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CANCER HAS RIGHTS
Leftist bloggers have been extremely kind and encouraging in comments about my illness. A few who weren’t seemed to be struggling with issues beyond politics, so it would unfair to claim them as representative of broader left-based feelings. Allow me to present just one example, a chap who calls himself Gandhi, here quoting Tony Snow:
Tony Snow writes to fellow wingnut cancer patient Tim Blair:
“Keep your spirits up, your attitude aggressive and positive. We live in an age of miracles, and researchers are finding new treatments every day.
“At any rate, I’m one of many thinking of and praying for you. If you need to bounce things off a fellow cancer patient, don’t be shy. But in any event, fight - and enjoy every moment!”
Sounds like a familiar attitude ...
His emphasis throughout. Apparently we aren’t even allowed to fight cancer.
We have to ask why the tumors hate us.
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2008 01 31 at 11:10 AM • permalinkPlainly, it has something to do with Israel, or possible East Timor.
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2008 01 31 at 11:10 AM • permalink#10 Me: Having said that, let me say this… Oh. Heh.
Well, anyway.
Cancer does not discrimate. It attacks anyone. Left. Right. Centre. Any variation thereof. Not welcome anywhere. No one wants to become acquainted with it firsthand.
When it attacks a respected adversary it gives pause and highlights, perhaps for the first and only time, a common enemy. All former disagreements are put aside in the knowledge that cancer is the great leveller. Nothing is more important than beating the bastard, and supporting the battle against it is the ultimate force.
For those to whom this is an inconvenient truth well, it only serves to further embitter. Pity them. They know not what they do. Or say. They are beyond help and therefore irrelevant.
Well, if “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” obviously some on the left have made common cause with cancer. Fine - you are known by the company you keep.
Posted by Steve Skubinna on 2008 01 31 at 01:17 PM • permalink#15 Steve Skubinna,
Considering how crabby some leftists can get, sympathy with close relatives makes sense.
Posted by mythusmage on 2008 01 31 at 01:27 PM • permalinkOh, yeah, “Ghandi”, the zenith of intellectualism of the left.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2008 01 31 at 03:32 PM • permalinkKinda-sorta-vaguely on-topic (in the sense of illustrations of rabid partisan hostility):
Some recent lefty crackpot conspiracy-mongering about rightwing intentions to assassinate Obama (along with screaming boredom at work) set me off on an impromptu research project.
Of the assassination attempts (successful or otherwise) of US Presidents, 11 have been against Republicans and 7 against Democrats. The assassins themselves, however, have a different breakdown.
Eight were outright crazies:
* Richard Lawrence (Andrew Jackson)
* Charles Guiteau (James Garfield)
* John Schrank (Theodore Roosevelt)
* Richard Pavlick (John F. Kennedy)
* Arthur Bremer (Richard Nixon)
* Samuel Byck (Richard Nixon)
* Raymond Lee Harvey (Jimmy Carter)
* John Hinckley (Ronald Reagan)Three were foreign nationalists/agents:
* Oscar Collazo, Griselio Torresola (Harry Truman)
* Saddam’s assassins (George H.W. Bush)
* Vladimir Arutyunian [motive unknown, but probably Georgian nationalist](George W. Bush)
Six were Democrats/leftists:
* John Wilkes Booth (Abraham Lincoln)
* Leon Czolgosz (William McKinley)
* Giuseppe Zangara (Franklin D. Roosevelt)
* Lee Harvey Oswald (John F. Kennedy)
* Lynette Fromme (Gerald Ford)
* Sara Jane Moore (Gerald Ford)And one rightwing loser—gun nut (but lousy shot) Francisco Duran, who fired 29 rounds from a semi-auto carbine at some men on the Clinton White House lawn ... and hit absolutely nobody.
Offered for your edification and possible clue-bat use.
I thought Charles Guiteau was an Anarchist (and politically-motivated).
