

Will someone of intelligence tell us why the ‘invaders’ in 1788 were not thrown into the sea by the vastly superior forces of the locals?

What is required is recognition of the past and those wrong committed.
Paul1405,
It has been recognised over & over & over again, many billions of Dollars worth in fact. This recognition came from people working & their efforts paid for land that the then isolated dwellers put no effort into whatsoever.
When will you pay recognition compensation for your non-indigenous's heritage ?

Foxy,
You must have gone to a funny school, when I went to school we discussed Australian history and the real treatment of Aboriginal Australians wasn’t hidden and in World History we were taught that the British did a lot of good, sometimes unintentionally but mostly with the good of the locals at heart.
You mentioned that they brought trains and cricket to India; why did you not mention that they brought law to protect the ordinary people?
Nor did you mention that they brought an end to wifely immolation on their husbands’ funeral pyres, must have slipped your memory.
No mention either of the stopping of Thugee, the murder of innocent people as sacrifices to the goddess Kali, or their support for the right of widows to remarry and many other issues, one of which springs to mind, land tenure.

What an invasion it was, the ‘Invaders’ came ashore unopposed and no more than a few dozen of the Home Side even knew about it..
It probably took 100 years or so for all the locals to hear about the ‘invasion’

Invasion Day, an invention that grew out of the knowledge imparted by the ‘Invaders’ who also had to give the locals the idea of a flag before they could invent one of their own.

When these 'invaders' tried to contact the natives, they ran away.

The 'invaders', armed with smooth bore muskets which, after being fired, were no better than clubs (plus a bayonet) for the 15 to 30 seconds it took to reload them.

The 'invaders' were outnumbered, and the locals could have massed against them, with spears - from a distance while muskets were being re-loaded, then with at least an equal chance at close quarters.

It would not have taken long to gauge the limitations of the 'invaders'.

How long do people think this country should have been allowed to go to waste before civilisation caught up with it?

Hey ttbn,
"How long do people think this country should have been allowed to go to waste before civilisation caught up with it?"

When you say 'people' you're obviously not including the 'indigenous' themselves, right?

'Country' assumes a related people that belong to it.
If it was a country before colonisation, then it was 'Aboriginals country', right?

'allowed'
- Does this not infer some existing 'right to' or 'ownership of' by the 'invading force'?
Russia then has much more existing 'right to' or 'ownership of' Ukraine than the English had of this continent, right?

And why do you assume it was 'going to waste'?
Maybe they kept this place in pristine condition for thousands of years and didn't waste it at all?
They haven't ravaged the land like we have over the last 230 years.
No plastic / landfill or agricultural chemicals and effluent pumped into the sea before 1788 right?

We constantly hear about what we're doing wrong regards the environment,
Maybe those who didn't do those things were actually doing 'something' right?

Civilisation?
Penal Colony.
English exploited this land in the fear that if they DID NOT others like the Dutch or French or whoever would.
Your argument today is virtually the same as the English had then, before they even set foot in the place.

- Whilst the argument is realistically valid it's no more morally right now than it was then.

If you think Russia is wrong to 'invade' Ukraine, then why flip the script when it involves ours invading someone other inhabitants country?
- Or aren't they even 'people'?

Do the arguments not apply when given in relation to our own behavior, or does criticism only exist when others do it?
'Do as I say, not as I do'.

And by civilisation, don't you actually mean 'conquered and exploited by foreigners'?

How long do 'non-aboriginals or colonists' think this 'continent' should have been (remove allowed) 'inhabited by its existing long-term inhabitants' before being 'conquered and exploited by foreigners'?

Your agrument therefore is actually a statement:
'It was ripe for conquest'.

Hmm...
Could it actually be that Russia has more right to Ukraine
- than Australians (as colonists) have to Australia
Or Americans (as colonists) have to America?

How stupid is this world?
I might be on to something here.
Are we all invaders?
Maybe the indigenous are invaders too?

My Scottish forefather was sent here for stealing a sheep.
Am I an invader?
Did I colonise this continent or am I too just the relative of a conquered nation and convict?

Maybe some people think the English made a mistake by not wiping them out instead of using them as a source of labour when it suited them?

The aboriginals & mix raced of today should give thanks every day that the British came. If they hadn't it would have been some one else & most definitely less kind.

All the British did was what successive waves of dark folk had done for centuries, move in from abroad & take over what the previous wave claimed. This is the history of the world, everywhere, not just Australia.

Todays aboriginals would have still been living in bark humpies with a life expectancy of not much over 30 years if a male, & somewhat less if female, if Europeans had not arrived to modernise their lives.

Double Standards?
How about police using the law to protect themselves from their own crimes?

