Jacob's Soap Box

12 February 2008

Reading MySpace friend Pirate’s excellent blog Even Bigots have Freedom Of Speech I realised that watching the Obamination of America  I get a déjà vu feeling vis-à-vis the “Ruddicalisation” of Australia that culminated last November with the election of a “Hollow Man” one Mr. Kevin Rudd to be the Prime Minister of this country for three years.

The parallel between Rudd and Obama is astounding; Both relatively new to their political position, both have attempted to “re-right” their biography to portray a  more “suitable” story, both targeted the young voters with bumper sticker slogans and whilst one will not wear the American Flag on his lapel, the Australian Flag stood out in its absence in all Labor Party campaign ceremonies.

There must be a school for socialist aspirants to the highest position in the land in which students recite the “how-to-do” manual in the morning parade, immediately after singing The Internationale.

Just imagine Barack Obama get elected as the president, lightly hops on the White House steps, clapping hands and chanting yes we can …. And then what?

My guess is that he would be lost; Obama, who is a junior senator, has never held an executive or an administrative position in his life is now seeking to become the most powerful man on earth; making him the Commander in Chief is akin to putting a man who has never driven as much as a car, with automatic transmission, behind the wheel of a 12-gears-transmission, 18-wheeler semi-trailer and expect him to drive it proficiently.

My suggestion to my American friends is to go back to the future. What I mean by that is watch America’s future Obamination through the Australian current Ruddicalisation. It might give you a guide on the answer to the “then what” question.

With the notable exception of industrial relations, climate change and “me too-ing” our former Prime Minister, Mr. John Howard, Kevin Rudd was elected on a sleek promotion campaign that included bumper stickers, Kevin07 tee-shirts, YouTube  and empty slogans such as “working families”, “fresh ideas”, “embrace the future” and the like.

Senator Obama follows the same script almost to the letter.

Having won the election the very first Ruddical (or should I say “Ruddish”) act of our newly elected PM was to save the planet by ratifying the Kyoto protocol, a symbolic act which its timing has nothing to do with its ranking of importance (if you believe in that nonsense) but it had all to do with the fact an international conference on climate change was in progress in Bali when Rudd took office, a “not to miss” opportunity for Kevin’s applauded appearance on the world stage.

The second most important “achievement” of our new PM was to divide the nation and say “sorry” to the Aboriginal people for something that happened (or not) a few generations ago and to the left wing imaginary-cross generation guilt conscious we all must have. How much “reconciliation” such apology will bring is a matter of conjecture, but a good distraction from our real problems it certainly is.

I don’t know what would be Obama’s first action, if elected, but I grant you this: it will be a stunt, just as symbolic and just as meaningless.

With the opening of parliament this week the pattern of the Ruddicalisation is emerging, which is governed by stunts. Within the first week of Parliament sitting, Mr. Rudd announced that parliament will sit on Fridays but without government ministers (himself included) thus there will be no Question Time on Fridays.

Having just won a $100,000 increase in salary the new Prime Minister (who is married to millionaire wife), also announced this week that there will be no increases in parliamentarian salaries for the next 12 months, another “anti-inflation measure”.

For the 12 months prior to his election, we heard the then leader of the opposition, Mr. Rudd, calling himself an economic conservative whilst  acknowledging the accomplishments of the government of the day in term of a robust Australian economy. During the campaign Kevin07 had never criticized the Howard government for any of their economic policies – not even once! Instead he campaigned on undisclosed fresh ideas ,embracing the future and supporting working families, a term he plagiarised from an American Democratic election campaign.

Had you expected that after 70 days in office, Mr Rudd would have revealed what are his fresh ideas, you would be greatly disappointed. Instead, Kevin Rudd is going to invite one thousand (1,000) of the brightest minds in the country to convene in the Australia 2020 Summit and to come up with policy suggestions for the country. What has happened to Kevin07’s fresh ideas?  Did he forget them, or, more likely he had never had any to start with. Obviously it was just another one of his rhetorical campaign stunts.

I am not sure whether “2020” refers to the year 2020 or to hindsight vision of 20/20, in any event the list of invitees includes the usual suspects whose views are well known to agree with Kevin’s and with Labor Party policies. Andrew Bolt of the Melbourne Herald-Sun hit the mark by naming this charade  as The Charge Of The Bright Brigade.

Kevin07 now has to deal with it as continuing increases of interest rates by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) as a precautionary measure of, what the RBA sees as, coming inflationary pressures following the election of a Labor government; it reminds us all of the previous hard Labor terms we served (under Whitlam, Hawke and Keating) – if indeed inflation will materialised and interest rates continues to rise, it may well cost Kevin the next election which is due in just under 3 years.

