Australian students have been force-fed a diet of a certain version of Australian history, the ‘black-armband’ school of Australian history, which paints the entire colonial period of Australian history as a moral disaster. Now in evidence before the Australian Senate, history teachers have admitted that this is provoking resistance from students, who feel pride in their country.
HIGH school students resent being made to feel guilty during their study of Australia’s indigenous past and dislike studying national history in general.
The History Teachers Association called yesterday for a rethink of the type of Australian history being taught in schools and the way in which it is taught.
History Teachers Association of NSW executive officer Louise Zarmati said her experience teaching in western Sydney was that students were resistant to learning about Australian politics and, in particular, indigenous history.
“This is a somewhat delicate subject but they don’t like the indigenous part of Australian history,” she told a hearing of the Senate inquiry into the academic standards of school education in Sydney yesterday.
“The feedback I get is they’re not prepared to wear the guilt. They find it’s something that’s too personal, too much of a personal confrontation for them.
Since the students are not responsible for decisions made in the late 18th and early 19th century they are quite right to reject the ‘guilt’ being pushed on them by teachers. And it is nice to see that attempts by education authorities to politicise the classroom are rebounding on them.
Good on the Australian students. A similar attitude here in the UK would result in Social Services investigating the family for racist tendencies and BNP membership, no doubt.
I am an Australian who was born in Britain, but our family moved to Australia when I was about five. I never felt personally guilty about the Aborigines, but I did feel, and still feel, that something more should be done for them. The Australian Libertarian Society has a blog where we discuss this very issue- what should we do, if anything.
A Treaty is often mentioned, but the different aboriginal tribes should first have a treaty amongst themselves, apologising for all the tribal wars and wife-raiding that went on. Then we could have a treaty for all tribes, mayby paying one-off compensation for dispossession, and letting the tribe sort out what to do with the “tribe’s” money.
Or maybe we should have no treaty. They all seem to get broken, or are subject to ‘legal’ interpretation. How did you make peace with the welsh tribes?
I think the English made peace with the Welsh by conquering them. Edward 1st built lots of castles, in strategically important places, and often linked castles to towns that got protection from the castles – hence forcing citizens to rely on protectors and vice versa. After Llywelyn ap Gruffydd broke some treaty conditions, Edward 1st forced him back to Gwynedd. When Llywelyn joined in a rebellion by his brother, he ended up dying fighting the English.
It’s all starting to unravel now, though – not even the colossal amount of state money spent in disability benefits in Methyr Tydvil stops the Welsh wanting independence.
I’m sorry, but you need to read up on the ‘culture wars’ or ‘history wars’ in Australia. They are primarily a load of neo-con lies designed to prevent contemporary Australians from learning about all aspects of their history, not just the commemorative plate variant favoured by the state.
The Government would have us learning, no doubt, that the brave, white settlers arrived in Australia and faced various ‘hardships’ before creating the great nation we have today. They won’t include the parts about rounding up the aborigines and slaughtering them, including the actual extermination of all full-blood aborigines in Tasmania. Most Australians wouldn’t know ANYTHING about this – hardly a “black armband” version of history.
This is the same country where Aboriginal Australians couldn’t vote and were barely recognised as human until the 1960s and 1970s. Where native land rights were only established in the late 1990s. Where there are still many suicides in custody despite clear evidence that Aboriginal youths are almost uniquely unable to tolerate conditions of imprisonment.
Where there has been no treaty, no attempt to make amends, and after virtually annihilating their way of life (whatever one may think of its inherent qualities) we now blame the Aboriginal population for being more or less like the “Empty Ones” of the Zone Hereros in Gravity’s Rainbow – a people devoid of hope, willing their own non-existence.
As for the “history wars” more generally – a resounding theme from the “conservative” side (although Australian conservativism is more like state socialism than libertarianism) is that “post-modernism” is the bane of our society. When you peer a little closer, you see that what is causing offence is the teaching of critical thinking and analysis, and particularly the ability to look behind the ‘official’ version of history in the quest for, yes, the truth. Hardly something I would have expected the Samidata people to approve of.
