Oceania LOL! Apparently, "Free" trade > culture

Don't be concerned, the "free trade" negotiation will fall on it's arse because the Yanks don't want free trade for anyone but themselves. After all the huff and puff of Howard about how much of a Bush buddy (read lackey) he is, nothing will come from these talks at all because the USA won't concede on sugar, beef or lamb.

 

Assuming we don't give that away either Uruk.

E_S

 

I agree that the free trade talks will probably fail. American politicians have too much to lose by supporting it. Maybe we should try it again in ten or twenty years time.

 

Or we could just wait until after November...

E_S

 

What do you think the result will be in November?

 

We can't have free trade - businesses would lose their profits and not at the expense of the average worker!

 

Gath[b/] - Dubya.

The Democrats just don't have a Leader for this election. Well, to be accurate, neither did either party for the 2000 Elections, but then 9/11 happened and suddenly Bush was the Greatest Leader Ever...

E_S

 

"Gath, you don't even live in Sydney, you wouldn't have a clue unless you've dealt with them.

So I can't talk about the gangs in Sydney becuase I have never lived there, but it is alright for all of you to judge my opinion about Aboriginee's in the NT, and YOU have never lived there?!

Huh?!"

Hmm... no response, jeez, what a suprise!

 

Maybe that's because I couldn't log in for about a week or so, so I had no way of replying.

My problem with your views on Aborigines has nothing to do with whether I've lived in the NT or not, it has to do with the fact that you judge an entire race on your own personal experience. It's that sort of thinking that leads to racial prejudice.

 

But you have to admit that there ARE social problems within a majority of that race.

I don't HATE Aborigine's, I HATE the Government and their policies towards them, that don't go towards fixing the problem, yet let the problems perpetuate.

On the topic of the Presidential Election, Ender_Sai, I would like to see a joint John Kerry / John Edwards ticket. Both have said that they are friends, share a similar message, and believe that they can work together. Edwards appeals to the youth with his optimistic message, Kerry has the experience of both a military veteran and a politician, and both come from different geographical locations: New England / South.

 

Whether a large portion of a race has social problems or not, there is no way known that it is justification for deeming them less intelligent.

 

For the record, HawkNC, as I am curious, please state your real-life, personal experience that you have had with the Aboriginal Race / Culture. How many have you met?

 

Ender_Sai, do you actually know why the 'Stolen Generation' started? I am not accussing her, just wanting to point out a bit of history.

Half-caste children, or 'Yeller-Fellers' as deemed by the full-bloods were HATED by the tribes. They would have been killed, that is why they were taken away... to save them.

 

Aside from the people I know from school and university (yes, some of them do attend university), I've spent time in South Australia, where I've seen issues similar to the ones in the Northern Territory. I agree that there are some people who simply take the money the government gives them and squander it, but from personal experience, that's not even remotely limited to one race.

 

I agree with your point. However, I do believe that real-life experience also does have a major advantage when discussing a topic.

For example, I grew up and spent 21 years of my life in Mornington, a quiet outer-suburban town in the Mornington Peninsula of Melbourne. There were NO Abogigine's there, if there were, they were perhaps 1/4 cast or even less... so you wouldn't even be able to tell that they are Aboriginal.

And as such, I wouldn't dare talk about or judge on an issue that I felt I had no real experience.

Now, every 1/3rd person I deal with through work, public, etc... is either Full-Blood Aborigine or at least 2/3rds or half-caste.

 

Gath, mate, it was started because of the pseudo-Christian views on race - the same stuff that lead to Apartheid and formed the basis of Catholic Nazism.

The belief that blacks were punished by god.

By removing their "aboriginality", by breeding out their Aboriginal colour and features (half-caste, then quarter-, eighth-, sixteenth- etc) through assimiliating them into white society, would you make them white, and therefore, in the eyes of those with the "prevailing wisdom de jour", make them better people.

Blaming the Aborigines for the Stolen Generation comes from a school of thought we call revisionist denialism. You might as well blame Jews for the Holocaust, because they formed a convenient scapegoat for the Nazis, or other feats of non-logic.

