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COLUMN HAS LANDED
Sorry column. Lunar illustration:
Next week: nothing about Rudd, or Dave might suffer a repetitive-drawing injury. Joe Hildebrand is also sorry, and promising Telegraph newcomer Laurie Oakes has background to the sorry story that will be of interest to readers of all political views, including this:
The surprising thing is that, in his years as a bureaucrat and then an MP, Rudd had never really been part of the bleeding heart brigade on Aboriginal affairs. Until nine months ago he had difficulty seeing any real practical value in the push for an apology.
You know, while we’re at it, I may as well apologize too. I’m sorry that apollo 11 took everyones mind away from apologizing way back then.
Just so you know, saying sorry won’t make you liberals feel any better….we’ve been apologizing for slavery for my lifetime and liberals still don’t feel any better, in fact, I think they feel worse…..
Posted by Old Tanker on 2008 02 15 at 02:14 PM • permalinkOkay, I’m adding Joe Hildebrand’s blog to my daily MUST READ list. He writes like one of us.
Posted by wronwright on 2008 02 15 at 03:35 PM • permalinkThe mood overall was one of celebration, which is an odd response to being implicated in the systematic racist theft of children.
It wasn’t that they really felt sorry, it’s all about feeling good about themselves. Like an AIDS bicycle ride, or a Global Warming Awareness [event of your choice]. It does nothing constructive, but strokes the lefty ego quite nicely.Excellent column, Tim. :) Nailed it again.
As for apologies, I’m sortty it’s 7am and I’ve not got any caffeine.
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2008 02 15 at 03:59 PM • permalinkI remember the moon landing - I was cranky because it was being shown instead of Playschool! Is that the way I’m meant to remember Kevin’s
sorrySorry speech?Posted by AlburyShifton on 2008 02 15 at 04:03 PM • permalinkI’m sorry. I… apologize.
I’m sorry we were forced to defend ourselves against an unwarranted attack. I’m sorry your crew was stupid enough to fire upon a station filled with over a quarter million civilians—including your own people. And I’m sorry I waited as long as I did before I blew them all straight to Hell!(Just in case someone here hasn’t figured out I’m a SciFi geek.) ;)
Posted by Patrick Chester on 2008 02 15 at 04:27 PM • permalink#10 Patrick
Sounds like Babylon 5 to me??
Posted by Old Tanker on 2008 02 15 at 04:47 PM • permalinkI’m not sorry.
I’ll never be sorry for something I didn’t do.I’m shocked that people perceive rescuing children and young adults from danger, physical and moral, and giving them the necessities of life and an education is somehow wrong.
How many of these children would be alive today had they not been “rescued”?
We would suggest that the ‘stolen generation’ is not so much upset with whites who took them away from violence, poverty and neglect but with their own parents.
Sadly it can be difficult to blame a much loved parent or the fantasied ‘memory’ of one, for that mistreatment.
So encouraged by social workers and political activists, these people misdirect their genuine feeling of upset to the ‘other’ - the paternalistic government that has agreed to take responsibility for them.
Coupled with the utter welfare dependence of many Aborigines, the ‘stolen generation’ lives in an infantilised world in which they rail against mummy and daddy for not loving and caring for them but cannot bring themselves to blame them - the real people who abandoned, beat and raped them.
—Nick and Nora
Posted by The Thin Man Returns on 2008 02 15 at 05:33 PM • permalinkWith regard to the predictable rash of compensation claims now emerging , one was amused by a commenter online at News.com.au who suggested - “They weren’t interested in hearing the word ‘sorry’, they were only interested in $orry.”
I think $orry would make a fabulous T-shirt.
—Nick
Posted by The Thin Man Returns on 2008 02 15 at 05:36 PM • permalink#13 kae,
and anyone else. Is there some background information on the “Stolen Generation” that’s not politically skewed? I have a general understanding, but that’s all…..
Posted by Old Tanker on 2008 02 15 at 05:51 PM • permalink#13, kae
Well I’m sorry!
- Sorry that this whole “Sorry” saga was simply a trumped up excuse to permit the bridge walkers and their ilk to feel warm and fuzzy and to allow those who feel aggrieved to continue with their sense of victimhood, however baseless.
