Check out ABC “Late Night Live” this evening for Robert Manne’s reply to Keith Windschuttle’s claim that he should step down pending an inquiry into his reporting on the “stolen generation” issue.
Manne provided the best-known account of Commonwealth government policy on this topic. In his 2001 publication In Denial: The Stolen Generations and the Right, Manne said that in 1933, following a request from the Chief Protector of Aborigines in the Northern Territory, Dr Cecil Cook, the Commonwealth endorsed a policy for breeding out the colour. Manne wrote:
The officials in Canberra and their Minister, J. A. Perkins, gave support to Cook’s proposal for an extension of the Territory policy to Australia as a whole. The Secretary in the Department of the Interior, J. A. Carrodus, composed a memorandum of his own. “The policy of mating half-castes with whites, for the purpose of breeding out the colour, is that adopted by the Commonwealth government on the recommendation of Dr Cook.”
Manne said this remained the government’s position for most of the remainder of the 1930s:
the policy of breeding out the colour received the full endorsement of the Commonwealth for at least another five years.
In an article in the Weekend Australian (January 30-31, 2010), I pointed out that Manne’s account is far from the truth. It even runs counter to evidence readily available in the archives Manne cited himself.
This should be fun. Manne has already had to back down on some of his claims, especially the lie about “genocide”.
Peter Patton
2 Feb 10 at 4:58 pm
It’s a shame that it’s even about ’stepping down.’ Manne is a mendacious, partisan clown who ought to be fired.
C.L.
2 Feb 10 at 5:19 pm
I have to say this sort of thing does make me uncomfortable.
Sinclair Davidson
2 Feb 10 at 5:23 pm
Sinclair, I think it’s quite funny. Academic mud-wrestling!
Peter Patton
2 Feb 10 at 5:25 pm
“I have to say this sort of thing does make me uncomfortable.”
What ’sort of thing’ and why Sinclair?
If by ‘this sort of thing’ you mean quibbling around the margins of what exact detail is recorded, in parliamentary proceedings, on the topic of what was obviously a grossly racist and indefensible policy, then I think I know why and I agree completely.
Windy – epic fail dude. You’re not fooling, and you’ll never fool, anyone who cares about our racist history.
FDB
2 Feb 10 at 6:02 pm
More Aboriginal children are “stolen” now than ever before.
Ergo (qua Manne): Rudd is trying to breed out the blackness like some kind of antipodean Harry Reid with a penchant for “light-skinned” Abos.
C.L.
2 Feb 10 at 6:10 pm
Aboriginal children are not removed for reasons of skin colour. It’s done with reference to universal criteria regarding risk, abuse, etc, and is put before a court.
THR
2 Feb 10 at 6:27 pm
FDB – I fully support Windschuttle’s historical research.
Sinclair Davidson
2 Feb 10 at 7:35 pm
Whether state and commonwealth governments were motivated by “racism” is a legitimate matter for debate. However, accusations of “genocide” (which were made by the shoddy Bringing Them Home report) are preposterous, otherwise we would be dealing with the first historical “genocide” that lead to a large INCREASE in the targeted population.
Michael Fisk
2 Feb 10 at 8:14 pm
On that note, a couple of the very Ministers responsible for “genocide” were still alive when Bringing Them Home was issued. Rather odd that they didn’t need to put on false beards and take up alternative medicine.
Michael Fisk
2 Feb 10 at 8:18 pm
Indeed, that Bringing Them Home Report was extremely irresponsible in its shoddiness. To this day I do not understand why Keating allowed such an important, painful, and fraught issue to be dealt with so sloppily.
Peter Patton
2 Feb 10 at 8:22 pm
FDB – These are not quibbles, FDB, they are arguments about major historical facts, events and policies. We can all agree that the effect of European settlement on aboriginal society has been devastating and tragic. There has also been, and remains, a lot of racism towards them.
But terms like ‘genocide’ and ’stolen generations’ go beyond these sad, unavoidable facts. They are specific charges about specific policies, and they are disputed.
These are not quibbles.
daddy dave
2 Feb 10 at 8:23 pm
dd
What I found gobsmacking and so unseemly was the extraordinary attack led by Robert Manne and his goons.
Peter Patton
2 Feb 10 at 8:27 pm
That’s right. The onus is on the genocide-advocates to show that there was actually a government policy in operation, somewhere in Australia, to systematically eliminate the Aborigines. A ham-fisted policy of forcibly assimilating somewhere between 8,500 (Windschuttle’s estimate) and 50,000 (the unreliable Human Rights Commission’s back-of-the-envelope-chuck-a-dart-at-the-dartboard-and-see-what-number-we-get “estimate”) half and quarter-castes is not “genocide”.
Michael Fisk
2 Feb 10 at 8:36 pm
Egad this Windschuttle. He accuses the Stolen Generations people of being politically motivated and isn;t he himself:
.
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And why not?
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None of this refutes the claim that she was removed for being aboriginal. Perchance could this particular official have been too lazy to think of the required subterfuge or even a desire to be frank? To use dissembling language in furtherance of hiding the truth of ugly deeds from the doers is well established standard practice.
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As I understand it, the dominant idea at the time was that full-blooded Aborigines would die out on their own and that one had to rescue the half-castes and ensure that their tainted blood was wound back to a minimum. How does the argument that full-blooded Aborigines were, according to the Qld ‘protector’ refute this?
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Windschuttle does this time and again in the article. He caricatures the opposition and then he introduces a line of argument in rebuttal that doesn’t actually address even the caricatured assertion. It’s just a propaganda shitfight. Who cares.
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Moreover what’s all the fuss about stolen generations. In the annals of this country’s shameful treatment of these people it’s hardly near the top of the catalog of iniquity is it?
Adrien
2 Feb 10 at 8:37 pm
Oh, and regarding that “breeding out the colour” quote – how do the genocide-advocates square this with the fact that governments in fact DISCOURAGED intermarriage between full-bloods and whites and positively banned it in the Northern Territory? Trying to stamp out race-mixing is obviously racist, and yet it preserved the population of full-bloods, even as the number of half-castes multiplied in spite of the government’s paternalistic attempts to interfere in private relationships. So much for “genocide”. Had state/colonial governments allowed full intermarriage from the beginning, we wouldn’t even be talking about this issue as there wouldn’t be any identifiable Aborigines to discuss.
Michael Fisk
2 Feb 10 at 8:47 pm
The onus is on the genocide-advocates to show that there was actually a government policy in operation, somewhere in Australia, to systematically eliminate the Aborigines.
There’s not likely to be a manilla folder in a government office somewhere marked ‘genocide’. Emotive use of the g-word aside, Windy’s research is used principally as a means of pretending that legitimate concerns about the treatment of Aboriginals constitutes a ‘black armband’ view of history by self-hating, unpatriotic white Australians.
THR
2 Feb 10 at 8:48 pm
Moreover what’s all the fuss about stolen generations. In the annals of this country’s shameful treatment of these people it’s hardly near the top of the catalog of iniquity is it?
This issue is important because Kevin Rudd cited a Human Rights Commission report that accused Australia of being arguably “genocidal”. The merits of that argument must be addressed.
The government thought that full-bloods would “die out” in the long run. This was a speculative hypothesis that MIGHT be proven in the future now that intermarriage is legal, but it was spectacularly wrong at the time as the number of full bloods had stabilised and was actually increasing by the 1930s.
In any case, they instituted no policies whatsoever to bring about this “death”, and even banned intermarriage between whites and aborigines in the Northern Territory (while using other means to discourage it elsewhere) in order to protect full-bloods. This policy was undoubtedly racist, but it also led to stabilisation and even increase in the full-blood population (which will no doubt be reduced in the future do to volunatary intermingling), and also coincided with a spectacular increase in the number of half-bloods. That’s “genocide”.
Michael Fisk
2 Feb 10 at 8:56 pm
Sorry, I made a mistake – the “government” did not think that full-blood Aborigines would “die out” in the long run. This was the private opinion of some leading officials. Not only were they wrong in the medium term, they also instituted no genocidal policies.
Michael Fisk
2 Feb 10 at 8:58 pm
Emotive use of the g-word aside
I’m afraid you can’t just put it “aside”. I don’t know about you, but I think an accusation of genocide should be taken seriously and judged on its merits. As it turns out, it’s a meritless argument. Those who make it have discredited themselves.
Michael Fisk
2 Feb 10 at 8:59 pm
Well the ‘full-bloods’ practically have died out.
Peter Patton
2 Feb 10 at 9:01 pm
This is an offensive thread full of the half baked ramblings of urban warriors.
rog
2 Feb 10 at 9:04 pm
rog – you’ve been here for years. Now you discover we’re all about ‘the half baked ramblings of urban warriors’?
Sinclair Davidson
2 Feb 10 at 9:06 pm
THR
Here’s the thing. I don’t know the history of the time any better than the average bod.
I don’t know who is right.
However what I do know is that if you one makes a serious accusation like genocide- that is a deliberate act of government to kill off a race ..in this case was aboriginals-then the accusation is serious.
If Mann can’t prove the accusation then he ought to be suitably sanctioned for serious breach of academic misconduct.
Can he prove it or not?
You just can’t go throwing around these accusations and hope it sticks.
Let me say this, even the Nazi genocide was carefully researched with the US government even hiring senior pathologists and making the case to the point where it was completely water tight with more than abundant evidence.
If Mann isn’t able to make the case with water tight historical evidence then Houston has a real problem.
At the present time I would think the public is more than sick and fucking tired of academics for obvious reasons and it’s coming to a point these people were held to a pretty high fucking standard and anything less ought to be sanctioned in a harsh manner.
JC
2 Feb 10 at 9:11 pm
Rog has a history of insensitivity on these matters and should be ignored.
The urge to hunt is the same for both indigenous and non-indigenous peoples (how an aboriginal driving a landcruiser and using a rifle is superior or more worthy than an american doing the same is beyond me).
Aborigines dont muck around either, the dugong may be endangered and protected by law but aborigines are still allowed to hunt them.
Rog, rambling about Abos in Landcruisers, November 17, 2005.
C.L.
2 Feb 10 at 9:12 pm
I’m afraid you can’t just put it “aside”.
The semantics of genocide end up railroading many discussions. I’m suggesting it ought to be parenthesised for the moment.
If Mann can’t prove the accusation then he ought to be suitably sanctioned for serious breach of academic misconduct.
We can’t lock up academics every time they’re wrong. If it turns out that white rightists are playing down atrocities against Aboriginals, should we also call for penalties against the likes of Bolt, for instance?
Let me say this, even the Nazi genocide was carefully researched with the US government even hiring senior pathologists and making the case to the point where it was completely water tight with more than abundant evidence.
Well, the US would know. Their research subjects became their colleagues a few years later, in many cases.
THR
2 Feb 10 at 9:36 pm
No, I’m no suggesting we lock people up, THR.
However, Mann isn’t a journalist. He’s an academic which means he’s held to different standards. He made the accusation as an academic and therefore needs to provide the evidence.
Bolt is an opinion writer who works for a private firm.
These are the same thing.
JC
2 Feb 10 at 9:41 pm
I’m suggesting it ought to be parenthesised for the moment.
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Good idea. Please suggest that to Robert Manne.
daddy dave
2 Feb 10 at 9:41 pm
Well, the US would know. Their research subjects became their colleagues a few years later, in many cases.
What?
JC
2 Feb 10 at 9:41 pm
Well, the US would know. Their research subjects became their colleagues a few years later, in many cases.
What?
I was alluding to the Nazis who were absorbed into various places, like the US, and Argentina.
Manne isn’t just an academic – the stuff he’s most famous for is his journalism. He’s in The Monthly regularly. He’s turned up in The Smage often enough.
THR
2 Feb 10 at 9:44 pm
Sure his journalism could be separated out. However from my understanding of things he made the accusation of genocide while wearing his academic hat.
As far as I’m concerned he can say whatever he likes in a regular magazine. That’s not what I’m talking about.
JC
2 Feb 10 at 9:46 pm
Oh, you were alluding to Germans… not Nazis that later moved to the US, the msot famous being the rocket scientists.
They weren’t nazis though, THR. These people weren’t party members or accused of serious crimes.
The US had a clear policy of not allowing former Nazis into the country.
They used to ask two (amongst others) things when applying for a visa… One was if you’ve ever been a member of the Nazi party and the other was if you were ever a member of a communist party.
Official US policy was not to allow Nazis into the country……. and commies
JC
2 Feb 10 at 9:50 pm
Well, there were a few exceptions:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex-Nazi_Party_members#Nazis_or_Nazi_collaborators_who_worked_for_the_US_secret_services_after_the_war
THR
2 Feb 10 at 9:53 pm
Well, there were a few exceptions:
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six. Count ‘em! “Nazis and Nazi collaborators.” And that’s enough for you to slyly imply that the US was pro-Nazi.
daddy dave
2 Feb 10 at 10:27 pm
And that’s enough for you to slyly imply that the US was pro-Nazi.
I didn’t imply they were ‘pro-Nazi’. Obviously, they fought on opposite sides in the war. I simply pointed out in passing that the US was willing to accommodate a few ex-Nazis. I’ve heard of quite a few more than those listed on Wikipedia, but I simply threw a lazy link out there.
THR
2 Feb 10 at 10:33 pm
The same was true of the Communist German Democratic Republic. The GDR rehabilitated former Nazis, whose valuable experience was appreciated by the proto-nazi Stasi.
Michael Fisk
2 Feb 10 at 10:51 pm
Robert Manne and his philosophical colleague Rai Gaita poisoned the waters of the debate by introducing the claim of genocide. People like Paddy Mcguinness who attacked the mythology of the so-called stolen generations usually prefaced their remarks with a comment on the need to address the real problems, especially those caused by misguided policies, notably the stockman’s pay case and the policies put in place by the Whitlam government and sustained by Fraser and subseqent administrations.
Rafe
2 Feb 10 at 10:52 pm
THR:
Australia was pretty well represented by former members of the Italian Fascist party who came after the war and settled.
Belgiono-Nettis (?) the very wealthy engineering contractor (Transfield) was a freaking officer in the Italian army, captured (what else) in North Africa, interned here and later returned as an immigrant.
Were there former nazi soldiers that lived here after the war? Of course.
I really think you’re over egging this US omelet.
Dude, Anyways….
We’re talking about whether Mann’s scholarly work was bullshit or not. Does he have evidence that the Australian government ran with a policy of exterminating the aboriginals to remove them from the human race?
JC
2 Feb 10 at 11:07 pm
Let’s not forget that people like Phillip Adams boast about having been members of the Communist Party – which should attract the same opprobrium as would a confession of Nazi Party membership. Adams and those like him should never have been able to find work, much less, good will, anywhere in the country.
C.L.
2 Feb 10 at 11:17 pm
There are some people around here who seem to think that accusations of genocide are just part of the daily partisan argy-bargy, nothing to be taken seriously. As if Gillard would get up in parliament and unveil all her dirt on Abbott:
“Members of the House, I have discovered that in addition to minor infringements such as genocide and ethnic cleansing…(crickets chirping)…the Member for Warringah has RORTED HIS TRAVEL ACCOUNT and LIED TO PARLIAMENT!!!! (house in uproar)”
But seriously, genocide is the worst crime that anyone can commit. To falsely accuse someone of genocide is therefore the most serious act of defamation possible, and to falsely accuse dead people of this crime is both defamatory and cowardly. This is how we should begin to assess the moral character of some of Australia’s leading academics and human rights activists.
Michael Fisk
2 Feb 10 at 11:17 pm
Hear hear, Fisk. Spot on.
C.L.
2 Feb 10 at 11:26 pm
Let’s not forget that people like Phillip Adams boast about having been members of the Communist Party – which should attract the same opprobrium as would a confession of Nazi Party membership
The two are not remotely similar, especially whenm Adams was hardly manning Gulags and conducting purges. However much some will disagree, campaigning for political and economic equality, however misguidedly, is never the same as campaigning for a racial hierarchy organised by jackboot.
But seriously, genocide is the worst crime that anyone can commit.
This is firstly questionable (wasn’t it at Nuremberg that wars of aggression were alleged to be the worst crime, from which the others flowed?), and secondly, it gets us bogged down in semantics.
THR
2 Feb 10 at 11:32 pm
“…campaigning for political and economic equality…”
Like the Nazis said they were.
C.L.
2 Feb 10 at 11:38 pm
Not really. The Nazis had a 25-point program that was pretty radically different to the program outlined by Marx/Engels in the Manifesto. At most, the Nazis indulged in a little anti-capitalist rhetoric for theatrical purposes. This rhetoric was seldom put into practice, except against Jewish capitalists.
THR
2 Feb 10 at 11:55 pm
However much some will disagree, campaigning for political and economic equality, however misguidedly, is never the same as campaigning for a racial hierarchy organised by jackboot.
Actually, campaigning for political and economic “equality” (i.e. the forcible levelling of society) often has exactly that jackboot effect – from the urban vandalism of the Seattle protestors through to the mass extermination programme of the Khmer Rouge. Singling out a section of society for destruction is no more morally defensible if it is done on class grounds than racial grounds.
Michael Fisk
3 Feb 10 at 12:05 am
THR
As someone said they belong in the same totalitarian house living in adjoining rooms.
I find it hard to distinguish killing land owning peasants because they belonged to a class and killing Jews because they belonged to a race and class.
JC
3 Feb 10 at 12:06 am
Singling out a section of society for destruction is no more morally defensible if it is done on class grounds than racial grounds.
Which is why communists and socialists didn’t call for the literal destruction of the bourgeoisie.
No matter which way you slice and dice it, the attempt at ‘totalitarian’ moral equivalence is a bit of revisionism, and a hangover from Cold War propaganda. That’s not to say there were atrocities committed in the name of communism, but if you think a progressive income tax policy or a campaign for land reform is tantamount to calling for the extermination of all Untermenschen, then your moral compass is askew, as the Tories like to say.
THR
3 Feb 10 at 12:10 am
However much some will disagree, campaigning for political and economic equality, however misguidedly, is never the same as campaigning for a racial hierarchy organised by jackboot.
Stalin was campaigning for political and economic equality? And those hackneyed liberal cliches that seek (vainly) to morally differentiate Nazism from communism – race and the “jackboot” – no longer work as compensatory figleafs of comparative exculpation. As if Mao and company were enlightened respecters of racial idiosyncrasy or that footwear matters when you tally up the death toll of communism – which is worse than the Nazis’. Adams and others of his ilk ought properly to be regarded as social pariahs for so casually associating themselves with history’s most bloody ideological cult. Instead they laugh about it.
C.L.
3 Feb 10 at 12:15 am
Which is why communists and socialists didn’t call for the literal destruction of the bourgeoisie.
Neither did the Nazis, until they got into power and started a war. Many of the leading Communist countries committed mass murder and even genocide on the basis of class, in the name of egalitarianism. Deal with it.
Michael Fisk
3 Feb 10 at 12:16 am
However the progressive income tax is the offering we must make to the beast in order to keep him away from devouring us, or at least that what social democrats always maintain.
SwanDive put it quite nicely recently. After the conservatives leaving behind a surplus rounded up to $20 billion a year for several years and numerous tax cuts for all levels of the social structure, we’re now told that taxes have to go up and it’s our patriotic duty to pay more taxes. Now that SwanDive has put it that way I feel better seeing taxes being raised seeing it’s a patriotic duty.
After all how else does one pay for all the school toilet blocks being built unless we raise taxes.
JC
3 Feb 10 at 12:21 am
Stalin was campaigning for political and economic equality?
I think you will grant that Phillip Adams, for all his faults, was not exactly Stalin. Nor were most (now) ex-communists. Communists here and in the US were active in the fight for rights for Aboriginials, women, immigrants, etc, long before it became PC.
And again, nobody denies the atrocities committed under communist regimes, but there’s no serious argument that it was ‘history’s most bloody ideological cult’. First, for ideological reasons, we don’t count the dead under capitalism, but we can infer that this latter ‘cult’ was far from benign, particularly in its earlier incarnations. Secondly, the revisionist thesis that fascism=communism/socialism has been refuted so many times, that it’s not worth flogging that dead horse any longer. Thirdly, Hitler easily manages to be the bloodiest leader of the last century, through WWII and the Holocaust. Finally, a bit of calculation would prove nationalism has been much bloodier over the past couple of centuries than communism.
THR
3 Feb 10 at 12:21 am
Who has capitalism killed, THR? I never saw any suggestion that the railroad barons killed anyone.
JC
3 Feb 10 at 12:23 am
Actually, the Khmer Rouge killed a higher proportion of its population than any other regime in the 20th Century – between a fifth and a quarter. This is a higher level of concentrated slaughter than even Uncle Adolf could muster. In absolute numbers, Mao was probably worse than Hitler.
Michael Fisk
3 Feb 10 at 12:24 am
Neither did the Nazis, until they got into power and started a war.
I realise that you don’t much care for communism, but surely you’re not so stupid as to think that Nazism and socialism are equivalent, even at the level of abstract theory.
THR
3 Feb 10 at 12:25 am
Specifically, I think that the most extreme versions of nationalism (Nazism) and communism (Mao/Pol Pot) are morally indistinguishable in practice. Obviously, the more moderate forms of nationalism and communism killed far less people as they didn’t tend towards exterminationism. But pure Marxism must lead to genocide in practice, as must extreme nationalism.
Michael Fisk
3 Feb 10 at 12:30 am
Who has capitalism killed, THR? I never saw any suggestion that the railroad barons killed anyone.
If we counted the dead under capitalism the way we do for Mao or Stalin, we’d have to include the many who died in the first few decades of the industrial revolution, due to starvation, disease, and other preventible means. Life expectancy dropped to about 30 years for the average worker in industrial England, and this was the best of industrial countries at the time. Then you’d have to include the wars of imperialism committed by industrial capitalist countries against their developing cousins. The French, for instance, slaughtered a million in Algeria just a few decades ago.
We’d have to include policies that caused deliberate immiseration of entire populaces, such as free trade agreements, ‘austerity measures’, etc. We’d have to review the many wars of the last century and, undoubtedly, classify a good many as having a basis in capitalist ethics. We’d have to look at the many dictatorial regimes that used murder, torture and prison to maintain the economic status quo, and we’d also have to lok at a few countries that were (notionally) not dictatorships. Again, it wasn’t so long ago that cops in the US were cracking the skulls of kids who thought the Vietnam war was a bad idea, or who believed that blacks deserved equal rights.
THR
3 Feb 10 at 12:30 am
Back on topic, how come leading academics, including the Human Rights Commission, have lumped Australia in with Nazi Germany and Democratic Kampuchea?
Michael Fisk
3 Feb 10 at 12:33 am
Specifically, I think that the most extreme versions of nationalism (Nazism) and communism (Mao/Pol Pot) are morally indistinguishable in practice.
Mao, Pol Pot, Ceausescu, Stalin and maybe a couple of others are extreme examples, and could be compared to Hitler in terms of certain tactics. Even then, there are some significant differences between them, and even then, it doesn’t justify lumping in every leftist revolutionary regime into the Nazi category. Yet this is precisely the revisionist party trick that rightsists seem to be playing on a daily basis on the blogosphere, and elsewhere.
But pure Marxism must lead to genocide in practice, as must extreme nationalism.