E_S

 

So, according to your logic, full-blood Aborigine's are guilty of genocide themselves if they have children with non-Aborigine's?!?

 

Ender_Sai, I would like to ask YOU where you get your history from? Where is the proof that white people diluted the Aboriginal race?

Ok, if the Catholics did posess Naziesqe beliefs, then why on earth would they want to lower their standards, and mate with the Aborigine's?

And if so, it takes two to tango my friend... so one party in a sexual relationship is held guilty, while the other is innocent. Oh, I can predict your next arguement, now you will leap to the logic without proof that there were mass rapes.

See, this is the problem that I have with a lot of people in this forum. They do not have an OPEN mind, and only accept text books, histories, etc... that agree with their OWN mindset. You really need to research history from all points of view, not just the history that YOU agree with. As we have often talked about here, history is written by the victors, so you have to question EVERYTHING.

And that is what I have done in my personal journey over the past few years. Yes, I have always voted ALP, but not anymore, for I am forever questioning the system and my own beliefs.

Ender, you talk about the Jews and the Holocaust. I don't doubt that this happened. However, have you ever read any other points of view, such as David Irving? I haven't, but my point being, is that I am at least willing to listen to the other side of the argument than be blinded by my own personal paradigms.

 

Interesting article by Andrew Bolt. Of course you lefties will instantly dismiss it as it is written by Andrew Bolt, which is oh so predictable.

Parts I found interesting highlighted in bold.

Lessons for Lefties

28th January 2004

ARE state schools politically correct? Unions and Leftie journalists say no. But have a look at what they preach and make up your own mind.

OF COURSE John Howard was wrong last week to claim state schools were too politically correct.
The teacher unions, principals, the Greens and The Age all deny it, don't they?

And isn't the Left always open about its grip on our public institutions, from the ABC to our universities?

So I believe the Australian Education Union when it says the Prime Minister is just an ultra conservative using absurd hyperbole to attack teachers as ideological troublemakers.

"The values we teach are mainstream Australian values," it declared.

But wait a bit. Is this the same non-ideological and mainstream AEU that told teachers to read anti-war statements to their students during the Iraq war?

Is this the same mainstream AEU that attacks the "assumption that heterosexual sex and relationships are 'natural' or 'normal' ", tells teachers to push their "human rights issues within their educational practice", accuses Australia of "attempts of genocide" of Aborigines, and demands the "stolen generation" myth be taught as true?

Is it the same AEU that insists schools produce "equal educational outcomes", which it says means not promoting or even streaming gifted children?

Is it the same AEU that "rejects any form of assessment which is competitive", and sabotaged statewide tests for Year 7 students despite great support for them from parents sick of not knowing how well their children were taught?

But maybe the principals have managed to muzzle union hotheads. That may explain why Chris Bonnor, head of the NSW Secondary Principals Council, also told us to ignore Howard, who was "really very offensive".

"No parent has expressed concerns about political correctness to me in my 30 years of teaching," he added, before slinging off at the "Prime Minister's own conservative world view".

HEY, that's what "our" ABC tells its critics, too - it's not biased, and only wicked conservatives would think it. A denial and excuse in the one weasely sentence.

But is Bonnor quite so free from political correctness as he says?

Isn't this the same state school principal who attacked "heavily masculinised contact sports" because they "serve to define dominant masculinity, connecting manhood with violence and competitiveness and often marginalising girls and women"?

Still, let's keep trying to be fair. Maybe the principals and teachers do keep their politics out of their classes and teach values most of us support.

Indeed, that's what The Age would have you believe, leading its front page last week with a big, jeering headline, "Schools study contradicts PM's stance".

First paragraph: "A study commissioned by the Federal Government has found that state schools are good at teaching 'values' ..."

So there, you silly Right-wing PM, gloated The Age editorial: "John Howard has been roundly and rightly condemned for suggesting that state-run schools are delivering education laced with political correctness and free of values."

