Australia Really, Really Sorry About That Whole 'Devastating Aborigine Civilization' Thing
Nearly 22 years after Midnight Oil's impassioned call for the just treatment of Australia's Aborigines (Remember? "The time has come/To say fair's fair/To pay the rent/To pay our share" ... No? Ask your dad, it totally kicked ass), the government of Prison Island has decided that the time has in fact come to do something for their country's original inhabitants: Kevin Rudd, new Head Prisoner of the dank continent at the bottom of the world, has "scheduled for a Parliament vote Wednesday [that] was welcomed as a powerful gesture of reconciliation between the descendants of Australia's original inhabitants and those of the white settlers who now rule." While the gesture doesn't involve anything as useful as, say, money, it does include a sincere apology for all the bad things successive Australian governments have done to the Aborigines, plus a free coupon for an order of Bloomin' Onion at the Outback Steakhouse for every citizen who can prove that they've been discriminated against (coupon good Mondays before 5 p.m. only). A grateful Aborigine people is expected to accept the apology and then slink back unnoticed to their terrible slums where they can once again be ignored because everything's okay now. G'day! [AP]
oh yoko remembers, she won't ever forget. From our conscience to our grandkid's beds literally burning on this future scorched earch, let this timeless rally cry ring on and on and on...
Earnest makes yoko sad.
But you know, maybe this site--which I'm sure any day now is about to just explode with paid premium ads!, oh I saw you Lipstick Jungle flash your wares here for a day-- should alway have a space for "ads by google" because the hilarity and despair of this post is hammered home by the subsequent "Australian aborigine Ringtones" ad below it. I mean are you fucking kidding me?!
Its concerning that polling has a third of Australians saying the government should not apologise(I'm concerned but not surprised).
I WAS surprised while visiting Australia, by the prevalence of casual racism displayed by white Australians. I got used to asking "What do you mean by that?" and no amount of folksy charm that would follow would make my heart hurt less.
The media narrative that has followed the apology today has been "Hopefully this will be a new beginning". I hope so too...
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