Guards tear down Aboriginal protesters' shelter

[Shnouzerpuff]

You have a child's ability at grasping problems.

Well why don't you just quote me some Midnight Oil lyrics while you are at it to really drive your point home.

I think it would take a hell of a lot more than a "click of the fingers and a wish" to escape poverty. But by stopping the two hundred year old blame-game and accepting a personal responsibility for their own lives and future I think they are off to a pretty good start.

If you choose to disregard the victim mentality EE then by all means go ahead. You are still the one finding it abhorrent that everyone won't say "sorry" just because you feel bad.

Another shining example of your hypocrisy, as you champion the idea of free thought - providing everyone freely thinks the same as you.

 

[ButrosButros_Grantos]

okay, let's put it this way: do you think that it is acceptable for a really big strong kid in primary school to beat up other kids and steal their lunches and/or lunch money just because he is stronger than all the other kids, and can...?

most parents and teachers teach their kids that this kind of behaviour is wrong, yet that's pretty much exactly what the english settlers did to the aborigines when they came over here, and it's pretty much what all conquerors have done throughout history.

it's all a bit hypocritical don't ya think. so why then do people constantly teach their kids that this kind of behaviour is wrong, if that's the way that the world really works?

Of course it is. It's acceptable if the weak little piss ants make it so. Don't like it, then form together with all the weaklings and kick the kids arse. The Aboriginals could have done this, but they didn't and low and behold now they have beer and clothing. Western civilisation works wonders once more.

 

[ButrosButros_Grantos]

By the way : Apparently anyone is allowed to join in around their camp fire as long as they go through a cleansing ceremony first, does anyone have any idea what a cleansing ceremony entails?

 

[Dr.Feelgood]

I'm pretty sure it's when they have you stand in front of their 'sacred' fire and proceed to blow the smoke over your body, thus clensing you and making your clothes smell in the process.

 

[endlesseulogy]

You can't really make a dent in the logic of my arguments, so instead you attack me for not being able to come up with a solution.

I never claimed that I had a solution, and that doesn't prevent me from pointing out the disconnection with reality that your own ideas hold.

Uh, no. We attempt to fix things because it's humane and the right thing to do, because we don't want to see a group of people unable to rise up and achieve an equal footing in society.

We don't do it based on the actions of some people 200 years ago, who many of us don't agree with nor do we directly descend from.

^^I dunno, call me strange but I kinda sincerely thought you had a solution when I saw you type that. Please don’t get me started with reality. If you want to experience reality go around your neighbourhood and scope out the Aboriginal problem on your own accord and gain some on the ground knowledge of the situation, then get back to me. I’m assuming the only reality you know is what you hear in the newspaper or on TV. Don’t get all righteous and upset because I "attacked" you. You act as if you don’t do this? Please! Ya know? You can sit there at apply all the names of the day to other people in your smart-ass condicending tone, then when someone gives you a dose of it back you get all cut up and cry fowl? Maybe if you imbraced other people's ideas and share knowledge instead of cutting it down and saying its not "reality" you would get somewhere. I mean a large percentage of the Australian population support the Aboriginal land rights issue. Surely we cant all be heretic "hippies"? Its not true that I dont listen to other's opinions. Check back in this thread and you will see that I am fully willing to have a discussion with someone that dosnt start the train of sarcasm and smart-ass antics.
Have a nice day

 

[-Thoth]

You feel guilt, so you are happy to apologise. Cool. Go say sorry to every Aboriginal you meet, I couldn't care less either way.

A lot of other people don't feel guilt (for reasons quite well covered earlier... not least of which that they were not even alive at the time of the crimes). For people who don't feel guilty - why should they apologise? Because you feel sorry? What kind of arrogance is that?

You may not have been alive at the time, however the benefits you now enjoy as part of this establishment now known as Australia flow directly from those acts. It's not a 'victim' mentality, it's a simple fact. Your current quality of life has been reliant on the disenfranchising the indigenous population.

So, why should you apologise? Well THINK about it, genius. Having the balls to call someone else's approach arrogance is hilarious, frankly.

 

[Shnouzerpuff]

If you really think that a lip-service "sorry" from an unconvinced Nation will fix things then we might as well give out "Sorry Showbags" to every indiginous Australian right after.

Complete with band-aids and glitter - to symbolise both the healing process and the Aboriginal's bright, sparkling future.



If you feel guilt then apologise. It is all about the individual's choice.

 

[-Thoth]

If you really think that a lip-service "sorry" from an unconvinced Nation will fix things then we might as well give out "Sorry Showbags" to every indiginous Australian right after.

Care to refute my ACTUAL point?

If you feel guilt then apologise. It is all about the individual's choice.

Well, OK then. Don't get antagonistic or surprised when aborigionals refuse the legitimacy of commonweath sovereignty, and reclaim 'government land' then. I guess that's just about the individual's choice too.

 

[Shnouzerpuff]

^^ I think that issue was covered pretty well earlier in the thread.

matey.

EDIT - Your point? Go take a deep breath, get a cold lemonade and take a stroll through page 3.

Other people have pretty much already brought up - and in turn - refuted "your point".
I can't be bothered paraphrasing to argue a paraphrased argument.

EDIT 2 - spelling issue.