Where has ‘pure Marxism’ ever been practiced? Bush comes a lot closer to free market ideals than Pol Pot does to Marxist ones. In fact, it’s hard to think of a single thing that Pol Pot did that has a basis in marxism. On the other hand, about two-thirds of Marx’s demands in the Communist Manifesto have been in operation in Australia for decades.
THR
3 Feb 10 at 12:34 am
THR:
No one was forced to move from the farm to the factory floor during the industrial revolution. It happened because wages were higher than the pittance earned tending to land. To suggest that people moved because wages were lower are dreaming.
You can’t really suggest that life on the land was a bed of roses.
The reason people moved was because of higher wages.
If life expectancy dropped in the UK during the period, something which i really doubt, you then have to explain how it also rose during the industrial period too as people didn’t move back to the land.
I would also argue that imperialism wasn’t anything to do with industrialization and more to do with the period and the standards of the time. Spain wasn’t an industrialized society when it took parts of the America’s and it was the most rapacious of all the states at the time.
In fact the most industrialized nation of all (Britain) was the first to ban slavery and actively sent out its navy to find slave traders and hang them.
JC
3 Feb 10 at 12:39 am
it doesn’t justify lumping in every leftist revolutionary regime into the Nazi category.
I haven’t done so for that reason – it is only helpful to compare exterminationists with other exterminationists. Hamas are another example of an exterminationist regime, who will almost certainly commit genocide if they are allowed to.
Where has ‘pure Marxism’ ever been practiced? Bush comes a lot closer to free market ideals than Pol Pot does to Marxist ones. In fact, it’s hard to think of a single thing that Pol Pot did that has a basis in marxism.
The abolition of all social classes is considered to be the final goal of Marxism, however it might come about. The greater the attempts that are made to attain this goal, the more people that must necessarily be exterminated. It’s the closest thing to a “law” that I can think of.
Michael Fisk
3 Feb 10 at 12:42 am
Mao, Pol Pot, Ceausescu, Stalin and maybe a couple of others are extreme examples, and could be compared to Hitler in terms of certain tactics. Even then, there are some significant differences between them, and even then, it doesn’t justify lumping in every leftist revolutionary regime into the Nazi category. Yet this is precisely the revisionist party trick that rightsists seem to be playing on a daily basis on the blogosphere, and elsewhere.
But I can’t see how hard line socialism can be practiced without the jackboot. It’s impossibility, as it always has to come to that because people don’t want to give away what they have or what they can earn. When people refuse to abide by those demands of the state the jackboot always has to follow. It can’t work any other way.
• Where has ‘pure Marxism’ ever been practiced?
It can’t be, as it’s impossible to put into practice without violence or the threat of it. In any event it always has to turn into a thugocracy for those reasons.
Bush comes a lot closer to free market ideals than Pol Pot does to Marxist ones.
But Pol Pot’s ideals were Marxist nicely taught at the Sorbonne. His ideals were undisguisable from the ideals every socialist has the only difference being that Pol Pot actually did try to get there quickly by wiping out those he knew would oppose him. There’s nothing surprising in his methods when one looks at them in the context of his ideals.
In fact, it’s hard to think of a single thing that Pol Pot did that has a basis in marxism.
Pot Pot was attempting to achieve Marxism. Like others he was ruthless enough to try and get there.
On the other hand, about two-thirds of Marx’s demands in the Communist Manifesto have been in operation in Australia for decades.
You mean the welfare state? I’d disagree its Marxism. It’s interventionism and the modern welfare state was really born in Bismark’s Germany. However I would agree that the equality angle is Marx.
JC
3 Feb 10 at 12:52 am
I haven’t done so for that reason – it is only helpful to compare exterminationists with other exterminationists. Hamas are another example of an exterminationist regime, who will almost certainly commit genocide if they are allowed to.
By the same reasoning, the US, with its massive wars of aggression (Vietnam, Iraq) could be labelled ‘exterminationist’. I’m not sure how the comparison is helpful.
The greater the attempts that are made to attain this goal, the more people that must necessarily be exterminated.
I don’t think this is particularly true, and to the extent that it is true at all, it would only be fair to implicate quite a few non-communists in all the bloodshed. White Army types weren’t exactly shrinking violets when it came to inflicting atrocities.
THR
3 Feb 10 at 12:52 am
I’ve just perused the socialist online encyclopedia regarding lifespan during the Indutrial Revolution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution
During the Industrial Revolution, the life expectancy of children increased dramatically. The percentage of the children born in London who died before the age of five decreased from 74.5% in 1730–1749 to 31.8% in 1810–1829.[42] Also, there was a significant increase in worker wages during the period 1813-1913.[51][52][53]
According to Robert Hughes in The Fatal Shore, the population of England and Wales, which had remained steady at 6 million from 1700 to 1740, rose dramatically after 1740. The population of England had more than doubled from 8.3 million in 1801 to 16.8 million in 1851 and, by 1901, had nearly doubled again to 30.5 million.[54] As living conditions and health care improved during the 19th century, Britain’s population doubled every 50 years.[55][56] Europe’s population doubled during the 18th century, from roughly 100 million to almost 200 million, and doubled again during the 19th century, to around 400 million.[57]
Bless you, capitalism.
Infidel Tiger
3 Feb 10 at 12:53 am
But I can’t see how hard line socialism can be practiced without the jackboot.
The same could be said of capitalism. Plenty of capitalist countries (include Australia, and the US) have had sedition laws on the books. Many still do. It’s an offence to go on strike. The threat of violence is behind all capitalist property relations. Etc.
Pot Pot was attempting to achieve Marxism. Like others he was ruthless enough to try and get there.
If you look at things in detail, you’ll see that this isn’t true. For instance, Pol Pot had people killed nmerely for wearing glasses. You won’t find that in Marx (or even Stalin, during his anti-intellectual purges). Marx thought the economy needed to be industrialised to meet people’s needs; Pol Pot devised a crank scheme to shift everybody into forced labour camps on the countryside. (I believe Bird has a similar idea planned for inlands Australia). Marx believed that industrial workers with some political education would be the leaders of the revolution; Pol Pot relied largely on an illiterate peasant population, and traded on their support for King Sihanouk. Even if Pol Pot saw himself as an authentic Marxist, I just don’t see how anything he did could be traced very clearly back to Marxist doctrine.
THR
3 Feb 10 at 12:58 am
By the same reasoning, the US, with its massive wars of aggression (Vietnam, Iraq) could be labelled ‘exterminationist’. I’m not sure how the comparison is helpful.
THR, if the US wanted to exterminate North Vietnam it did a pretty inefficient job, as it simply could have nuked them into oblivion. So I’m sorry that just doesn’t wash. The same goes for Iraq. The US could have easily killed all 25 million Iraqis and spent no more than $20 billion trying to and achieving that goal instead of $1 trillion and counting.
You can of course disagree with what they were doing in both places but to characterize those wars as exterminationist is simply untrue.
White Army types weren’t exactly shrinking violets when it came to inflicting atrocities.
Like one side was fascist while the other was communist? Sometimes both sides are pretty fucked up, THR.
JC
3 Feb 10 at 1:00 am
THR, if the US wanted to exterminate North Vietnam it did a pretty inefficient job, as it simply could have nuked them into oblivion.
The US Army almost always does an ‘inefficient’ job. So much for the benefits of privatisation! But seriously, if you call Hamas ‘exterminationist’, one can apply the same epithet to the US, since qualitatively and quantitatively, it’s done a lot more exterminating than Hamas. What was the widespread burning of villages, the napalming of forests and bombing of dams if not an attempt at extermination?
THR
3 Feb 10 at 1:09 am
The same could be said of capitalism. Plenty of capitalist countries (include Australia, and the US) have had sedition laws on the books. Many still do.
You mean like someone committing a traitorous act during a period of war? What’s wrong with that? You think Nazi sympathizers acting to commit crimes during the war shouldn’t have been tried?
It’s an offence to go on strike.
If you break a contract it can be in areas regarded as national interest. However no one is stopping anyone from simply resigning his or her job, THR. I don’t know of anyone ever tried and convicted for resigning. Do you?
The threat of violence is behind all capitalist property relations. Etc.
Like what? I own property, my house. If an intruder ever “visited” my home with my family here I would do my best to kill him. I wouldn’t try to stop him in a namby pamby way I would kill him given the chance and suffer no remorse whatsoever if I were successful.. I had an experience some years ago when we had an intruder in the house who must have heard me coming down the stairs and he took kitchen knives before he stole my the car keys and took my car. If we had met he most probably would have used a knife on me. A friend had an intruder and his wife was repeatedly raped in front of him.
Yes I agree that Pol Potty Bird has similar designs on pushing people into the hinterlands.
JC
3 Feb 10 at 1:13 am
look you can say what you like about the US, but it wasn’t exterminationist in Vietnam. As I said they could have achieved far, far more by simply nuking the place until it glowed in the dark or a plane of glass.
Mistake were made in Vietnam, but the policy was never one to exterminate as that objective could have easily been met.
JC
3 Feb 10 at 1:16 am
As I pointed out before, the obvious, Marxist theme that Pol Pot advocated was the elimination of all social classes. He got this directly from Marx. He advocated it more forcefully than Marx, but it was nothing if not a Marxist idea.
Regarding Hamas, it is really a matter of dates. Hamas have not conquered Israel yet, but if they do they will murder a large number of Jews. Their original platform exalted in the mass murder of Jews and claimed that killing Jews was a religious duty (imagine trying to “moderate” THAT one!). Not even the Nazi Party ever went that far in its pre-33 rhetoric. Any regime that rejects all forms of pluralism on the strongest ideological terms (as did Hitler, Pol Pot and Hamas), will by necessity be a genocidal one. It is of no import whether it is done on race, class or religion.
Michael Fisk
3 Feb 10 at 1:37 am
But seriously, if you call Hamas ‘exterminationist’, one can apply the same epithet to the US, since qualitatively and quantitatively, it’s done a lot more exterminating than Hamas.
.
The comparison is ridiculous. Hamas is openly dedicated to killing a particular race (Jews). In contrast, the US is stridently pluralistic.
It’s amazing how easily this thread was derailed into a discussion of whether the US is guilty of genocide. It’s also a testament to THR’s skill and cunning in causing such a derailment.
daddy dave
3 Feb 10 at 9:12 am
Which is why communists and socialists didn’t call for the literal destruction of the bourgeoisie.
No matter which way you slice and dice it, the attempt at ‘totalitarian’ moral equivalence is a bit of revisionism, and a hangover from Cold War propaganda. That’s not to say there were atrocities committed in the name of communism, but if you think a progressive income tax policy or a campaign for land reform is tantamount to calling for the extermination of all Untermenschen, then your moral compass is askew, as the Tories like to say.
This is typical of THR. He routinely squanders the moral and intellectual capital he has accumulated on the far-gone enterprise of communism. So far as the communists calling for the literal destruction of the bourgeoisie, well, Lenin in ‘State and Revolution’ more or less does so. And ‘actually existing’ communism routinely engaged in the literal destruction of the bourgeoisie, in Russia it involved, for instance the destruction of the Kulaks, among others. This was repeated in China, and so on. This, you might say, is one of the blood rites of ‘actually existing’ communism.
The comparison of communism and fascism is not an engagement in, or example of, moral equivalence; it is the simple recognition that they are two faces of the same totalitarian coin. I know this is embarrassing for communists but I don’t really care. And your holiday excursion into the evils of ‘capitalism’ is precisely an attempt at “moral equivalence [which] is a bit of revisionism, and a hangover from Cold War propaganda.”
dover_beach
3 Feb 10 at 10:45 am
As for ‘revisionism’, FA Hayek wrote about the similarities of socialism and fascism in his 1944 classic “The Road to Serfdom.” Even earlier, he wrote an essay entitled Nazism-Socialism in 1933.
Capitalist Piggy
3 Feb 10 at 2:27 pm
this thread is a load of Bloody bullshit.
Did any one see manne last night?
Entropy
3 Feb 10 at 2:46 pm
Entropy, where?
Peter Patton
3 Feb 10 at 2:52 pm
Totalitarian is left anarchy is right. either all government /politics or none.
THR can indulge in all the amateur logic chopping he likes, he cannot alter the fact that communism is the World’s most evil; creeed and anyone who followed it should hang his head in shame whilst begging for forgiveness from the rest of us for being such a stupid twat.
Rococo Liberal
3 Feb 10 at 3:15 pm
On numbers of dead alone, nationalism easily outstrips communism.
As far as capitalism goes, you’re more than welcome to engage in doublethink and pretend that the millions of dead in Iraq, Vietnam, Algeria, and elsewhere had nothing to do with capitalism, but this is intellectually and morally akin to suggesting that Pol Pot was merely misunderstood.
THR
3 Feb 10 at 3:57 pm
THR
Nationalism!? What does that even mean? That was one of the ten “causes of WW1″ we used to memorize for the HSC Modern History exam all them years ago. It is not an acceptable evasive debating fluff for grown-ups in 2010.
Peter Patton
3 Feb 10 at 4:17 pm
Nationalism generally involves the identification of an ethnic identity with a state.[1] The subject can include the belief that one’s nation is of primary importance.[2] It is also used to describe a movement to establish or protect a homeland (usually an autonomous state) for an ethnic group. In some cases the identification of a homogeneous national culture is combined with a negative view of other races of cultures.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalism
THR
3 Feb 10 at 4:24 pm
THR
Even my children know not to plagiarize from Wikipedia. But let’s let that pass.
Nationalism generally involves…The subject can include…In some cases…
Hmm…beer
Hmm…nationalism
Peter Patton
3 Feb 10 at 4:30 pm
THR,
Genghis Khan simply outshines everyone else for sheer bloodthirstiness. What was his philosophy? *I’ll eat, kill, or defile what I want when I want!”??? He’s not really known for being a philosopher. 100 million dead.
Stalin and Hitler run a distant 2nd and 3rd.
Both were nationalists of some kind, but ultimately ideological and power crazed, having whacky personal beliefs and being unhinged and possibly loco…
Semi Regular Libertarian
3 Feb 10 at 4:35 pm
SLR, I’m not sure if anybody out there is attempting a revisionist re-write of the Khan’s history. They’re certainly trying that with the history of capitalism.
Hitler was responsible for far more dead than Stalin. Stalin killed millions, but Hitler’s toll from WWII alone far exceeds anything Stalin did. The Nazis were responsible for over 20 million deaths in Russia.
THR
3 Feb 10 at 4:37 pm
“The Nazis were responsible for over 20 million deaths in Russia.”
That’s starting to get towards Stalin’s death toll. Not that it actually matters. They are both murderous ideologies with the same inevitable result.
Semi Regular Libertarian
3 Feb 10 at 4:46 pm
It’s more than double Stalin’s death toll, which obviously doesn’t get Stalin off the hook.
The point here is that capitalism is no cleanskin in all of this. Not even relatively speaking. There’s no use denying this for the sake of ideological piety.
THR
3 Feb 10 at 4:50 pm
Nazism, Fascism and Communism all harboured people who did indescribably evil things. In raw numbers Mao probably gets the gold medal for the Great Leap Forward.
Moving back from that, all three sets of political beliefs had people who supported them in whole or part or travelled with them or joined in ignorance of the evils committed or joined to save their own skin.
You can draw the line anywhere you like – I’d call Adams a naive dupe not an evil man. The ex supporters of Facism or Nazism who ended up here or the us were probably in the Adams territory.
ken nielsen
3 Feb 10 at 5:14 pm
And I cannot agree that capitalism has killed people in any similar sense that the other isms have killed people.
ken nielsen
3 Feb 10 at 5:18 pm
THR:
I really don’t understand how you can mix “capitalism” with mass murder. Wholesale industrial sized killing is a state based deal.
I really don’t understand how you would implicate Steve jobs (Apple) computer with Iraqis deaths by American soldiers.
Capitalism is not a political system, it’s a description used to define an economic system that allows free participation in the transaction of goods and services.
Why would I blame say Chinese computer makers if the Chinese government decided to try and invade Taiwan?
JC
3 Feb 10 at 5:28 pm
“It’s more than double Stalin’s death toll”
No. Stalin killed more. I’m not defending fascism, but most historians acknowledge that Stalin killed more. Hitler’s maximum is Stalin’s minima. I’ve never heard Stalin’s death toll being as low as 10 million, before I saw you write that.
Semi Regular Libertarian
3 Feb 10 at 5:34 pm
Let’s not have special pleading here.
Nobody here, reviewing the history of communism around the world, would distinguish atrocities committed by communist regimes from ‘communism’ as a whole. Why should we permit such conceptual compartmentalisation on the part of capitalism?
Furthermore, if we look at things in detail, the capitalists are not as innocent as you may believe. The industrial countries of Western Europe waged bloody wars of acquisition at the expense of millions of lives. US involvement in Indochina was explicitly aimed at quelling communism (and, by implication, at maintaining capitalism). Iraq was the capitalist war par excellence, with massive transfers of wealth from public to private hands, both domestically in the US, and in Iraq itself.
Refusing to blame the political and economic elites of capitalist countries is your choice, I guess, but I doubt anybody would be so lenient when it comes to the fat party bureaucrats of the USSR, for instance.
THR
3 Feb 10 at 5:35 pm
Hitler was responsible for far more dead than Stalin. Stalin killed millions, but Hitler’s toll from WWII alone far exceeds anything Stalin did. The Nazis were responsible for over 20 million deaths in Russia.
How many of these were Russian soldiers who died in combat, roughly 9 million? This is not to say that the approx. 14 million Russian civilians that died during a total war is by any means paltry, but lets not have any more of this Stalinist whitewash, THR. Roughly, 20 millions Soviet citizens were killed by their own government. The total civilians, German and other, killed by the Nazis amounts to roughly half of that under Soviet communism.
The point here is that capitalism is no cleanskin in all of this. Not even relatively speaking. There’s no use denying this for the sake of ideological piety.
But ‘capitalism’ is not an ideology in the sense that communism, liberalism, etc. are so it is merely a diversion to raise it.
dover_beach
3 Feb 10 at 5:38 pm
“Why should we permit such conceptual compartmentalisation on the part of capitalism?”
The fact that you don’t think there needs to be a difference simply shows what a brainwashed pinko you’ve chosen to become. The US for example is a pluralistic democracy with free enterprise, and capital in the hands of private property.
All communist regimes have become dictatorships with centralised economic decision making.
This is torturous that we need this basic level of revision just for you, THR.
Semi Regular Libertarian
3 Feb 10 at 5:39 pm
Why should we permit such conceptual compartmentalisation on the part of capitalism?
You’re implying that capitalism is a political system and it’s not.
I can’t see how you would somehow suggest that Bill Gates , Steve Jobs or Warren Buffet’s direct business activities are somehow involved in the deaths of Iraqis. They simply aren’t yet you’re suggesting they are.
Compare that to say the head of of the economic planning agency in the old soviet union who determined what and how many shoes were produced taking the diktat for the Politburo.
You simply can’t make the connection. There isn’t one.
JC
3 Feb 10 at 5:40 pm
No. Stalin killed more.
Even the Black Book of Communism, hardly a pro-Stalin source, concedes that Hitler killed more. It puts Stalin’s toll at 20 million, though this number is debated. Many of the estimates of Stalin’s death toll (50-60 million) are sheer conconctions, and would have amounted to Stalin killing about 1 in 3 Russians.
THR
3 Feb 10 at 5:42 pm
“Even the Black Book of Communism, hardly a pro-Stalin source”
You need to find a non-pinko source.
Semi Regular Libertarian
3 Feb 10 at 5:43 pm
Okay let’s take your figure of 15 million Russians killed by their own state. That is splitting your estimates with the 20 million est down the middle.
What exactly is the point of this accounting. Stalin was a monster.
JC
3 Feb 10 at 5:44 pm
From the 25 points of national socalism…
11. That all unearned income, and all income that does not arise from work, be abolished.
Breaking the Bondage of Interest
12. Since every war imposes on the people fearful sacrifices in blood and treasure, all personal profit arising from the war must be regarded as treason to the people We therefore demand the total confiscation of all war profits.
13. We demand the nationalization of all trusts.
14. We demand profit-sharing in large industries.
15. We demand a generous increase in old-age pensions.
16. We demand the creation and maintenance of a sound middle-class, the immediate communalization of large stores which will be rented cheaply to small tradespeople, and the strongest consideration must be given to ensure that small traders shall deliver the supplies needed by the State, the provinces and municipalities.
17. We demand an agrarian reform in accordance with our national requirements, and the enactment of a law to expropriate the owners without compensation of any land needed for the common purpose. The abolition of ground rents, and the prohibition of all speculation in land.
Hmmm, some parts seem suspicously socalistic to me…..
Mole
3 Feb 10 at 5:44 pm
The industrial countries of Western Europe waged bloody wars of acquisition at the expense of millions of lives. US involvement in Indochina was explicitly aimed at quelling communism (and, by implication, at maintaining capitalism).
I thought that these ‘bloody wars’ were the result of ‘nationalism’; now, you’ve implicated ‘capitalism’ as an accomplice before and/ or after the fact, determined as you are to bloody the hands of ‘capitalism’ so long as it diverts attention away from the rivers of blood under communism.
dover_beach
3 Feb 10 at 5:46 pm
Here’s the other thing that I can’t understand.
War is very destructive and extremely costly. Peace on the other hand offers capitalism the chance for bigger opportunities to make money.
Why do lefties assume that private commerce wants to go to war when the consequence is most often higher taxes and the private economy getting squished.
JC
3 Feb 10 at 5:50 pm
Roughly, 20 millions Soviet citizens were killed by their own government. The total civilians, German and other, killed by the Nazis amounts to roughly half of that under Soviet communism.
20 million is the accepted upper-limit. Even at this level, Hitler killed far more people. Up to 30,000 civilians perished per day during the siege of Leningrad. Practically every Russian alive has relatives who dies as a result of the Nazis – the same cannot be said of Stalin.
But ‘capitalism’ is not an ideology in the sense that communism, liberalism, etc. are so it is merely a diversion to raise it.
Ha! It’s ‘ideology’ at its finest to proclaim that capitalism is ‘not an ideology’. It emerged spontaneously as a force of nature, did it?
All communist regimes have become dictatorships with centralised economic decision making.
Yes, I realise that you don’t approve of centralised economies. Yet you needn’t pretend that such economies acheived nothing. From the welfare states of the West, to the modest, but substantial achievements of Cuba and Eastern Europe, socialism had successes as well as failures.
You’re implying that capitalism is a political system and it’s not.
I’m saying it’s absolutely inextricable from politics. We can maintain, in an abstract sense that this isn’t the case, but in practice it is of necessity true.
They simply aren’t yet you’re suggesting they are.
I’m not saying that business men are murderers. But just as the nomenklatura derived benefits from the Soviet system, so do the Gates and Buffets derive priveleges from the capitalist system. Why compartmentalise one and not the other?
Also, there have been some pretty gruesome corporate-backed slaughters in Latin America, for instance.