- Sorry that the carefully crafted Canberra Corroboree was a stage-managed, feel-good occasion for Kevin Rudd to star.
- Sorry that Rudd well knew that compensation claims would come forward and that he lied through his teeth when he said they wouldn’t.
- Sorry that it appears a tribunal, rather than the courts, will be the most likely mechanism to deal with those claims.
- Sorry that nothing will now never, ever be done to help the Australians living in wretched conditions and situations of despair and abuse.
- Sorry that Australians in the more remote areas will continue to live as “noble savages” in primitive conditions and to grow up and die without ever having the opportunity to join mainstream Australia.
- Sorry that those who could truly help, like Noel Pearson and Mal Brough - no place for Brough - are being deliberately sidelined, and the Australian media are not asking why.
Kae, I’m so sorry, I could cry.
In just having read Oakes column, I have the following observations:
First Rudd is a political opportunist with icewater running through his veins. If he didn’t see any value in saying ‘sorry’ he would not have done.Additionally his sudden interest in the aboriginal plight at the time of his wife’s political embarassment seems more a grasping at a distraction than a genuine revelation, particularly coming after Rudd’s shameful participation in the Heiner Affair.
Perhaps Rudd would like to say sorry to the Aboriginal rape victim whose plight he helped cover up as CEO to Queensland Premier Wayne Goss.
Second, the majority of Australians were not elated. Most polls indicated a 50-50 split. Sorry has not reconciled the nation, it has split it.
Rudd has clearly demonstrated just as large a talent for divisive politicking as leftwingers are fond of accusing John Howard of.
Thirdly, sorry day WAS the time to draw attention to Aboriginal sexual abuse, alcohol misuse and other problems because it highlights the stark contrast between our society’s aspirations and the harshness of reality.
To leave mention to another day would have been to sweep under the carpet, yet again, the very issues that contributed to the ‘stolen generation’ in the first place.
—Nick
Posted by The Thin Man Returns on 2008 02 15 at 05:54 PM • permalinkThe stolen generation inquiry was careful to limit the era of the great bleaching to prior to 1973, thus exonerating Whitlam of any blame.
There is some justification in this because it was Whitlam who decided apartheid was better than assimilation - out of sight out of mind. It was Whitlam who created the circumstances where children were no longer removed to the safety of white families but left in the care of petrol-sniffing pedophiles in remote shanty towns well away from the prying eyes of other Australians.
The stolen generation were a slightly tinted bunch of white people looking for a stack of cash. But Whitlam’s victims are Australia’s real indigenous people being slowly exterminated by a policy of neglect. We even had a senior Labor minister, Bob Collins, indulge himself carnally to a few Aboriginal children.
Neither Whitlam nor Labor will ever apologise for what they have done to Aboriginal children. Saying sorry for its own actions isn’t something that Labor does.
I care not a jot how many billions are going to be wasted on compensation. Australia is a wealthy country and that money will be found.
What I am sorry about is that Australia has lost an opportunity to fix this sorry mess. We were very close to really helping those sad aboriginal communities. Thanks to Andrew Bolt and others, the whole “stolen generation(s)” crap had been exposed for what it was, a media-generated myth.
No stolen children had been found despite widespread searches for victims who would qualify for compensation. Courts found that there was no basis for the myths.
We were on the brink of moving forward.
Mr Rudd, for his own selfish motives, has pushed the aborigines back into the abyss where they will now stay, for generations to come.#17 Old Tanker,
the historian Keith Windschuttle has written extensively on the Stolen Generation, and the relationship between Aboriginals and non-Aboriginals.
He has written several books on the subject.Here’s the article he wrote last week in the Australian in response to Sorry Day.
here’s an article he wrote on the film “Rabbit Proof Fence” called Rabbit Proof Fence: a true story?
Robert Manne was behind a concerted attempt to counter Windschuttle’s views in a book called “Whitewash.” here is Windschuttle’s response, in which he says that the fact that they did not refute his key claims, means his key claims are uncontested.