 

[-Thoth]

^^
What, with an excerpt from BUFFY? Jesus. Nice work.

 

[Shnouzerpuff]

Um... that was page 2.

 

[drEaMtiMe*@#]

If you really think that a lip-service "sorry" from an unconvinced Nation will fix things then we might as well give out "Sorry Showbags" to every indiginous Australian right after.

you know, i think you're right; and that's exactly what i find so disturbing and sad about this whole situation... in that, if the majority of australians hold the same point of view as howard does about saying sorry to the aborigines (which would make sense since, well, it was the australian people that elected him after all), the chances aren't very high that they've learnt any lessons for the mistakes they made in the past. and if you don't think that raping, and murdering people is wrong... (no matter if all conquerors do it or not - as we all know that just because pretty much everyone is doing something, it doesn't in fact make that act right) i just don't know what to say to you. because you see, at least for me, when i try and put myself in the shoes of an aborigine, the reason why it would be important for me to hear an apology is because (if that apology was indeed sincere) it would at least give me the hope that the australian people may have learnt some lessons over the years, and therefore that the probability of something like that happening again in the future would no longer be as high. not to mention that the reason why the act of apologising is important, is because when you apologise to another person for something that you did wrong to them, it is symbolic of the awareness and respect that you do in fact have and hold for both them, AND yourself.

so basically no sorry = a nation who are still essentially a bunch of barbaric racist bastards at heart

also just wanted to add that when i say "you" in the above i don't mean "you" as in, shnouz. i mean any person reading this that thinks that we shouldn't say sorry to the aborigines for what we did to their people in the past.

 

[drEaMtiMe*@#]

I understand the point that you're trying to make but I don't see it as relevant. You're applying the actions of people that are long dead to the current day situation as some sort of evidence that the present government authorities are responsible and should restore everything to how they were back in the late 1700s. I don't believe they are responsible.

The land was taken in a completely different time, different laws, different people, different customs, different *everything*. Taking the land back then wasn't seen as an illegal action, it was whoever had the muscle to take it. And obviously the Aboriginals lost, end of story.

Fast forward to the present day situation, for the Aboriginals to now say "well our ancestors owned it, so we own it"... well, no. If we want to go applying that logic to everything then how far back do we go in restorying the way things were to the way things are? Who decides how far back we go in applying this new system of restoration?

granted that we can't turn back the clock, but i think that at least saying sorry is a nice start, because by doing that we would be showing them that we are no longer the same people with the same mentality who did all those things to them in the past.

 

[joannie_mhm]

granted that we can't turn back the clock, but i think that at least saying sorry is a nice start, because by doing that we would at least be showing them that we are no longer the same people with the same mentality who did all those things to them in the past.

We can't show that by simply not raping and murdering people?

 

[drEaMtiMe*@#]

well if somebody raped me i'm affraid that them never doing it again to me would just not suffice. call me crazy...

 

[joannie_mhm]

But I didn't rape you, or anyone in that park in melbourne, some dude 200 years ago who may or may not be related to me raped someone 200 years ago who may or may not be related to you/person in melbourne.

(I'm pretty much just repeating shnouzer's argument here)

 

[drEaMtiMe*@#]

granted that we can't turn back the clock, but i think that at least saying sorry is a nice start, because by doing that we would be showing them that we are no longer the same people with the same mentality who did all those things to them in the past.

the highlighted part is particularly important to my point of view on this issue.

 

[Beatlebot]

Please 8) Pulling down the gunyah was a fascist thing to do. End of story.

This whole argument most of you are making against an apology could also apply to the gunyah couldn't it? It's not disadvantaging YOU at all is it? Well leave it alone then. Sheesh.

I for one, am sorry that English settlers tried to commit genocide on Indigenous people in Australia. I'm also sorry about the genocide in Germany and Zimbabwe and just about anywhere else. I understand that it takes a people a long fucking time to get over something like that. It probably doesn't help that most people like to pretend it didn't happen at all.

 

[zephyr]

We can't show that by simply not raping and murdering people?

Damn, there go my plans for the weekend then

granted that we can't turn back the clock, but i think that at least saying sorry is a nice start, because by doing that we would be showing them that we are no longer the same people with the same mentality who did all those things to them in the past

Thats true but an apology is really an admission of guilt and might open the floodgates for compensation and thats a whole new can of worms.

 

[up all night]

The whole 'sorry' debate is merely symbolic - as dreamtime has been saying, the least the aboriginal people deserve is an apology. I know that actions speak louder than words but simply acknowledging the fact that we did something wrong would lay a great foundation to start helping today's aborigines to lead themselves out of the rut that we essentially placed them in. It may just be a word, and a fairly innocuous word at that, but it's the recognition behind the word that is important.

I think the fact that genocide has been committed in pretty much every invasion is a moot point. I don't think the white settlers where the devil incarnate, as keej said, that's just the way things were, but with hindsight, I don't understand why people wouldn't want to apologise for their actions. I thought society would have progressed far enough along to be past the, 'well stiff shit, it's survival of the fittest. we won, you lost, the end' mentality.

It doesn't matter who the perpertrators were or whether they were related to us or not, what matters is that we are now living in a country that benefited from attempting to wipe out the aborigines and their culture so, like it or not, we're all a part of it.