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2008 01 31 at 04:08 PM • permalinkThe real Ghandi, inclusive and forgiving, would be disgusted at the attitudes of the Fake Ghandi.
Posted by daddy dave on 2008 01 31 at 04:50 PM • permalinkTim, good thing you didn’t end up in a moonbat hospital, where the plan for, er, dealing with cancer is as follows:
1. Apologize to cancer
2. Try to work out why cancer hates us
3. Begin ‘cancer outreach’ program, building links with moderate cancers.
4. Set up ‘Tumour rights’ tribunal, prosecuting patients like yourself and Tony Snow for cancer-hate-speech.#18 No self-respecting right winger/gun nut would have missed. But he might have been Monica’s other boyfriend.
Posted by Deborah Leigh on 2008 01 31 at 06:08 PM • permalinkI knew that nothing short of capitulation would do for these guilt-ridden nihilistic Western Civilization haters, but cancerous tumors as well? You learn something new every day.
Posted by Tommy Shanks on 2008 01 31 at 06:10 PM • permalinkThe condition he refers to is called diverticulosis, the acute version is called Diverticulitis.
Just to pop gani boys bubble guess whos the most famous sufferer for the last ten years???
Fidel Castro.Still like your “its all the hate” theory of disease Hippocrates?
Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2008 01 31 at 06:32 PM • permalinkGandhi’s advice:
“Keep your spirits timorous, your fantasies childish, your attitude gullible and docile, your head tilted compassionately toward your cancer. If you need to bounce things off a fellow cancer patient, don’t bother, I will be too busy emblazoning my hospital bed with Ban the Car and Impeach Bu$h stickers. But in any event, lie down, don’t breathe any more than you have to—cancer is responsible for 0.002 percent of total CO2 emissions, you know- and give up the ghost to someone who needs it more than you.”
Posted by arrowhead ripper on 2008 01 31 at 06:58 PM • permalinkI left this for “ghandi”:
Your words betray you:
“Am I the only one who finds it rather extraordinary that someone in Tony Snow’s position should even know who Tim Blair is?”
I believe you are, in fact, the only one—and further, that it galls you to think your failure to acquire a readership on the scale of Blair’s, or a reputation that would warrant the attention of any but the most crapulent hate-mongers eats away at you as surely as the metatastized megalomania apparent in your posts.
I read and was appalled at his words on Jeremy’s site—and was disappointed so few of the readership there (excepting perhaps St. Bryla) chided him, some even supporting the cretinous creep.
Posted by MentalFloss on 2008 01 31 at 07:17 PM • permalink(Oh, by the way, would the individual who made off with Tim’s extremely rare, left-leaning Italic tag please return it? No questions asked)
Posted by MentalFloss on 2008 01 31 at 07:23 PM • permalink“Six were Democrats/leftists:”
That makes fourteen outright crazies, if my math is correct.
Posted by Dave Surls on 2008 01 31 at 07:51 PM • permalinkI have to confess, I quite like Bryla, political differences notwithstanding.
Posted by daddy dave on 2008 01 31 at 08:28 PM • permalinkA few who weren’t seemed to be struggling with issues beyond politics, so it would unfair to claim them as representative of broader left-based feelings.
Nicely put, Tim. I hope you’ll remember this rule next time some idiot gets a little too enthusiastic in his or her support for David Hicks!
Posted by Ant Rogenous on 2008 01 31 at 08:28 PM • permalinkA far left retard calling himself ‘Ghandi’ haha the irony! Anyone that did some history checks wouldn’t call themselves Ghandi.
Posted by Old school on 2008 01 31 at 08:47 PM • permalink#37 & #41 daddy dave and Pickles,
I’d like to add my approval of Bryla’s behaviour with your’s.
Habib also tore GaGa Gandhi a new one when he explained that Bryla had at least put his actions where his mouth had been, so to speak.
He pointed out that GaGa Gandhi had done nothing of note except spray bile and vitriol throughout the blogosphere.