The wikipedia article called The History Wars gives a pretty balanced summary of the whole debate, including responses to Windschuttle, and responses to the responses, and so forth. (proving again, in my mind, that Wikipedia’s days of being a bastion of leftist idiocy are gone).I also found a left-leaning blogger who encountered his work at university and secretly holds respect for Windschuttle. Thus proving that taking the war of words to your opponents is never futile, even if the gains made are modest, patchy or less than you would hope.
Posted by daddy dave on 2008 02 15 at 07:37 PM • permalink#21 Skeeter,
there is actually one person who was found by a court to be stolen. his name is Bruce Trevorrow. It’s pretty clear that what happened to him as a baby was wrong and bad, in violation of due process, and probably driven by racism.
The Trevorrow case is not the edge of the wedge, or the opening of the floodgates, or anything like that. His was a well-documented, clear-cut case of abuse of power by officialdom. There may be more cases like this, but if the Trevorrow case sets the benchmark for the standard of proof required for members of the stolen generation, then predictions of mass payouts for thousands of people are a fantasy.Posted by daddy dave on 2008 02 15 at 08:03 PM • permalinkQuestion: Given the Government’s resolve against compensation, will the new rash of compensation claims be tested in a real court (i.e. no smoking ceremonies or group-hugs), and will they therefore meet with the fate of previous test cases such as the Lorna Cubillo case? Even after SorryDay, will we have the situation where public-funded SG organisations define ‘stolen’ as openly as possible, only to meet with a more realistic defininition when it comes to law? Should be interesting.
will they therefore meet with the fate of previous test cases such as the Lorna Cubillo case?
Probably.
Posted by daddy dave on 2008 02 15 at 08:11 PM • permalinkGood intro Daddy Dave. Can’t go past Windschuttle, he is Xena with a sword of facts.
I am working hard to keep my three children from falling into the orthodock, explaining that: it wasn’t one big land owned by one big polity, they actually thought of other tribes as bigger enemies than whites until the seventies; it’s problematic apologising for something someone else did a long time ago; there’s no evidence of any of this being based on racist government policy; massacres were against the law, not supported by it; colonisation would have happened anyway and better the British than the Spanish or French; and lastly on a long list: not one person has actually established that they were “stolen” ie wrenched out of their wailing parent’s hands and led off to a life much worse than if they’d been left there. The argument that “now they’ll all be wanting ‘reparations’” (first sighting of this US import for me yesterday, as opposed to ‘compensation’) to me was a weaker argument and a little mean-spirited. Like whatever, lawyers do what people pay them to do and so what?
But it has just struck me. Compensation claims are exactly what we need. At the “Bringing Them Home” Royal Commission claims were untested, no evidence was heard. But if any bastard wants cash now they will have to prove what they assert, and there will be lawyers making sure they do, or yes the whole thing was a fucking myth. It’s just what we need.Posted by ooh honey honey on 2008 02 15 at 08:15 PM • permalinkAh. Daddy Dave and Cuckoo got in while I was writing that..
Posted by ooh honey honey on 2008 02 15 at 08:16 PM • permalinkIt’s strange that some of the biggest culprits, the collective group that normally has a lot to say on such matters, ie, Christian Churches, have been so silent about this issue.
Normally at the fore to justify any do gooder cause from illegal immigrants to the evils of a Howard Government, there hasn’t been so much as a peep.
The reason being of course is that Churches were far more culpable for what happened to both white and black Children than the demonised Howard ever was. They are just hoping that no one remembers, it’s far better to stir the Howard fire and keep it burning for a bit longer.
Labor in the past
Dr H. V. Evatt 21 January 1942... negro troops to Australia would not be favourable (not be favourable)...will have regard to Australian susceptibilities…
No apology.
Whitlam “Loans Affair”. No apology.
Keating “economics”. No apology.
As timblair said:
“I suppose that’s the difference between an apology you make on behalf of other people for something you had nothing to do with, and an apology you make on behalf of, well, yourself.”Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 02 15 at 08:51 PM • permalink#31 Churches are made up of people many did/do good and some did/do bad. Before nanny state, churches cared for the needy. In the outback, left un-stolen meant death, so decisions were made, mistakes were probably made. If it was well-intentioned does it mean it was wrong? So why a need for an apology?
Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 02 15 at 09:06 PM • permalink#24 Keith Windschuttle as I remember was Left and now is Right. As wikipedia explains. Like Paddy McG, and the quote:
“The man who is not a socialist at twenty has no heart, but if he is still a socialist at forty he has no head.”
- Aristide BriandSo we all need to keep an eye on who is saying what, and what words are being used. Orwell’s 1984 Newspeak followed Oldspeak now we have Sorryspeak.
#22 link shows Labor distraction tactics at work. Labor always seeks to distract people while they do things. Like magicians who keep you watching one hand while they trick you with the other.Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 02 15 at 09:21 PM • permalinkkae are we allowed to ask about a car?
If not forget the question.Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 02 15 at 09:23 PM • permalink#28 Ooh honey honey
Compensation claims are exactly what we need.
I agree. Bring on the compensation claims. The courts have shown themselves to be sensible and balanced on this issue.
If there are more Bruce Trevorrows out there, then hey, let em bring their case and get all the money they deserve. That’s what courts are for: finding out the facts. Sure, legal costs are expensive, but sometimes it costs money to get to the truth. And it sure beats mass handouts.
So bring em on! Let’s see a tidal wave of compo claims. If any of them win, I wouldn’t begrudge them a cent.Posted by daddy dave on 2008 02 15 at 09:28 PM • permalink#18 Hi Ann J
Are you familiar with aboriginal expressions, particularly the use of the word “shame”? I’ll just re-jig your little piece if I may, so that it can be better understood:
Shame.
- Shame that this whole “Sorry” saga was simply a trumped up excuse to permit the bridge walkers and their ilk to feel warm and fuzzy and to allow those who feel aggrieved to continue with their sense of victimhood, however baseless.
- Shame that the carefully crafted Canberra Corroboree was a stage-managed, feel-good occasion for Kevin Rudd to star.
- Shame that Rudd well knew that compensation claims would come forward and that he lied through his teeth when he said they wouldn’t.
- Shame that it appears a tribunal, rather than the courts, will be the most likely mechanism to deal with those claims.
- Shame that nothing will now never, ever be done to help the Australians living in wretched conditions and situations of despair and abuse.
- Shame that Australians in the more remote areas will continue to live as “noble savages” in primitive conditions and to grow up and die without ever having the opportunity to join mainstream Australia.
- Shame that those who could truly help, like Noel Pearson and Mal Brough - no place for Brough - are being deliberately sidelined, and the Australian media are not asking why.This is not sorry business, it is shame business.
What makes me saddest and angriest is that noone much can be heard talking about the good which came from saving the children and teenagers.
Noone really compares what happened to the kids who were trained who came from aboriginal “families” and what happened to ordinary kids from poor familes who were indentured to be maids or labourers.It’s no use to want to be part of society, to have everything everyone else has, when all you’re prepared to do is sit on your arse and wait for it all to be given to you.
Ain’t gonna happen any more. Well, it SHOULDN’T!
#35
car
bought
goodexcellent deal
6-10 days delivery
WOOOOOOHOOOOOO!
silver
lovelymmmmmmm endorphins…..
(lets see if I can get those endorphins working up to Monday night, I’m scheduled for root canal therapy 4pm Monday….)
Sedan, silver pearl, Ultima (bottom of range) with cruise pack, tinted windows, weather shields, bonnet and headlight protectors, floor mats..
This is the [url=http://www.toyota.com/corolla/]shape and colour, no skirts or “spoiler”, though url] (why does a FWD car have a “spoiler” ??? D’oh)[/kae, Ann J
it appears a tribunal, rather than the courts, will be the most likely mechanism to deal with those claims.
will this tribunal have a lower burden of proof? Are the details known at this stage?
Posted by daddy dave on 2008 02 15 at 09:44 PM • permalink#31 & 33. Nic, although I do not support any religion, I agree with Stackja on this.
While waiting for our Dad to come home from WWII, my brother and I were “stolen” white kids and placed in the care of the Church of England. It was the worst 8 months of our lives. My (younger) brother escaped from the home and was recaptured three times. In retrospect, we weren’t all that badly treated. There was no sexual abuse, but for 8- and 10-year old boys, the contrast between our earlier life in an affectionate family home environment with the institutionalised life made it seem appalling to us, especially as we were guilty of no crime.