THR
3 Feb 10 at 5:51 pm
Careful JC, THR is attempting to pin all the military and civilian deaths in Russia on Hitler whereas we are not counting the German military and civilian deaths that occurred in combat or under Soviet occupation in Stalin’s list.
dover_beach
3 Feb 10 at 5:51 pm
THR
The issue isn’t “Stalin vs. Capitalism”. What you call ‘Capitalism’ meant the US/Australia/UK/France/Holland…. AS WERE, not as some ideal Utopia.
OTOH, Stalin was the current leader of a vague unrealistic misanthropic Utopia that required genocide and mass murder generally to get where it wanted; a place it never knew in the first place.
And Communism’s genocide/democide/politicide – whether Bolshevik, Maoist, Khmer Rouge of necessity kept going long after Hitler died, Germany surrendered, and even Churchill died!
To associate colonialism or imperialism as sui generis to capitalism is once again a bizarre ignorance of history.
The first instances of ‘colonialism’ and/or ‘imperialism’ that are meaningful to us todays would be the Middle Kingdom Egyptians (circa 12th century BC!), the Phoenician settlement of Carthage and N.Africa more generally.
Literature’s most famous account of colonialism/imperialism are Herodotus’ account of the rise of the spectacular Persian empire. Thucydides continued the tale with his piercing account of the impact of Persian imperialism on Athens in the 5th century BC.
Good grief, a decent ‘History of Colonialism/Imperialism’ course would not even get to ‘Capitalism’, let alone Communism’s theological project for a global empire!
Back to the books comrade!
Peter Patton
3 Feb 10 at 5:53 pm
You need to find a non-pinko source.
It’s not a pinko source. The Black Book was written by strident anti-Marxists.
What exactly is the point of this accounting. Stalin was a monster.
You’ll get no disagreement from me on that point. The argument has been about whether communism is the worst ideology, political system, or whatever. It isn’t and wasn’t.
THR
3 Feb 10 at 5:54 pm
Careful JC, THR is attempting to pin all the military and civilian deaths in Russia on Hitler whereas we are not counting the German military and civilian deaths that occurred in combat or under Soviet occupation in Stalin’s list.
I’m well aware that the Red Army raped and slaughtered its way through ‘liberated’ Eastern Europe. Despite that, Hitler was still worse.
THR
3 Feb 10 at 5:55 pm
It emerged spontaneously as a force of nature, did it?
Actually yes, it did THR. Earliest examples were trading expeditions between tribes exchanging implements and goods such as furs and spices etc.
Irading/exchange is as close to a human built-in circuit that you could find in the brain.
Higher levels of exchange developed as we began to understand the benefits of specialization and mass production techniques.
JC
3 Feb 10 at 5:56 pm
THR
While this thread has gone completely OT, are you actually admitting to being a Communist?
Peter Patton
3 Feb 10 at 5:58 pm
Irading/exchange is as close to a human built-in circuit that you could find in the brain.
I don’t agree. We might as well say the same of central planning. It existed the first time somebody built a granary in Mesopotamia.
THR
3 Feb 10 at 5:59 pm
The argument has been about whether communism is the worst ideology, political system, or whatever. It isn’t and wasn’t.
THR,
You can’t force people to give what they own or what they will earn without the the threat of violence of dramatic loss of freedom. That’s why the Jackboot has to always be introduced if the expropriation is heavy enough.
JC
3 Feb 10 at 5:59 pm
The argument has been about whether communism is the worst ideology, political system, or whatever. It isn’t and wasn’t.
We’ve already been through this – the worst manifestations of Communism we’ve seen so far have already been proven to be as bad or even worse than the worst manifestations of Nationalism. The Khmer Rouge exterminated between a quarter and a fifth of the Cambodian population. That’s the worst regime in the 20th Century.
Michael Fisk
3 Feb 10 at 6:00 pm
That is so much bullshit that will take several hours of debunking, can you please pass the swabs so I can blind myself with the acid? Thanks.
“20 million is the accepted upper-limit.”
No it is not.
“Hitler killed far more people.”
Who cares? They both deserved to be strung up with the short drop from the nearest lamppost.
“Ha! It’s ‘ideology’ at its finest to proclaim that capitalism is ‘not an ideology’. It emerged spontaneously as a force of nature, did it?”
Blah blah blah…capitalism emerges in free enterprise…we can go over the definitions, but all know what I mean. Other than that, this was a diversion…nationalism, capitalism, anything but communism killed people, according to you, THR.
“Yes, I realise that you don’t approve of centralised economies. Yet you needn’t pretend that such economies acheived nothing. From the welfare states of the West, to the modest, but substantial achievements of Cuba and Eastern Europe, socialism had successes as well as failures.”
Socialism failed so badly that the Soviets lost the cold war. Western welfare states are problematic. Cuba has filthy hospitals and no problem with poor, undocumented immigrants (many of whom in the US flee from Cuba).
“I’m not saying that business men are murderers.”
You are, you just don’t want to admit it.
“Why compartmentalise one and not the other?”
We’ve explained this to you before. You’re like one of the doe eyed Brits that needed a trip to the USSR in the interwar era to realise it was an utterly repressive shithole.
“Also, there have been some pretty gruesome corporate-backed slaughters in Latin America, for instance.”
Please show us how any “corporates” backed Pinochet for example? It’s a pretty disgusting thing to do. He overstepped his duty in taking over – he should have just got rid of the (first) murdering usurper Allende. I’m not defending it – it just isn’t common or liable to happen as you wish.
The idea that some unscrupulous businessmen (e.g Armand Hammer) in the West didn’t profit from the Soviet Union is just crap.
Semi Regular Libertarian
3 Feb 10 at 6:01 pm
20 million is the accepted upper-limit. Even at this level, Hitler killed far more people. Up to 30,000 civilians perished per day during the siege of Leningrad. Practically every Russian alive has relatives who dies as a result of the Nazis – the same cannot be said of Stalin.
As I thought, you’re counting in deaths that normally occur in a total war. What do you imagine happened in East and West Prussia, Upper Silesia, Berlin, etc. during the final battles of WW2? So far as the Russians not being able to say this of Stalin, well, fuck, I hope not. He was not, officially anyway, at war with his own people, and yet the murders which accrued under communism surpass the murders committed under Nazism.
Ha! It’s ‘ideology’ at its finest to proclaim that capitalism is ‘not an ideology’. It emerged spontaneously as a force of nature, did it?
Well, no, it didn’t but then, there are many things like carpentry, chess, horse riding, etc. that did not emerge ex nihilo but are nonetheless not ideologies.
dover_beach
3 Feb 10 at 6:01 pm
Communism is barely above the tribal system as far as its results go.
Up top you have the big man and his flunkies telling the pesants what to do or they cop it.
It may have all the wankery dressed up as “marxist theory” in the world, but its still a system that depends on patronageand loyalty, not innovation and profit.
Both the big 2 communist regimes have used starvation againt their own eople as a method of control. Futher back you claimed Pol Pots killing fields didnt fit the pattern, Id say he was an exemplar of the communist type.
Communism is inherantly evil, and worst of all wont correct itself once in power because it cant be removed by any method other than revolution.
Mole
3 Feb 10 at 6:02 pm
I’m well aware that the Red Army raped and slaughtered its way through ‘liberated’ Eastern Europe. Despite that, Hitler was still worse.
This is THR’s security blanket.
dover_beach
3 Feb 10 at 6:02 pm
I don’t agree. We might as well say the same of central planning.
No you can’t. I might have soil that only produces a certain vegetable while you have an orchard, so we exchange.
You kill a deer while a caught loads of fish with a spear. We exchange.
That shit happened even before recorded history.
It existed the first time somebody built a granary in Mesopotamia.
That’s the beginnings of people learning about specialization and economies of scale and the benefits of storage.
It has nothing to do with central planning.
We centrally produce energy in great quantities because we’re able to obtain economies of scale.
JC
3 Feb 10 at 6:04 pm
As I thought, you’re counting in deaths that normally occur in a total war.
This is shameful moral casuistry, dover, as if civilians who died in the siege of Lenigrad or the invasion of Stalingrad can be dismissed with the term ‘total war’. Any war not conducted in self-defence is patently murder.
THR
3 Feb 10 at 6:14 pm
Thanks to the contribution of THR this thread has become a waste of space.
Someone once wrote of a famous apologist for communism that every word that they wrote was a lie, even “the”. Reading THR you can see why someone would write that.
THR, you need to state what kind of argument or evidence would count as a serious challenge to your position, and what kind of argument or evidence you will accept as a valid defence of the market order, or classical liberalism as an alternative to communism.
If nothing that anyone can say makes any difference to your position then it is a waste of time to engage in debate with you.
Rafe
3 Feb 10 at 6:16 pm
Well, no, it didn’t but then, there are many things like carpentry, chess, horse riding, etc. that did not emerge ex nihilo but are nonetheless not ideologies.
So everybody else is mired in ‘ideology’, but the capitalists are not? Again, this is the precise definition of ideology.
THR
3 Feb 10 at 6:17 pm
Rafe, the thread got derailed with the mention of ‘genocide’. I contributed to the derailment, and I’m happy to drop it, frankly.
THR
3 Feb 10 at 6:20 pm
THR
“Capitalism” is not an ideology.
It is an actually live, running world that has EVOLVED over centuries. Communism was an ideology.
Communism was – and if you are to believed, still is – a collection of theological sermons made by a handful of pamphleteers exhorting mass-mass murder and genocide/politicide/democide so that at the end, some daisy-chain Xanadu might ensue. That was about the extent of it. And some people took up this ideology/faith and proved such splendid mass killers, even the Khans would be breathless.
Peter Patton
3 Feb 10 at 6:20 pm
Rafe:
Blame homer even if in spirit.
Did you watch Manne last night as I missed it. How did he do?
JC
3 Feb 10 at 6:22 pm
Rafe
I put my hand up to say this thread was OT, but I contributed none the less. Might I suggest reposting it, as the issue might be interesting to discuss.
Peter Patton
3 Feb 10 at 6:24 pm
This is shameful moral casuistry, dover, as if civilians who died in the siege of Lenigrad or the invasion of Stalingrad can be dismissed with the term ‘total war’. Any war not conducted in self-defence is patently murder.
No, sorry, THR, I’m not engaging in “shameful moral casuistry”, that would be you. Neither have I “dismissed” their fate with the term ‘total war’. I’m merely distinguishing civilians that die in a military siege from those that die in a Gulag or pogrom deliberately designed to foreshorten their lives. In other words, I think it fair to include those murdered in extermination camps, etc. by the Nazis and those murdered in the Gulags, etc. by the Soviets but not those who died in the normal course of the war.
Any war not conducted in self-defence is patently murder.
But you seem unwilling to acknowledge that this would also be true of the Soviets who themselves invaded Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, and sought to profit from each’s occupation, as well as Finland.
dover_beach
3 Feb 10 at 6:29 pm
So everybody else is mired in ‘ideology’, but the capitalists are not? Again, this is the precise definition of ideology.
THR, I’m not suggesting that everyone else is mired in ‘ideology’ except ‘capitalists’ if only because I do not believe that there is such a thing called ‘capitalism’ and thus in ‘capitalists’ who instantiate this purported creed. This is one more way in which I differ from libertarians and communists.
dover_beach
3 Feb 10 at 6:35 pm
THR
Both ‘capitalism’ and ‘ideology’ are Marxist constructions. The only reason ‘everybody else in mired in ideology’ is because Marxists said so.
Peter Patton
3 Feb 10 at 6:37 pm
PP, I think that is true of the former but not the latter; see Destutt de Tracy.
dover_beach
3 Feb 10 at 6:40 pm
PP, but in defence of what you’ve said, the manner in which Marxists employ the idea ‘ideology’ is very much a Marxist construction.
dover_beach
3 Feb 10 at 6:41 pm
db
Indeed. They think that anybody who is not intoxicated by the idea of revolutionary socialism is clearly a Stepford-serf or bourgeois or kulak who is brainwashed by the ideology of ‘false consciousness’.
Peter Patton
3 Feb 10 at 6:45 pm
db
Sorry pressed “send” to soon. And so, in THR’s head, any of us who is not a revolutionary socialist today is brainwashed by the ideology of ‘capitalism’.
Peter Patton
3 Feb 10 at 6:46 pm
They think that anybody who is not intoxicated by the idea of revolutionary socialism is clearly a Stepford-serf or bourgeois or kulak who is brainwashed by the ideology of ‘false consciousness’.
You’re being presumptuous, Peter. It’s grating on my otherwise benevolent nature. I never use the term ‘false consciousness’. All consciousness is more or less ‘false’. And I never claimed that non-socialists are ‘brainwashed’. It’s you and dover who are making the rather extravagant claim that capitalism doesn’t come with any ideological strings attached.
THR
3 Feb 10 at 6:50 pm
db
I will defer to you on the etymology of ‘capitalism’. My point is only that it is a bit silly to reduce to an ‘ideology’ the unbelievable complexity, geographic spread, and historical depth that these people talk about when they spit ‘capitalism’.
And then they have to gall to engage in decades long vicious internecine battles over parsed passages from Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, and whoever their messiah du jour might be.
Peter Patton
3 Feb 10 at 6:52 pm
Rafe, the thread got derailed with the mention of ‘genocide’.
To be precise, this thread started out discussing a non-existent genocide (Australia) and veered onto some very real ones. The original topic was the fictional genocide in Australia, and I would suggest that should be the topic.
Michael Fisk
3 Feb 10 at 6:52 pm
THR
I never quoted you. I gave a potted summary of the Marxist origins of a couple of concepts. It would not surprise me if you also were ignorant of these aspects of Communist history as well.
Peter Patton
3 Feb 10 at 6:54 pm
No, you didn’t quote. You merely told me the contents of my head.
THR
3 Feb 10 at 6:55 pm
Hi JC, Late Night Live is the Phillip Adams radio show, which I did not attend but it is on line
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/latenightlive/stories/2010/2808263.htm
Robert Manne insists that he has the evidence to trump KW and will present his case in the next Monthly. He even claims that the Government circa 1938 advised the South Africans on the way to “breed out colour” This sounds mad on its face, how could the seth efricans hope to breed out colour when the whites were a small minority.
I was not aware that Manne has made a public retraction of the claim of genocide, I would really like to see it.
Like Sinclair I respect KW’s scholarship but calling for Manne to stand aside is upping the ante to a dangerous extent.
Rafe
3 Feb 10 at 9:12 pm
“He even claims that the Government circa 1938 advised the South Africans on the way to “breed out colour” This sounds mad on its face, how could the seth efricans hope to breed out colour when the whites were a small minority.”
Does he claim to have evidence for this?
Australian history will get a lot more dirtier and interesting if he can show this.
Semi Regular Libertarian
3 Feb 10 at 9:14 pm
Rafe:
I listened to both Windie and Manne’s accounts and to be honest I think Windie sounds more convincing.
Manne was blustering around avoiding the central issue being.. was there was systematic government sponsored series of actions by successive Australian Governments to commit genocide.
Manne blusters around accusing Windie of not understanding the facts and premise etc. and then goes into a pathetic attempt of avoiding that central issue completely and starts talking about aboriginal kids taken from their homes. Ironically Manne manages to bring the issue of Windie’s climate change denial and Andrew Bolt into the discussion. I guess mentioning climate change these days is like a leftie version of using the term “who’s John Galt” in Atlas Shrugged.
Manne never really answers the central question.
Windie on the other hand does offer an answer and offers convincing evidence that although there were lots of kids taken from their families it was basically to do with parental neglect and their removal was no different from white kids. There were around 8,000 kids removed from 1919 to 1970. Windie says there was no evidence governments followed a genocide policy and it would be extraordinary that a policy of this magnitude was kept secret by literally thousands of government workers and senior government officials. Windie also goes on to say there were two ridiculous senior public servants in the NT and WA that proposed a policy of forcible marriage, which actually embarrassed the government because of its rank stupidity. How the hell do you force people to marry each other, he asks?
Windie sounds far more convincing than the silly Manne who really lost me when he introduced climate change in the debate and I then realized he was possibly bullshitting.
Adams of course never asked Manne the genocide question, which seemed to me to be an attempt to let Manne off the hook.
JC
3 Feb 10 at 10:34 pm
JC: “a policy of this magnitude was kept secret by literally thousands of government workers and senior government officials”
It wasn’t kept secret. It was policy. That’s Manne’s point.
JM
4 Feb 10 at 1:05 am
JM:
Manne never made that point in his radio address to the nation.
He was never asked about genocide and didn’t refer to it, although he did have time to mention climate change bringing to attention both Km and Bolt’s scepticism. How bolt got in to the picture left me more than a little confused, as he was supposed to be addressing KM’s charges.
Km mentioned it and foccused on the fact that there wasn’t a policy of genocide in the country from 1910 to 1970. If there indeed was, Km’s point was that we didn’t need a professor of Politics from Labrobe to bring it to our attention as we’d know about it.
Lastly my point.. if there was a policy to eradicate an entire population it seems to have been a total failure despite having 60 odd years to enact the plan. Mind you Germany was able to kill 6 million Jews in around 3 to 4 years.
JM, are you saying that previous governments up to 1970 had a plane to obliterate an entire population Nazi style. Is this what you and Manne are peddling?
JC
4 Feb 10 at 1:18 am
It’s you and dover who are making the rather extravagant claim that capitalism doesn’t come with any ideological strings attached.
THR, not believing there is such a thing called ‘capitalism’, why would I imagine that there were ideological strings attached to it? You might have a point if you were talking about liberalism, etc. and specific market order it sought to preserve or obtain, but you’re not; you’re talking about a great amorphous beast called ‘capitalism’ that seems to have more forms then the Vedic gods.
dover_beach
4 Feb 10 at 9:37 am
So far as this thread is concerned, I tend to think that the truth falls somewhere between the poles represented by Windschuttle and Manne; and the more I learn the more I tend to think it it falls closer to Windschuttle.
dover_beach
4 Feb 10 at 9:40 am
JC: are you saying that previous governments up to 1970 had a plane to obliterate an entire population Nazi style.
Nazi style? No certainly not, that would be an ridiculous assertion.
But you don’t need death camps to meet the definition of genocide.
Random House dictionary via dictionary.com.
(You can find similar definitions elsewhere.)
the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group.
Assimilation and “breeding out the color” do meet the definition.
Systematic expropriation of land, destruction of communities, suppression of languages etc all meet the definition. And are commonly held to be acts of genocide.
Look, this whole argument in Australia boils down to “well the Nazi’s were worse, so we weren’t genocidal”.
That’s a juvenile argument.
JM
4 Feb 10 at 9:05 pm
Here’s a better argument…
Where is the evidence?
Semi Regular Libertarian
4 Feb 10 at 9:07 pm
Nazi style? No certainly not, that would be an ridiculous assertion.
But you don’t need death camps to meet the definition of genocide.
.
so, in other words JC, if you had left out the phrase “Nazi style” the answer would have been yes.
JM believes that there was a national policy of genocide, even though JM has no evidence on which to base this belief. (JM that’s known in religious circles as “faith”)
daddy dave
4 Feb 10 at 9:08 pm
Manne now confines his mentions of ‘genocide’ to child removal policies before WWII. He says he is not interested in ‘genocide’ as legal concept or a crime, but rather he is attracted to the genocide discourse rfor its “conceptual” and “historical” contexts. Pure sophistic rubbish.
Manne now prefers the adjectival to the nominative, hoping to move the conversation towards identification of isolated “genocidal thoughts” and “genocidal plans” rather than “genocidal crimes”.
Well he would say that, wouldn’t he.
Peter Patton
4 Feb 10 at 9:17 pm
Where is the evidence?
There is the testimony of large numbers of Aboriginals. I don’t pretend to be knowledgeable about matters Aboriginal, but most Aboriginal families I’ve met have some past story or other about an unjust removal from parents. Denying the stolen generation is effectively dismissing the Aboriginal community as a bunch of hysterical liars.
THR
4 Feb 10 at 9:22 pm
What’s juvenile from parts of the left is to suggest that there was a concerted action by numerous governments between 1910 and 1970 to commit genocide against the aboriginals. IT was kept secret though… LOL
It’s actually not juvenile, it’s mendacious junk history being peddled as a truthful and honest account.
Look dopey, if there was any concerted attempt at genocide….. I’ll accept your definition…. over a period of 60 years you need to explain why the aboriginal population has remained relatively stable at about just below 2% since that time.
In other words where the fuck are the bodies.. show me at least one mass grave. Even one will do to quell my doubts. Is there one, Jm?
No I’ll go further… Provide evidence of a grave of one aboriginal shot by government orders for the purpose of eradicating the population. One person will do.
As I said earlier I listened to the debates on both sides and KM won by a landslide, whereas your hero, the poltical science professor from Claytons Butt-Fuck university, was a complete and total failure. What I found hysterically funny was that he introduced KM’s AGW scepticism into the debate on the subject and wasn’t even asked a direct question about the so-called “genocide”. He also brought up Bolt’s AGW scepticism taking the debating into the never land of delusion.
Manne’s attempt at debate was truly pathetic.
I urge you to listen to both.
JC
4 Feb 10 at 9:24 pm
THR
I can assure you that a huge number of Aborigines are woefully ignorant, brainwashed, or significantly cognitively impaired, whether through booze, drugs, petrol, diet, violence, hereditary defects. So, if you are telling us that these people with one voice insist upon fantastic stories and conspiracies, I will tell you they are brain-dead, and have been maliciously misinformed and/or brainwashed by careerist – overwhelmingly white – opportunists and snake-oil salesman.
There. Satisfied.
Peter Patton
4 Feb 10 at 9:31 pm
There is the testimony of large numbers of Aboriginals.
I want evidence of one single corpse shot on government orders as a result of genocidal policy. One grave will do. Mass grave too if they are around.
There is the testimony of large numbers of Aboriginals. I don’t pretend to be knowledgeable about matters Aboriginal, but most Aboriginal families I’ve met have some past story or other about an unjust removal from parents.
And perhaps they were too young to recall their parents being too drunk and abusive and taken away like white kids of the time.
Denying the stolen generation is effectively dismissing the Aboriginal community as a bunch of hysterical liars.
Some have lied as it’s been shown by contrary evidence. Some were unjustly removed, however the removal has to also fit into the parameters of genocidal policy, not the actions of bureaucratic turds abusing their positions.
JC
4 Feb 10 at 9:31 pm
There is the testimony of large numbers of Aboriginals.
And there is the testimony of large numbers of Catholics that miracles happen, and yet I don’t see you or others suggesting that “Denying the[se miracles] is effectively dismissing the Catholic community as a bunch of hysterical liars.”
dover_beach
4 Feb 10 at 9:32 pm
SRL: Where is the evidence?
You are channelling GMB! Look, we all know this stuff happened, we don’t need to rehearse it again. My point is that the argument is just definitional.
If something has to be as bad as the Nazi’s before it qualifies as genocidal, then nothing else in history is going to qualify.
But there are plenty of historical examples of genocide – that’s why we have a word for it. We don’t call it nazikeittodt or judentodtfreude, we have a more general term.
Dave. You’re being dishonest. I quite clearly explained (as I have repeated above) that an action does not need to rise to death camp levels or have the word Nazi attached to qualify as genocide.
The hyperbole you accuse me of is purely of your own rhetorical invention. I am not calling Australians Nazi’s. I’m using ‘genocide’ accurately, and accurately describing the treatment of the native people during the colonization of Australia – and the colonization of many other countries.
