aus man (douglas wood) being held hostage in iraq? (2 Viewers)

[Comrade nathan]

The europeans took it because the aboriginals couldn't protect it. I think thats fair enough.

I bet that would be your reason if the Chinese invaded, you traitor.

 

[iamsickofyear12]

I bet that would be your reason if the Chinese invaded, you traitor.

Firstly I know plenty about Australia history. I was forced to listen to boring crap about aboriginals in school because of a stupid state government policy to try and convince kids that aborginals are important to Australian history when in fact they are not.

I know about burning and those stupid sea walls they made to catch fish. It really isn't anything special.

Secondly I am not unpatriotic or a traitor. Australia is much more than aboriginals, disliking them does not make me those things.

The aboriginals lost Australia when the Europeans arrived. They couldn't protect themselves because they spend thousands of years doing absolutely nothing. And you can say thats because of their religion but I don't accept that as an excuse.

And if for example the Chinese or anyone else invaded and captured Australia that would be fair enough but I would fight to the death for it like the aboriginals should have done. If anyone takes over Australia any Australian who is left alive is a traitor not me.

 

[soha]

wats everyones view ??? should australia leave? it makes me cranky, itd be so different if it was john howards son, or brother or watever

hm..goo dpoint
id like to know what would happen if it was john howards son or brother or something along those lines
makes me wonder?

 

[Waldo]

hm..goo dpoint
id like to know what would happen if it was john howards son or brother or something along those lines
makes me wonder?

Do you think that john howards son or brother or something along those lines would be in iraq, at the present situation?

Doubt it

 

[soha]

Do you think that john howards son or brother or something along those lines would be in iraq, at the present situation?

Doubt it

yeah but lets say someone in australia took his family or whatever hostage
and they couldnt find em and the australian troops had to leave iraq or have his family killed
i wonder what he would do

 

[Korn]

Firstly I know plenty about Australia history. I was forced to listen to boring crap about aboriginals in school because of a stupid state government policy to try and convince kids that aborginals are important to Australian history when in fact they are not.

I know about burning and those stupid sea walls they made to catch fish. It really isn't anything special.

Secondly I am not unpatriotic or a traitor. Australia is much more than aboriginals, disliking them does not make me those things.

The aboriginals lost Australia when the Europeans arrived. They couldn't protect themselves because they spend thousands of years doing absolutely nothing. And you can say thats because of their religion but I don't accept that as an excuse.

And if for example the Chinese or anyone else invaded and captured Australia that would be fair enough but I would fight to the death for it like the aboriginals should have done. If anyone takes over Australia any Australian who is left alive is a traitor not me.

There are actually cases where the Aboriginals rebelled, but as we all know the outcome of that there is no need to state that GUNS>SPEARS

 

[Korn]

yeah but lets say someone in australia took his family or whatever hostage
and they couldnt find em and the australian troops had to leave iraq or have his family killed
i wonder what he would do

I believe that the Prime Minister would be not able to make that decision as it would go to his deputy because Howard would be too personally involved to make the decision

 

[iamsickofyear12]

There are actually cases where the Aboriginals rebelled, but as we all know the outcome of that there is no need to state that GUNS>SPEARS

Of course there are cases. But all of them should have done it. Even if they didn't win at least they would of been fighting for it. The reason they didn't have better weapons was because they had been doing nothing for thousands of years.

 

[sugared plum]

right so a sign of not "doing nothing for thousnads of years" is developing mroe effective ways of killing people??

you need to consider colonization of australia contextually

1. previous europeans had visited australia, looked around, and left. abr in 1788 would have remembered that, and not expected colonists to stay. suggested that therefore no need to launch immediate attack; they woudl leave soon.
2. when it appeared the europeans weren't leaving, still abr were not informed of the european interpretation of the situation- the europeans (being so great and having spent so many years making weapons and writing about civilisation) just presumed because they were so great it was the natural order of things that they would colonise aus. they thought the land was terra nullius, empty with no one there, and if there was someon there then it didn't matter because they didnt' cultivate the soil. this is total rubbish. abr people have a complex relationshp with the land/totemism, and there is evidence of abr people attempting to make land claims by giving birth on land where other abr groups had been exterminated (eg cardigal? people from small pox).
=== for these reasons, possibly saw no reason to launch full scale attack.

