BS: Appology for my Mistake

Subject: BS: Appology for my Mistake
From: Mickey191
Date: 11 May 07 - 12:53 PM

Friends: Wanted to correct the thread I started in regard to a speech I wrongly attributed to P.M. John Howard of Australia. I had no reason to dispute the veracity of the article I read. Wiser heads here at Mudcat suggested the article may have been bogus. Following is my inquiry and the answer.

To National Library of Australia--Library Staff,

Hope you can help.I'm interested to find if PM John Howard made a speech about the Muslim population & their unwillingness to adapt to the norms of Australian Society. It has been stated that he said: "if you don't like our ways- LEAVE. We are a Christian Nation-if that and a multitude of other differences irk you-LEAVE, etc. "

Think you get the gist. I'm having trouble proving these were his words .CAN YOU HELP?

I appreciate your time & kindness. This is a GREAT
service. Margaret M. C.
__________________________________
From: [e-mail]
Date: Fri, May 11, 2007, 6:17am (EDT+4)
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Your National Library of Australia enquiry 24841 -[ID:24841
RF:1]
Our response to your National Library of Australia enquiry 24841 is provided below.
Answer:
Dear Margaret,
I have been able to find some information for you. From what I've found on the Internet, it seems that this speech was probably originally written by an American and has been wrongly attributed to Prime Minister John Howard.

Here is a site about a chain letter that seems to contain close to the text you provide:
    http://www.breakthechain.org/exclusives/beamerica      n.html
I also found a very similar British version of the same speech.     http://www.toque.co.uk/blog/archives/2005/08/take      _it_or_leav.php

If you type "IMMIGRANTS, NOT AUSTRALIANS, MUST ADAPT" into the Google search engine(http://www.google.com), you can see that there are many similar versions of that speech, some attributed to John Howard, and some not. It may be very difficult to discover who the original author really was.

I hope that this information is useful for you, please do not hesitate to contact us again if you would like further reference information. Regards, Liz
    
Elizabeth MacKenzie
Reference Librarian
National Library of Australia

Subject: RE: BS: Appology for my Mistake
From: Mrrzy
Date: 11 May 07 - 01:13 PM

We forgive you for mispelling Apology.

Subject: RE: BS: Appology for my Mistake
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 May 07 - 01:17 PM

Indeed we do. And that is because we are such compassionate and forgiving people.

Consider yourself very lucky to be in such good company. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Appology for my Mistake
From: Mickey191
Date: 11 May 07 - 02:22 PM

Typpo

Subject: RE: BS: Appology for my Mistake
From: Peace
Date: 11 May 07 - 02:33 PM

Never havng made a typo myslef, it's no big deal.

Classy thread and first post, Mickey191.

Subject: RE: BS: Appology for my Mistake
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 May 07 - 03:20 PM

"If you don't like our ways- LEAVE. We are a Lakota and Cheyenne Nation. We live in balance with Mother Earth and believe in the Great Spirit. We take only what we need from Mother Nature and no more. We don't cut down all the trees and kill all the buffalo. If that and a multitude of other differences irk you-LEAVE!"

(Reputed to have been said by Red Cloud to emmissaries and military personnel from Washington, suggesting that the white people all go back East where they came from. Unfortunately for the Indians, they didn't....) ;-)

Not that it necessarily has anything to do with Australia's present immigration policies....but I think it's interesting to transplant those words into another context, that's all. It's a whole different take.

Subject: RE: BS: Appology for my Mistake
From: wysiwyg
Date: 11 May 07 - 03:23 PM

Without yptos there would be no Muddcat. No need to be appoloplectic about them.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Appology for my Mistake
From: Mickey191
Date: 11 May 07 - 06:10 PM

Little Hawk, It all depends whose ox is being gored.
Found this a while ago:

When the white man discovered this country Indians
were running it.  No taxes, no debt, women did all the work.  White man thought he could improve on a system like this. -   Cherokee

Somehow I doubt the authenticity of this. What say you?

Subject: RE: BS: Appology for my Mistake
From: skipy
Date: 11 May 07 - 06:26 PM

LH, I am not able of forgiving you! You started a sentance with "AND".
Skipy.
And another thing!