JM
4 Feb 10 at 9:32 pm
I’m using ‘genocide’ accurately, and accurately describing the treatment of the native people during the colonization of Australia – and the colonization of many other countries.
I’d like to know which other country the ‘genocide’ that occurred in Australia may be compared to?
dover_beach
4 Feb 10 at 9:37 pm
JC: IT was kept secret though… LOL
Will you give up this strawman? It was not kept secret. We are not discussing some secret, unrevealed, policy.
We are discussing the actual, expressed policies of the time and what their actual effect was. And on top of that, what their explicitly stated intended effect was.
You want to argue about the definition of ‘genocide’? Yeah, ok, maybe … if you want to argue against dictionary and commonly understood definitions, if you want to hair split; fine; knock yourself out.
But don’t argue against the facts.
JM
4 Feb 10 at 9:38 pm
Dover: I’d like to know which other country the ‘genocide’ that occurred in Australia may be compared to?
The United States? Canada? Almost every country in central and south America. That’ll get you started.
And when your finished you can have a look at Africa.
JM
4 Feb 10 at 9:40 pm
I’d like to know which other country the ‘genocide’ that occurred in Australia may be compared to?
The US?
THR
4 Feb 10 at 9:41 pm
Here’s the thing, THR.
Is there a possibility that there was total negligence and neglect on the part of state governments of the time in addition to high levels of abuse.
OF course.
Was there abusive treatment on the part of the bureaucratic schleps running things in the outback and remote areas by acting like a bunch of turds that bureaucratic schleps are notorious for when not properly supervised?
Were the coppers a bunch of shitheads in remote areas?
Of course.
However these things don’t fall under the definition of genocide which is a category all by itself.
That’s what Manne the professor of politics from Nowhere University is claiming and it crap.
JC
4 Feb 10 at 9:43 pm
Look, we all know this stuff happened, we don’t need to rehearse it again.
.
Keep up JM.
That’s the core issue at stake here. The question is whether there was genocide attempted on Australian aborigines by the state. Windschuttle claims that there is no evidence for it.
Don’t just waltz in and airily say “we all know” it happened, because that isn’t the case.
daddy dave
4 Feb 10 at 9:44 pm
THR
Just admit it. You were conned. You went along with the flow, because you were too scored or ill-equipped to learn for yourself or question the whole narrative con, and you wanted the approval of your equally compilict ideologically-drunk dingbat comrades..
Peter Patton
4 Feb 10 at 9:44 pm
PP: I can assure you that a huge number of Aborigines are woefully ignorant, brainwashed, or significantly cognitively impaired, whether through booze, drugs, petrol, diet, violence, hereditary defects. So, if you are telling us that these people with one voice insist upon fantastic stories and conspiracies, I will tell you they are brain-dead,
Peter. Let me speak to you straight.
You ought to be goddamn fucking ashamed of yourself for writing this trash.
They are were they are because we put them there
You may not know this, but I come from a settler family and grew up from a very early age with an oral history that confirms everything that Manne says
We shot ‘em. We, and I mean my family, stole their land and shot them. We sort of made up for it (a bit) later on once we were comfortable.
But we did do it. Stop running away.
JM
4 Feb 10 at 9:46 pm
What fucking facts are those, JM. The ones you never fucking mention but are only apparent to you and the professor of politics No-University.
Where are all the facts, JM. Present them or STFU.
There’s no use jabbering on about them facts and telling us the 60 year policy of concerted genocide was out in the open when all you’ve done is tell us it wasn’t secret but all there in the open.
Present the facts or fuck off with that crap.
JC
4 Feb 10 at 9:47 pm
The United States? Canada? Almost every country in central and south America. That’ll get you started.
And when your finished you can have a look at Africa.
What about Asia and Europe? I wouldn’t want any nation to avoid the near ubiquitous claim of genocide, according to JM.
dover_beach
4 Feb 10 at 9:48 pm
However these things don’t fall under the definition of genocide which is a category all by itself.
I think we agree that the debate should focus on racism more generally, rather than genocide specifically. I’ve been saying that since the start of this thread.
However, if genocide means trying to wipe out a race, then regimes that targeted their own people (like the Khmer Rouge) cannot be genocidal. Yet, in 2009, some Khmer Rouge thugs were starting to be put on trial, and I believe that the charges included genocide.
You were conned.
How was I ‘conned’? I’ve met several Aboriginals of the older generation who swear black and blue that the Stolen Generations occurred. They procure no benefits from this story, as far as I can see. Either they’re deluded crackpots, or there’s some semblance of truth to it.
THR
4 Feb 10 at 9:49 pm
JM
Do not eve begin to presume to lecture me or delude yourself I will back down because you will call me names, ESPECIALLY when you are saying what I said is accurate. Jeezus.
Peter Patton
4 Feb 10 at 9:49 pm
Let me edit this for accuracy:
Peter. Let me speak to you straight.
You ought to be goddamn fucking ashamed of yourself for writing this trash.
JM. Let me speak to you straight.
You ought to be goddamn fucking ashamed of yourself for writing this trash.
Don’t talk about these facts unless you can present them. And don’t tattoo past generations of whites that are innocent of your charges unless you’re dam fucking sure and have those facts out there in the open instead of playing this stupid fucking game of implying that we ought to know and that it wasn’t secret.
It isn’t looking good for Manne if the only thing he can do is go on Adams program and start bring up climate science scepticism as somehow presenting evidence of genocide. Not good at all.
JC
4 Feb 10 at 9:53 pm
JM
Your confessions about the stock you are from disgust me. I can assure you, we are not of ilk nature or breeding. Please refrain from including me within your idea of ‘us’ ever again!
YOU clearly do need to assuage a lot of guilt, atone, and COMPENSATE, perhaps even be jailed by the sounds of things. Best you pop off and sort that out, rather than trying to hide by dragging us innocents into your unseemly Deliverance-Down-Under kin.
Peter Patton
4 Feb 10 at 9:53 pm
JC, “breeding out the color” was policy and it was out in the open.
Removing mixed-blood children from their families and placing them with white families in the belief that they would “become white” was policy and out in the open. It was called “assimilation”.
Those are facts. You know it and I know it.
Peter, I’m sorry but I really don’t understand your point at 9:49pm. If I reacted badly to your earlier statement and misinterpreted it I’m sorry also, but it really sounded like a bad case of blaming the victim.
JM
4 Feb 10 at 9:55 pm
Peter: YOU clearly do need to assuage a lot of guilt, atone, and COMPENSATE,
This is the most absurd excuse for evading the truth imaginable. Refuse to face facts, and accuse your opponent – who is able to face facts – of being soft in the head.
I don’t feel any personal guilt. The sins of the fathers are not visited upon the sons.
But the results sure are. And the sons have to deal with the consequences.
So deal with them Peter. Get used to it.
JM
4 Feb 10 at 9:57 pm
JM
Oh lord give me strength. Mate, I haven’t accused you of anything. You confessed it all quite willingly. Hullo?
Peter Patton
4 Feb 10 at 9:59 pm
JC, as I just said to Peter, the sons do not bear guilt but do have to deal with the results and the consequences.
JM
4 Feb 10 at 9:59 pm
THR:
I think we agree that the debate should focus on racism more generally, rather than genocide specifically. I’ve been saying that since the start of this thread.
.
no, I think genocide is, and should be, the topic here. We can certainly agree that aborigines have suffered a great deal of racism. I do, at any rate. Racism toward aborigines is sometimes breathtakingly extreme.
But let’s get back to this issue of whether genocide occured. Windschuttle didn’t raise it. Manne and others have raised it, claiming that there was a genocidal government policy.
We need to establish the truth of the matter.
.
I understand your concern, THR, as it distracts from the real and incontrovertible injustices. I agree. In that case, if it did not happen, Manne has done a disservice to the aboriginal cause.
daddy dave
4 Feb 10 at 9:59 pm
I think we agree that the debate should focus on racism more generally,
Sorry THR. That dog doesn’t hunt. Manne has made the charge that this country was genocidal for 60 years right up to 1970.
JM says there are facts. Where the fuck are they?
As I said, can JM even provide the evidence of the remains of one aboriginal shot, hung or whatever as a result of government orders relating to genocidal policy. One body over 60 fucking years?
I also presume that no aboriginal over that time was ever medically treated in any hospital as a result of illness? After all there was a policy of genocide in the land.
Is that right JM?
I know Manne will eventually get to read this, so he can answer for himself.
JC
4 Feb 10 at 10:00 pm
Gee, JC is really playing at being The Man tonight.
Couldnt pull the skin off a rice pudding
rog
4 Feb 10 at 10:02 pm
Those are facts. You know it and I know it.
.
JM, they’re contested facts. how do you know it? That’s a genuine question, not a rhetorical one. It may help to get to the heart of it.
.
Incidentally your story of early settler rumours, anecdotes and lore about aboriginal massacres is very interesting to me personally, as I am also aware of such things and have heard such stories. However these stories have never been documented.
But even if they happened (and I have an open mind about that);the genocide accusation relates to government policy, not the actions of rogue settlers in remote, lawless regions. You yourself have called it a policy in this thread.
daddy dave
4 Feb 10 at 10:03 pm
JC, as I just said to Peter, the sons do not bear guilt but do have to deal with the results and the consequences.
What a cowardly answer. Man up, JM, grow a set of male testes and show us the evidence, instead of posting opinions.
I don’t have a dog in this hunt as my family weren’t here in time and I honestly never recall any of them killing off aboriginals.
KM is right. If Manne can’t provide the evidence he ought to get the size 10 hobnail up the arse.
‘
JC
4 Feb 10 at 10:04 pm
But as I suggested early on, focusing on ‘genocide’ means that the discussion degenerates into semantic nit-picking.
THR
4 Feb 10 at 10:04 pm
JC you’re still clinging to the strawman. Genocide is wider than Nazi-like extermination.
It encompasses destruction of language, culture, families, communities.
And wholesale theft of property. To return to the Nazi’s for just a second (which is not a good idea on my part because I’m trying to make the opposite point):-
How do you think the Nazi’s got so much compliance and complicity from the non-Jewish population of Europe?
What they did was ship Jewish families off to concentration (and later death) camps …. and then let the local populations loot the houses, bank accounts and businesses left behind. That’s how.
So how would you characterize colonization if not the wholesale theft of property?
JM
4 Feb 10 at 10:06 pm
Rog:
Seriously….Fuck off if you’re not playing. Get back to looking pretty for Geoffrey if you have nothing to contribute, you troll.
JC
4 Feb 10 at 10:06 pm
“But as I suggested early on, focusing on ‘genocide’ means that the discussion degenerates into semantic nit-picking.”
Then don’t do it! Unlike Manne and JM, you’e acknowledged this is over egging the pudding.
Semi Regular Libertarian
4 Feb 10 at 10:07 pm
This thread is a bit of a deviation:
As I understand it, Windshuttle’s specific accusation was that Manne deliberately implied that there was a government policy to force half caste women to marry whitefellas based on a Cabinet Submission, even though the public record shows that in fact the Cabinet had roundly rejected said submission and publicly said so in a subsequent policy announcement.
Did Manne dispute this or not?
entropy
4 Feb 10 at 10:07 pm
After the Myall Creek Massacre it was hard to find any evidence of Aborigine murder, the bodies just sort of disappeared
rog
4 Feb 10 at 10:08 pm
But as I suggested early on, focusing on ‘genocide’ means that the discussion degenerates into semantic nit-picking.
That is true only because – apart from the paradigmatic instances of genocide against the Jews and Armenians – most, though not all, of the other instances depend upon semantic word games.
dover_beach
4 Feb 10 at 10:09 pm
THR I don’t agree.
You can’t just throw around the word “genocide” it’s like a grenade. it’s like throwing around the word “pedophile” or “murderer” when taking about individuals. There is no shade of gray – once the word is out there it’s got to be established if it’s true one way or another. And Manne doesn’t mean it in a nitpicking semantic sense. He means it, really and truly.
.
It matters. If Manne can make it stick, kids will be learning about the “Australian secret genocide” in schools a hundred years from now in Cairo and Buenos Ares and Birmingham, alongside their lessons about Hitler. It’s a really fucking huge accusation. And if there is no evidence for it, then it’s an outrageous accusation to boot.
daddy dave
4 Feb 10 at 10:12 pm
JC, your contribution(s) can be condensed as thus (.)
Maybe I am overstating it
rog
4 Feb 10 at 10:12 pm
THR
Well then why did you people make genocide the focus of the discussion in the first place? I’m sorry, I usually have my say, shake my head, and laugh off political differences. As long as the person is not an ax-murderer, likes a beer, and a laugh, you can be a Trotskysit Scientologist and still be invited to my place for a beer and a feed.
But I draw the line at what Manne and co. did to not only this country’s civic discourse, but a very large chunk of our school and university curricula.
And why did Manne do this? To get revenge on Peter McGuiness and Quadrant for giving him the boot!!! And why did Q give Manne the boot? Because of his boneheaded uncritical reception of the worst piece of social science ever published – The Bringing Them Home Report whose central claims, Manne now knows were lies.
These people do not deserve to be able to just walk away. They need to become adults and publicly apologize for the damage their petty egos caused.
Peter Patton
4 Feb 10 at 10:12 pm
It encompasses destruction of language, culture, families, communities.
You really are a gutless twerp, JM.
Look fuck knuckle, My parents arrived here without speaking a word of English and I went to school I was never taught my parents written language as there were no resources for that at time. It’s a widely sued Euro language.
Compare that with a remote Aboriginal language that was unwritten and spoken in remote areas of the country.
Was a genocidal act perpetrated on me then as well as the kids of other Europeans immigrants that weren’t taught their parents language.
And yet you are stupid enough to think that say 50 years ago there were people that could teach aboriginal kids remote languages.
And you’re describing that as part of the policy to commit genocide?
Have you got a fucking brain?
JC
4 Feb 10 at 10:13 pm
“After the Myall Creek Massacre it was hard to find any evidence of Aborigine murder, the bodies just sort of disappeared”
rog,
Genocide is systemic. Manne also thinks he ha uncovered a previously unknown plot. Myall Creek was/is neither of those.
Semi Regular Libertarian
4 Feb 10 at 10:13 pm
DD, where did you grow up?
I well remember the mission kids at school and the battles they had.
And all thru northern NSW and QLD where boongs were fair game
A whole white culture of racism
rog
4 Feb 10 at 10:14 pm
You miss my point, after Myall Creek the records of settler conflict diminished – they never saw or interacted with any Aborigines (officially that is)
rog
4 Feb 10 at 10:17 pm
“And all thru northern NSW and QLD where boongs were fair game
A whole white culture of racism”
Are you calling all whites in northern NSW during 1901-1967 racist? That’s odd since 97% of the (entire) country voted for Aboriginal citizenship.
Semi Regular Libertarian
4 Feb 10 at 10:17 pm
“the records of settler conflict diminished – they never saw or interacted with any Aborigines (officially that is)”
Really? How does anyone know this? Or were the Aborigines simply driven to marginal land at this point?
Semi Regular Libertarian
4 Feb 10 at 10:18 pm
JC if you want to argue about the definition of genocide, could you do it straight up without posing strawmen?
And I think you want to be a bit careful with your definition of “it ain’t genocide unless it’s deliberate murder committed on the orders of a properly formed and legal government” because not even the Nazi’s meet that definition.
The Nazi regime was illegal. And this has caused a lot of problems for the post WWII German government because 13 years of activity under “laws” passed by that “government” have to be judged not against the law of the time, but against the laws of the previous Weimar Republic and the post WWII Republic.
JM
4 Feb 10 at 10:19 pm
Most of the country live in the city
rog
4 Feb 10 at 10:19 pm
A whole white culture of racism
.
wow I find common ground with rog. wow again I say.
Yep rog, I have also lived in small outback towns and know what the attitudes toward the aborigines are like. Like I said. Extreme.
daddy dave
4 Feb 10 at 10:20 pm
JM come on now you’re just being a troll. Please answer the questions we put to you earlier. For instance, what’s your evidence for government policy of racial extermination?
daddy dave
4 Feb 10 at 10:21 pm
JC you are stupid enough to think that say 50 years ago there were people that could teach aboriginal kids remote languages.
Yeah, their parents. But they were separated from their parents (largish numbers anyway).
If your parents chose not to teach you their language, that was their free choice which I wouldn’t interfere with.
But the parents of the removed children didn’t have that choice, you can’t compare the two situations.
JM
4 Feb 10 at 10:22 pm
Rog:
Seriously, get off the thread as you’re too fucking thick to participate.
We’re not discussing racism, you mentally inverted retard, were talking about “OPEN and CLEAR” government policy of genocide to eradicate aboriginals that went on for 60 years.
If you can’t keep up because of cognitive problems then go figure out how you’re going to repay your creditors.
JC
4 Feb 10 at 10:22 pm
Dave: what’s your evidence for government policy of racial extermination?
There’s plenty of evidence and you know it.
If you want to turn this into another area of sterile debate where you play the role of the denialist, be my guest. I don’t think it’s very useful however.
JM
4 Feb 10 at 10:24 pm
But the parents of the removed children didn’t have that choice, you can’t compare the two situations.
Bullshit. KM says 8500 kids were forcibly taken from their parents between 1910 and 1970.
So far the Professor of Politics from Butt-Fuck uni hasn’t disputed that number, so the language would have continued unless of course it was stopped by the concerted effort of all those numerous governments due to their continued genocidal policy. So your test still applies, doofus.
“Genocide”… another word whose meaning the left has now destroyed losing its real meaning.
JC
4 Feb 10 at 10:28 pm
Stupid bigotry from rog:
*Are you calling all whites in northern NSW during 1901-1967 racist? That’s odd since 97% of the (entire) country voted for Aboriginal citizenship.*
“Most of the country live in the city”
???
Um, okay:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/4520286.stm
“But the parents of the removed children didn’t have that choice, you can’t compare the two situations.”
Enough of these fucking remedial classes. Many of those parents weren’t competent and many of the removed children are glad for it.
Semi Regular Libertarian
4 Feb 10 at 10:28 pm
“How does anyone know this?”
From the records.
Doesnt anybody follow the argument put by the scholars?
I guess nobody has heard of the “Black Line”
It was Govt policy as was the defense of property (land) from the savages
rog
4 Feb 10 at 10:29 pm
There’s plenty of evidence and you know it
.
Okay, I’m going to say this one more time, but then I’m out. These fishbowl discussions are too much.
.
JM, Windschuttle asserts that there is no historical evidence to support genocide, systematic breeding out of colour, or the existence of the stolen generations. See, for example the links in the OP above.
Obviously, you think Windschuttle is wrong, but you contribute nothing except to say that “we all know” it’s true.
Either give us more, or simply say that you’re naturally inclined to believe Manne over Windschuttle for reasons of ideology. You might be surprised, but I would actually accept that response as it shows a bit of humility and self-awareness. But stop just asserting that Manne is right based on nothing but that you feel it in your bones.
daddy dave
4 Feb 10 at 10:30 pm
Dont play the innocent SLR, Australian population density is overwhelmingly urban so any plebiscite will be decided on by city people.
rog
4 Feb 10 at 10:32 pm
any plebiscite will be decided on by city people.
.
yeah but 97 percent means that a majority of regional and remote people voted for it too. Therefore, how racist are they I guess.
daddy dave
4 Feb 10 at 10:33 pm
“Dont play the innocent SLR, Australian population density is overwhelmingly urban so any plebiscite will be decided on by city people.”
Fuck you.
Semi Regular Libertarian
4 Feb 10 at 10:33 pm
There’s plenty of evidence and you know it.
No, there isn’t. Otherwiuse you wouildn’t be saying it there bit unable to present the evidence that there was a 60 year policy of genocide by numerous Australian governments.
If you want to turn this into another area of sterile debate where you play the role of the denialist, be my guest. I don’t think it’s very useful however.
You gutless, cowardly, balless sack of shit, JM. Don’t try that denialist crap with this, you wanker.
If you have the evidence point to it or apologize for your degenerate behaviour.
(I suppose if we’re going to apply those AGW terms to this discussion, Manne suddenly morphs into the “aboriginal genocide” version of Doctor Pachauri. Doctor Pachauri- Manne lol…. When is he coming out with his own porn book I wonder, like the other Doc Pach).
JC
4 Feb 10 at 10:35 pm
“I guess nobody has heard of the “Black Line””
Learn to read you fucktard. The Black line was more than a century before Manne’s alleged genocide.
I’m through with being polite to such a bigoted imbecile such as yourself.
Semi Regular Libertarian
4 Feb 10 at 10:35 pm
Funny (peculiar) how dimwits like JC demand evidence and then quite happily announce “many of the removed children are glad for it.”
Has anyone met someone who has said that they were really glad that they were forcefully removed form their parents?
rog
4 Feb 10 at 10:38 pm
And I think you want to be a bit careful with your definition of “it ain’t genocide unless it’s deliberate murder committed on the orders of a properly formed and legal government” because not even the Nazi’s meet that definition.
The Nazi regime was illegal.
I think this statement establishes beyond all reasonable doubt that JM is talking through his hat. The Nazi regime was legal.
dover_beach
4 Feb 10 at 10:38 pm
Has anyone met someone who has said that they were really glad that they were forcefully removed form their parents?
.
yes.
daddy dave
4 Feb 10 at 10:39 pm
SRL: Many of those parents weren’t competent and many of the removed children are glad for it.
Sheesh. The Myth. It’s a zombie idea that won’t die.
Show me one removed child of any race, background, color or creed that was glad of removal from their parents.
No. I’ll do a Bolt.
Show me 10.
JM
4 Feb 10 at 10:41 pm
Has anyone met someone who has said that they were really glad that they were forcefully removed form their parents?
Let’s ask Josef Fritzl’s children, shall we?
C.L.
4 Feb 10 at 10:41 pm
Dont waste your good manners on me SLR, you have little to spare
rog
4 Feb 10 at 10:42 pm
Dover: The Nazi regime was legal.
You’ll need to give me a reference for that DB. It’s my understanding that the German government (and the WWII victors) disagree with you.
JM
4 Feb 10 at 10:42 pm
Rog:
Are you fucking drunk, or so medicated that you can’t make head or tail of any conversation any longer to be able follow.
Where the fuck have I said on this thread
“many of the removed children are glad for it.”
Point to where I said that, you retarded loon?
I can’t expect an apology from you as you’re too much of a freaking coward to fess up.
You really are a disgusting , dishonest turd, Rog. No wonder you went broke and no one takes your credit.
JC
4 Feb 10 at 10:43 pm
Wow, CL is here – the third stooge indulges us with his presence.
rog
4 Feb 10 at 10:44 pm
Dave: Windschuttle asserts ….
I have a copy of one of his early books “The End of Employment” (I think that’s the title, I don’t have it handy) where he takes a Marxist approach to analysing the stagflation of the 1970’s.
Would you like me to start quoting some of his assertions in that book? Would you give them the same credence?
Windschuttle is not an authority. He’s an opportunist.
JM
4 Feb 10 at 10:45 pm
I didnt say that you said it, I said that dimwits like you say it.
Its like an echo in an empty vessel
rog
4 Feb 10 at 10:45 pm
Myall Creek was also after the Black Line. Stop spouting your crap here.