"I wish to exercise my right and claim the penalty privilege on the basis my answers might tend to expose me to penalty," he said.
Rolfe also claimed privilege over other allegedly racist messages found on his phone after he killed Walker.
He confirmed he would also invoke privilege over evidence related to his alleged misuse of police body-worn cameras and excessive force on the job.

http://www.9news.com.au/national/kumanjayi-walker-inquest-zachary-rolfe-gives-evidence/1450b41d-6844-4a62-b75a-c811e2179d56

AC

No, I am not including the native population. What are you getting at?

I'm talking about the bleeding heart moaners and groaners, who wouldn't be here moaning and groaning if the country hadn't been colonised.

I don't "assume" the country was going to waste: it was going to waste. It was wasted on Stone Age hunter gatherers until the British arrived. You know what Australia has contributed to the world; what do you think it would have contributed if it had remained uncivilised?

I am a third generation Australian. My ancestors were all free settlers who harmed nobody. I'm not going anywhere. If you want to blame yourself for what you apparently see as injustices, that's your problem. Just don't try to project your (completely unnecessary) guilt onto other people. If your situation gets too much to bear, you could always find somewhere never colonised to live.

AC,
If the British wanted to keep the French out then why did they not claim the whole continent?
Cook only claimed as far west as the 135th Parallel, roughly half of the country, the rest was up for grabs by any country.
In 1772 Louis Aleno de St Alouarn landed at Shark Bay and claimed the western half for France.
Britain was apparently quite happy with this and it was not till after the Revolurion and the rise and defeat of Napoleon that Britain took any action and annexed the other half in 1826

Comprenez-vous maintenant se qui s’est passe ?

Hey ttbn,
Sorry, I am in a kind of obnoxious nitpicking sort of a mood today.
I didn't mean to stir you up.

But just because you think the country was going to waste doesn't mean anyone else had a moral right to take it.

Hasbeen points out that "This is the history of the world, everywhere, not just Australia." and I accept that this is the way things were in those times.
FYI, I'm not trying to blame anyone for it nor do I feel guilt, and maybe on some level its wrong to even have an opinion on things way back long ago when the world was different.

But I do feel bad for their plight at least in some part.
200+ years later and many of them are still hating on us for it.
'The tree remembers what the axe forgets'

Really I'm just saying that it was no more right for the English or anyone else to colonise Australia anymore than it's right for me to take over someone else's house because I think it's going to waste with them currently living in it.

Hey Is Mise,
"If the British wanted to keep the French out then why did they not claim the whole continent?"

Well I don't know the truth of it, but there's an article here:
"Dr Gerard Carney, one of Australia’s leading constitutional experts, said in a Public Lecture Series that when Dutch explorer Abel Tasman named only the western half of the new continent as New Holland in 1644, he left the eastern half of the country as Terra Australis.

This eastern part of the country was technically within the control of Spain because of the centuries-old Treaty of Tordesillas.
He did this in order to avoid conflict with Spain, which Holland was fighting for its independence on the other side of the world.

Dr Carney, says this boundary was later used by the British so they didn’t offend the Dutch.
http://www.news.com.au/national/colonial-row-between-portugal-and-spain-caused-dividing-line-in-australia/news-story/9c2df039cbea1fc85a5e9cc3ca3ab7b3

Also while I'm here, I had to spend a little time digging for this old conversation we had.
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=9874&page=0#336312
I do in fact now have the book I was speaking about back in my possession.

'Gungarlook - The Story of the Aboriginal Riley Family of the Burragorang Valley.'
It has 90 pages of photos and info to go through, I haven't found Tom and Syl yet.
My grandmother (My Dads mum) was Mabel, born in Yerranderie in 1923.
She was one of 11 children and her parents were Lily May Riley and Alfred Earnest Riley.
My father never knew his mother, from what I understand she later died in a car accident aged 38, so that would've been around 1961.

There's plenty of stuff about the Riley family history in this book.
Maybe I'll share some of the 'How the Aboriginal people were treated' section tomorrow.

This continent didn't even have a name before the British found it and settled it. Before 1606, it had never been seen by a European, and then it was left for more than a century before it was put to good use. It is 'believed' to have been populated for 50 or 60 thousand years, but it was still in the same condition that it was that long ago when settled in the 18th. Century.

" The first inhabitants of Australia were of course the
Aboriginal people, who generations of Australians remember
from that one history class when the teacher mentioned
them. But of course the inhabitants would not have thought
of themselves as Australians: the 250 individual nations
that occupied the continent had yet to gain the wonderful
sense of national unity that white men brought to Australia,
along with marvelous innovations such as guns and smallpox."

"For many thousands of years, these people lived in total
ignorance of what they were missing out on, not even knowing
how deprived they were until their European benefactors came
along to teach and/ or kill them."

"Of course, those white men didn't think of Australia as Australia
either. Prior to European settlement, the continent was known in the
Old World by a number of names: "New Holland," "New South Wales,"
"Old Zealand," "North Antarctica," "The Big Brownie,"
"Snakesville," were all common monikers for the
great Southern land."

