Triple M plans for Hottest 100 ambush

[Wokko]

https://au.news.yahoo.com/a/38631372/senator-floats-australia-day-soundtrack/

[Mugwump]

^ David, people have been saying that community involvement is crucial for decades. It’s basic change theory, that people resist imposed change, and it has been part of the rhetoric on Aboriginal Affairs since ATSIC days. The NT intervention challenged that doctrine in some specific areas touching child abuse, I suppose, with seemingly mixed effects (though it did upset the UNHRC, the ultimate top-down interpolaters, which is often a good sign)..... But there is nothing new in that rhetoric, really. And you’re right, there are no magic bullets. I don’t believe that Aborigines are somehow romantically different to other humans, so I suspect the best thing that could be done , in the long run, is to disband unsustainable remote settlements and help Aboriginal Australians join the urban global world. But i doubt that is achievable on any terms that I, or others, would find acceptable.

[HAL]

Surely something new in that rhetoric. For real.

[David]

[Mugwump]

If you can show me any evidence that Aboriginal Australia’s condition has materially improved since Mabo, since the Keating speech, since Rudd’s sorry, since ATSIC, since all of the reconciliation and atonement rhetoric of the last thirty years, I’d be interested, for I do not sense it. We may have made progress on deaths in custody, but that seems to reflect operating protocols rather than the preoccupations of urban professionals. Real change happens at that level, but the latte feelgood factor is a lot less.

Autonomy is a very broad and nice-sounding concept, and (pace the NT intervention) it has been mainstream belief in Aboriginal Affairs for a long time now.....but people and organisations often do not want what is rationally best for them, and autonomy and accountability are often incompatible. I don’t think that ordinarily entitles us to override their will ; but i think you might be more sceptical of its medicinal qualities.

One more thing - Aboriginal people may feel that “the authorities and institutions are out to get them” and that “they are not part of the country” ,but we have had departments of Aboriginal Affairs dedicated to trying to improve their welfare for about 50 years. We have also spent far more per head on them for at least as long. Their culture has been the subject of positive primary school curricula since the 1960s (I know, I was there). There have been policy errors, but on balance, if they really feel that way, I’d suggest that is because it has been manufactured by people pursuing power, patronage and resources.

[Skids]

This is what the bleeding hearts and the apologists are responsible for....

Man knocked unconscious in brutal teen attack.

https://thewest.com.au/news/crime/teen-gang-well-known-to-city-business-owner-ng-b88717691z

They breed a culture that will never be satisfied. These boys wouldn't have a clue about their real culture or heritage, all they want is conflict and the drum beaters fuel it with their nonsense.

[David]

Did you mean to post that in this thread? Do you know something about this story that hasn’t been reported? Because all I see is a story about teenage boys fighting and causing trouble (like that happens anywhere ever!), with no mention of their ethnic background. Whatever the case, seems a bit of a stretch (to put it nicely) to link this to the ‘Change the Date’ campaign.

[David]

As is the case with so many other culture wars arguments...

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/most-dont-care-when-australia-day-is-held-poll-finds-20180116-h0j0w9.html

[Mugwump]

37%.....Well, that says a great deal about the state of our decayed education system, does it not ? If you train people to forget their history and the way it secured their freedom, you can lead them to believe anything. Ignorance and philistine civic amnesia are not “laid back”, they are the education of epsilons.

We were taught extensively about the First Fleet in state primary schools in the sixties. Once the left captured teaching this clearly ceased to happen, judging from that survey. Taught what to think, but never how to think. 37%. Remember that number, for they are the potential obituarists of a once free and well-educated nation.

As for “violence and dispossession”, there is rank one-note ideology masquerading as serious news to educated ignorance. There is much evidence, in paleopathology and testaments of early settlers, that the first Australians were very violent, inter-tribally and intratribally, especially to women. Dispossession is certainly true, but of course it’s casually coupled with “violence” as though there was no rule of law and licence to murder. Soon no one will remember anything that is not politically defined.

[Skids]

[Pies4shaw]

Perhaps they should be sent back to South Sudan, too, Skids?

[HAL]

[Wokko]

[David]

[Mugwump]

^ it’s not meant to be an education. Education is.

It’s meant to be day to reflect on what was gained (by most) and lost (by some) from the fact that Britain settled Australia, and to celebrate what generations of Australians made of that institutional fact.