Hi all,
Thanks to everyone who keep throwing up intelligent and interesting
comments. Always learning.
There's an old joke: a sociologist is walking along the street and comes
across a man beaten up and left for dead in the gutter. The sociologist
rushes up to the man, cradles his head in his arm and says: "Can you tell me
who did this to you, I think I could really help them."
Isn't some of the argument against Pearson that he is treating symptoms and
not root causes? But isn't it sometimes necessary to treat symptoms first,
and then attack the root causes? Pearson is advocating welfare reform, not
cuts - paying the money to communities instead of to individuals under a
regime where local law prevails (or along those lines, I think).
What I'm not quite clear on is if the people who criticise Pearson for
concentrating on welfare reform think that "passive welfare" is a problem or
not. Is it? Should it be reformed or stay the same? What about the idea
of paying communities rather than individuals?
Cheers
Tim
-----Original Message-----
From: tassy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Thursday, November 23, 2000 2:23 AM
Subject: [recoznet2] Issues Pearson Raised
> Hi!,
> Sorry for sounding too intellectual earlier. It's not what's
>really necessary. Here's a few of the statements he made people have
>found objectionable, and the response to them.
>
> Pearson: "Our motivation to welfare reform must be based on the
>principle that dependency and passivity kills people and is the surest
>road to social ruin. "Australians do not have an inalienable right to
>dependency"...."They have an inalienable right to a fair place in the
>real economy." (Herron-speak?)
>
> On drugs, he called for: "the restoration of social order and the
>enforcement of law" (Zero Tolerance?)
>
> Reactions: Kim Bullimore, Indigenous Student Network: "Pearson
>doesn't attack the federal government over mandatory sentencing or the
>increasing number of Aboriginal deaths in custody or Howard's refusal to
>recognise and compensate the stolen generations -- all instances of
>current government policy discriminating against Aborigines"....
>"Instead, he has given a speech that reinforces racist prejudices about
>Aborigines and welfare payments."
>
> "He argues that welfare payments should be cut to Aborigines, but
>puts no responsibility on the government to provide employment".....
>"And then he pretends that Aboriginal alienation and poverty can be
>solved by more police and more punishment and imprisonment. Indigenous
>Australians are already the most incarcerated people in the entire
>world."
>
>
> Michael Mansell, well-known aboriginal activist: ""You take away a
>people's country, you dominate them on a day-to-day basis, you prevent
>them from running their own land, their own communities, and you are
>bound to get symptoms of alienation".
>
> "We've heard [Pearson's arguments] all before"..... "The only
>difference is it's coming from a black person who is part of the
>oppressed group, rather than from the oppressor."
>
> John Hewson, Former Liberal Party leader and architect of the GST:
>"... all those in the [welfare] debate] to listen to Pearson".
>
> Hewson said that Pearson's ideas closely matched the welfare reform
>proposals he advocated in the early 1990s, adding, "This carries so much
>more authority than when whites say it".
>
> Hewson's statements are particularly revealing. They indicate how
>far to the right Pearson's ideas actually are. And what is more to the
>point is why he chose to use the Ben Chifley Memorial to attack what he
>called "welfare dependency". He must of been aware of how the right-wing
>media and politicians would abuse what he had to say. And why, to the
>exclusion of land rights and self-determination, he chose to link crime
>to welfare payments, and to turn the issue to one of individual morality
>rather than community life, which is the "common sense" of conservatism
>in this country, and has been since the days of the convict emancipation
>movement in the nineteenth century.
>
> Once again, I still think that Pearson's comments can be seen as
>playing a progressive role by some people. In the 1950's and 60's for
>instance, people made a lot of noise about more law and order for Gay
>and Lesbian people, schizoprehenics, and indeed for aboriginal people;
>these things were debated a lot during that period, in the newspapers
>and the popular culture, and perhaps it is good that people like Pearson
>raise these issues from time to time to remind us of the real
>misunderstandings and mistrust that exists in society, and hence the
>need for a reconciliation. This is a point made by Palestinian activist
>and highly original scholar Edward Said about Imperialism in his book,
>"Culture and Imperialism" as well, by the way, which I read and
>thoroughly enjoyed. I think about that a lot, what role the right-wing
>plays in public debates, and what wider purpose it might be serving.
>
> Cheers,
> Matthew Davis
>
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------
>RecOzNet2 has a page @ http://www.green.net.au/recoznet2 and is archived at
http://www.mail-archive.com/
>To unsubscribe from this list, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED], and in the
body
>of the message, include the words: unsubscribe announce or click here
>mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20announce
>This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without
permission from the
>copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and
research under the "fair
>use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed
further without
>permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use."
>
>RecOzNet2 is archived for members @
http://www.mail-archive.com/recoznet2%40paradigm4.com.au/
------------------------------------------------------
RecOzNet2 has a page @ http://www.green.net.au/recoznet2 and is archived at
http://www.mail-archive.com/
To unsubscribe from this list, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED], and in the body
of the message, include the words: unsubscribe announce or click here
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20announce
This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission
from the
copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under
the "fair
use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further
without
permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use."
RecOzNet2 is archived for members @
http://www.mail-archive.com/recoznet2%40paradigm4.com.au/