"When the First Fleet sailed into Sydney Cove in 1788, the
passengers filled with hope for a quick and painless end to their
suffering. It was not Australia to which they thought they had
journeyed. It didn't much matter what they called it, though
Fleeters considered themselves, British, and the fact that they
were on the other side of the world would not stop them feeling
that way or wearing completely inappropriate clothing for
the climate."

"In fact it took some time for the British and their descendents
in Australia to stop thinking of England as "home" some say
the tendency only really began to die out when Robert Menzies
passed away in 1978. Australia under any name was viewed as
an outpost of the British Empire far beyond the point at which
this perception was literally true or even remotely reasonable."

" The diverse peoples of the Indigenous nations
and the deluded white criminals of the motherland ended up forming
a single nation, the amazing land we call Australia, which
combines the best of its brutally cruel origins with the
finest in modern complacency and self-deception."

cont'd ...

Hey ttbn,
"This continent didn't even have a name before the British found it and settled it."
Well that's not true.
The Dutch named the west New Holland and the rest Terra Australis.
The Indonesians are said to have visited here before Cook as well, they called it Marege.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makassan_contact_with_Australia#Voyage_to_Marege'_and_Kayu_Jawa

"Trepanging fleets began to visit the northern coasts of Australia from Makassar in southern Sulawesi, Indonesia, from at least 1720 and possibly earlier. Campbell Macknight's classic study of the Makassan trepang industry accepts the start of the industry as about 1720, with the earliest recorded trepang voyage made in 1751. But Regina Ganter of Griffith University notes that a Sulawesi historian suggests a commencement date for the industry of about 1640. Ganter also notes that for some anthropologists, the extensive influence of the trepang industry on the Yolngu people suggests a longer period of contact. Arnhem Land Aboriginal rock art, recorded by archaeologists in 2008, appears to provide further evidence of Makassan contact in the mid-1600s. Based on radiocarbon dating for apparent prau (boat) designs in Aboriginal rock art, some scholars have proposed contact from as early as the 1500s."

History on this continent didn't begin on Sunday 29 April 1770 when Cook arrived.
The day before was a Saturday, the fleet hadn't arrived yet, and to the people already living here the next day 'Sunday' (to us)
- was 'just another bloody day' to them.

Australia was a vast place of many Aboriginal tribes.
They may not have had an official name for the continent but they had names for many places.
Why does it even need a name, anymore than one might call it 'home'.
That's what it was to them.

Others make arguments that lifespan was short.
Maybe 30 years as a free man is better than 60 subjugated under British rule.
In any case, what's done is done.

If people continue to make all these arguments of why it was ripe for conquest, and how we 'did them a favour'.
- Then the BS rift between Aboriginals and their 'invaders' is never ever going to end.

cont'd ...

"But when did Australia truly begin? Who were the first Australians?
the people who invented the idea of being Australian, and began the
long, slow track towards discovering exactly what being
Australian means? From the very beginning of the clash of
cultures that set this land on a collison course with nationhood,
there were a few remarkable individuals who, however they began
their lives, ended them fully deserving the prestigious and only
slightly insulting designation of "Great Australian."

For their stories you need to read the book - "Aussie, Aussie,
Aussie, questionable histories of Great Australians." as well
as the book - "Error Australis: The reality recap of Australian
History," both by Ben Pobjie.

AC

There are lots of "said to have beens" around, mate. I remember reading a book by a Gavin Menzies, that was lauded at the time, but since found to be a complete fantasy. Menzies had China poking around Australia in the 15th. Century. BS. An ex son-in-law presented my wife with a piece of 'Ming' china that was touted as being off a junk sunk during that made up voyage. BS.

Most of the nonsense - on any subject at all - comes from intellectual morons in the cloistered protection of tertiary institutions, where everybody is the same, and they all agree with each other. The ordinary morons accept what the intellectual morons say because it saves them the trouble of thinking for themselves.

People seem to confuse the living with the dead?
They talk about long past generations as if they were alive today?
They treat present day persons as if they are the ones actually suffering supposed injustices of the past.
All these things are wrong in fact.
And they provide nothing but destructive thought.
They encourage anger and revenge.
It is time to leave the past in the past.
Learn from its trends, but don't try to relive it.
Look forward, not back.
Break new ground: don't rehash past events.
Make your mental horizon support a bright future.
Stop dragging your feet.
However you like to put it, it is time to shake away the cobwebs?

Ipso Fatso,
They have to keep up the momentum to stop the funding pendulum from stopping ! I'm talking about the pseudo-indigenous activists & the hypocritical whose great, great, great grandparents once saw an Aboriginal walk down a settler-made track !

It’s time to end divisiveness, things like a seperate flag for a people who had no concept of flags

Yes, Is Mise. A flag for disparate clans all speaking different languages would have been absurd in the Stone Age period of this country - even if its inhabitants knew what a flag was. It is absurd now, as are so many other things, including sovereignty and ownership of land that didn't exist then.

Got our share of Crusty Old Flag Wavers on OLO.

And our share of flag waiverers.