The new Rudd government has quickly moved into immediate anti-inflationary measure and appointed a committee to count pencils and staplers and report to the PM himself, citing the Howard government “mismanagement” of the economy, 10 consecutive budget surplus produced by the Howard government notwithstanding.

(By contrast, in the last 30 years, only one budget surplus was produced by a Labor government, that was Paul Keating’s 1989/90 budget).

Hey mister, nothing much has changed since your election campaign, you knew what you were getting into, remember? Further, you were going to stop the blame game, remember? You said that you will take responsibility, remember? So stop whining and do what you suppose to do, GOVERN!

Wake up America, put down that Cool-Aid.

6 February, 2008

The (socialist Labor) Federal government of Australia is going to say “sorry” to the Aboriginal people on behalf of the Australian people, for the so-called stolen generation. In a nutshell, the term refers to successive governments’, federal and states, policies of removing half caste Aboriginal children from their tribal neighbourhood for their safety and placing them in institutions, church missions, foster and adapting homes, between 1910 and 1970.

This policy did not apply to full bolded Aboriginal children.

Once again the Leftist/Marxists/Fabians/socialist/communists have taken upon themselves, to trigger our collective guilt conscience for action taken by some people in Australia generations ago. Can someone please let me know what those action have do with me? Halooowww?!

What is it about those people who feel the urge to continuously set off our collective guilt conscience? We are blamed for everything from climate change to terrorism, child obesity, skin cancer or death of dolphins by supermarket plastic bags, and now this. The answer is simple, control by guilt even if such guilt has to be invented.

The term “stolen generation” was coined by Professor Peter Reid, of white European descent, of Sydney University in 1981 who subsequently campaigned on behalf of 100,000 “stolen” Aborigine “victims”, a number which was never substantiated, nor was any theft of children was ever been proven – In fact, so far out of the bombastic number of 100,000 cases only a few got to court ,just to be thrown out for lack of evidence of mal doing.

At the centre of the dispute is a consistent bi-partisan policies, between 1910 and 1970, of state and federal governments to remove half caste aboriginal children from their native tribes in order to protect them from almost certain harm by way of ostracism, physical and sexual abuse and even possibly death, from the full caste members of their families and tribes. Mothers, often underage themselves, were required to agree and/or the Child Protection Officers had to fill in answers to an elaborate questionnaire on the prospect of the child being accepted by his/her biological family and the tribe. The officer had to answer the last question yes before the child could be removed:

Having considered all points separately is the child likely to live a more contented, happy and fuller life, if removal occurs, than if he is left where he is?

So much for “stealing” children.

The proponents of the lie go as far as fabricating “evidence” of babies that were “stolen” from hospitals and mothers being told that they had stillborn, the problem with this myth is that very few tribal Aboriginal births were carried out in hospitals making the whole claim myth. But as always is the case with lefties emotional blackmail, why let the truth spoils a good story.

Don’t get me wrong, I do not claim for a minute that the system was perfect, even less so by our current values , nor do I claim that that there was no element of racism or other unacceptable practice, but one thing is for certain and that is that those who were involved at that time had honourable intentions, and that what counts.

Andrew Bolt, an Australian journalist and author issued a challenge to the Aboriginal misery industry to provide him with only ten names (out of 100,000) of “stolen” children to be scrutinised. Instead he got a barrage of accusations for being racist but no names. Don’t you wonder why not? I don’t!

Andrew Bolt interviewed Ms. Lowitja O’Donoghue, the first chair of the (now disbanded) Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islanders Commission (ATSIC) who had claimed to be part of the “stolen generation”, after persistent questioning she confessed in the interview that her father had in fact had dumped her with her four siblings at the United Aboriginal Mission’s Colebrook Children’s Home in South Australia and went walkabout. Andrew Bolt commented:

“To look at her own history, the two missionaries who took her in – Sister Rutter and Sister Hyde – did a marvellous job in not just saving her, but giving her a brilliant future. They deserve her thanks, not these distortions and demands for compensation.”

When Ms. O’Donoghue’s mother was located, its further transpired that she, the mother, is an alcoholic. Only when Lowitja O’Donoghue changed her own status from “stolen” to “removed” (or a similar word).

I want to make it absolutely clear that neither I nor this essay is critical of the Aboriginal people as a group, nor would I wish this essay to become an Aborigine bashing exercise. I am critical of the radical loudmouths in the Aboriginal movement, that includes white European people too, doing their utmost to divide the Australian society with provocative statements such as white fellas systematic genocide of blacks and comparing of Aboriginal people to Jews in the Nazi occupation of Europe.