For a sample of the kind of crap we are being subjected to, take a look at this(Link) – the proposed purity control test designed to make sure that only the “right” kind of people may become citizens. Unfortunately for the government many of the answers are incorrect or deeply misleading, and reflect only what you are ‘supposed’ to say, not the truth.
Rob, you are crazy.
I never felt the need to make peace with the Welsh because I never felt that I was at war with them. Wales is lovely, the people I have met and made friends with are great, the girls lovely, socialising was a dream, everything I saw of Wales left me wanting more. I also have absolutely no more guilt about any historical issues you might have than I do guilt about the guy that stole my motorcycle.
There is little argument, I think, that the Australian governments (for such a little population taxpayers pay for lots of them) should try and solve the numerous problems faced by aboriginal communities. However, this should be done solely in the context of disadvantaged communities in the here and now, not because of guilt for the past. The need is to create equality of opportunity for the present and future generations. The problem is far from easy and many of the solutions being applied are paternalistic.
It does not help for whites to be made to feel guilty for something over which they had no control and it does not help aboriginals to become victims of the past.
The question with these issues is how far do you go back with respect to reconciliation? The “One settler. one bullet” slogan of the Pan-African Congress in South Africa was premised on the basis that white people had no right to be in South Africa, but you don’t have to go too far back and there would have been no bantu tribes in South Africa, just Khoi and Bushmen. So why pick an arbitrary point in history? I suggest the criterion should be: are there people alive who are directly affected by the injustice and is there a person, organisation or goverment that can be held accountable?
I think basically the English and Welsh stopped killing each other because there wasn’t really much of a percentage in it. Once you figure out that your going to advance yourself more by trading with your neighbours than slaughtering them then something called civilisation breaks out…
But, as in habitant of England’s NW I am fully cognisant of the peculiar legal anomly in UK law which means it is perfectly legal for an Englishman to shoot at a Welshman with a bow if that Welshman is within the city walls of Chester after midnight. Last time I was in Chester I was back home by 9 ‘cos I’d only gone to the zoo and then had dinner in a pub. I suppose I could’ve waited around an extra 4 hours but quite frankly I’d left my bow at home and I don’t think I even saw a Welshman. There were a lot of Japanese tourists but I think that would be stretching English common law a bit?
Anyhow, if I do catch serial Samizdata commentator RAB in Chester, alone, after midnight and me with a full quiver then we shall see…
I say ! Cripes oh lor!!
Nick old chap!!??
How handy are you with that bow?
You’ll never find me with a voice test though. I sound about as Welsh as Hugh Grant.
There are more castles in Wales than anywhere else in Europe. The towns came after the castles. We Welsh didn’t do towns before the Normans.
It was a deliberate Norman stratagy. First you build a castle and garrison it. Then you build a market area outside the walls. This draws in the local population and pretty soon a town is formed dependent on the castle for protection. The Normans were one big protection racket you know!For example Pembroke, Carmarthen, Caerphilly, Chepstow, Usk etc etc etc.
After Llewellyn Ap Gruffyd was killed in 1282, his lands were confiscated and what passed for Welsh aristocracy rounded up and killed or imprisoned. Hence Wales has no recognisable “Upper Class” like England.
After our last gasp of insurrection went tits up with the death of Owen Glyndwr.We went back to rural slumber until coal was discovered in the 1850’s.
Another thing. Most of us Welsh, genetically speaking , are not Welsh. The most populous town in Wales in 1850, was Merthyr Tydvill. Cardiff was a village of 1800 souls. 15 years later Cardiff had a population of 30,000.
You dont grow a population increase like that. It was imported from all over Britain and beyond.
The thing is though, we all feel very Welsh and have a distinct way of doing things and seeing things that I’m sure the average Englishman does not understand.
Patrick Bateman, you’re an apologist, get real.
Patrick,
but you need to read up on the ‘culture wars’ or ‘history wars’ in Australia. They are primarily a load of neo-con lies designed to prevent contemporary Australians from learning about all aspects of their history,
Australia has no “neo-con” movement. The neo-cons in America were lefties who came to realise how appalling were the policies which they and their mates were pushing, and then converted to conservative politics, becoming more Catholic than the Pope, as it were. Problem with this lot was, being originally lefties, they were still obsessed with meddling, not true conservatives at all.