also important to remember is that the history of this period is written by white settlers, squatters, governors. in many of these narratives abr responses superficially are written off as children's pranks (to avoid problems with etiquette of war, and contradictions in way land was colonised).

amount of soldiers on horseback with guns to ward of "children's pranks" is a bit weird, and casts doubt on whether abr protest was a passive/insignificant as white settlers' accounts suggests .
instead of confrontations fought on a battle field between trained fighters, (although there were cases of this) massacres were more common in areas the abr people had been confined, with the murder of old, young, men, women, children. this is a war crime, and so it was helpful for the europeans not to consider the events in terms of war.

under international law australia was "settled" as opposed to "conquered" of "ceceded" and therefore narratives of war, of retaliation, would contradict the way in which australian was formally and legally colonised. militant accounts in many cases were repressed because they did not fit with the claim that the land was peacefully settled by colonists because there was no one cthere, and if there was, those people didn't 'own the land' anyway.

 

[iamsickofyear12]

right so a sign of not "doing nothing for thousnads of years" is developing mroe effective ways of killing people??

you need to consider colonization of australia contextually

1. previous europeans had visited australia, looked around, and left. abr in 1788 would have remembered that, and not expected colonists to stay. suggested that therefore no need to launch immediate attack; they woudl leave soon.
2. when it appeared the europeans weren't leaving, still abr were not informed of the european interpretation of the situation- the europeans (being so great and having spent so many years making weapons and writing about civilisation) just presumed because they were so great it was the natural order of things that they would colonise aus. they thought the land was terra nullius, empty with no one there, and if there was someon there then it didn't matter because they didnt' cultivate the soil. this is total rubbish. abr people have a complex relationshp with the land/totemism, and there is evidence of abr people attempting to make land claims by giving birth on land where other abr groups had been exterminated (eg cardigal? people from small pox).
=== for these reasons, possibly saw no reason to launch full scale attack.

also important to remember is that the history of this period is written by white settlers, squatters, governors. in many of these narratives abr responses superficially are written off as children's pranks (to avoid problems with etiquette of war, and contradictions in way land was colonised).

amount of soldiers on horseback with guns to ward of "children's pranks" is a bit weird, and casts doubt on whether abr protest was a passive/insignificant as white settlers' accounts suggests .
instead of confrontations fought on a battle field between trained fighters, (although there were cases of this) massacres were more common in areas the abr people had been confined, with the murder of old, young, men, women, children. this is a war crime, and so it was helpful for the europeans not to consider the events in terms of war.

under international law australia was "settled" as opposed to "conquered" of "ceceded" and therefore narratives of war, of retaliation, would contradict the way in which australian was formally and legally colonised. militant accounts in many cases were repressed because they did not fit with the claim that the land was peacefully settled by colonists because there was no one cthere, and if there was, those people didn't 'own the land' anyway.

The fact remains that the aboriginals counldn't defend their land and so they lost it. And the reason all the history is written by white settlers is because the aboriginals can only draw pictures because they are that useless.

 

[sugared plum]

The fact remains that the aboriginals counldn't defend their land and so they lost it.

yeah that's great reasoning. we'll tell the police that you wouldn't have wanted an investigation when someone shoots you in the head and takes over yr room, because, you know, that's life.

 

[soha]

I believe that the Prime Minister would be not able to make that decision as it would go to his deputy because Howard would be too personally involved to make the decision

but still..it would be interesting to see what happens

 

[iamsickofyear12]

yeah that's great reasoning. we'll tell the police that you wouldn't have wanted an investigation when someone shoots you in the head and takes over yr room, because, you know, that's life.

Thats an unfair comparison. It doesn't work that way anymore.

 

[sugared plum]

exactly - it doesn't work that way anymore.
so thus when we consider the aboriginal australians' experiences of colonisation, we apply our theories of justice, principles of law - how it works at the moment - and say that the treatment of hte aboriginies was wrong- that the way the land was dispossed was unfair, and the treatment of the aboriginal people by some europeans was cruel and wrong. and now you can see that the aboriginal people deserve reconcilliation and compensation, and an apology whcih acknowledges the past wrongs, ramifications of which continue today.