But the CofE was providing us with a home that could not be provided by anyone else. As always in such places, some of the staff are incapable of giving the care and affection found in a normal home and others are sadistic bastards.
But this does not make the churches culpable. The institutions were, and still are, doing the best that they can with the resources that they have.# 31 and 39, I am not going to debate the intentions of various groups including Church’s, I understand your point. My point is that a game is being played at the moment, a blame game where a variety of people and groups,including politicians such as Whitlam, closer to the issue than say the demonised Howard, are happy for others such as the Australian taxpayer, to take a beating on this one.
Sometimes just loving your kids isn’t enough.
Bingo.
And in society at large, a whole industry of resentment and guilt has grown up around blaming your parents for every failing in your life, because they didn’t show enough love.
Parents almost always love their kids. It’s part of our nature, just as much as the drive to create children in the first place.
The job of parents is to not to make kids feel good (although that often helps). It’s to see them mature to healthy, intact, and well-functioning adults.Posted by daddy dave on 2008 02 15 at 09:54 PM • permalink#46 Now I know what you mean. I agree. It’s embarrassing and I know well educated, well travelled people who should know a lot better but who believe the ‘sorry’ bullshit is warranted and a great Statesmen like action. To feel really sick, read Phatty’s pathetic waffle in today’s Weekend Australian Colour Magazine.
#40
second linky
#41 no more to be said.Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 02 15 at 10:15 PM • permalinkIf there were more mothers like Tim’s.
I know my late mother was like Tim’sPosted by stackja1945 on 2008 02 15 at 10:19 PM • permalink#52
Psst, stacks, I thought Andrea’d fix it without having to re-post it…
tee hee
nevermind.#51 Psst, Skeets, I love my car too… I’ll love it even better when I get it. A really, really excellent deal. Root canal, I don’t love so much. After 30 the decrepitude seems to slow down for about 10 years, then after 40 it just speeds up!
I can’t get over that my trade got 2k, it’s 1998 Corolla with 300k on the clock. And discounts, I got good discounts.
#40
kae missed your mention of Monday.
Agree with #51Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 02 15 at 10:28 PM • permalink#57 kae
Andrea’s probably busy again. No matter it is fixed. Good on car.
#58
Krudd wants what? Who knows?Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 02 15 at 10:38 PM • permalinkOk.
About the cartoon.Anyone else notice that
1. Kevvie’s suit’s too big for him? Except the helmet bit. His head’s too big for it?
2. Looks like a great photo opportunity… look at the shadows on the ground… there’s the boom mic… not sure about the other stuff, but it looks real
staged
to me.
It’s a hoax?
***
(Cid and Skeets, I’d rather be doing the thing that you think of mother England doing, though… tee hee)
#61
kae good secret woman dreams Monday.Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 02 15 at 11:14 PM • permalink#62
kae
Main is Andrea’s area.
Not a troll is it?
Last one striked a lot.Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 02 15 at 11:18 PM • permalinkkae. With a bit of luck you might get this bloke! After all you need someone who enjoys their job.
Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2008 02 15 at 11:35 PM • permalink#25 Daddy Dave. I think the point of ‘the stolen generation” is that it was government policy to practice what was effectively genocide by taking the children away (tm). In actual fact no such policy ever existed, and in the case of Bruce Trevorrow, policy was not followed. He was a man wronged, but because individuals did wrong, not government policy. His court case victory was on the basis that policy was not followed. I wold have thought that was the opposite of the ‘stolen generation’.
Even so, it was pretty clear this kid was an at risk child.#25 #66
There remains popular belief of a ‘Brisbane Line’ amongst many Australian Academia based upon a string of events and Australian Defence planning preceding the Second World War.
So myths once started persist.
Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 02 15 at 11:45 PM • permalink#66 entropy
His court case victory was on the basis that policy was not followed. I wold have thought that was the opposite of the ‘stolen generation’.
That’s a very good point.