ANYONE can do that!
ps Pickles, in case you didn’t read my earlier post, I adore your choice of names for the tiny tot.
in re: #31 and ghandi’s misunderstanding thereof:
The question of whether generative grammar is deceptively simple or simply deceptive is a vexed one. My comment to him contains a dependent clause which relies on the preceding independent clause for context and meaning—and, to make things still more difficult for him, the subject is implied.
Add to this the fact that the clause is introduced by a subordinating conjunction (“or”) and contains a negative polarity construct (“any but”), as in
“...your failure to acquire a readership…OR a reputation that would warrant the attention of ANY BUT the most crapulent hate-mongers eats away at you…”
and I believe we have the source of ghandi’s confusion.
Among other things, the great sage Hillel said, “...do not make a statement which cannot be understood or which will [only] later be understood...”
I am guilty of grammatical hubris. Guilty, I say!
Posted by MentalFloss on 2008 01 31 at 09:19 PM • permalink#44: I am guilty of grammatical hubris.
Easy, thar, big feller! We’uns hyar on the jury sez you ain’t guilty a nuthin’. Way-ul, that “negative polarity construct” soun’s like it might not be stric’ly on the up an’ up with the fire code, but we reckon we’uns kin overlook a li’l misstep now ‘n’ agin. An’ iffen your grandmaw got herself hubrissed, then she should’a measured out her ‘shine, ‘stead of takin’ it straight from the jug. Don’t hardly see how that kin be blamed on you, no how. So, whaddaya say, boys? Reckon we oughta turn this hoss loose? [Sounds of boisterous rebel yells]. Thar ya go, fren’. You done been ‘quitted.
So I idly click over to ‘Bush Out’ to see what the fuss is all about and as soon as I land there I slip over and fall flat on my arse.
It felt like the floor was made of glass covered in olive oil. By the time I stop seeing small tweety birds flying around I come to realise that I have slipped over in a pile of blood and guts!
Further investigation reveals that the mess of internal organs I am wallowing in are Ghandi’s and the evisceration has been caused by razor sharp comments made by our own MentalFloss.
Top work! I nearly cried with laughter.
“but it has always been difficult for me to dislike him,”
I’ll do it for you guys.
If I remember rightly, he’s the guy that was bragging about how he gets government money even though his family has money (welfare leech/thief).
And, when he’s not doing that ,he’s not just talking smack about America on the internet (calling us murderers, etc.), he’s physically trying to give the terrorists and despots we’re fighting a hand by disrupting activities at U.S./Australian military bases.
Maybe I’m remembering things wrongly, and if so I apologize…but, if I’m not, the guy sounds like a worthless piece of shit to me.
Posted by Dave Surls on 2008 01 31 at 10:11 PM • permalink#31, MentalFloss. I just visited the link to Gandhi’s site and read the grammatical argument posted there, and I too posted a response.
To be called a certifiable idiot by someone who can’t understand grammar is not just a compliment - in his twisted lexicon, clearly that configuration of letters spells “absolute genius”. ;)
Posted by carpefraise on 2008 01 31 at 10:34 PM • permalink#10 have to disagree with you, SandiM.
Thes people fight with an aggressive and positive attitude against anyone who disagrees - sorry, DISSENTS, from them, their world view and anything else they’ve attached themselves to.
They also fight with this attitude against the US, Israel, the police (in various demos, often unprovoked) and in the causes they’ve attached themselves to.
They do have civility and turn-taking attitudes, but they generally save that for their own.
Nice to see though, that many commiserated with Tim on his cancer and they did that with grace and sympathy.
Posted by carpefraise on 2008 01 31 at 10:47 PM • permalink#23. You’re possibly right. on the other hand, the Real Gandhi decide that Jews, to spite the Nazis’ attempt to kill them, should have committed suicide.