““many of the removed children are glad for it.””
Yep.
Semi Regular Libertarian
4 Feb 10 at 10:46 pm
Oh Ok, so KM’s past political ideology and his subsequent 180 degree turn is on trial here according to JM-the-evidence-is-here.
It’s in the oven and JM will bring out in a sec so lets all be patient.
JC
4 Feb 10 at 10:48 pm
Rog:
You really are a truly disgusting fucker, aren’t you. You really are vomit material.
JC
4 Feb 10 at 10:49 pm
“I didnt say that you said it, I said that dimwits like you say it.
Its like an echo in an empty vessel”
You imbecile, you didn’t realise that Myall Creek happened after the Black Line, both irrelevant to Manne’s “secret alleged policy”, and you assert that 100% of country people are racist (read anti-Aboriginal – even the Aborigines).
Bugger off.
“Sheesh. The Myth. It’s a zombie idea that won’t die.
Show me one removed child of any race, background, color or creed that was glad of removal from their parents. ”
Some of them are grateful for it. Deal with this massive blow to your ego.
Semi Regular Libertarian
4 Feb 10 at 10:49 pm
There are actually more Aboriginal children forcibly removed (“stolen”) from their parents today than there were in the past. Kevin Rudd is presiding over this new “stolen” generation. We await his updated Sorry.
C.L.
4 Feb 10 at 10:49 pm
I go back to my earlier point, there is no point supplying evidence when by all accounts evidence is not well received (if at all) on Catallaxy.
rog
4 Feb 10 at 10:49 pm
You’ll need to give me a reference for that DB. It’s my understanding that the German government (and the WWII victors) disagree with you.
Can you provide any reference that suggests the Nazi regime was illegal? Are you arguing that from 1933-45 that the Nazi government was the de facto but not de jure government of Germany?
Is there a single reference here that suggests the Nazi government was illegal?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Germany
No, there isn’t.
dover_beach
4 Feb 10 at 10:50 pm
Where the fuck have I said on this thread
“many of the removed children are glad for it.”
.
That’s a pretty contemptible level of debate.
daddy dave
4 Feb 10 at 10:50 pm
Cl’s contribution – its all Rudd’s fault
rog
4 Feb 10 at 10:51 pm
JC, KW is an opportunist, I’m surprised you can’t spot one.
JM
4 Feb 10 at 10:51 pm
You’ll need to give me a reference for that DB. It’s my understanding that the German government (and the WWII victors) disagree with you.
Doofus, which large countries removed their embassy from the election of the nazi government after 1933? The Nazi was a legal government, you moron. Their later actions were considered illegal because the victors decided so. “Legality” belongs to those that win.
JC
4 Feb 10 at 10:52 pm
Rog was previously famous for ridiculing Abos driving around in Land Cruisers shooting animals.
Would you like the link, Rog?
But speaking of twentieth century ideologies and what they mean today…
The old right -vs- left has moved on from the days of the froggy revolution. Nowadays the right is for individual rights whereas the left is for the the rights of the collective. Back in the days of the revolution the right was the nobility and the left was for the ordinary man.
somwhere along the line the ball was dropped.
Fascism was always for state owned industry as was communism and both had scant regard for the human as an individual so they both belong to the left.
Only the right, as we know it today, allows for the entrepeneurial spirit of man to prosper, the left seek conformity to a collective standard.
- Rog, May 1, 2007.
C.L.
4 Feb 10 at 10:54 pm
I have a copy of one of his early books “The End of Employment” (I think that’s the title, I don’t have it handy) where he takes a Marxist approach
.
I fail to see the point your making. Unless it is to assert that you are a very learned person.
daddy dave
4 Feb 10 at 10:54 pm
JC, KW is an opportunist, I’m surprised you can’t spot one.
Oh and on your estimate Manne isn’t? The Professor of political science from Nowhere University is an in-opportunist by your exultant standards. LOL
JM, get the fuck out here with that crap.
Now present the evidence we’re all waiting for.
JC
4 Feb 10 at 10:55 pm
“I go back to my earlier point, there is no point supplying evidence when by all accounts evidence is not well received (if at all) on Catallaxy.”
Now rog you said the evidence of violence between white and black was stricken from the record after Myall Creek, and used an earlier incident as “proof”.
Here’s a free lesson:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_frontier_wars
Are you an obtuse or mendacious blockhead or both?
Semi Regular Libertarian
4 Feb 10 at 10:57 pm
That’s a pretty contemptible level of debate.
Yep. It’s about as cowardly as you an get.
JC
4 Feb 10 at 10:58 pm
Windschuttle is not an authority. He’s an opportunist.
.
So you’re asserting that Windschuttle doesn’t really believe what he’s saying. And this is simply based on the fact that you have a book of his on your bookshelf? (I noticed that you didn’t claim to have read it). F-me. Next time JM, come to the fight armed with more than a pillow.
daddy dave
4 Feb 10 at 10:58 pm
Sure rog, frontier conflict was “repressed” after 1838!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cullin-La-Ringo_massacre
In this case Aborigines massacred whites.
Semi Regular Libertarian
4 Feb 10 at 11:00 pm
JC says that the Nazis were a legal govt (made legal after the night of the long knives)
Therefore JC supports the validity of legal decisions made in the Nazi era – those of race, eugenics, forced sterilisations, theft of property and extermination.
rog
4 Feb 10 at 11:01 pm
Brilliant barrister Gough Whitlam certainly thought Nazi Germany was a legal state entity. In 1974, he honoured the Nazi-Soviet Pact by recognising the de jure “right” of the USSR to the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
C.L.
4 Feb 10 at 11:02 pm
Yes SLR, aborigines did fight against the settlers. Do you find that odd?
rog
4 Feb 10 at 11:02 pm
rog – I made the assertion that some Aborigines actually were pleased that they were removed, at least from their settlements:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Generations#Emergence_of_the_child_removal_policy
*On the other hand, some Aboriginal people do not condemn the government’s past actions, as they see that part of their intention was to offer opportunities for education and an eventual job. According to the testimony of one Aboriginal person:
I guess the government didn’t mean it as something bad but our mothers weren’t treated as people having feelings…Who can imagine what a mother went through? But you have to learn to forgive.[46]
I was put in a mission dormitory when I was eight, nine. I cried for two nights, then I was right with the rest of those kids. We weren’t stolen; our family was there. It was a good system. Or a better system than now. At least my generation learnt to read and write properly.[47]*
If you don’t know the basics of history from wiki, accuse all country people (even the Aborigines) of being 100% racist and anti Aboriginal, confuse dates in history, are unaware of what is known etc, please stay out of it. Your ignorance has already been greatly offensive and insulting to me.
Semi Regular Libertarian
4 Feb 10 at 11:03 pm
“Yes SLR, aborigines did fight against the settlers. Do you find that odd?”
No, I find your previous statement that the history of this was stricken from the record as batshit insane.
Semi Regular Libertarian
4 Feb 10 at 11:04 pm
Yes C.L., the Nazis were de jure illegal but de facto recognised.
Semi Regular Libertarian
4 Feb 10 at 11:05 pm
actually I think I’ve done JM a disservice. he did have a point. We were supposed to notice that comment about how KW used “marxist” analysis, which was a nod and a wink that passed right over me. JM’s little subliminal message was: look guys he used to be a Marxist and now he’s right wing, so obviously he has no principles.
Spot the error in JM’s logic.
(here’s a hint: “people change”)
daddy dave
4 Feb 10 at 11:07 pm
Rog:
Is that all you have left? All you’re now left with is to lie about what other people say? How sad for you.
You really are a sad lonely bankrupt. lol
The legality of the government isn’t to do with the monstrous things they did, you pathetic, moronic twerp.
They were elected with 33% of the vote (unfortunately) and because they had the largest representation the German president invited Hitler’s party to form a government.
JM says they were illegal. They weren’t, you moron.
Just fuck off and go away, you dishonest turd.
JC
4 Feb 10 at 11:08 pm
“(My father) didn’t want to be straddled with five kids,” the former Australian of the Year said, sobbing. “I haven’t forgiven him…
“I don’t like the word ‘stolen’ and it’s perhaps true that I’ve used the word loosely at times… I would see myself as a removed child, and not necessarily stolen.”
Asked whether it would be better to state clearly that she wasn’t a member of the stolen generation, Dr O’Donoghue said: “I am prepared to make that concession.”
Stolen Generations Alliance co-patron, Lowitja O’Donoghue
Infidel Tiger
4 Feb 10 at 11:10 pm
Dave, it wasn’t a subliminal point. I thought he was an opportunist back in 1980 when he published the thing (and yes I did read it), I think he’s an opportunist now.
JM
4 Feb 10 at 11:12 pm
Shorter JM.
KM opportunist. Manne my kinda guy.
JC
4 Feb 10 at 11:14 pm
Shorter JM.
KM opportunist. Manne my kinda guy
.
Okay then.
Why didn’t you say so? Like I said earlier, I can live with that.
daddy dave
4 Feb 10 at 11:19 pm
Yes C.L., the Nazis were de jure illegal but de facto recognised.
No, SRL, the Nazi state was de jure legal. This question in part gave rise to the famous debate between Hart and Fuller. Fuller disputed the legality of Nazi law on the grounds of its immorality. I’m rather sympathetic to this argument but I think that nevertheless does not refute the fact that the Nazi Party did come to power by legal means and that many of its immoral policies were themselves pursued lawfully.
dover_beach
4 Feb 10 at 11:20 pm
Dave, it wasn’t a subliminal point.
.
I described it as subliminal because it’s not the sort of thing I would pick up on. the right is peppered with former marxists (I can think of one right now!), so it’s nothing really that strange to us. Of course it would be quite jarring to a leftist and therefore they’d get the “message” that the person is obviously not trustworthy.
daddy dave
4 Feb 10 at 11:21 pm
JC, the coming to power of the Nazi’s was basically a coup. Some quibble that it had enough of a fig leaf to make it technically legal but there’s not a lot of point in debating that unless you want to argue that the dispossession of European Jew’s property was legal.
The survivors have spent a lot of the last 60 odd years trying to get it back (with very limited results). All their claims are based on the illegality of the Nazi laws that allowed and promoted the seizures. Yep, that’s right, every single truck that pulled up to a Jewish family’s house to loot the joint 5 minutes after they were shuttled off on the train was “properly” and “legally” authorized by the Nazi state.
All the seizures of businesses from Jewish owners and transfers to Aryans were authorized under Nazi “laws”.
Every single security and bank account that was (massively) discounted to new “owners” was forced out of Jewish hands by Nazi “laws”.
Not one of those “laws” stands today or is paid any regard in a court. You can’t prove ownership today by producing a receipt or contract signed by the Nazi state. The only way you’re going to keep that shit is by stonewalling (which is what most of the “owners” have been doing).
JM
4 Feb 10 at 11:22 pm
What an extraordinarily monstrous and racist suggestion is being posited here by JM and critic of Abos-in-Landcruisers, Rog. They’re actually saying that abused and neglected children have nothing to celebrate in being “stolen” from their parents. I guess they’re supposed to stick it out for the sake of the urban bourgeoise’s Noble Savage myth, to take a hit for the team, as it were. Because they’re still being “stolen” by a generation of Labor governments. Thank God they are, I say.
C.L.
4 Feb 10 at 11:23 pm
“…de jure illegal…”
Oxymoron of the day.
Or has one of the site’s AGW alarmists explained the recent horror stretch of snow and freezing as a warm cold?
…the coming to power of the Nazi’s was basically a coup.
So JM, you’re opposed to Australia’s recognition of China,? Is that right?
C.L.
4 Feb 10 at 11:28 pm
To all those I have rumbled with this evening, I hope you have a nice kip, awake refreshed, ready for a discussion tomorrow on perhaps a topic less polarizing than Windschuttle vs. Manne, such as fertilizing suburban vegie patches!
Peter Patton
4 Feb 10 at 11:29 pm
JM:
I’m not really that interested in debating the legality of the nazi regime other than pointing out that around 33% of the German population voted for them and as a result they ended up with the government.
That’s all unfortunate but it did happen much to the eternal regret of our species. To suggest they were “illegal”; that they just stole government is to do an injustice to the dead victims of those monsters.
In other words they regrettably had support from a decent slab of the German population which makes them accomplices and not victims.
Having said all that I think we should steer the thread back to the question of Manne’s accusation of genocide in Australia and that you’re going to provide the evidence.
JC
4 Feb 10 at 11:32 pm
CL: They’re actually saying that abused and neglected children have nothing to celebrate in being “stolen” from their parents
No. You’re promoting the zombie myth. That every child removed from its parents is
a.) abused and neglected
b.) happy about the result
Given the huge proportion of such children* who don’t agree with b.) you have a pretty large task in front of you when you assert a.) as justification.
You have to prove that the abuse was so extreme in such a large number of cases that the children who claim to have had their lives wrecked by removal are simply wrong. That it was for their own good, even though they don’t agree with you.
(Nice bit of paternalism there, hey? I thought we were all libertarians here.)
And that applies to any child from any background.
But if you want to say that Aboriginal children are unique in this regard in that the proportions are reversed – ie. that the vast majority are happy with the result – your task is even harder.
You have to prove that they were uniquely abused and neglected, that Aboriginal parents were/are uniquely abusive and incompetent.
* This is after all why we have deinstitutionalization now and don’t do removals in anything like the numbers we used to.
JM
4 Feb 10 at 11:35 pm
This has gone way off topic but Hitler’s Chancellorship was legal. The passing of the enabling act (i.e through intimidation), and virtually everything after this, I would say, was illegal.
Semi Regular Libertarian
4 Feb 10 at 11:36 pm
“No. You’re promoting the zombie myth. That every child removed from its parents is
a.) abused and neglected
b.) happy about the result”
FFS no one ever said that and you are constantly sabotaging the level of discourse.
Semi Regular Libertarian
4 Feb 10 at 11:38 pm
JC: To suggest they were “illegal”; that they just stole government is to do an injustice to the dead victims of those monsters.
Please. Don’t go hiding behind the Holocaust skirt. There is no injustice in saying that the “government” that murdered them was illegal.
In other words they regrettably had support from a decent slab of the German population which makes them accomplices and not victims
A bit wider than just the German population. Depending on the country, the looting was pretty widespread. The Netherlands was particularly bad as was Hungary and Austria, France and Italy a little bit less. Only Denmark comes out with any respect.
JM
4 Feb 10 at 11:40 pm
JM
I want to just emphasize that it’s important in my mind why it’s wrong to posit the Nazi government was illegal.
They were legitimized by the largest voting block and were recognized by the president.
To suggest they were illegal is to allow a very large slab of the German population off the hook and allow history to claim them as victims or near victims of a monstrous bunch of thugs when they weren’t.
Every single one of their actions were illegitimate and morally reprehensible, but to suggest they took government illegally does an injustice to history with possibly the wrong lessons learned by future generations.
JC
4 Feb 10 at 11:43 pm
Please. Don’t go hiding behind the Holocaust skirt. There is no injustice in saying that the “government” that murdered them was illegal.
I’m not. In fact you’re the one playing down their actions by suggesting they were an illegal government which therefore must mean that nearly every one of their accomplices were victim when they weren’t.
A bit wider than just the German population. Depending on the country, the looting was pretty widespread. The Netherlands was particularly bad as was Hungary and Austria, France and Italy a little bit less. Only Denmark comes out with any respect.
Okay, fine, but what’s your point?
JC
4 Feb 10 at 11:52 pm
JC: to allow a very large slab of the German population off the hook
Yeah, alright I get your point. But I’m not letting them off the hook, in fact I just put a large slab of the wider European population on it as well the Germans.
I can also concede that rendering the Nazi ascension – which I personally regard as a quasi legal fig leaf – as flat out illegal does obscure the historical lesson.
Can we call it a nuance? SRL set a demarcation point at the Ermaechtigungsgesetz (Enabling Act) after which the state became illegal. That works for me.
JM
4 Feb 10 at 11:56 pm
No. You’re promoting the zombie myth.
So governments are indeed “stealing” these children, according to you – because they’re not being neglected or abused at all. Or maybe some of them are and some of them aren’t, some of them welcome their forcible removal and some of them cling – Stockholm-like – to the notion that Mum and Dad and the whole “township” weren’t really so bad. Either way, they’ve been “stolen.” As I said, today’s “progressives” essentially believe that Aboriginal children should take a hit for the team, so as not to disturb the urban luvvie myth that all is not only well, but even spiritually superior, amongst our Noble Savages.
On the other matter, I presume that JM also regards China as an illegal state that should be recognised. Ditto for Saddam Hussein, whose governance – curiously – was held to be deplorable but sovereign by the Western left up to and after 2003.
C.L.
4 Feb 10 at 11:56 pm
Erratum: On the other matter, I presume that JM also regards China as an illegal state that should NOT be recognised.
C.L.
4 Feb 10 at 11:58 pm
CL, just for the avoidance of doubt here.
I think it’s freaking alarming that removal rates appear to be so high. You know why? Because removal is usually a disaster for the kids.
You know what I think we should do about it? Alleviate the causes for removal. Unlike you I don’t believe that aboriginal parents are uniquely abusive or neglectful of their children. I think they love them and want to care for them as much as I do my own.
And I make no distinction based on race, color or any other damn irrelevant criteria you want to dream up.
I don’t want any child to grow up in shocking circumstances, I just don’t happen to believe that removal is a good option. We can do a hell of a lot better than that.
Am I wrong?
Further, since you’ve cast me as a “leftie” I thought Saddam was a monster during the 1980’s. You know why? Because he was a thug and a murderer.
But I also opposed the 2003 invasion. You know why? Because I didn’t think the alternative was going to be any better.
And as it turns out it’s been shit loads worse.
Or do you have a habit of forgetting front page photographs of young boys who’ve lost both of their arms and a leg to bombs?
JM
5 Feb 10 at 12:09 am
And yet JM argues that Hamas, a genocidal organisation, should be recognised as a legitimate state. He even implied they were preferable to UKIP. So Hamas, who have openly carried out suicide-massacres of Jewish civilians, are a “legitimate” organisation, but the Australian authorities who presided over an indigenous population boom between 1910 and 1970 were “genocidal”.
Odd indeed!
Michael Fisk
5 Feb 10 at 12:09 am
Michael give it a miss will you?
JM
5 Feb 10 at 12:11 am
And yet JM argues that Hamas, a genocidal organisation, should be recognised as a legitimate state
If Hamas are ‘genocidal’, Australian settlers were practically Hitlerian. And this, after repeated comments decrying the abuse of terminology.
THR
5 Feb 10 at 12:12 am
Can we call it a nuance? SRL set a demarcation point at the Ermaechtigungsgesetz (Enabling Act) after which the state became illegal. That works for me.
Fine with me.
JC
5 Feb 10 at 12:12 am
As I said, today’s “progressives” essentially believe that Aboriginal children should take a hit for the team, so as not to disturb the urban luvvie myth that all is not only well, but even spiritually superior, amongst our Noble Savages.
It’s basically a bipartisan position that abused and neglected children ought to be removed from their parents. JM is correct – the State as alternative parent does a particularly poor job, but removal is a bipartisan policy all the same.
The real issue is whether Aboriginals were removed for reasons of ‘race’, not abuse or neglect. And it seems that they were, and that even Windy concedes this.
THR
5 Feb 10 at 12:14 am
LOL. Yes, Fisk. Aussie progressives, hey. Hitler’s coup made his state an illegal entity but Lenin’s and Mao’s and Ho’s and Saddam’s were de jure a-go-go. Better still, the exterminationist descendants of Adolf in Gaza are as legitimate as the Commonwealth of Australia.
C.L.
5 Feb 10 at 12:15 am
…the State as alternative parent does a particularly poor job,…
But they are fucking marvellous at managing every other aspect of our life and the economy. Fucking Hypocrite.
Infidel Tiger
5 Feb 10 at 12:19 am
And as it turns out it’s been shit loads worse.
Nonsense. Saddam Hussein was the worst mass murderer of the late twentieth century. Iraqis have embraced elections, turned up for them in the millions. What they have now is infinitely better than what they had. The Western left argued Saddam should have been left in power so he and his sons could wage generational genocide against his own people for decades to come.
In West Africa, where “international law” got involved, the result was an orchestrated campaign of terror waged by UN rape squads. It’s not for nothing that Haitians are currently begging the United States to take over.
C.L.
5 Feb 10 at 12:23 am
But they are fucking marvellous at managing every other aspect of our life and the economy.
And you can point out where I’ve said this?
THR
5 Feb 10 at 12:29 am
You’re a full blown commie aren’t you?
Infidel Tiger
5 Feb 10 at 12:30 am
the coming to power of the Nazi’s was basically a coup. Some quibble that it had enough of a fig leaf to make it technically legal but there’s not a lot of point in debating that unless you want to argue that the dispossession of European Jew’s property was legal.
I can also concede that rendering the Nazi ascension – which I personally regard as a quasi legal fig leaf
According to JM, the 1933 German elections were a ‘fig leaf’ and rise to power of the Nazi’s a ‘coup’. He then goes on to suggest that those that think that the Nazi regime came to power legally (probably every historian, etc. since 1933) also believed that the dispossession of the Jews were also legal (no doubt you’re intimating that acknowledging the legality of the regime is tantamount to approving of each of its policies seeing as you probably lack the delicacy of being able to recognize that one can at once recognize the validity of state and its laws and nevertheless disapprove of its actions and policies). I suppose you think that H. L. A. Hart was a crypto-Nazi? You really are a despicable individual, JM.
Can we call it a nuance? SRL set a demarcation point at the Ermaechtigungsgesetz (Enabling Act) after which the state became illegal. That works for me.
But, of course, it didn’t become “illegal” post the passage of the Enabling Act. It isn’t a matter of what works for me or you; that is precisely the problem with regimes like the Nazis, they simply adopted whatever “worked” for themselves irrespective of its immorality.
Just accept that you are wrong on this matter, JM, and we can move on.
dover_beach
5 Feb 10 at 12:44 am
Always good to hear a bunch of white urban-dwellers discussing blackfellas. Nothing’s changed, and it won’t till you let the blackfellas work it out themsleves. It took the West centuries to get where we are, why don’t we give other people at least a fraction of that time before telling them what to do. Which is all you are doing, left, right or centre. And anyone who denies that Aboriginal people were taken from their families because they were black (culturally rather than skin colour) is an ignorant fool and a disgrace to the nation’s history.
Dingbat
5 Feb 10 at 1:01 am
If Hamas are ‘genocidal’, Australian settlers were practically Hitlerian
THR, we have been discussing the question of whether the “Stolen Generations” (of which there were about 8,500) were victims of genocide. Now you are conflating the policies of Australian governments from about 1910 with frontier massacres that occurred in the 19th Century. Do you have any evidence that Australian “settlers” were “practically Hitlerian”, i.e. employed systematic industrial scale genocide against indigenes as a matter of policy? Hamas, we must be reminded, are an organisation who believe they have a divine, religious duty to exterminate Jews. JM and perhaps you as well seem to think that this is a legitimate government.
Michael Fisk
5 Feb 10 at 1:16 am
Bolt demolishes Manne again on the “stolen generation.”
C.L.