So can it with the attempted smear. That statement is bottled purified ignorance.
The Government would have us learning, no doubt, that the brave, white settlers arrived in Australia and faced various ‘hardships’ before creating the great nation we have today. They won’t include the parts about rounding up the aborigines and slaughtering them, including the actual extermination of all full-blood aborigines in Tasmania. Most Australians wouldn’t know ANYTHING about this – hardly a “black armband” version of history.
I grew up in the fifties and sixties, went to London for 23 years, came back, and had never even HEARD of the black armband version of history. I was bemused when I found all this argument going on. I was schooled and learnt my history under Menzies, Holt, Gorton and Frasier, hardly either lefties or neo-cons, and of course I knew about the slaughter of the Tasmanians, as well as other atrocities, everyone who went to school did. The difference between us and later generations was that we were not continually berated with the idea that we, personally, were vile individuals as a result.
I quote John Howard in 1996 – “The ‘black armband’ view of our history reflects a belief that most Australian history since 1788 has been little more than a disgraceful story of imperialism, exploitation, racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination.” People like Windschuttle are vilified by the black armband mob because they point out that some of the claims might be a bit over the top, and some, maybe, not even true.
If you have a problem with the claims of those who question the black armband message, try addressing the arguments. Spewing abuse at them and their “lies” achieves nothing other than make you look like a complete tit.
Well, that’s my opinion anyway.
I think that is a bit harsh, TimH. Patrick is quite correct when he says the Aboriginal population was treated appallingly. That said, I do not think trying to ‘guilt’ the current generation is a good idea and I can see why they might dislike it. But they do need to know the facts, just leave the editorialising to some one else.
I’m glad TimH has mentioned Keith Windschuttle. His book “The killing of History” takes a cool look at this “black-armband” business. Unfortunately for those wishing to spread white guilt syndrome, there’sbarely a shred of evidence to support talk of an “aboriginal holocaust”. The pernicious effect of this white guilt is the blind eye which is turned to the shockingly common violence and sexual abuse found in aboriginal communities.
Was it not Rand who said “guilt is a rope that wears thin.” We in the west have had our relativly minor IMHO sins shoved down our throat so often that anyone with any self respect just ignores the leftists raving.
Richard Carey,
Indeed. It is not at all clear that, as Perry would have it, `the Aboriginal population was treated appallingly’. Do, the rest of you, try reading Windschuttle and some others who actually try to do the stats (because a lot of it does come down to wild incompetence or fantasy with speculative numbers) rather than just making with the mea culpas.
Aboriginals mistreated, yeah right we get the same nonsense about our “First Nations” in Canada.
Nasty, brutish, short lives. Never were going to invent the wheel much less eyglasses or dentistry. However many were killed by somebody else’s ancestors, they would have killed more themselves over time. All they did was eat, screw and make war.
My parents came to Canada from Germany in 1951. How in the hell do I have any responsibility whatever for what some Frenchman did in 1650 to people long dead?
The true crime is the endless ghettoization and infantalization of our Indians and Oz’s Abos by merciless bureaucrats and the leeches within their own peoples.
As far as I am concerned Indians are and should be citizens of Canada 100% equal to me in every way. No treaties. No “land claims”, give them title to land now, let them sell it, lose it, mortgage it, whatever. Communal or tribal title is a socialist discgrace. No “treaty money”, no special status, no state funded “Band Councils”, or “tribal elders”, no “Department of Indian Affairs”. Just neighbours. Likewise for abos.
Is abo an insult? Sorry. Call me a kraut if you want.
Now, about compensation for me because the evil Roman crossed the Rhine and mistreated my German abo ancestors, leaving me with blah blah blah….
gosh what a variety of comments
i just have a confusion which need clarification
please help
in algebra
A multiplied by B equala AB
C multiplied by D equals CD
if A= 0
if C= 0
then i am correct in stating that B=D
following on then
if A=0 and C=0
and
if B=5 and D=9
then B=D and so
5=9
and so on
please i am going bonkers and want an understandable reasoning before i go completely looney
HELP someone
Vijay,
No, you’re not correct that B = D. I suspect what you’re after is one of the classic ‘division by zero’ fallacies.