“Hitler,” Gandhi said, “killed five million Jews. It is the greatest crime of our time. But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher’s knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs… It would have aroused the world and the people of Germany… As it is they succumbed anyway in their millions.”
linkPosted by carpefraise on 2008 01 31 at 10:58 PM • permalink#44 actually, MF, the only thing you’re guilty of is using relatively sophisticated phrasing to a simple-minded buffoon who pretends to be sophisticated.
Posted by carpefraise on 2008 01 31 at 11:03 PM • permalink#51 I did not know that, carpefraise.
Apart from the Warsaw Uprising, what did Ghandi think the Jews did—if one equates “cliff” with “boxcar”?
And how “aroused” was the world (or its leaders) when proof was to hand>
I am stunned.
Posted by MentalFloss on 2008 01 31 at 11:08 PM • permalink(Oh, and grammercy Judge Paco, and you good folk—but maybe I should tone it down some…?)
Posted by MentalFloss on 2008 01 31 at 11:09 PM • permalinkQuite funny. The site “campaigns for the removal of ... Bush, Blair and Howard”, presumably leveraging its massive reader base.
At the conclusion of Bush’s second term early next year “Gandhi” will probably consider himself victorious.
But I think the deeper message is that Tim Blair is way too confrontational, and cancer should be talked into non-malignancy in sympathetic, compassionate tones.
#51, #53 that passage by Ghandi was from 1938… before the holocaust and WWII. If you read the whole thing, the general message is one of support for the Jews in Germany, with some silly, fluffy ideas about how to defeat Hitler. He had way too much faith in his strategy of civil disobedience. Sure, it worked for him in India, but it doesn’t always work (e.g., Tiananmen Square).
Posted by daddy dave on 2008 01 31 at 11:53 PM • permalink#48 Dave Surls,
And, when he’s not doing that ,he’s not just talking smack about America on the internet (calling us murderers, etc.), he’s physically trying to give the terrorists and despots we’re fighting a hand by disrupting activities at U.S./Australian military bases.
Yeah, there is that.
But being surrounded as I am by vast rolling hills of leftism, I’ve learned to treat such views as a character flaw that can be overlooked in polite company. The alternative is burning more bridges than I’ve got matches.Posted by daddy dave on 2008 02 01 at 12:07 AM • permalinkThe dichotomy between “left” and “right” obscures more than it discloses. The dichotomy I’d prefer is between “doers” and “opinionaters”. I’m firmly on the side of doers.
On this blog, as on “lefty” blogs, there’s a lot of heat and confusion generated by cultural warriors who believe their ideas ought prevail just because they’re “our” ideas. Some people have never tasted the blood, sweat and tears that come with having a real go at putting ideas into action. Never tasted failure and despair. Never achieved victory against the odds. Indeed have enjoyed the benefits of privilege and conformity their whole lives. I’d put “Gandhi” into that category.
Good work if you can get it, I suppose, but it does add a certain rigidity of manner that makes debate and genuine exchange difficult.
I don’t know a whole lot about Tim’s background. What I admire about him is the innovation and hard work he’s put into making this blog a unique location for ideas and cultural dispute. And, curses, his use of humour to deflate the pompous and vain. In some ways he’s like that other Sydney-sider, Paul Keating. Capable of a grand and pointy invective that wounds.
I’m interested in why so many find wounding invective funny and engaging.
I’m amazed Tim is back to blogging so soon. Good work Tim!
To Mental Floss, Pickles, Daddy Dave, Pogria and Paco; thanks for the kind words and civilised intentions. Political disagreements are just that, and I suspect all of us would find the ability to be civil and respectful with each other in real life, where the rubber meets the road.
Dave Surls, you might be a tougher nut to crack, but maybe you just talk tough. The welfare we receive is the Family Tax Benefit which is middle-class welfare for families with children and very liberally means tested. It was one of the ways that last mob bought votes. I note that KRudd is going to save money by putting a harsher means test on it. Does that make you and KRudd allies?