5 Feb 10 at 1:33 pm
Here is Manne’s seedy reply. After the first sentence it is difficult for the reader not to think, “this man cannot be trusted”
Late last year, to a strangely muffled fanfare from his friends, the third volume of Keith Windschuttle’s self-published magnum opus, The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, appeared.
By the end of the first paragraph, I thought this really will be Manne’s most spectacular own-goal. I’m with Windy. Sack him.
http://www.themonthly.com.au/nation-reviewed-robert-manne-comment-keith-windschuttle-2256
Peter Patton
5 Feb 10 at 4:25 pm
I think the telling point about Manne was that he felt he needed to bring up KW’s attitude to climate science as somehow supporting his thesis.
I agree, Manne needs to be made an example of.
The monthly riposte is pure, unadulterated hogwash.
JC
5 Feb 10 at 4:47 pm
JC
I think it goes beyond that. I think there is a solid case that Manne has leveraged and exploited racism for professional advancement. I have kids in primary/infants school, and even they are dealt an inappropriately large dose of this stuff.
Peter Patton
5 Feb 10 at 4:50 pm
he felt he needed to bring up KW’s attitude to climate science
.
dog whistling.
“My fellow historians, this guy is a conservative! Don’t help him!”
daddy dave
5 Feb 10 at 4:51 pm
Oh , I never thought of that. There’s the money angle.
I keep forgetting but the money/advancement trail is always a good thing to look at when figuring someone out.
JC
5 Feb 10 at 4:55 pm
I think we need some new “public intellectuals”
tal
5 Feb 10 at 4:56 pm
I picked-up the current Quarterly Essay yesterday as I waited for the rain outside to ease, and thumbed Manne’s current essay on neo-liberalism. Apart from blaming the GFC on ‘neo-liberalism’ he also suggested that it will also be blamed for the failure to adequately address catastrophic climate change. Oh dear.
dover_beach
5 Feb 10 at 4:56 pm
db
If you have the time – as I gloriously did over chrissie/New year. Go through Manne’s essay and highlight every time he uses a term of political philosophy/ideology. Then list them all, and see if you would pass a quiz that asked:
What does Robert Manne mean by the following terms:
Liberalism
Neo-liberalism
Social liberalism
Economic Liberalism
Neoconservatism
neo
neo
neo
.
.
.
The guy has a very muddled head for this sort of stuff. He is not up to it.
Peter Patton
5 Feb 10 at 5:02 pm
I think we need some new “public intellectuals”
Why tal, when we can have so much fun with Manne etc.
It’s fun.
JC
5 Feb 10 at 5:06 pm
I want some new “living treasures”as well JC,the ones we have now are dull
tal
5 Feb 10 at 5:08 pm
PP, that is an interesting project.
dover_beach
5 Feb 10 at 5:19 pm
I think we need some new “public intellectuals”
May I suggest The Wiggles? I think Jeff knows more about contemporary Australia than Manne, as does my favourite member of the Wiggles gang – Dorothy.
C.L.
5 Feb 10 at 5:24 pm
This whole issue can only be properly understood in the context of Manne’s sacking from Quadrant, and his – understandable – need to rebuild his credibility. He understandably chose to go commando by trying to destroy the credibility of those he perceives destroyed his own credibility – Quadrant. To do that, he had to convince enough people that he was correct in the first place to embrace Bringing Them Home so uncritically.
But Windschuttle’s 2001/2002 bombshells opened up the whole debate onto a much greater battle-field. So Manne had to fight on another front as well. This time he ran a massive PR and recruitment drive to build his vanguard. He needed both cavalry and cannon-fodder. The discovery of how shoddingly trained some of his older cavalry were (such as Lyndall Ryan) forced him to up the stakes in his offensive offensive.
The Aboriginal women and children who festered in tawdry mid-20th out-of-town “missions” are not Manne’s subject. Manne leverages this whole issue to ruin the credibility of the editors of the magazine who took over Quadrant after he was sacked. It is only then he feels that he can achieve redemption. It seemed for a while in the mid noughties, Manne was getting his wish. Since then his wish has receded from a possible reality to a pipe-dream, and perhaps even a delusion.
Peter Patton
5 Feb 10 at 5:26 pm
Is Jeff the purple one who is always asleep? He’ll do
tal
5 Feb 10 at 5:28 pm
db
I find all this ridiculous neologizing of political ideologies infuriatingly boring and pointless. Having said that I think that five categories will serve you pretty well in ananlyzing most societlies and most historical contexts. In modern Australia, two three covers most of it.
The Big 5 are:
Theocrat
Conservative
Socialist
Liberal
Reactionary
For Australia the Big 3 are:
Liberal
Conservative
Socialist
Peter Patton
5 Feb 10 at 5:38 pm
Tal, I’d prefer that Dorothy took over the role of Australia’s chief Public Intellectual.
C.L.
5 Feb 10 at 5:44 pm
#
I want some new “living treasures”as well JC,the ones we have now are dull
Naaa. Keep them after they’re dead Lenin style. We’ll then have national dead treasures to look up to.
Hey Bob Brown and Cheryl Kernott are both living treasures. How about that.
JC
5 Feb 10 at 5:44 pm
You’re kidding? Kernot? I guess that explains Gareth Evans’ behaviour. The egotistical blowhard wanted to be able to boast that he’d nailed an NLT.
C.L.
5 Feb 10 at 5:46 pm
CL is Dot unable to speak?
JC speaking of national treasures where’s young Michael? Is he still in the backyard flitting with the faries?
tal
5 Feb 10 at 5:48 pm
Robyn (80 meters Williams) is also on the list.
At that rate I’ll be up there too along with Fisk.
Peter Garret is also up there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Living_Treasures
JC
5 Feb 10 at 5:50 pm
Tal:
Sorry you lost me. Are you referring to my former carbon slave… Metro Mick?
JC
5 Feb 10 at 5:51 pm
oops that should be:
Robyn (80 meter) Williams.
JC
5 Feb 10 at 5:52 pm
No JC Michael Leuing
tal
5 Feb 10 at 5:59 pm
Remember that the National Trust chooses the Treasures.
It’s really a publicity stunt for it to raise money.
The limit is 100 so you need deaths to refresh the pool.
ken nielsen
5 Feb 10 at 6:00 pm
JC are are going to call Mick back into service to offset your up and coming holiday?
tal
5 Feb 10 at 6:00 pm
Oh Mick Leunig.
Is he up there because he won some sort of cartoon award in Iran and became famous for that. I can’t exactly recall.
JC
5 Feb 10 at 6:00 pm
In that case Ken better the devil you know
tal
5 Feb 10 at 6:01 pm
Ken;
I reckon we do like what the French did with their Grand Cru wines. They basically locked in the names since the mid 1850’s I think and haven’t changed since.
We should do the same with these treasures. Lock’em in and stick’em in a glass box like Lenin although for we made need say three glass boxes side by side for Treasures like Phil Adams, as it could be a very tight fit.
JC
5 Feb 10 at 6:05 pm
Tal, Dot can speak.
C.L.
5 Feb 10 at 6:08 pm
Good idea JC and once a year we can put them in the back of utes and parade them through the streets.The kiddies will love it
tal
5 Feb 10 at 6:09 pm
oops:
for some we may need say three glass boxes
JC
5 Feb 10 at 6:09 pm
Good idea JC and once a year we can put them in the back of utes and parade them through the streets.The kiddies will love it
Yea, but not in the summer.
JC
5 Feb 10 at 6:10 pm
Damn it CL silence is the one thing I admire in an intellectual
tal
5 Feb 10 at 6:11 pm
there are 14 designated activists on the list…social activists.
JC
5 Feb 10 at 6:12 pm
That’s an idea JC.
Embalm them and put them on display.
I saw Uncle Ho once tho he looked like wax.
Who should we start with?
ken nielsen
5 Feb 10 at 6:26 pm
Put it to the vote Ken
tal
5 Feb 10 at 6:30 pm
OK nominations open
ken nielsen
5 Feb 10 at 6:53 pm
Phil Adams
tal
5 Feb 10 at 7:04 pm
Things are going from bad to worse for Kevin Rudd’s new stolen generation:
Children shifted to violent families: Bath report.
C.L.
6 Feb 10 at 2:22 am
Is Rudd worse than Whitlam? I think he is.
Everything he’s touched has turned to shit. They couldn’t even protect the aboriginal kids afraid the stolen generations thing would make them look bad.
JC
6 Feb 10 at 2:40 am
Michael: Now you are conflating the policies of Australian governments from about 1910 with frontier massacres that occurred in the 19th Century.
Conflating? How about the policies of the British government prior to 1900 (or really prior to circa 1850 when the states started to break away) were better than those of the later state and federal policies?
But that’s a minor point. Personally I think there’s a continuum and the treatment of aborigines in the 19th C cannot be meaningfully separated from that of the early 20th C.
Unless you disagree, in which case I invite you to make your case.
JM
6 Feb 10 at 3:07 am
Jm
Focus son. Focus on the point of the thread and stop trying to draw everyone into a discussion of early Australian frontier history when we weren’t even a nation.
Is Manne bullshitting or not?
JC
6 Feb 10 at 3:29 am
Peter: I thought this really will be Manne’s most spectacular own-goal.
Sorry you really lost me here. I read the first paragraph, I read the whole thing, then I read the first paragraph again.
Where’s the “own goal”?
JM
6 Feb 10 at 3:49 am
Is Manne bullshitting? No he’s not. I haven’t seen anything here that comes close to pointing out any bullshit (leaving aside tendentious nitpicking and overly stressed manipulations).
Want to point me at some?
JM
6 Feb 10 at 3:51 am
First para:
Late last year, to a strangely muffled fanfare from his friends, the third volume of Keith Windschuttle’s self-published magnum opus, The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, appeared. Its subject is the stolen generations. Windschuttle must have regarded its publication as urgent. This is quite possibly the first occasion in the history of publishing where Volume Three of a single-authored history has preceded Volume Two. While from a narrow political point of view Windschuttle’s book is probably irrelevant – most Australians have accepted the justice of the Rudd apology; most of the right-wing commentariat, with the singular exception of Andrew Bolt, have “moved on” – from the historical and ideological points of view it ought not to be ignored. The question of the stolen generations has been one of the most important fronts in the Australian History Wars. Windschuttle’s book is the most ambitious statement of the right-wing case we are ever likely to see.
Mentions Bolt like he suffers tourettes and then suggests KM’s book is the most ambitious statement of the right wing case.
Why exactly is finding the truth about this issue right wing or left?
It’s neither right nor left.
KM on the other hand seems to be focused on the the facts.
Manne is basically a fucking moron easily depicted in the first para.
JC
6 Feb 10 at 3:58 am
Sorry don’t buy it. Is the use of well known terms like “right wing” in a (relatively) popular journal suddenly evidence of mental instability? Don’t think so.
As for facts, the rest of the article is pretty tightly argued and footnoted, so yes I think he’s focussing on facts.
I don’t understand the complaint.
JM
6 Feb 10 at 4:20 am
I never mentioned he’s mentally unstable. I said he was a fucking moron. look there’s no point in discussing this with you as you’re only ideologically interested.
So of course the fact that Manne asserting KW is making right wing case doesn’t faze you.
However as I mentioned earlier this isn’t about the right or left but about the facts.
As you point out facts aren’t important to you either evidenced up thread when asked numerous times to provide it but ignore the request.
JC
6 Feb 10 at 4:29 am
CL I was going to restrain myself over this:
Saddam Hussein was the worst mass murderer of the late twentieth century.
But I can’t help it.
Define ‘late’. The last quarter would certainly qualify wouldn’t it?
Pol Pot?
Saddam was a pussy on any objective comparison.
JM
6 Feb 10 at 4:35 am
JC I’m deliberately ignoring requests for evidence* on this topic
because there is plenty of evidence, we all know what it is, none of us deny it, and all we’re disagreeing on is the interpretation.
There can be no rational debate if this turns into another sterile denialist topic where I’m asked to reiterate well known and well understood facts in the face of nitpickers who are simply seeking to avoid any engagement at all with the meaning of those facts.
We could be here for years otherwise and make no progress at all.
Peter has claimed that Manne has made an own goal, and I don’t understand his point. I can’t see that Manne has done anything of the sort. His article seems to me to be well researched, well argued and to promote his view fairly well.
I’m just asking to be persuaded otherwise.
* Please note, I’ll accept contrary evidence. I don’t have a problem with that, but no-one has come up with any evidence to suggest that Australia’s settlers had overall benign intent. What we’re arguing is intention, as the facts are not in dispute.
JM
6 Feb 10 at 4:46 am
Last para:
Three is the most recent right-wing cavalry charge on this front. I hope that it is also the last
The guy really is a stunning moron. He can’t help himself thinking this is a right/left issue when its to do with facts.
Bolt has asked Manne several times to furnish 10 names of people that fall into the category of ” taken”. Bolt claims that Manne has been unable to even do that. Has he?
JC
6 Feb 10 at 5:00 am
JC the “claim of 10″ is puerile, which is why I mocked it earlier.
Windschuttle himself admits 8500, which I think most people agree is too low, and any reasonable person would see as 8500 too many.
As to the right/left thing, the problem is that people like Bolt use this as a stalking horse in an ideological war. Since we as a nation decided in 1967 that this was no longer an ideological issue, and it was only resurrected as one as a rightist response to the treaty push of the 1980’s I think it’s a bit bloody rude for the right to complain when Manne simply mentions the stalking horse’s existence.
Pot. Kettle. etc
JM
6 Feb 10 at 5:22 am
But that’s a minor point. Personally I think there’s a continuum and the treatment of aborigines in the 19th C cannot be meaningfully separated from that of the early 20th C.
Unless you disagree, in which case I invite you to make your case.
Actually, the onus is on YOU, as the person advancing a positive claim, to show that there is a “continuum” of policies that “cannot be meaningfully separated” between the 19th Century frontier settlers and the fictional genocide of the 20th Century.
It’s very odd that a Hamas supporter would be accusing ANYONE of genocide and still keep a straight face.
Michael Fisk
6 Feb 10 at 5:24 am
Windschuttle himself admits 8500, which I think most people agree is too low, and any reasonable person would see as 8500 too many.
JM, Windschuttle says that there were 8,500 removals in total, not that there were 8,500 “racist” removals for non-welfare reasons. There was obviously a non-zero amount of indigenous children who should have been removed from their parents, as is the case today.
Michael Fisk
6 Feb 10 at 5:43 am
Michael. And a number of racist removals?
How do you excuse those?
JM
6 Feb 10 at 10:21 pm
We don’t excuse them. No system is perfect. How many children of all races have suffered because someone is trying to force an agenda through a government program?
Michael Sutcliffe
6 Feb 10 at 10:49 pm
There can be no rational debate if this turns into another sterile denialist topic where I’m asked to reiterate well known and well understood facts in the face of nitpickers who are simply seeking to avoid any engagement at all with the meaning of those facts
.
There they are again. Those “well known facts” of yours, JM, that you keep a closely guarded secret.
I guess you’re referring to the “Bringing them Home” report. Correct?
daddy dave
6 Feb 10 at 11:18 pm
Mike: We don’t excuse them.
Then why are you trying to?
Dave: The facts are in many places. The Bringing Them Home report, the oral history of my family, public records of the states and the governments of Australia. No-one denies them. Are you?
JM
6 Feb 10 at 11:24 pm
JC the “claim of 10″ is puerile, which is why I mocked it earlier.
You mocked it, but it’s not puerile. There’s a good reason why.
Windschuttle himself admits 8500, which I think most people agree is too low, and any reasonable person would see as 8500 too many.
KM’s number and Bolt’s challenge is two entirely different thing. KM claims there were 8500 kids removed between 1910/70 while Bolt is challenging the Professor to come up with 10 people that were stolen under the claim Manne has made… that kids were taken for racially motivated reasons. So far Manne has been unable to.
JC
6 Feb 10 at 11:41 pm
JM,
the only thing on that list that counts is Bringing Them Home. For one thing, as people have already mentioned (including me), your family oral history is interesting but irrelevant. The issue is government policy, not the actions of frontier settlers of the 19th century. Maybe they killed aborigines. It’s possible. That’s not what we’re discussing.
Second, public records are only useful when someone goes to the public library, reads them, and reports the research. Windschuttle has exactly done that and found that the claims of race-based removal are unfounded, at least as far as official records are concerned. Strike two.
That leaves you standing there with “Bringing them Home.”
.
No-one denies them. Are you?
.
Windschuttle denies them. As for me, what I think is irrelevant. But since you ask, I have an open mind. I follow the evidence.
daddy dave
6 Feb 10 at 11:44 pm
that kids were taken for racially motivated reasons
Is that the challenge – that there are 10 individuals who were kids at the time who know the reasons for their removal in enough, presumably documented form, to prove that it was “racially motivated”?
Then it’s the king of all strawmen. It’s impossible. You’re talking about children caught up in a poorly documented process.
But the documentation we have – from policy to ledger entries of reasons for removal (“being aboriginal”) are enough to establish Manne’s point.
Or are you saying that no child was ever removed for racist reasons? Really? I think at that point, you are making the positive claim and have the burden of extraordinary proof for extraordinary claims.
No, I think Manne’s case is safe from Bolt’s attack.
JM
6 Feb 10 at 11:47 pm
Dave: The issue is government policy, not the actions of frontier settlers of the 19th century.
That’s a distinction without a difference. The policy of government was formed from the actions and prejudices of the populace.
The explicit policies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries did not spring from nothing. There’s a continuum there.
If you don’t think so (and I know Michael doesn’t) perhaps you’d like to do two things for me:
1. explain why 1910 is a transformational year – why genocidal policies suddenly spring into being
2. explain why in analogous situations you think that later policies have nothing to do with earlier practices.
Let me explain what I mean by number 2. The policies and “legislation” of the Nazi state from 1933 onwards are clearly a formalization of earlier European prejudice and an example of a pogrom in legislative and extreme form. Are you (and Michael) saying that the Third Reich was unique with no antecedents?
And that nothing similar has come after?
Or do you agree with me that it was simply a very extreme form of something that already existed?
JM
6 Feb 10 at 11:55 pm
Or are you saying that no child was ever removed for racist reasons?
.
one. Winschuttle found evidence of one, I believe, where they wrote on the form “for being black.”
.
I think at that point, you are making the positive claim and have the burden of extraordinary proof for extraordinary claims.
.
Huh? That’s perverse (in every sense) and really offensive. Why is it extraordinary that the government did not engage in a policy of racial elimination? Why do you think that is the default position?
.
For instance, let’s apply the same thing to the government of, say, New Zealand. maybe they’ve been doing the same thing! There’s no evidence of course, but if you claim it didn’t happen, why that’s extraordinary! PROVE it didn’t happen!
daddy dave
6 Feb 10 at 11:55 pm
That’s a distinction without a difference.
.
big difference. Some people think painting graffiti on trains is okay. There is no government policy to promote train graffiti. what individuals believe and do is not the same as government policy.
.
Are you (and Michael) saying that the Third Reich was unique with no antecedents?
.
You’re getting lost in the forest here JM. Of course governmnet policies have precedents and spring from attitudes floating around out there. But the reverse is not true. Just because you find an attitude does not mean that it will become, or ever has become, government policy.
daddy dave
7 Feb 10 at 12:01 am
Dave: Of course governmnet policies have precedents and spring from attitudes floating around out there. But the reverse is not true. Just because you find an attitude does not mean that it will become, or ever has become, government policy.
This is nonsense. My point is agrees with your observation that policy comes “from [what] is floating around out there”.
Your point is that policy comes from thin air.
JM
7 Feb 10 at 12:22 am
1. explain why 1910 is a transformational year – why genocidal policies suddenly spring into being
Erm, I don’t have to explain any such thing for the rather simple reason that there weren’t any genocidal policies in Australia between 1910 and 1970. You are assuming what you want to “prove” without doing any work.
Let me explain what I mean by number 2. The policies and “legislation” of the Nazi state from 1933 onwards are clearly a formalization of earlier European prejudice and an example of a pogrom in legislative and extreme form. Are you (and Michael) saying that the Third Reich was unique with no antecedents?
Another non-sequitur. Australia didn’t have any genocidal policies in the 20th Century. There were a lot of draconian child removal laws, which affected people of all races, however there is no doubt that they affected Aborigines disproportionately. This isn’t evidence of “genocide” or even attempted genocide. Funnily enough, a group of people who have explicitly advocated genocide and carried out massacres to this end (Hamas) have not only not attracted anything like the level of opprobrium that you would pile on the Commonwealth of Australia, but have in fact received your explicit support. What’s up with this part-time opposition to genocide of yours?
Michael Fisk
7 Feb 10 at 4:09 am
Michael Fisk
Your latter comments read like someone who is paraphrasing copy and pastes from another source, and a very bad source at that. Care to share?
Peter Patton
7 Feb 10 at 11:39 am
Your point is that policy comes from thin air.
.
I said exactly the opposite.
Your logic is flawed. just because racism became government policy once does not mean that racism, wherever it occurs, will become policy.
daddy dave
7 Feb 10 at 11:54 am
JM> policy comes from thin air.
What a load of rubbish.
Here is how government policy is developed
1. Demand for a policy
2. issue identified, stakeholder consultation
3 Policy submission to Cabinet
5. Cabinet decision to develop policy further
4. further public consultation, including discussion papers etc.
5. further policy submission to Cabinet
6. Cabinet decision on policy
7. Legislation drafted
8 Cabinet considers introduction of legislation to Parliament
9. Draft legislation introduced
10 legislation debated
11 Legislation passed
12 Legislation given royal assent to be made law.
Now, there can be abbreviated version of the above, but the overall point if there is a policy there would be a highly documented paper trail that would be on the public record. So why can’t the ’stolen generation’ protagonists find this documentation? Because it doesn’t exist.
In the case that was the purpose of this thread, Manne apparently a policy submission seeking limits on who half castes could marry, and used that as evidence of a similar policy of stealing children (which he hasn’t find either btw). However Windschuttle accuses Manne of deliberately failing to mention the outcome of the Cabinet consideration of the submission and thus the actual adopted policy, which would have destroyed Manne’s case.
entropy
7 Feb 10 at 12:27 pm
JM/entropy
Correct me if I am wrong, but I have not seen anybody on this thread state exactly what they think Manne’s case is.
Peter Patton
7 Feb 10 at 12:51 pm
Basically Manne found a Cabinet Sub that canvassed only allowing half castes to marry whitefellas only. According to Windschuttle Manne used this as evidence of stolen generation type policy.
However, Windschuttle also accused Manne of deliberately neglecting to say that Cabinet had rejected the Submission, and furthermore made a song and dance about rejecting it. To Windschuttle, this is reprehensible as he suspects Manne is guilty of deliberately not fully disclosing what happened with the Sub in order to promote his agenda.
This is what this thread was supposed to be about.
entropy
7 Feb 10 at 6:38 pm
Michael: There were a lot of draconian child removal laws, which affected people of all races, however there is no doubt that they affected Aborigines disproportionately.
Disproportionately? Then the child-removal-through-neglectful-parents-so-they-deserved-it case evaporates.
entropy: 1. Demand for a policy
I agree. It’s my point, policy doesn’t come out of thin air, it comes from demand.
entropy: Cabinet
Cabinet didn’t have responsibility for aboriginal affairs prior to the 1967 referendum. It all rested with the states. The fact that a cabinet submission even exists is pretty damning.