Thus:
A = White guilt over what happened to the Abos.
B = The suffering of the Abos.
C = White guilt over the slave trade or Holocaust.
D = The suffering of the slaves or Jews et al.
If A and C are zero, then AB = CD, indeed AB = AD. Cancel the A to get B = D, and the treatment of aboriginal peoples is tantamount to colonial Imperialist slavery and a new Holocaust.
Of course, the fallacy is that you cannot ever cancel out white guilt, especially if it is zero.
Clear?
Pa: 🙂
Not only language but D.N.A. proves that (at least in eastern England) the Anglo Saxons either exterminated or drove out the pre Anglo Saxon (am I still allowed to say “Celtic”, or does one have to say “British” now?) population.
So the creation of England is based on “genocide” at least as much as the creation of Australia is based on it (more so as Australia was inhabited by lots of different groups who fought each other and had different languages – whereas England had been part of the united Roman provice of Britain for four centuries).
Indeed the creation of every country on Earth (with the possible exception of Iceland) is based on the killing or driving out of some other ethnic group.
To see this as a source of shame for people who were not even alive at the time is, indeed, silly.
And yes this does include the modern Germans – even though some of my father’s relatives were sent to the gas in the early 1940’s.
You are wrong Rab.
There was a successful Welsh invasion of England in 1485 (Henry Tudor’s claim to the throne of England was not much better than a random person picked off the street – one of the reasons he married who he did after he became King). Although an important reason for the Welsh success was that some powerful English families really hated Richard III (and showed their hatred at a key moment).
Of course it was Henry VIII (son of the Henry Tudor who invaded in 1485) who abolished the seperate existance of Wales in law.
However, Wales continued to be dominated by lords and gentry who very much thought of themselves as Welsh right up to the Civil War of the 1640’s
The Welsh landowners tended to be for Charles and the Roundheads (dominated by English landowners – the most important of them aristocrats) won.
However, there was no mass stealing of land (as there was in Ireland).
That Wales now sees itself as a working class country with the upper class as “English” is a strange development.
I suppose it comes from too many Welsh wealthy familes learning “public school English” and (as a matter of policy) forgetting not only the Welsh language, but even a Welsh accent.
Also the Welsh Church was under the thumb of the English Church (even though the Welsh Church is older). So many Welsh people (in the 19th century) left the Anglican Church – seeing it as English.
These days the Welsh Anglican Church has more independence, but not total independence.
Still the relationship has always been complex.
Alfred the Great believed (rightly as modern D.N.A. points out) that many of the people of Wessex were of “Welsh” origin and tried to get on with the Welsh (besides he had a Welsh tutor). As far as he was concerend being English was a matter of language and culture (and being Chrisitian not pagan Viking was what was important anyway). And the daughter of Alfred (Ethelfleda – Aethelflaed) warrior Queen of the Mercians, and bane of the Vikings, got on at least as well with the Welsh and Irish as she did with the English.
But his grandson (via his son Edward – not via Ethelfleda) Athelstan believed the Britons were alien and drove them out of Exeter.
No you aren’t. Where A=C=0, then we cannot determine what B and D equal from AB and CD.
B does not necessarily equal D, and that cannot be inferred from what you’re saying, because where A=0, AB=0, and where C=0, CD=0.
It doesn’t follow.
If A=0, B=5, C=0, and D=9, then:
AB=CD=0
If all you knew were that A=0, and C=0, then the equation cannot be solved for B and D, because B and D can be absolutely anything (unless you can find a number that when mulitplied by zero equals anything other than zero)
I am often wrong Paul and happy to admit it.
But I think you’ll find I’m the only Welshman in this Village! and I’m buggered if a Concervative councellor from Kettering (notice the alliteration. We Welsh love that!) can teach me my history.How ever erudite he may usually be.
So where was I wrong?
My grandmother was a Reece, about as aristocratic as it came and a landowner to boot. But a peasant besides the Marcher Lords or the Marquis of Butes of the 19th century.
Seeing as the Tudors were the last properly British monarchs of Britain PLC I’d have thought you’d have been more grateful!
Religion?? Well there was a lot of it in my youth. I was brought up some kind of Anglican, but my Welsh speaking gramp was Bethal.