Just to finish off, I’m taken aback with admiration for Brendan Nelson and his supporters on this blog who’ve apparently decided that the Liberals need a decade or more in opposition for morale-building purposes, and have chosen the $orry issue to entrench among all Australians the concept of Liberals as a mean-spirited, short-sighted, guilt addled, racist and incendiary bunch of losers mired in the 19th Century. As Sir Humphrey would say “It’s a very courageous decision my leader”.
Bryla
Nice little dissertion.
My gripe with the “$orry” issue runs as such.Ive been to school with Aboriginies, worked on shearing teams and in detention services with them and have found, on the whole, if they are in work they are enggaged in society and thrive the same as most others.
I have also found when there is disfunction in a “family” of Aboriginals the obligations on those who have stuff through work is huge.
Ive also found sit down money to be the biggest soul destroying cancer in any community, black or white.
What most of the agenda appears to be for the Aboriginal industry is obtaining a stream of “sit down” money over and above the basic dole.
It has begun in Geraldton (my old town) and has led, not to greater social mobility, but if anything, much greater squalour and neglect.
My friend who works as a policeman attended 2 dead babies in one week which were recorded as “cot death” despite both babies being riddled with scabies,lice and malnourished.This isnt some remote area camp, its a major seaside (25,000 or so) town with every agency black/white/brindle, and a major hospital. The bottom line is there is no glory in alowing “traditional” lifestyles and social mores if they are the CAUSE of the disfunction within communities.
Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2008 02 01 at 12:37 AM • permalinkFrollicking, yes, there’s a full horror-show happening in remote settlements, and in the cities and towns.
And there’s Aboriginal leadership like Noel Pearson’s that can be supported to achieve results.
But why does Brenno want to die in a ditch over a word? Doesn’t make sense to me. He’d do better debating real policies, surely.
“Who-Hit-John”; paco, yer my Pa brought back to life—with all his kinfolk from Murray, KY.
Right back to life. (s’cuse me, sumpin in my eye…)
Posted by MentalFloss on 2008 02 01 at 12:59 AM • permalinkBut why does Brenno want to die in a ditch over a word? Doesn’t make sense to me. He’d do better debating real policies, surely.
Bryan, it’s not just a word. Brendan Nelson has, quite reasonably, reserved judgement until he sees the entire text of Krudd’s $orry statement. It’s not just that word but all the others with it that could have ramifications. Of course the MSM has been carrying on about Brendan Nelson’s refusal to agree to something he hasn’t read.
“chosen the $orry issue to entrench among all Australians the concept of Liberals as a mean-spirited, short-sighted, guilt addled”
I refuse to say sorry- especially given the specific legal implications- for something I didn’t do. I consider this to be the result of foresight and innocence, not the inverse.
Sorry won’t help. Jobs will help. And until we lose this huge, overwhelming sense of race, jobs will not be forthcoming because nobody wants to deal with the vilification and loss of reputation they believe could occur if they were to fire an aboriginal worker.
In combination with unemployment, camps a hundred miles from nowhere, title that is worthless, and a lack of police and proper law enforcement would ruin any community. Finally, if you raise someone to believe that they are a helpless victim from a dead culture who is hated by society at large, how can you expect them to thrive?
“I’ve learned to treat such views as a character flaw”
Views are one thing. Trying to sabotage your own country’s military installations while your troops are under fire, is a whole other thing.
That guy is a total scumbag, and I don’t give a fuck how pretty he talks.
Posted by Dave Surls on 2008 02 01 at 04:10 AM • permalinkFair point, Dave Surls. Anti-Americanism is pretty much a deal-breaker for me with anyone.
Same with disrupting operations of national security. I’m not sure that trespassing at Pine Gap counts for that, though.Posted by daddy dave on 2008 02 01 at 05:10 AM • permalinkThis letter was in The Aus today:
I WAS a Northern Territory police officer in the 1950s. No full-blood Aboriginal child was ever removed from a tribal situation.