Posted by daddy dave on 2008 02 16 at 12:54 AM • permalink#72 more petrol price paranoia. Is there any substance to this enduring belief the public has that those greedy oil companies are ripping them off? Or is it all just leftist class-war conspiracy theory?
Posted by daddy dave on 2008 02 16 at 01:03 AM • permalink#73
Big oil makes a good bogeyman.
Makes many think KRudd is looking after them like a good nanny.Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 02 16 at 01:23 AM • permalinkAndrew Bolt We’re reconciled, or had better be.
Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 02 16 at 01:29 AM • permalink#77
We’re in the money come on, my honey, Let’s spend it, lend it, send it rolling along!
Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 02 16 at 01:45 AM • permalink#75 - bet it came from someone at the ABC.
Posted by mr creosote on 2008 02 16 at 01:59 AM • permalinkReading Oakes column again I think he is wrong on one thing. It isn’t Rudd who is the clever politician, it is the people who control him. We saw it during the election campaign. When caught on the hop by a new issue, Rudd was floundering. If he did respond, he would sometimes get it wrong. Next day, after the party bosses had given him the script, he would put on his serious voice and recite the party’s position.
Rudd does nothing spontaneously. Every word, every action is rehearsed over and over again. No real person would utter these words: “(Horta) is a fighter, I know the old Jose .... he has got a bit of a fight ahead of him still. I simply visited him and said some quiet words to him. I would like to come back when he is up for it.”
That is pure Hollywood schmaltz. ABC Online was actually too embarrassed to quote it all.
#79
Yes, the ABC is DEF to all other opinions.Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 02 16 at 02:54 AM • permalink#80
Epstein’s ANiMaLs [Australian National Media Liaison Service]farm provide the manure.Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 02 16 at 02:59 AM • permalink#83 M
Shareholders will be expected to follow the party line, or be branded capitalist lackeys.Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 02 16 at 05:21 AM • permalink#14, you’ve expressed an idea I’ve been pondering for ages! Great work!
Posted by carpefraise on 2008 02 16 at 05:31 AM • permalinkI hope everyone caught Frank Devine’s nice sarcastic piece last week.
#87
I hope everyone reads Miranda Devine too.
Miranda Devine is the eldest of three children of Frank Devine.Posted by stackja1945 on 2008 02 16 at 06:38 AM • permalinkRe #20,
I suppose everybody now knows that the NT Coroner has judged that Collins offed himself. If not, now you do. And now we all have very, very good reason to believe the accusations made against him were true.
How many ALP politicians is that who have been involved in pedophilia, sexual harrassment or domestic violence? Five or six? More? The only Liberal one I can think of is that bloke from WA who is said to have battered his wife.
What is it with lefty politicians and crimes committed against weaker people? Too keen a sense of self-righteousness and self-entitlement?
#69 myths once started persist.
The Brisbane Line is a myth, eh? Interesting. I guess it is kind of weird- it’s like planning to lose, not figuring out how to win.
Anyway, add “snuff movies.” They’re an urban myth.
I know it’s off-topic because it’s not a ‘historical myth’, but it’s one most people don’t know isn’t true.Posted by daddy dave on 2008 02 16 at 08:16 AM • permalink#89 You’re right Janice. Many of these labor morons reappear in credible positions after they have become ‘convicted criminals’. Kaiser, a convicted vote rigger, now pa to Premier Bligh is a good example. The system protects them. They have no shame and sadly the media and the greater public have no conscience and an even shorter memory.
daddy dave, cuckoo, ohh honey honey,
Thanks for all the stuff to look at. I was worried about trying to look at Wiki as it is usually pretty bad at information regarding anything political, but can be balanced on occasion. If you think it’s reasonable, I’ll check it out!
Thanks again for the info!!!
Posted by Old Tanker on 2008 02 16 at 09:13 PM • permalink#50 I could cry because I honestly believe that JoHo’s and Braugh’s intervention will not go ahead and that Aboriginal welfare will as a result be set back another 150 years.
These things…. they shouldn’t happen. They just shouldn’t happen- and for us to turn our backs* while they do is beyond obscene.
*(Hi Labor you bunch of fucking moral and political cowards!)
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“Never apologize, Mister. It’s a sign of weakness.”
—The Dook