So sorry Paul, dont quite get what you are getting at.
Pa Annoyed’s reply was hilarious but no more off-topic algebraic troll feeding please.
off-topic algebraic troll feeding
Well ain’t that a collection of words I never expected to see concatenated in that (or indeed any) order.
Would I be allowed to feed trolls geometrically?
Would I be allowed to feed trolls geometrically?
You may hit a Malthusian wall here, you could find that exponential feeding becomes necessary.
Welsh has alliteration? I wasn’t aware that it could even be spoken! Written Welsh looks like what happens when my cat walks across my keyboard.
Now, American-dialect English, OTOH… “Like, y’know, I totally spaced what I wuz gonna say, dude!”
Don’t you bloody start Sunfish Butt!
Welsh is the oldest written language in Europe,and no offence officer, but apart from the Maddox Indians, you Americans know LLareggub about it!! 🙂
RAB, you should have Nick M look at your computer. I think your keyboard stutters.
BTW, of course, it had to be the oldest written language. Nobody could ever speak it!
You utter swine!!
Come round here (dont forget your southwester. gumboots and oilskins!)
And I’ll show the lot of you how it’s spoken!
PS sometimes you need to read Welsh words backwards to get the full meaning. 😉
Rab – what makes you think I am anti Tudor?
Well, I admit (whatever my personal opinions of the dispute – and whilst I despise Henry IV, I am rather sorry for the fate of Henry VI and his son) that Northamptonshire was solidly Yorkist (not split as it was during the 1640’s Civil War) so supposing that I am pro Richard III is natural enough.
However, Richard (whatever his defenders may say) was close to hand during the deaths of many high born Yorkists (not just the Princes in the Tower, but others as well) – so even lords and common folk of the Yorkist faction were not all happy with him.
Indeed the great haters of Henry Tudor seem to have been the Cornish – quite how the “last great Celtic revolt” got as far as Blackheath in London before being defeated is something I am not clear on. Still a tax revolt (which is what the Cornish revolt really was, for all the talk of English oppression, can often attract support from outside the area it starts).
Still – your question.
Where did I think you were wrong?
I thought you implied that the landowners of Wales were all English (whereas they are often of Welsh familes who just seem English).
If I got the wrong end of the stick (which I seem to have done) I apologize.
This “guilt” thing is not just white guilt, or even ethnic guilt.
You mentioned that I am a Kettering Council (and you are right about what party it is as well – I really do have very little idea how that happened, letting my membership lapse [somehow it did not lapse] and endlessly denouncing the national leadership and local policy seemed to have no effect – “you do not understand Paul, a lot of people hate the manifesto as much as you do, we just do not rant on about it, – just you wait and see” and to judge by some events after the election there have may have been some truth in these words), well I went to the annual dinner a couple of days ago.
The key speaker was the Earl of D. (of the M. family – the Dukes of B.). He apologized (without a hint of humour) about killings his family had been involved in – in 1607.
These killings were in a fight over enclosure of fields (the children’s textbook view of a village in the middle ages, with open fields divided into strips, was not true for a lot of England – but it was partly true for round here).
However, the Earl also mentioned how we should move with the times and how land was now being used for houses and other stuff (that his estate was involved in these property deals he did not mention – but his meaning was clear).
I do not think he was making a threat of another cavalry charge if anyone protested too much about the change in land use, but then in these days of a strong government and a passive (defeatist) population such a threat would serve no purpose.
Still his forefathers did not expect taxpayer subsidies for development. No demands for roads and other taxpayer provided “infrastructure” in those days.
However, to be fair, it is a national government “plan”, and if I had been more fortunate in who my parents were would I not also try and make the best of things?
No doubt I would. After all it is all going to happen anyway – so one might as well do it with the least harm possible.
Actually the better part of my mind and soul rejoice that such folk as the M’s and the L’s still seem to be doing so well (in landownership, positions in the Church, the law, and in other things) after all these centuries and with all the attacks they have had to face.
In this world many people can not have a good life (it is not an option). Such people face a choice – either they can be filled with hatred for those people who do have a good life (that is the path the Reds choose), or they can welcome the happiness of others.