Only part-Aborigines were removed when their lives were in danger. This danger arose at puberty, when a male would normally be initiated and a female could marry. Both events required that the ``skin’’ of the Aboriginal parents be known, to determine the skin of the pubescent child. A part-Aborigine could not have a skin. The part-Aboriginal female could be used by any initiated male. The ``skinless’’ male would just quietly disappear.
I had a tracker who began living with a part-Aboriginal girl. She already had a son who had red hair and freckles. They all lived in the Aboriginal camp. The boy was not removed because he still had a few years before he would reach puberty, when the danger would arise. I was subsequently transferred to Alice Springs. My tracker followed me but left his consort behind. Her son was probably eventually “stolen’’. If so, he is probably still alive somewhere.
Tony Kelly
Eden Hills, SAOne of my mum’s friends tried to testify at the stolen thingamy when it was underway. Her story was that she was taken away….just before she was about to be buried alive for being a half caste.
She was of course knocked back. As were a number of others that she knew that were taken in similar circumstances.
It wasn’t all sweetness and light out there in the outback 50 years ago. And it still isn’t today.
I refuse to follow Jean-Jacques Rousseau and all that “noble savage” crap that underlines how may white folk that have never left the city view the aboriginals.
Posted by mr creosote on 2008 02 01 at 05:20 AM • permalink#70 those urban lefties watch Rabbit Proof Fence and that’s their reality.
Posted by daddy dave on 2008 02 01 at 05:41 AM • permalink#18 - I thought assasins were all supposed to have three names?
Posted by mr creosote on 2008 02 01 at 05:50 AM • permalinkBryla, the problem with saying “sorry” is that it is seen as an admission of guilt and accountability, and therefore leaves the door wide open for people to claim compensation.
And get it.
It doesn’t matter if, according to my Oxford, the definition of the word is: “feeling regret” (p1094, Sixth edition of the Concise Oxford Dictionary).
What matters is how people actually feel about it all. If they feel they should get money, then they will go all out to get it.
And they do, and that idiot government in Tasmania, for example, gives it to them.
As yet another person who was taught that Truganini was the last Taswegian aborigine, I’d like to know where all these people who were $tolen are coming from to get their payola.
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2008 02 01 at 06:07 AM • permalink2 things:
No matter how you cut it, fixing Aboriginal social dysfunction is going to cost a shit-load of resources, and progress will be measured in decades. Anyone seeking compensation through the Supreme Court has a very tough row to hoe
(BTW Nilknarf NO proceeding in Parliament is admissable in any Court proceedings. seperation of powers, Parliamentary Privileges Act)
The issue I raised was one of perception re the Liberal Party. Brenno ought have said “we’re in favour of an apology in principle, and we need to see the specific words before we comment further”. Or words to that effect.
#74
Brenno ought have said “we’re in favour of an apology in principle, and we need to see the specific words before we comment further”. Or words to that effect.
You’re probably right, except there doesn’t appear to have been any federal laws which specifically required children to be removed from their families, solely because of their race.
Let’s not forget the Turnbull factor either.#74, Bryla, I agree with you on two things.
first, compensation through the courts is unlikely, apology or no. second, it would be better for the “perception” of the liberal party to just go along with it all.Now, having said that…
in terms of “dysfunction”, I don’t know how much money has to get thrown into the void before the left finally understands that it is, in fact, a void. Stupendous amounts of money have been spent with no gain or negligible gain. Crying “If only we had another $100M a year we could nail this thing” just doesn’t work any more.
Second, there is no doubt that aborigines have suffered greatly since European settlement, indeed because of it. But the apology is, and always has been, about the Stolen Generations specifically. There is some disagreement in conservative ranks as to whether there was systematic taking of children based on race.
So, hey, apologize for disease, alcohol, bigotry. apologise for those hideous “reserves.” Apologise for the Myall Creek Massacre. There are plenty of injustices that we could all agree are terrible things worthy of an apology.