How strange. I've looked at this same study and found it actually says something very different.

It says values were "a distinct part of the curriculum during the late 19th and early 20th centuries", but since then "values education has been largely neglected", and "teachers appear not to have received adequate preparation, to reflect critically, on their role as values educators".

That may be why two thirds of 600 parents surveyed by the Australian Parents Council said teachers couldn't teach civics without showing their bias.

LET'S face facts. First, there are many fine and sensible state schools.

And there are some p

 

Well, Gath, I don't how you added 1 + 1 together and ended up with 12, but I'll try and explain what I thought was perfectly clear in the first place.

My definintion of genocide is based off customary international law, whereby Article 2(e) of the 1948 Convention on Genocide clearly makes the practise of forcibly transferring children from one ethnic, cultural, racial or religious group to another ethnic, cultural, racial or religious group, genocide. Thus, Good White "Christians" transferring Aborigines to white family constitutes, even at a prima facie level, the crime of Genocide. Q.E.D.

The Ideology behind it is the same brand of warped Christianity that lead to Apartheid AND the Nazis brand of Catholicism, Gath. If you'd read that properly, you would have seen that's what I said. It dates back to a radical, pre-expansionist and highly anti-Semitic form of Catholicism which exploded into racist rapture when it discovered whole continents of people less white than not only they, but the Jews too. More people to subjugate, more religion to bastardise into suiting this ignoble belief that whites are God's People any anyone even remotely darker is punished by God.

To put it into a simple equation, which even you couldn't twist around, that brand of religion, at separate times, begat Apartheid, Nazi Catholicism AND the Stolen Generation. It did not go like you're saying, i.e. that brand of Catholicism begat Apartheid WHICH BEGAT Nazism WHICH begat the Stolen Gen...

E_S

 

Hmm, well after reading that, I get the same old 'this is the definition, 1948, jus cogens, blah blah blah', without actually answering my direct questions.

Again, blinded by your own mindset.

 

Does everything have to be explicitly stated? I gave you enough information there to answer your own question with.

E_S

 

DawkNC: Maybe that's because I couldn't log in for about a week or so, so I had no way of replying.

Hands up anyone who noticed?

 

stinrab, who are we talking about here?

E_S

 

Gath, I don't have any issues with what the PM said about public schools, because I can't say for sure if it's true - I went to high school at a GPS Private School and therefore can't speak with any authority on the PC'edness the PM was talking about.

One thing I can say is this: THE STOLEN GENERATION IS DEMONSTRABLE AS A GENOCIDE. Q.E.D.

(You know what "QED" means right?)



tells teachers to push their "human rights issues within their educational practice", accuses Australia of "attempts of genocide" of Aborigines, and demands the "stolen generation" myth be taught as true?

Now, this pseudo-fascist twit that is Bolt speaks words eerily familiar to me...

He's a denialist! That's why!

In 1915, the Turkish state murdered 1.5million Armenians. To this day they deny it (and Israel supports them, because only Jews can be the victims of Genocide in their minds? ).

"After all, who today speaks of the massacre of the Armenians?" - Adolph Hilter.

I find denialists of any genocide, including the Stolen Generation, to the be the most reprehensible and stupid cretins on this planet; they deny the facts because it offends their asinine belief that their race is superior. Andrew Bolt is a moron, but because he's very much convinced of how correct he is, he insists on playing the "it's teh conspiracy!!1!" card until he's blue in the face. And the other cretinous oafs out there, with their furrowed (low-) brows and entrenched ignorance, lap it up. Just like they do with John Laws, in fact, because Bolt and Laws and all those other pseudo-fascists arseheads give the people one thing and one thing only - a scapegoat. Like the Nazis did Jews...

Andrew Bolt is a moron, Gath - the kind of guy who lacked basic saviore faire in high school but hated <insert ethnic group> and played really good rugby, and to hold him up as a model of progressive and truthful thought is like rationalising auto-erotic asphyxiation as a "really good fun, cheap night in"...

(i.e - you're just creatively ******* yourself.)

E_S