“I am a Kettering Council”.
I suppose that means that I am the Town Hall and the members and staff live in my ears.
The leader of the Council who wanted to get rid of the Town Hall is no longer leader (there was a vote and…..)
Of course, the Town Hall will most likely still go. And there will be some out of town “public services campus” and in town “public services supermarket” for the “customers” (as the local party platform called the residents of the town), and there will be the 70 million Pound plus “wow factor!” for the shopping centre (the shopping centre that should never have been built in the first place), and all the other bad things will be done.
However, one does what little one can in life.
Paul. I love you!
You inform me and bedazzle me.
You tell me 13 things I never knew I needed to know!
But tell me honestly-
Do you get my jokes?
RAB, I doubt he does. I am sure I am not getting the half of them. I know they are there, so I look, but …
Sometimes your remarks leave me totally delffab dna delddufeb. (See, I am trying my hand at Welsh. 🙂
I think Paul being elected is a very good sign as it makes sense that principled people who have a lot to lose would welcome a principled person who does not and therefore, pulls no punches. I imagine since Paul won his seat, there is much well concealed glee in certain quarters. I expect he will face much public condemnation, yet many more unexpected and unexplaned opportunities to conduct his principled attacks on the system.
I expect with him staking ‘extreme’ (by conventional practices) positions, he will allow many others to take lesser but still improved positions and call themselves ‘moderates’.
delffab dna delddufeb. (See, I am trying my hand at Welsh. 🙂
Nah Mate! That’s Gaelic!! I’m pretty sure the bird in the middle won the Eurovision song contest for Ireland back in the sixties or she got a Nobel prize for micro-biology.
To be serious for a microsecond. I am very glad Paul is on the inside of our political system, given what I know about the way he thinks.
But only Paul can answer this-
Why under the banner of the Tories?
My grandfather was a councellor for Bedwas in S Wales, at a time, the 20’s, when red hot socialism was running wild, fuelled by the Depression.
The saying You could elect a dead sheep wearing a red rosette was not far from the truth.
Yet gramp kept getting elected as an Independent because people knew and trusted him.
Why didn’t you go Independent or Libertarian Paul?
We will see how it goes Midwesterner. My thoughts are not so positive as yours – but then I am not exactly known for positive thoughts.
In case anyone is confused by my reference to the M’s and L’s they are local families (or rather the first letter of their names) nor was I being paranoid about their positions in the land, the Church and the law (and so on) – this was all in their own speeches at the dinner. Actually I rather liked their openess – we help our families and allied (over the centuries) familes and that is how we keep our position, was the line (which is fair enough). As I have said these families have faced some nasty threats over the recent years – and they have a right to celebrate their survival and prosperity.
The town may have changed from a village to an urban area of close to one hundred thousand people – but the old families are still here.
RAB
Of course I tell you things you do not need to know – if you needed to know a thing you would find out for yourself. The internet (or at least this part of it) is more a pass time than a vital survival tool.
As for getting jokes – some of them I understand.
However, (although I have lived in Britian all my life) I am often said to have a weak sense of humour.
For example, I often miss “irony” and other such.
RAB
I stood because the Conservatives asked me to – simple as that (I certainly did not put myself forward, indeed I assumed that my comments had ruled me out). It would not have occurred to me to try my hand at being an Independent – and I would not have got many votes if I had.
“But why did the Tory people ask you to stand”.
There is a background here.
I have been a party member since 1979. I have made efforts to escape from time to time, but these tend to run into “you forgot to pay your sub and sent an odd letter we did not understand” and when you are dealing with people you have known for many years (and you are a wimp like me) there is a big “I do not want to upset this person” factor.
Paticularly when the person is not in the best of health, or they have lost family – and they knew you when your own family were still alive. If all else fails mentioning my late father is a reliable way to get to me.
If it sounds as if I am pathetic perhaps I am – but the personal is political (although not in the way the left think).
So when you are telephoned by people you have known for many years and they say something like “the councilors have just told us they are not standing again, there is no one else” the “I can not let them down” factor comes into play.
Of course there is also the little factor that I am a Tory (in the old sense). Emotionally I am a Church and King man.