Generally the place to look is local and state government and their instrumentalities and there’s plenty of evidence there.
Windschuttle is playing a pea-n-shell game.
But in any case Manne explains his point in Footnote XIX – there is a cabinet memo predating the submission that Windschuttle misrepresents, that unambiguously states the case:
The policy of the Government is to encourage the marriage of half-castes with whites or half-castes, the object being to “breed out” the colour as far as possible.” CRS NAA ACT, ‘Intermarriage of Coloured and Foreign Races with Aboriginals’, Memorandum, JA Carrodus, 25 May 1933
Also Footnote XX:
“The following is the policy at present adopted in the Northern Territory…(c) Every endeavour is being made to breed out the colour by elevating female half-castes to white standard with a view to their absorption by mating into the white population.” Perkins outlined the present policy because he thought it was “open to debate”. CRS NAA A 659/1 40/1/408, JA Perkins ‘Marriage of Half-Castes’, Memorandum for Cabinet, 31 July 1933. The Secretary of the Department of the Interior, H C Brown, argued for a change in policy on 3 November 1933. Department of the Interior, Memorandum, HC Brown, CRS NAA A 659/1 40/1/408. The Minister disagreed. He minuted: “Present policy to continue.” I discussed all this in Manne ‘Aboriginal Child Removal …’, 2004, pp228–231. In a characteristic slur, Windschuttle claims I have not even looked at the relevant files: “… it is difficult to believe that Manne has ever read the complete file and more likely that he gained the reference second hand.” Fabrication, vol. 3, p386.
Manne makes his case, Windschuttle obscures and distracts.
JM
8 Feb 10 at 12:17 am
The policy of the Government is to encourage the marriage of half-castes with whites or half-castes, the object being to “breed out” the colour as far as possible.” CRS NAA ACT, ‘Intermarriage of Coloured and Foreign Races with Aboriginals’, Memorandum, JA Carrodus, 25 May 1933
KM easily answered this, which you can go examine in the linked interview
It’s preposterous in so many ways that it’s difficult to know where to start.
How the fuck do you make people marry each other?
If the policy were genocide, as Manne suggests why on earth would you have the race you want to wipe out marry the favored one.
It would be like the Nazis suggesting … Oh lets wipe out the Jews by having Jewish women marry German men.
According to KM this was brought to cabinet as a submission and discarded for its rank stupidity.
Manne is a clown to even suggest this as a proposition to support his case for genocide and you’re a clown to find it credible.
Has there ever been a case in the world where this has ever been carried out.
Some attempt at genocide. LOL.
JC
8 Feb 10 at 1:10 am
JC: How the fuck do you make people marry each other?
Good point, so are you trying? And how do you accomplish it? Remove girl children and marry them off, that might help.
If the policy were genocide,….
That’s because you confuse genocide with extermination. Destruction of a culture or a people is genocide, and there’s more than one way to skin that cat.
JM
8 Feb 10 at 1:39 am
“Disproportionately? Then the child-removal-through-neglectful-parents-so-they-deserved-it case evaporates.”
Actually, no. Aborigines were obviously far more disadvantaged than other races, so it stands to reason that Aboriginal children would be more likely to be removed. There is some evidence that a number of Aboriginal children were removed from their parents for non-welfare reasons (Windschuttle’s own book shows that one case file had “Being an Aboriginal” as the reason). It is an authoritarian and indefensible thing to do. But that isn’t the same thing as “genocide”.
Cabinet didn’t have responsibility for aboriginal affairs prior to the 1967 referendum. It all rested with the states.
You don’t seem to have twigged to the fact that this renders the rest of your argument bunk – Perkins was a federal minister who by your account had no power to implement any policies on “breeding out the colour”.* As things turn out, no actual efforts were made to turn the sexual obsessions of a couple of bureaucrats into policy – half-castes remained free to marry whom they wanted. On the other hand, it was illegal for any white person to marry a full-blood Aboriginal, a policy which was explicitly designed to preserve full-bloods – in other words, the opposite of “breeding out the colour” or “genocide”.
*Actually, this isn’t quite true. The Federal Government did have responsibility for the Northern Territory. This has already been tested in the Federal Court, in the Gunner-Cubillo case. The judgment said:
“The extracts from the documents that have thus far been identified are sufficient, in my opinion, to justify a conclusion that the Commonwealth Government had, since about 1911, pursued a policy of removing some part Aboriginal children and placing them in institutions in Alice Springs and Darwin. The material is not sufficient to sustain a finding that this policy applied to all part Aboriginal children. On the contrary, it would seem that it did not have such a general application…The applicants have not, in my opinion, produced the evidence that would substantiate a finding that there was a ‘general policy of removal and detention’ as alleged in their pleadings.”
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/AILR/2000/29.html#Heading138
So much for “genocide”.
Michael Fisk
8 Feb 10 at 1:56 am
Remove girl children and marry them off, that might help.
The good news is that there was no such policy to “remove girl children” and “marry them off”. It is a fabrication.
Michael Fisk
8 Feb 10 at 1:58 am
JC: How the fuck do you make people marry each other?
Good point, so are you trying? And how do you accomplish it? Remove girl children and marry them off, that might help.
If the policy were genocide,….
This is insane and I see that Manne has taken you into this vortex of insanity you simply can’t get out of.
Let’s get this straight, Manne wants people to believe -that the aboriginals being despised so much- we were going to take aboriginal girls and marry them off to white men so as to irradiate the race. This was done forcibly I presume without any thought whether white men would want to marry them. Furthermore the racists were actively seeking to mix what they thought was an inferior race with their own.
The Klu Klux Klan is always making a similar proposal. LOL.
It is quite possibly the most nonsensical crap I’ve ever read. What’s even more unbelievable is that Manne would think any reasonable person would believe this swill.
What you’re describing here is a sequel Manne has written for Dumb and Dumber. He must have written this drunk because I can’t imagine any sober person ever making such stupid suggestions. It’s bizarre.
That’s because you confuse genocide with extermination. Destruction of a culture or a people is genocide, and there’s more than one way to skin that cat.
Okay Mergitroid, is there any evidence that any other liberal democracies have ever tried this bizarre form of “genocide” Manne is suggesting.
JC
8 Feb 10 at 2:22 am
Fisk:
As I said Manne actually wrote this as a sequel to Dumb and Dumber which JM and other lefties think is true and that it actually happened.
The Farrelly brothers ran out of script ideas for the sequel and asked Manne to write oine for them..
The quick synopsis goes like this… Set in the Appalachians
A local chapter of a red neck Klu Klux Klan outfit decide they want to get rid of balcks and figure out best way to do this is to marry off black girls to red-neck single white inbred men in the area and later across the country.
No kidding this would be the funniest movie the Farrelly brothers ever made. All they need is Manne to hurry up with the script.
JC
8 Feb 10 at 2:32 am
Let’s get this straight, Manne wants people to believe -that the aboriginals being despised so much- we were going to take aboriginal girls and marry them off to white men so as to irradiate the race. This was done forcibly I presume without any thought whether white men would want to marry them. Furthermore the racists were actively seeking to mix what they thought was an inferior race with their own.
That’s right JC, they had this brilliant scheme to destroy an entire race which consisted of…taking about 9,000 (mostly) adolescents away from their families and sending them off to do apprenticeships, to foster homes or missions; and banning white people from marrying full-blood blacks while allowing half-castes to marry whom they want (mostly blacks as it turned out). That the indigenous population boomed like never before only proves just how cunning this hidden genocide really was.
Michael Fisk
8 Feb 10 at 2:35 am
A local chapter of a red neck Klu Klux Klan outfit decide they want to get rid of balcks and figure out best way to do this is to marry off black girls to red-neck single white inbred men in the area and later across the country. No kidding this would be the funniest movie the Farrelly brothers ever made. All they need is Manne to hurry up with the script.
Ha ha ha! I can just see the KKK lynching some white hick for REFUSING to marry the ebony-skinned bride they’ve assigned to him.
Michael Fisk
8 Feb 10 at 2:38 am
Is Manne a professor of comedy writing, Fisk? ROTFL.
WTF is going on in academia?
It’s become a hot bed of idiocy. I can well imagine a time when parents actually refuse to send their kids to these university for fear of what will happen to their kids.
JC
8 Feb 10 at 2:41 am
Yea that’s right… it would be a reverse lynching with the white red-neck dudes getting roped for not marrying the black gal. LOL… hahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahaha
JC
8 Feb 10 at 2:44 am
I can’t wait to see it:
Breeding Out The Colour/i> (directed by Robert Manne; starring Gene Hackman and Whoopi Goldberg)
Michael Fisk
8 Feb 10 at 2:57 am
Michael Fisk
8 Feb 10 at 2:57 am
You have to get Manne’s Hollywood name right. It would no longer be Robert Manne…
In Hollywood he’s known as Bobby Manne.. screen writer
JC
8 Feb 10 at 3:04 am
JM
1. Destruction of “a culture” (whatever that is) is not genocide
2. I think you are another one being conned by Manne. AS he no longer argues the ‘genocide’ line.
Peter Patton
8 Feb 10 at 8:01 am
JM
Are you seriously trying to argue that a government which ENCOURAGES miscegenation is committing genocide!!?? Maaaaaatte.
Let’s use your logic in an analogous example:
The German people must forever bear the shame of the genocidal policy which encouraged marriage between Jews and Aryan Germans
Peter Patton
8 Feb 10 at 10:13 am
This is what Manne actually says:
Windschuttle either falsely represents the position of the “orthodox” historians or exaggerates their conformity. Many do not accept the way Bringing Them Home arrived at its genocide conclusion. Yet Windschuttle’s accusations concerning the orthodox historians’ acceptance of the charge of genocide operate throughout like a kind of nervous tic. Most accept that the child-removal policies were exclusively aimed at Aborigines of mixed descent. Most accept that many of the people involved in the Aboriginal “half-caste” institutions and the children’s homes were people of good heart. Many accept that Bringing Them Home did exaggerate the numbers. Falsely, Windschuttle denies that any of this is the case.
http://www.themonthly.com.au/nation-reviewed-robert-manne-comment-keith-windschuttle-2256
Manne goes on to document some of Windy’s more egregious omissions, which, surprise surprise, all have the effect of minimising or denying the existence of racism.
THR
8 Feb 10 at 10:34 am
THR
Oh come on. The issue here is genocide for chrissakes, not common garden variety ‘racism’. If you are trying to bait and switch away from the genocide pushers, you need to make it clear that you think the genocide-pushers have been and still are lying.
Peter Patton
8 Feb 10 at 10:41 am
But the debate is between Windy and Manne. Manne isn’t alleging that genocide occurred (he even concedes that some figures have been exaggerated), so you shouldn’t be misrepresenting his argument. Now, back to this business of Windy and his convenient omissions…
THR
8 Feb 10 at 10:45 am
THR
Are you saying Manne REJECTS the ‘genocide’ pushers? Now, I have read the work of Manne and his ilk, so I know what they say, how they say it, and where. I am not even remotely persuaded this is the case for you.
Curiously, you have not pointed out your secret knowledge of Manne’s musing to JM.
Peter Patton
8 Feb 10 at 11:00 am
Manne’s piece in The Monthly is his most recent foray into the topic. No, I haven’t read everything he’s written on this subject, but I’ve read some of his op-eds a while ago.
Manne doesn’t mention anything about genocide. Whether policies aimed at extinguishing elements of the Aboriginal people or culture constitute ‘genocide’ is an entirely separate question, so it’s no surprise to see Windy (and his enablers on this thread) obfuscating in this regard.
Windy basically asks – where was the central diktat to destroy Aboriginals? Why wasn’t it posted in every government report, and in every town square? Mane answers (correctly, I believe) that there was no central diktat, that policies varied across different states and territories and across time, but that there was nonetheless a racist policy of removing ‘half-castes’.
In short, Bolt is doing what he does best – lying and smearing. Windy is playing a silly game of obfuscation – attack a footnote here, destroy a straw-argument there – but he clearly omits all material unfavourable to his thesis (that Australia is not teh racist!).
THR
8 Feb 10 at 11:09 am
THR
Let me give you a hint. Windy has written many books/articles/chapters that laboriously quote chapter and verse of the orthodox historians’ genocide fetish. In fact, I have next to me as I type, the very book that Manne vaguely refers to as
In my own case, he has not read either a chapter on the question of genocide and Aboriginal child removal before 1940 that I contributed to a monograph published in New York
That book is edited by an extreme genocide-pusher – Dirk Moses. Windy has been all over Moses for many years now, and again his articles books and media pieces have quoted Moses’ vile ramblings many times, including Manne’s chapter in the telling titled Genocide and Settler Society: Frontier Violence and Stolen Indigenous Children in Australian History New York, 2004.
If you have for a chat about that book and the essays in it, including Manne’s, I’d love to. As I said I have the book right here.
Peter Patton
8 Feb 10 at 11:11 am
Michael: Aborigines were obviously far more disadvantaged than other races,
So you concede disadvantage, that’s good. (Actually, if you look at life expectancy and infant mortality I think you’ll have to concede that the disadvantage continues).
so it stands to reason that Aboriginal children would be more likely to be removed.
It doesn’t stand to reason that removal is a logical or even good option. We have to look elsewhere. (I’ll come back to this.)
a number of Aboriginal children were removed from their parents for non-welfare reasons
Making progress here, what would those non-welfare reasons be?
Now we get to your comments on half-castes and full bloods.
half-castes remained free to marry whom they wanted
After being removed (and assimilated, so they had as little contact with full-bloods as possible – that was the objective)
it was illegal for any white person to marry a full-blood Aboriginal,
Yes. Reduce the population of half-castes so you get more ‘quatroons’ and ‘octaroons’. Eugenics in full flood.
You’ve just described the “breeding out the colour” policy that you insist didn’t exist.
So now that we agree the policy was enacted as described, there’s a definitional question – was it genocidal?
A few people seem to confuse genocide with Nazi-like extermination, but I made my response to this upthread
Assimilation and “breeding out the color” do meet the definition.
Systematic expropriation of land, destruction of communities, suppression of languages etc all meet the definition. And are commonly held to be acts of genocide.
But this is a definitional issue – if you believe that the Holocaust was the only genocide in history, and that’s your definition I’ll agree to disagree with you.
So returning to motivation, what was the reason? Did these policies spring out of thin air, or was there a “demand” from the populace (as pointed out by entropy in his outline of policy development)?
I think Tim Fischer put it best when he got exasperated with his constituency not understanding the response to the Mabo and Wik decisions: “bucketloads of extinguishment”.
Settlers on the frontier sought to extinguish the common law ownership of land held by the aboriginal people at the point of a gun. Later in the 20th century extinguishment required destruction of the communities and with the ultimate objective of letting the whole people and culture die off.
Take the half-caste children, assimilate them with (poor) white families until they forget their origins and let the full bloods dwindle and die off.
Pretty soon there is no common law ownership of the land left.
JM
8 Feb 10 at 8:00 pm
JM
it was illegal for any white person to marry a full-blood Aboriginal
That was to protect both the full-blooded Aboriginal women and her picanniny. And full-blooded lubra who was impregnated by a whitey, would find both she and he child ostracized by the full-bloods, as full-bloods has a complex web of restrictions across which aboriginal men and women could not marry, for a number of reasons including in-breeding, but also ensuring males from one half of the tribe had an interest in protecting their sister/daugter, whom they had married across the line. This across line marriage gave the woman’s kin an interest in providing security for their daughter/sister’s new life.
A baby born without a full-blood father had absolutely nobody invested in this investment, and slowly but surely she and her-caste were ostracized as their were no males on either side to look out for, provide for, initiate, defend. or educate, the half-caste baby. That is the missions were built, so the women and her ha;f caste baby had an alternative.
Peter Patton
9 Feb 10 at 3:13 pm
So you concede disadvantage, that’s good. (Actually, if you look at life expectancy and infant mortality I think you’ll have to concede that the disadvantage continues).
.
JM…
everyone “concedes” disadvantage. That’s a given. It’s really fucking insulting of you to insuate that anyone did not concede that from the outset, and that this is an instance of you enlightening others about aboriginal disadvantage.
Your tactic is to smear everyone who disagrees with Manne or agrees with KW as being racist or at minimum of not acknowledging racism, hardship or suffering of aboriginal people.
The question was, “was there a government policy to breed out the colour?”
daddy dave
9 Feb 10 at 4:12 pm
JM
I am doing a deconstruction of Manne’s article on another blog you might interetsing.
http://clubtroppo.com.au/2010/02/05/windschuttle-versus-manne/#comment-361739
Peter Patton
9 Feb 10 at 4:52 pm
Increasingly, the ‘debate’ between Manne and Windy is looking like mere bitchiness on the part of Manne’s former comrades at Quadrant. See this fluff piece by Merv Bendle, for instance:
http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/qed/2010/02/corrupting-history
Nowhere do these Quadrant clowns address the issue of Windy’s various omissions. Instead, they use broad-brush strokes to paint a gigantic conspiracy from Adorno to Foucault, whose sole purpose is to make fat, bald fuckers like Windy and Merv feel bad about being white Australians. Good grief. And the comparison, in the link above, between Robert Manne and Howard Zinn is one of the most idiotic I’ve ever seen.
Defend these dishonest morons at your peril.
THR
9 Feb 10 at 5:16 pm
THR:
I’m with Dad’s on this one. I don’t really give a shit as to who is right or wrong from a purely personal level. My family aren’t anglo and had nothing to do with potential mistreatment.
I’m concerned as a citizen though if indeed this shit is true.
However it doesn’t appear to me that what Manne is saying is true and seems that he’s the one playing the Ad homs… accusing KW of being a AGW sceptic as though that has anything to do with the claim and also inserting Bolt in to the game when Bolt is a side issue.
Fact is Manne appears to have redefined what genocide actually means and then goes on trying to prove something that didn’t exist.
The suggestion that the state was involved in genocide seems preposterous and Manne looks more and more like an mendacious idiot.
JC
9 Feb 10 at 5:34 pm
But in his latest piece, Manne doesn’t mention genocide, and concedes that some reports may have been exaggerated. He also points out that the Bringing Them Home report didn’t even use the term ‘Stolen generations’, except in quotations.
On the other hand, Windy seems to systematically ignore every bit of evidence that contradicts his thesis (namely, there’s a gigantic lefty conspiracy about Aboriginals). Bendle tries to get in on the act by portraying Manne as a pomo agent for the Comintern. Meanwhile, Bolt (for whom denying Aboriginal suffering for the baying crowd is something of a hobby horse) has made a career out of lies and smears, and, based on his track record, shouldn’t be relied upon as a source for anybody.
Long story short, Manne hasn’t been mendacious at all, and Windy (and the rest of the glee club at Quadrant) have been repeatedly obfuscatory and deceitful. I say this as somebody who doesn’t even particularly like Robert Manne. His prose could be a substitute for benzos. But he’s still on the right side of the debate on this one.
THR
9 Feb 10 at 5:41 pm
THR:
Where the the genocide stuff start and if Manne has given up the ghost on that accusation where does his argument rest now.
What is KM saying if indeed Manne has basically given up on the genocide stuff?
As I said it was Manne who brought up Bolt as a way of attacking KW.
JC
9 Feb 10 at 5:47 pm
Gummo
Whatever Windy’s faults – and they are more one’s of showing less compassion to victims – his historical narrative is getting the story closer to right than his opponets, such as Manne.
One of the cruel ironies, is that Manne’s The Culture of Forgetting is no longer about Helene Demidenmo/Darvilee/Dale/Whatever. No, the ‘culture of forgetting’ is exemplified by Manne himself.
To be fair, this whole issue can only be properly understood in the context of Manne’s sacking from Quadrant, and his – understandable – need to rebuild his credibility. Manne – perhaps understandably – chose to go commando by trying to destroy the credibility of those he perceives destroyed his own credibility – Quadrant. To do that, he had to convince enough people that he was correct in the first place to embrace Bringing Them Home so uncritically.
But Windschuttle’s 2001/2002 bombshells opened up the whole debate onto a much greater battle-field. So Manne had to fight on another front as well. This time he ran a massive PR and recruitment drive to build his vanguard. He needed both cavalry and cannon-fodder. The discovery of how shoddingly trained some of his older cavalry were (such as Lyndall Ryan) forced him to up the stakes in his offensive offensive.
The Aboriginal women and children who festered in tawdry mid-20th out-of-town “missions” are not Manne’s subject. Manne leverages this whole issue to try to ruin the credibility of the editors of the magazine who took over Quadrant after he was sacked. It is only then he Manne feels that he can achieve redemption.
It seemed for a while in the mid noughties, Manne was getting his wish. Since then, his wish has receded from a possible reality to a pipe-dream, and perhaps even a delusion.
It would benefit the Australian polity a great deal of he went on television admitting his gullibility and attendant sloppy scholarship.
Alas, even to this day, his recent Monthly bait and switch does not loud and proud come out and declare, “look I made a huge mistake on the genocide claims I was wrong”.
But no, what he does, he still peppers his articles with the ‘g’ word but can’t help his trade-mark oleaginous self.
Watch his torture, as he tries to keep the genocide,/i> alive and well, but not by declaring it irrelevant himself, but by a curious presumption that if he can unsettle’s Windy’s denials, his job is done. But of course, by unsettling the evidence Windy musters against genocide, the reader can only conclude, “come on Bobbie, you actually do believe the genocide discourse, don’t you?
Here’s a few:
Windschuttle also claims that Neville’s famous question to the 1937 Canberra Conference –
“Are we going to have a population of 1,000,000 blacks in the Commonwealth, or are we going to merge them into our white community and eventually forget that there were ever any Aborigines in Australia?”
which combined the aspiration to breed out the colour of the “half castes” with the certainty that the “full bloods” were doomed, is no genocidal thought. He claims Neville did not “subscribe” to the belief that “the full blood Aboriginal population was destined to die out.”
Here were have Neville offering assimilation of whites, “half-castes” and “fullbloods” as a policy objective, or allowing the full-bloods their land and autonomy, with the expectation their ways of life would lead to a reduction of their numbers and eventually extinction.
What would WE he decide today? I’d want to ask the full-bloods themselves whether they wanted to be integrated or left-alone. If the latter the fact the anthropological consensus wouldd be that they worl eventually die out is neither cruel, racist, and especially non within coo-ee of genocide.
Now, we all know from our basic rhetoric courses, that the poition you agree with, you present, leaving the position you actually believe to last. Why> It sets up an anticpitation of rebuttal unlike the agreed with statement, and it is the last think we remember.
And Manne does not fail to use this rhetorical muse, of which are equally trained.
Once more he [Windy] is simply wrong. In May 1937 the Brisbane Telegraph reported that “Mr Neville holds the view that within one hundred years the pure black will be extinct.”[xxvi]
Hold on, let’s unpack this. Who is the subject of this quote? The British Telegraph reporter. Did Neville really say this, and if so, so what? I am sure the full-blooded Aborigines who wanted to be left alone could give a rat’s about Neville’s reported musings thousands of miles away. As long as Nexille doesn’t rocket with AK-47’s to expedite their 100 year life, it is meaningless as Tony Abbot’s climate policy.