 

[iamsickofyear12]

exactly - it doesn't work that way anymore.
so thus when we consider the aboriginal australians' experiences of colonisation, we apply our theories of justice, principles of law - how it works at the moment - and say that the treatment of hte aboriginies was wrong- that the way the land was dispossed was unfair, and the treatment of the aboriginal people by some europeans was cruel and wrong. and now you can see that the aboriginal people deserve reconcilliation and compensation, and an apology whcih acknowledges the past wrongs, ramifications of which continue today.

That's bullshit. You are applying todays theories of justice to the past to justify your opinion. When it actually happened there wasn't a problem with it, just because our society has changed doesn't mean we should go back and make up for the past.

By todays standards it might be considered wrong, but by the standards of the day it wasn't. The aboriginal people do not deserve an apology.

And as I have said before compensation is the reason that so many aboriginals do nothing but cause trouble. The last thing that we should do is compensate them.

 

[Not-That-Bright]

Sugared plum you seem to be the kind of person who believes that the social ills that aboriginals suffer today could be cured by an outpouring of appologies from the australian people. That view is simply wrong, and ignores alot of the true social/cultural problems which aboriginals have and the reason why these are being perpetuated (drugs, income, iscolation of some aboriginal communities).

 

[kimbawhitelion]

sugared plum u need to pull ur narrow minded head out of the textbook n come live someplace like dubbo, bourke, warren, walgett then u will see wat those 'poor people' are really like - dole bludging, dirty, abusive disrespectful trash who couldnt give a shit about wat happened back then, much less do they have any concept of the meaning of culture. people like u from the city really shit me u have no idea wat coons (dare i say the word) are actually like, all u no is wat u've been told on NAIDOC day or at school, and then u go preaching to others who have experienced their crap. have u ever worked ur arse off then been denied a place at tafe or uni because the place was reserved for an aboriginal, or not been able to afford to go to TAFE or uni, and then realised hey if i was black, the gov would pay for me to go there? have u ever been denied a job because some places get gov money if they employ aboriginals? don't talk like aborginals deserve our respect, becos the majority don't

 

[kimbawhitelion]

exactly - it doesn't work that way anymore.
so thus when we consider the aboriginal australians' experiences of colonisation, we apply our theories of justice, principles of law - how it works at the moment - and say that the treatment of hte aboriginies was wrong- that the way the land was dispossed was unfair, and the treatment of the aboriginal people by some europeans was cruel and wrong. and now you can see that the aboriginal people deserve reconcilliation and compensation, and an apology whcih acknowledges the past wrongs, ramifications of which continue today.

and an apology would mean shit all to them

 

[sugared plum]

That's bullshit. You are applying todays theories of justice to the past to justify your opinion. When it actually happened there wasn't a problem with it, just because our society has changed doesn't mean we should go back and make up for the past.

By todays standards it might be considered wrong, but by the standards of the day it wasn't. The aboriginal people do not deserve an apology.

And as I have said before compensation is the reason that so many aboriginals do nothing but cause trouble. The last thing that we should do is compensate them.

i know i do that. a postmodernist argument might suggest that we shouldn't judge something according to our standards, but few postmodernists would actually say that we should ignore holocausts and genocide as "ok" because that's what Nazis and white supremacists etc thought then.

another reason some give for examining the injustices of the past is to understand the present situation - in this case why aboriginal people have the highest infant mortality rate/lowest life expectancy etc.
it's very difficult to understand aboriginal people who have been oppressed for the last 200 yrs if you ignore the act and consequences of colonisation.

 

[sugared plum]

Sugared plum you seem to be the kind of person who believes that the social ills that aboriginals suffer today could be cured by an outpouring of appologies from the australian people. That view is simply wrong, and ignores alot of the true social/cultural problems which aboriginals have and the reason why these are being perpetuated (drugs, income, iscolation of some aboriginal communities).

no no no i didn't mean for there just to be an apology.

i wrote: "acknowledges the past wrongs, ramifications" and by that i meant need examination of those issues you mention, and deaths in custody, overpolicing etc. my point was just that an acknowledgement that problems started in 1788 when aus was "settled" and land was stolen etc etc. not that, as some people like to argue, aboriginal people are an inferior race, are just downright bad people, or such