Of course my Toryism is like that J. Hector St John de Crevecoeur (of “Letters from an American Farmer”) or of Tokien (he of the “Lord of the Rings”) – a King that does not do anything (as with the Thrain of the Shire), and a Church which is broad enough to include all sorts of Christians in the town or village (although Tolkien himself was a Roman Catholic, but then so was Elgar and so many other natural Tory folk in England – of course their idea of the Roman Catholic Church was a rather pre Counter Reformation one). Still my ideal would be an Anglican one – a local Rector with a wife and children who went hunting and fishing, and only talked about matters he had solid knowledge of.
I am not all nonaggression principle. Tradition and loyalty get me every time.
If I ever went to the United States I expect I would be knocked sideways by the buildings and monuments in places like Washington D.C. and Indianapolis.
The very things that Murry Rothbard and co despised.
Thanks for replying so fully Paul.
Do the best you can.
The forces of foolishness
are amassing against us.
Hold the ring.
Paul,
Of course my Toryism is like that J. Hector St John de Crevecoeur (of “Letters from an American Farmer”)
Bloody hell! Does your erudition know any bounds? Please tell that to iDave sometime. He’ll be baffled. That really is one for the scrap-book!
For the record, my Marxism is of the Graucho variety…
Was Elgar a Catholic? I knew he was into the old Oxford Movement and all that but I thought he was just High Anglican!
Having recently visited DC I can attest to being knocked sideways by the National Mall. But I can’t say it’s beautiful. It made me think of Albert Speer’s Berlin plans. If I didn’t know and love the USA I could have seen it as threatening and aggresive. I could easily see Jihadis and Aryan Nations types equally seeing it as overwhelming, strident and beligerent.
So what did I think? Well after a couple of days I’d had a surfeit of neo-classicism. But my lasting impression was positive. Because to build a capital on such an epic scale shows an enormous hope and belief in the nation that the founding fathers brought into being – manifest destiny indeed.
Perhaps I have too much faith in the essential benevolence of the USA to have worried too much that things like the Lincoln memorial (which is much bigger than it looks on TV) could be seen as slightly sinister and fascistic though I can well understand people being disturbed by it.
Or perhaps it’s that at the end of the National Mall are the War Memorials too. WWII, Korea, Vietnam. They are moving and the human-scale reminded me more of the English village memorials than Soviet grandiosity.
And the assorted Smithsonians were brilliant. I can forgive a place a lot just for an Air and Space collection like that.
At the end, we made it to the Potomac and I was reviewing pics on the camera when a green Sea King helo came screaming overhead, very low and very fast. It was heading in the direction of the Pentagon. It was definitely from the Marine VIP flight but was it Marine One? If so, then Dubya has to add to his many sins the one of almost making my wife fall in the river with shock.
There is only one memorial monument in the capital area that deeply moves me. It is one I missed during my two childhood visits to DC but even the pictures are beautiful and heartbreaking. It is the rolling hills and carefully tended grounds of Arlington. And mostly, the geometric precision of countless white markers.
That and the Constitution are the only monuments we need honor.
So, no need for a treaty then- the Welsh and the English got along without one at all. Perhaps a treaty lulls people into a false sense of security, instead of being vigilant about their rights?
And this devolution thing- the Queen will still be the Monarch of each of these separate countries, so you’ll still be the United Kingdom.
We can’t change the history,Students should know what happen in the past..Its not good thing to change the content of the history or hiding it from our younger generation..They should know everything happened in the past,then only they won’t repeat the mistakes…
Car Breakdown Cover
Nick M. – you forget that I could only spell that French name (and I still did not put the accent above the first e in Crevecoeur) because I had the book in this room.
Yes Elgar was a Roman Catholic – a lot of well known Englishmen were and are. And some pro union Irishmen were to.
On neoclassical style. I am told that the monument to Jefferson is a change from that – simple Greek rather than Roman.
On monuments – I have been told that Indianapolis (in better days the “most patriotic city in the United States”) is worth a look. The area in the centre of the star system of roads. Interior of the State Capital building, the park, the monument, the American Legion building (to honour the living as well as the dead).
Midwestner.
“That [Arlington] and the Constitution are all we need honor”.
That was very good.