It’s an exact analogy to all the environmentalists who ignore actual environmental problems in favor of a make-believe one.Posted by daddy dave on 2008 02 01 at 07:17 AM • permalinkBryla. Let’s get it straight. You talk in flippant cliche. You talk with an air of authority and superiority but you say nothing. Like an advanced form of hippie verbalism. You are PC government employed personified. Everyone’s happy in your world.
Stop living the Christ illusion. Please start reducing your 360 degree word dissertations to a 10th of their size and start saying something. It’s a sympathy vote only that has others encouraging you.
Stop consuming wombats in your taxi.
Could it be that Brendan Nelson’s view on $orry is not being accurately reported by some of the newspapers?
According to Sara Elks at The Australian:OPPOSITION Leader Brendan Nelson has not ruled out backing an apology to the Stolen Generations but says all Australians should be consulted on the wording.
Maybe Bryla and others are over-estimating the number of electors who want to say $orry.
Stop consuming wombats in your taxi.
There’s some good advice for all of us. Listen up, people.
Posted by daddy dave on 2008 02 01 at 08:33 AM • permalinkBryla, I’d have no problems with saying sorry if we had something to say sorry for.
The unpleasant and unreported side of the story is that many full-blood Aboriginals regarded half breeds as non-people. Half-caste kids risked infanticide as babies, neglect as infants; abandonment, neglect, bashing and murder as youngsters - all because of their skin colour.
Like it or not, some bits of Aboriginal culture were a lot more racist and colour aware than the Ku Klux Klan. Some people have this wierd idea that only white people judge people by the colour of their skin, and think that only white people haver ever looked down upon half castes etc. That’s just not true. The Chinese look down upon us hairy barbarians. The Japanese look down on the Koreans. We know how the Germans felt about just about everyone else back in 1941. Light skinned Indians look down on dark skinned Indians. The Vietnamese look down upon the children of Vietnamese women and black US soldiers. Aboriginals are not immune from this universal behaviour.
Many children were removed to save them from not a fate worse than death, but simple, good old death.
I’m not saying sorry for that. Sorry, but as the Soup Nazi would say, “no sorry for you”.
We’ve been suckered by years of rock paintings, dance troupes, yothu yindi and mythology about an “ancient land” and all that bollocks into thinking that Aboriginal culture is a lovely, cutesy kind of thing, with noble blackfellas living in harmony with the landscape etc etc.
The truth is a lot nastier than that. The dark side has been ignored, covered up or brushed aside by people who just don’t want to know because it doesn’t fit their idea of how reality should look.
Most of these people were not taken away because they were black. They were taken away because they were not black enough for their tribe. Black society rejected them. White society took them in and took care of them.
If anything, the descendants of those that did the caring should sue the present day activists for slandering their ancestors.
Posted by mr creosote on 2008 02 01 at 08:51 AM • permalinkSkeeter, it’s an image thing. Some of the reservations about culture (pay-back and sorcery come to mind) are true. That most Europeans had good intentions are likewise true. Money alone will not fix the problem.
But the vast majority of Australians want to move on. An apology for the mistakes our nation has made will help us do that (I believe). Brenno risks entrenching the view that Liberals are old and in the way. If he’s been misquoted, he sure has failed to correct.
Among the many, many policy failures we’ve seen successes. I listen to and support Noel Pearson. What we face is a difficult, but soluble problem.
As for eating wombats in the taxi, I’ve tried tive them up. honest.
#87
I say, you people don’t really eat wombats, do you?
only when we’re out of koalas.
Posted by daddy dave on 2008 02 02 at 08:35 AM • permalink#89 For all foreigners and local dumpsters.
You cut possums down the grain, platypus across the grain, wombats either way, and koalas from within because they’re sacred and you can still eat them in the dark.
They taste like rabbit if you can rid the urine sack that gives them that bitter rancour.
I’m only doing this because Australian Tourism isn’t up to it.
But that’s another useless over populated government department.
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It works both ways, we’re all praying that Mark Banisch’s testicles return some day.