Sunshine in Melbourne’s west has seen all manner of refugees in the past half century. The current mix includes a significant proportion of men, women and children from A ...
June 4, 2013
We want neither the classic nor the romantic savage here. We have far too many of the murderous wretches about us already. The whole gang of black animals are not worth the money the colonists will have to pay for printing the silly court documents on which we have already wasted too much time. The Sydney Morning Herald (1838) following the Myall Creek massacre I look on the blacks ...
May 25, 2013
Whatever you say, don’t say it tice If you find your ideas in anyone else, disown them The man who hasn’t signed anything, who has left no picture Who was not there, who said nothing: How can they catch him? Cover your tracts. (My emphasis) Bertolt Brecht, “Handbook for City-Dwellers” Many readers of Blak and Black will recognise the heading for this post as being the most frequently paraphrased statements ...
May 24, 2013
Jim Jim where is our party? where all members’re held equal an’vow t’infiltrate that thought among the people it hopes t’serve an’sets a respected road for all those like me. These words were written by Bod Dylan in response to the speech given by John Lewis on behalf of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee on the afternoon of August 28, 1963 in Washington D.C. during the 200,000 strong march for ...
May 20, 2013
On the ground floor of the Art Gallery of NSW I saw one of the most moving pieces of sculpture I can remember visiting. It did not surpass the sublime La Pieta, Michaelangelo’s masterpiece of sorrow and loss, but its impact was every bit as forceful. In the dimmed light of the large room, a single exhibit comprising twenty evenly spaced figures in ranks spoke such volume that I was ...
March 6, 2013
“We recognize international law …” Every country that is a member of the United Nations recognizes international law, Bob, at least as far as it serves their purposes. It seems to me that every nation also ignores any aspect of international law that puts some aspect of their own commercial or national value at risk. Every nation has at its heart not the rest of humanity, but it’s own nationalistic ...
January 24, 2013
I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves — this critical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty. The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. Without the sense of kinship with men of like mind, without the occupation with the objective world, the eternally unattainable in ...
January 22, 2013
#IdleNoMore is a growing movement of indigenous activism that started with Canada's First Nations taking a stand against a long history of systematic, institutionalized abuse from the Canadian authorities. ...
December 1, 2012
Dusk is falling across Melbourne and West Papua, but not over the dreams of the Papuan people. Today, remembering 51 years of oppression having been denied the right to self-determination, the West Papuan people gathered in Melbourne to celebrate their national day and raise awareness of the human rights abuses the people of West Papua still endure since the departure of the Dutch colonial governors. And on this day of ...
November 1, 2012
Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation—BULLETIN http://yindjibarndi.org.au/ Wednesday 31 October 2012 No amount of corporate spin, bulldust or threats can save Fortescue Metals Group (FMG) from the continuing revelations of whistleblowers and freedom on information documents that show the under-handed tactics and bullying they ply for profit. * Today Solicitor Kerry Savas, who spent more than a year representing the interests of the splinter Wirlu-murra Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation, told The National Indigenous Times that the ...
September 24, 2012
Question and answers, answers and questions, Where is the truth and what is the lie? Questions of fortune once built on a fib Foundations less stable than Pisa’s sick soil Answers now skewed, so we’ll flattened it all By building walls higher on angling downhill! Questions and answers, no truth can be told, Lest props sunk in subsoil are exposed when all falls! The end of the twelfth century heralded ...
September 9, 2012
Tell me who you are, what you stand for what you mean Tell me what the lines and whirls upon your hand do mean Show me plain the markings of the Jew, the black, the slave Then march in regiment formation ‘til the end of time and days. Mix not the seed of black with white or brown with yellow tones Lest men become confused and think that each is ...
July 14, 2012
PT Freeport Indonesia’s newly appointed president director, Rozik B. Soetjipto, announced this week that the company is willing to renegotiate its contract with the Indonesian government for the continuation of its giant Grasberg mine complex and for the expansion of underground mining at the site. In interviews with the Jakarta Post this week, Rozik stressed Freeport Indonesia is racing to secure and build massive underground mining facilities ahead of the ...
July 12, 2012
Dr. Janice Harper has graciously agreed to her paper being republished on Blak and Black, for which we are most grateful. This is the paper referred to in the post To fight the grizzly or run: a comparison of fortunes. More of Dr. Harper’s writing and insights can be found at the Huffington Post, her professional website and her blog The Chocolate Covered Kitchen. Please take the time to read this article and her ...
July 6, 2012
The absence of good and evil characterizes the mind itself (hsin-t i) The presence of good and evil characterizes the movement of intention. The knowledge of good and evil is liang-chih. The doing of good and ridding of evil is the investigation of things. Yang-ming – Conversation at T’ien-ch’uan Those aforementioned principles are today expressed as: The mind in-itself, without good and evil, is human nature. From this is aroused ...
July 5, 2012
Nataraja dances, his right foot supported by a crouching figure, his left foot elegantly raised. Of his four arms, one swings downwards, pointing to the raised foot; another with palm held up signals, “Do not fear!” In his other hands he holds aloft a drum and a flame. The river Ganga sits in his hair. A Cobra uncoils from his lower right forearm, and the crescent moon and a skull ...
June 29, 2012
So what is the fundamental difference between which one of you, “the bully” or yourself, is out the door? Power. If “the bully” is someone with power or influence over others in the organization, even if not beloved by the workforce, you will be out the door if you solicit support from others. If “the bully” does not have much meaningful power, has displeased someone who does have it, or ...
June 22, 2012
Men, in general, seem to employ their reason to justify prejudices, which they have imbibed, they cannot trace how, rather than to root them out. The mind must be strong that resolutely forms its own principles; for a kind of intellectual cowardice prevails which makes many men shrink from the task, or only do it by halves. Yet the imperfect conclusions thus drawn, are frequently very plausible, because they are ...
June 17, 2012
We were about eighteen miles east of Guernica when Anton pulled to the side of the road jammed on the brakes and started shouting. He pointed wildly ahead, and my heart shot into my mouth, when I looked. Over the top of some small hills appeared a flock of planes. A dozen or so bombers were flying high. But down much lower, seeming just to skim the treetops were six ...
June 15, 2012
…I show vice triumphing everywhere, and virtue as the victim of its own sacrifices, I show an unfortunate woman wandering from misfortune to misfortune, a plaything of wickedness and vice; who is stunned by the boldest and most specious sophisms; and who is prey to the most skilful seductions, the most irresistible subordinations; a woman who has only the tenderness of her soul, a sensitive heart, a natural spirit and ...
June 4, 2012
In the Twentieth Century of my trespass on earth, having exterminated one billion heathens, heretics, Jews, Moslems, witches, mystical seekers, black men, Asians, and Christian brothers, every one of them for his own good, a whole continent of red men for living in unnatural community and at the same time having relations with the land, one billion species of animals for being sub-human, and ready to take on the bloodthirsty ...
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