As a Jew I take exception to such stupid comparisons, it is not the ignorance that enrages me, it is trivialisation of the Holocaust by people who demand that I, not only respect Aboriginal culture (I have no problem with it), but that I should apologise for something that I did not do, something that in fact never happened.

As I said earlier, many Aborigines confirm that that policy of removing half caste children have saved their life, gave them opportunities they would have never otherwise received and they, those Aborigines see no reason for the Australian government to be sorry about.

Further, it is generally acknowledged that although there were instances of child abuse, those have been dealt with by the courts applying stiff penalties. In any event such child abuse cases were neither of Government making, nor were they limited to Aboriginal kids only.

Take heed that since the 1950’s, the laws in Australia regarding welfare of children was changed to ensure equality when establishing what constitute a child at risk, covering both Aborigines and non-Aborigines families. However, such is the impact of the term stolen generation (it is taught in schools) that child welfare agencies are so concerned of being accused of “stealing” aboriginal children that they rather leave some children at risk then rescue them.

In other words, the child protection agencies are damned if the do (protect the kids) and damn if they don’t.

In early December, 2007 Australia was shocked by an extremely lenient rape sentence imposed by (a woman) judge on 9 man who admitted to rape of a 10 years old Aboriginal girl in Cape York in far north Australia. This court ruling was publicised internationally with the usual racism accusation, through ignorance.

As part of the background to this case, it transpired that the girl had been removed to foster care, when she was 7 or so, but returned to her dysfunctional family just before she was raped, because she is aborigine and that the Queensland department responsible was concerned of being accused of child “stealing”. This rape would have never occurred had the girl stayed with her foster care family.

On 14 December, 2007 the Melbourne paper Herald-Sun wrote:

TELL me if you see any real difference between Mary, Topsy and Dolly, all Aboriginal girls, writes Andrew Bolt.

“Mary” is 10 and has had sex with many men, contracting gonorrhoea and syphilis.

Topsy is 12, and also has syphilis. Her father is gone and the whereabouts of her mother unknown. There is no treatment out where she lives, no school and no police.

Dolly is 13 and seven months pregnant. She’s not with her parents and works for no wages on a station, kilometres from anything. She’s had no schooling and needs care.

The difference between them? Time and a myth, mostly.

Mary you’ve read about all this week. She’s the Cape York girl, whose last nine rapists were allowed to walk free.

She was given to loving white foster carers after being raped at seven, but was sent back to her town because welfare officials didn’t want to repeat the “stolen generations”

Weeks later she was raped again, and has been removed again. Too late.

Topsy and Dolly, on the other hand, are two of the children Prof Robert Manne, the top “stolen generations” propagandist, named when I asked him to list just 10 of the 100,000 Aboriginal children we’re told were stolen from their parents for racist reasons, not welfare.

Name just 10, I asked. He named Topsy and Dolly, “stolen” by a Queensland protector of Aborigines a century ago and sent to missionaries for medical care, food and schooling.

In fact, it’s precisely because Manne and others told us we were racist to steal children like Topsy and Dolly that we don’t “steal” children like Mary.

So now the Rudd Government wants to say sorry to Topsy and Dolly for “stealing” them, yet is sorry Mary wasn’t stolen, too. Here’s a dangerous contradiction that needs resolving.

So who should we really say sorry, to? To the girl we didn’t save, I’d say. Her life we’ve broken.

And that’s the difference that counts.

Spare some thoughts for Dean Shillingworth, a two years old Aboriginal baby who was found dead inside a suitcase in a pond in Western Sydney. His mother was charged with his murder and is awaiting trial. It transpired that the child had been known to the (state) Department Of Community Services (DOCS) for some time prior to his murder, were they (DOCS) too concerned about “stealing” another child because he is Aborigine? I guess we will find out during the trial.

We are already hearing Aboriginal activists talking about $1 billion compensation taking a leaf from the Canadian “sorry affair” to their indigenous people. Our Prime Minister promises us that there will be no reparations but can he make such promise? Once a claim goes to court it is up to the legal system to decide the case and we all know on whose side our legal system is.

Most Australian just want get on with it, we have more pressing matters to deal with, or is it a sign that our 2 months old government cannot deal with our real concerns such as inflation, House affordability, interest rates, petrol (gas) prices, food prices etc. Well looks like not!

© Copyright Jacob Klamer (except attributable quotes)