But notice Manne’s completely amateurish attempts at playing historian. Any first year student know the difference between a newspaper reporter says, and what was actually said. But Manne thinks he is a “GOTCHA” moment. How can somebody’s surmise about conditions in 100 years times constitute genocide
Sorry, JM, you man Manne is looking a little lame.
Peter Patton
9 Feb 10 at 6:00 pm
Wrong site peter.
Gummo trot doesn’t visit here. He used but we all made him cry, as he’s a very delicate wallflower.
JC
9 Feb 10 at 6:03 pm
Peter you’re making a definitional argument about the meaning of ‘genocide’. I’ve explained what I mean by it, but others clearly disagree, so I’ve decided to agree to disagree on that point.
I then went on and explained how I interpreted the history – regardless of what you want to call it.
I don’t think you’re being entirely fair when your complaint simply appears to be a squabble about definitions, rather than a discussion on interpretation.
I said upthread that in my personal view, the policy was pretty clearly a continuation of extinguishment by other means.
JM
9 Feb 10 at 6:35 pm
JM
Peter you’re making a definitional argument about the meaning of ‘genocide’
You can’t read. Pray share with us this ‘definitional argument’.
Peter Patton
9 Feb 10 at 11:28 pm
After being removed (and assimilated, so they had as little contact with full-bloods as possible – that was the objective)
There is no evidence for this contention. In fact, according to Windschuttle’s NSW tabulation, over half of all “removals” subsequently returned to their community. And most were in their teens.
Yes. Reduce the population of half-castes so you get more ‘quatroons’ and ‘octaroons’. Eugenics in full flood.
Um, no. The federal government had no policy to “breed out” half-castes. No actual measures were introduced to facilitate this “goal”. The half-caste population boomed during the “Stolen Generations” era, were free to marry whom they wanted, and in fact chose overwhelmingly to marry other Aborigines. The Government explicitly wanted to PROTECT full-blood Aborigines (which I would have disagreed with), while allowing half-castes the freedom to choose their spouse.
You’ve just described the “breeding out the colour” policy that you insist didn’t exist.
So now that we agree the policy was enacted as described, there’s a definitional question – was it genocidal?
We agree on no such thing. There was no policy to “breed out the colour”. No actual measures were introduced to facilitate this “goal”.
I said upthread that in my personal view, the policy was pretty clearly a continuation of extinguishment by other means.
No it wasn’t. You still don’t have any evidence that any Australian governments had any intent to “extinguish” the Aborigines.
Michael Fisk
10 Feb 10 at 2:19 am
On that note, just in case anyone was wondering – the Gunner-Cubillo Federal Court judgment has already tested the question of whether there was a general, indiscrimate federal government policy of removing half-castes in the Northern Territory (the only part of the country where they had jurisdiction on indigenous affairs). The case was decided in the negative.
To continue to suggest that the federal government had a “genocidal” policy is essentially to lie. It’s already been tested. Move on.
Michael Fisk
10 Feb 10 at 2:26 am
THR
Actually, Manne’s latest article mentions ‘genocide’ ten times.
Peter Patton
10 Feb 10 at 9:25 am
JM
Actually, it is you who has fallen into the abyss of nitpicking over the definition of ‘genocide’ and in the process you cite Manne as an authority to support your case. Can you express succinctly just what is your and Manne’s definition of the genocide perpetrated by Australians?
Peter Patton
10 Feb 10 at 4:15 pm
Actually, Manne’s latest article mentions ‘genocide’ ten times
Good. You’ve mastered the control-F function. Now try reading what Manne says, and tell us 1) If he is arguing for a ‘genocide’ interpretation of events, and 2) whether the Quadranters have represented him fairly, or whether they’re arguing against the byproducts of their own delusions.
THR
10 Feb 10 at 5:19 pm
THR
As I said about the oleaginous Manne, above
Manne now confines his mentions of ‘genocide’ to child removal policies before WWII. He says he is not interested in ‘genocide’ as legal concept or a crime, but rather he is attracted to the genocide discourse rfor its “conceptual” and “historical” contexts. Pure sophistic rubbish.
Manne now prefers the adjectival to the nominative, hoping to move the conversation towards identification of isolated “genocidal thoughts” and “genocidal plans” rather than “genocidal crimes”.
Well he would say that, wouldn’t he.
Peter Patton
10 Feb 10 at 6:03 pm
THR
Actually, if YOU read the article carefully, he writes with forked pen. He dogwhistles to his genocide-porn base, by mentioning ‘genocide’ in the context of attempting to discredit the evidence he claims uses Windy uses to deny genocide. Now, if Manne sincerely thought there was no genocide, he would state so unequivocally, and move on. But by taking issue with Windy’s arguments denying genocide, Manne is actually allowing genocide to re-enter through the back door, dog-whistling and winking to his base as he does so.
Only once does Manne appear to explictly lay into Windy’s claims, when Manne utters one of the most fantastic sentences in Australian historiographic debate; a fantasy that will bury him alive; if not by Windy, then I’ll gladly take the shovel. Manne claims
Windschuttle either falsely represents the position of the “orthodox” historians or exaggerates their conformity.
Now, for whatever Windy’s faults, not being a meticulous reader of the works of others is not among them. In fact, his articles, books, chapters, and media pieces, and thick with detailed exposes, quotes, and dissections of dozens of historians of this issue. So, we naturally expect Manne is about to defend those historians by showing how Windy has so egregiously and maliciously verballed them.
So what do we get from Manne?
Many do not accept the way Bringing Them Home arrived at its genocide conclusion.
How “many”? What is the size of the orthodox historian’s sample you are using to get your ‘many’ total? Why have you not said ‘most’? What is the difference? Such as whom and where? How do they account for BTH’s egregious mistakes? What has they done to clarify the truth? Oh yeah, and who are they again?
Yet Windschuttle’s accusations concerning the orthodox historians’ acceptance of the charge of genocide operate throughout like a kind of nervous tic.
A man’s passion about the scandalous corruption that permeates the upper echelons of Australian academic history should not be a cause of great annoyance? What about disgust and outrage? Why didn’t Manne follow this accusation with evidence that Windy need twitch no more?
Most accept that the child-removal policies were exclusively aimed at Aborigines of mixed descent.
Ah, on this point we confidently move from ‘many’ to ‘most’? Again what is your sample size? And since you can say the majority, you must have done a headcount. Would you be able to list the orthodox historians, and put a tick or cross next to them, according to their view, just so we can check your addition? Has Windy claimed to the contrary? Where? What is “most” in Manne land? Any names? What about the minority who don’t agree? Names? What is your attitude toward them?
Most accept that many of the people involved in the Aboriginal “half-caste” institutions and the children’s homes were people of good heart
Another ‘most’, but blast, still no list! Has Windy spent much time castigating the character assessments made by the orthodox historians of those who ran the institions? Your statement assumes he does? So which of these orthodox historians does Windy single out for you to defend?
Many accept that Bringing Them Home did exaggerate the numbers.
How many is ‘many’? What do they think the more realistic number is? What is the source of this ‘exaggeration? Unmitigated calculated fraud or a pressing of the wrong button of the calculator?
Funny, I haven’t read any of the orthodox historians taking the Report writers to task for lying. Do you have a link to these orthodox historians accusing Sir Ronald Wilson, Mick Dodson, Marcia Langton, Jackie Huggins, and the 18 member all Aboriginal Advisory Council of lying.
In short, this article of Manne’s is his most disgraceful yet.
Peter Patton
10 Feb 10 at 6:39 pm
You’ve missed the point completely. Windy and Bendle claim there’s a widespread conspiracy among historians (who are all radical leftists, for them) to tar Australians as racist. This is batshit crazy and plain wrong. Along the way, they omit plenty of evidence of actual Australian racism. The Quadrant crew are lying.
THR
10 Feb 10 at 6:47 pm
THR
Do you really think I “miss the point” of Manne? Come on. Give me some credit.
You insist This is batshit crazy and plain wrong.
Then you should have no trouble demonstrating thus, and from you have said time and again on this thread, your comrade, Manne, should provide you with endless fodder.
Fire away, dear boy!
Peter Patton
10 Feb 10 at 6:53 pm
THR
Oh, and by the way, I don’t know if you have studied much university-level Australian historiography, but there is a HUGE conspiracy of left-wing historians – actually, it is more accurate to say Communists – who have pushed this mantra of genocide, invasion, etc. for decades.
Peter Patton
10 Feb 10 at 6:59 pm
So Robert Manne is a communist, now?
THR
10 Feb 10 at 7:34 pm
THR
Nope. But neither is he an historian. NTTAWWT.
Peter Patton
10 Feb 10 at 7:35 pm
THR
Oh, and just to clear up an important misconception. I am no flag-waving cheersquad for Windy, I just think that the bile spouted by Manne et. al. hoists them on their own petard.
Peter Patton
10 Feb 10 at 10:04 pm
Me: I then went on and explained how I interpreted the history – regardless of what you want to call it.
I don’t think you’re being entirely fair when your complaint simply appears to be a squabble about definitions, rather than a discussion on interpretation.
Peter, your approach appears to be to accuse me of not satisfying your definition of that word and dismissing my argument in whole because of your relativistic standard. (ie. my definition doesn’t meet your requirements)
My approach is to refuse to argue your definitional tics. I’m more interested in the interpretation of actual events than your definition of a single word.
I think that’s more productive.
JM
11 Feb 10 at 12:19 am
JM
I don’t know which propaganda pamphlet you get your information from, but most of your posts on this thread are wrong, wrong, wrong.
1. Nowhere do you give a legitimate definition of “genocide”
2. Nowhere do you connect genocide to Australian government actions.
3. You misunderstand and misrepresent Manne’s own views.
1. You say JC is wrong JC’s skepticism that “a policy of this magnitude was kept secret by literally thousands of government workers and senior government officials”. Rather, you insist
It wasn’t kept secret. It was policy. That’s Manne’s point
But Manne has always made much of how insidious the alleged system must have been, because before Bringing Them Home even he had no idea about the half-caste removals.
2. You provide a widely acceptable definition of genocide:
he deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group
But then you err in claiming
Assimilation and “breeding out the color” do meet the definition.
Are you insane? This is rubbish that even Manne flatly rejects. On what “authority” do you make this silly claim. Will Australia be charged with ‘genocide’ for assimilating Italians and Greeks!?
3. When SRL, quite reasonably asks “Where is the evidence?” you merely give us
Look, we all know this stuff happened, we don’t need to rehearse it again. My point is that the argument is just definitional.
But if this were actually the case, we would not be asking you for evidence. And, unfortunately, the entire nation has witnessed too many revelations that claims of being “stolen” were nothing of the sort. If you still think we are wrong, then show us the evidence you must have ever-at-the-ready.
4. You claim
If something has to be as bad as the Nazi’s before it qualifies as genocidal, then nothing else in history is going to qualify
as though iy were a bad thing that genocides were so rare. You seem peeved by the Nazi Holocaust, because it gets in your way of pointing out genocides under every bush. Also, your willingness to devalue the Holocaust as an event that should be kept in mind when playing with the ‘g’ word is a bit of worry, and begs some explanation.
5. I am finding it hard to believe you have actually read Manne when you say things like
I come from a settler family and grew up from a very early age with an oral history that confirms everything that Manne says.
Given that Manne rejects that genocide occurred in Australia, would you mind linking to those writings of Manne’s that your family’s ‘oral history’ confirms?
6. I took and undergraduate historiography course at uni, which covered ‘oral history’. Tell me, when did your family record its oral history?
7. Your outrageous response to daddy dave’s question “what’s your evidence for government policy of racial extermination?” was the bizarre
There’s plenty of evidence [for government policy of racial extermination] and you know it.
Here, you are saying dd is lying. Now, I know there is no evidence. If you have some please cough off, thus educating us all.
8. Then we have your very telling attempt to discredit Windy’s recent 600 page boon on the Stolen Generations by the mere fact you read an earlier book of his not called The End of Unemployment‘ just Unemployment. He wrote this in 1979 in response to an historically peculiar political economy. I wrote a book review and gave a tute presentation using it in the 1980s. You on the other hand have not read it; your claim it was ‘marxist’ gave you away.
Curiously, you use the fact of his publishing this book as sufficient to dismiss his 20 years later empirically-saturated work on the ’stolen generations’ I think the phrase non sequitur is too kind.
9. You calim “Windschuttle is not an authority.” Of course he bloody is. Few if any have as great a mastery of the archival material, nor published as much on the subject.
10. And you still don’t get Manne’s motivations for his oleaginous scribblings when you can write stuff like this
The facts are in many places. The Bringing Them Home report, the oral history of my family, public records of the states and the governments of Australia. No-one denies them. Are you?
Bringing Them Home was one of the shoddiest pieces of social research ever published in Australia. It was Manne’s naive embrace of the Report as credible that got him sacked as editor of Quadrant. You say no one denies this. Huh! Try and find a reputable defender of Bringing Them Home!
Anyway, I think 10 points is more than enough for you to chew on for now. We’ll discuss the rest once we get clarification on these points.
Peter Patton
12 Feb 10 at 12:45 am
1. Nowhere do you give a legitimate definition of “genocide”
I’ve dropped that. It’s a definitional argument and pointless.
2. Nowhere do you connect genocide to Australian government actions.
See 1.
3. You misunderstand and misrepresent Manne’s own views.
How?
But Manne has always made much of how insidious the alleged system must have been, because before Bringing Them Home even he had no idea about the half-caste removals.
Before? Well then he must have been like you. Ignorant.
I certainly knew about it. As a child. Apart from my own contact with aboriginal families at that time, I remember a 4 Corners program circa 1967 which led to a major argument between my parents with my father decrying the policy and my mother defending it.
This is rubbish that even Manne flatly rejects.
Where? If he does, can you enlighten me?
Besides, you’re returning to the ‘genocide’ meme on which we’ve agreed to disagree.
This is rubbish that even Manne flatly rejects.
What do you specifically want me to establish? What evidence would you like? To support or deny what point? Would you like to make a case that is free of the ‘genocide’ word?
I’ve agreed to do that, have you?
to those writings of Manne’s that your family’s ‘oral history’ confirms?
That aboriginal children were removed from their families under government policy for reasons unrelated to child abuse or any similar reasons that white children were subject to. Clear enough?
Tell me, when did your family record its oral history?
No. It is recorded in a series of books from about 40 years ago (of which I have copies) but I’m not telling you because you could then identify both me and people who are still alive. Who I don’t want to hurt.
Now, I know there is no evidence.
There is plenty of evidence. If you deny it, you’re just a denialist.
You on the other hand have not read ["The End of Employment"]; your claim it was ‘marxist’ gave you away.
I have read it. In what way was it not Marxist? Not extreme enough to qualify in your view perhaps?
Bringing Them Home was one of the shoddiest pieces of social research ever published in Australia.
So you are denying the facts then? You admit that? No fact of any kind that conflicts with your view can possibly have any validity whatsoever?
Good. Glad we got that sorted out.
Let me ask you a question.
What were those policymakers and administrators doing when they wrote the words “breeding out the color”?
What was their intention? What were they up to?
JM
12 Feb 10 at 2:25 am
What were those policymakers and administrators doing when they wrote the words “breeding out the color”?
What was their intention? What were they up to?
You mean the proposal the cabinet considered crap.
JM, this is just a rough guess on my part but I would say there would be perhaps one or even two crap proposals from policymakers to the government since federation. What do you think?
Here’s what you need to to do. You need to show us what actions the government condoned to “breed out color”.
While you’re there you need to also explain what the government did to force people to marry each other.
1. Nowhere do you give a legitimate definition of “genocide”
I’ve dropped that. It’s a definitional argument and pointless.
You’ve actually dropped the term because your loose definition is laughable.
JC
12 Feb 10 at 2:36 am
JC, my definition of genocide is actually the UN definition but it seems to upset a lot of people who expect ‘genocide’ to be accompanied by industrial strength death camps and nothing less will do.
That’s why I’ve dropped it.
As for “breeding out the color”, it appears a bit more often than a single Cabinet submission.
The question remains: what were the people who wrote those words up to? What was their intention?
JM
12 Feb 10 at 2:42 am
JM
The UN has had Libya and Iran chairing the human rights commission. Anything those fucktoids touch turns to shit. So suggesting you’re using the UN’s definition is even more laughable than I at first thought.
What was the intention of that policymaker? I’m sure the crack-head thought he could breed out color. So what? It’s not his intention that we’re really discussing, it is what actions did the governments take from 1910 to 1970 to breed out color. It seems the answer is none and Manne ought to now focus on calling KW a AGW sceptic as he’s left with nothing else.
JC
12 Feb 10 at 2:57 am
JM:
You really can’t be serious about this. You’re relying on Manne relying on some schlep public servant’s nonsensical report to somehow then tie in the UN’s definition of genocide and fashion this into some sort of delusion about numerous government hunting aboriginals from 1910 to 1970.
Manne is smoking some really heavy joint, Dude.
JC
12 Feb 10 at 3:04 am
JM
Ah, your definition of “genocide” is not the same as the UNs.
Peter Patton
12 Feb 10 at 3:05 am
Answer the question Peter:-
What was their intention? What were they up to?
JM
12 Feb 10 at 3:07 am
JM
“Breeding out the color” was an eccentric idea of a small number of bureaucrats, whose aims far from being racist and genocidal were premised on the idea of racial affinity between caucasians and Aborigines.
As half-castes, quadroons, etc. were banished from full-blood society, the idea was to encourage half-castes to marry whites. Now, I am sorry, if you think that is genocide you need your head read. Paternalistic, absolutely, and ultimately a failure due to administrative impossibility and lack of legal power. Finally, the state can’t force people to marry.
Part of your problem is you grab onto glittering million dollar phrases like “breeding out the color” and present them as though the existence of the words/phrases themselves were actually real physical actions.
Peter Patton
12 Feb 10 at 3:17 am
JM
What was who up to?
Peter Patton
12 Feb 10 at 3:18 am
As half-castes, quadroons, etc. were banished from full-blood society
What!? Now you will really need some evidence for that nonsense.
… were actually real physical actions.
So grabbing children and carting them off are just “virtual” actions are they?
Finally, the state can’t force people to marry.
This is a strawman. The state removed girls at the youngest age possible and placed them in white society to socialize them and make them marriagable.
Peter. What were the intentions of the people who wrote the words “breeding out the color”? What were they up to? What were they trying to achieve?
JM
12 Feb 10 at 8:37 am
JC, my definition of genocide is actually the UN definition but it seems to upset a lot of people who expect ‘genocide’ to be accompanied by industrial strength death camps and nothing less will do.
Not at all, JM. The Turks so far as I know never required “industrial strength death camps” in order to engage in genocide of the Armenians. They simply gathered them up and walked them into the Syrian desert.
dover_beach
12 Feb 10 at 9:07 am
They were trying to assimilate those children who were the offspring of an aboriginal – or part aboriginal – woman and a white man – or another part aboriginal white man. There was no place for these children in full-blood society because they did not have any male protectors or mentors, because the child’s father, paternal uncles, was not a member of the tribe.
Now if the non-Aboriginal father did the right thing and stayed with the aboriginal mother and they raised their half-caste child, then that child never entered the mission system, or other destinations – such as stations – of non-full bloods who were either forced away or left their traditional ‘tribe’ voluntarily. However, as we sadly know, the non-aboriginal father was more likely to choof off, leavimng the aboriginal (or part) and the half-caste/quadroon kids with no home, no education, no skills, little effective kin support. This is how the missions evolved.
Now as we know even from our housing commission hell-holes today, children born into single-parent welfare homes and communities are on a highway to hell. It was little different back then.
As the numbers of these half-castes/quadroons/octoroons dramatically grew, so too did their social dissolution. There was much debate about what could be done for them. The idea of ‘breeding out the color’ was to encourage, to say ‘you know guys, white europeans and the indigenous aborigines can quite happily marry each, thus assimilating the non-full bloods fully into broader Australian life’ rather than letting the half-castes fester in the netherworld between the still functional, but independent, self-sufficient full-bloods and the broader european Australia.
You seem to think it was evil to desire aboriginal women and half-castes to marry Europeans, and other races. Jeesuz, in many parts of the world this form of miscegenation is still seen as disgusting, perverse even. But here we have not only official blessing of inter-racial marriage, but its encouragement from as early as the 1930s!
So what’s your beef? You do know that in 2010, 60% of Aborigines marry non-Aborigines
Peter Patton
12 Feb 10 at 9:08 am
JM
Your definition of ‘genocide’ is not the same as the UNs, as assimilation is NOT “genocide” nor is “cultural” genocide (whatever that means)
Peter Patton
12 Feb 10 at 10:08 am
Peter your attempts to apply whitewash to this are risible.
Sorry, I’m away for a few days (heading for the airport in about 30 minutes) and will have to come back and give you a more detailed response later.
I’ll see you then.
JM
12 Feb 10 at 7:32 pm
I look forward to it. Enjoy your break.
Peter Patton
12 Feb 10 at 7:39 pm
Peter I described your attempts at justifying past policy as ‘risable’ Let me now explain why. I’ll start with the first paragraph of your last comment (my bold):-
They were trying to assimilate those children who were the offspring of an aboriginal
Assimilation was – at a policy level – to be accomplished by removing children from their parents and placing them with white families. Do you believe that removing children from their mothers and placing them in the care of white families for the purpose of “assimilation” is a legitimate objective? Surely it’s extreme? If assimilation is your purpose, your objective must be to erase the difference between black and white? Why is it necessary to break up families to accomplish that? Wouldn’t a bit of “political correctness” pointing out that black skin is no barrier to success in life be enough?
Why didn’t the governments simply declare aboriginal people to be full citizens worthy of equal protection?
There was no place for these children in full-blood society because they did not have any male protectors or mentors, because the child’s father, paternal uncles, was not a member of the tribe.
This – to me – is a spectacularly interesting viewpoint. Firstly you assume that there is such a thing as “full blood” society. Please provide me with some evidence that aboriginal mothers loved their children less because the fathers were white (see second point below).
Secondly you can only assert the existence of a full blood/half breed distinction by accepting that the fathers were white. Why?
Because the missions were casual brothels. The white lads would set out on a Saturday night and “have it away” with the “gins”. Who, if they became pregnant, would give the children the fathers surname on the birth certificate – so as to put their “paw on the bone”. (In the area where I grew up there are quite a number of half-caste people who share surnames with well known local white families – including my own. This is entirely unremarkable in the area, but the implications are never spoken about.)
So the reason why those kids had no father is because the father was white and would not acknowledge paternity.
Given that refusal to acknowledge paternity what would be the best public policy from the childrens point of view? Force the fathers to care for their children perhaps? Or force the children into semi-slavery?
Guess what happened.
Your argument proceeds as follows:- aboriginal mothers had half caste kids whose fathers didn’t acknowledge them, there was no “full blood” black guy to take responsibility for children who were not his own, while the real – white – father ran away.
Therefore punish the kid. And blame the black guys who refused to accept a responsibility that they never had.
As I said, risible.
I could tear the remainder of your comment apart in the same way, but it’s not worth it.
JM
23 Feb 10 at 12:37 am