Subject: RE: BS: Appology for my Mistake
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 May 07 - 06:30 PM

Ha! ;-) Yeah, I've heard that before. I very much doubt that a Cherokee said it, but anything is possible. He might have said it tongue in cheek. Women did NOT do all the work.

Indian society offered various rewards to both genders. It is true that women did a great deal of the mundane manual labor. It is also true that men were expected to do all the physically dangerous stuff (of which there was plenty) and risk life and limb in warfare and hunting, and sacrifice themselves to protect the women and children at any cost. Women were considered to be more sacred and higher in a spiritual sense than men in most of the western tribes. Men had to go on a vision quest in the Plains tribes, in order to find out their purpose in life, but women were considered far wiser and far more mature spiritually than men, so they did not have to do a vision quest to discover their purpose...they already had an inherent understanding of it.

One can make all the jokes one wants to about it, but they are usually quite misleading.

And you're right. It all depends on whose ox is being gored.

After the battle of the Washita, a surprise attack at dawn on a southern Cheyenne Indian camp, George Custer and his command escaped annihilation later that day by adroitly capturing a number of women and children as a couple of thousand enraged warriors from several other camps down the river gathered nearby, intent on wiping out Custer's column...and they could have.

But when Custer marched out with the women and children in front of his troops, the warriors held back. They did not attack, because they feared that the women and children would be killed, and they couldn't risk that. So Custer's use of hostages saved his command. This says quite a bit for the respect those Native people had for the lives of their women, I think. Custer got away scot free, and he used those women and children as a bargaining chip later to force those tribes back onto reservations. A clever tactic on his part.

(A separated small detachment of Custer's soldiers under Major Elliot did get annihilated that day...they didn't have any female hostages in tow, and they were shown no mercy by the Indians who found them.)

Custer might have pulled off a similar coup later at Little Big Horn, but his troops could not find a quick way across the river to capture any of the women and children in the camp, who were fleeing north, away from the first attack at the south end by Reno's column. The Indians got across the river first instead under command of Gall and Crazy Horse...in great force...and they eliminated Custer permanently when they did. Custer, I might add, appears to have put up a brave fight at the end, but his column had no chance of survival.

Subject: RE: BS: Appology for my Mistake
From: Helen
Date: 11 May 07 - 06:31 PM

Apart from anything else, Mickey191 (and I don't like our PM) it isn't Little Johnny's style of speech. He's not a ranter. He's a repetitive mumbler, who doggedly says what he has to say in a monotone.

Thanks for the research and the apology. It's one of the nice things about Mudcat that conversations here are so balanced and reasonable (most of the time).

Helen

Subject: RE: BS: Appology for my Mistake
From: Rapparee
Date: 11 May 07 - 06:46 PM

And that librarians (ahem!) are such nice people.

LH, recent research at the LBH shows that for some reason a detachment of Custer's column rode parallel to but away from the river for a distance, then turned back riding closer to the river ("hairpin turn") and managed to die with Custer's bunch when they reached the coulee Custer had been trying to attack across. There is also some indication that Custer was killed in the river, even though his body was found where it was found.

Then again, the whole Custer fiasco is so complicated and militarily stupid that I'll just drop it here.

Subject: RE: BS: Appology for my Mistake
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 May 07 - 06:57 PM

Yeah, there are many different accounts of what happened there. No one knows for sure. An attempt to cross the river was turned back by a handful of warriors with Winchester repeaters (the best guns in the fight that day). Most of the Indians who fought there that day never knew whether or not they had personally seen Custer himself. He had cut his trademark long hair short not long before the battle, so he was not as easily recognizable on that day as he might have been. Also, there are conflicting accounts from Lakota and Cheyenne witnesses as to exactly what happened, and there was no one else left alive to say anything about it afterward.

There's a very interesting 9-part documentary about it on YouTube right now, apparently done in a British studio. Give it a look. You'll find it with a general search for "Custer". There's much commentary in it from a man in a historical society which is based at the battle site in Montana.

Subject: RE: BS: Appology for my Mistake
From: Peace
Date: 12 May 07 - 01:04 AM

As a small footnote to the discussion, Custer died as a Lieutenant Colonel. He was no longer a Major General.

Subject: RE: BS: Appology for my Mistake
From: Azizi
Date: 12 May 07 - 07:24 AM

Yes, but generally speaking, Custer died because he made a major mistake.

Subject: RE: BS: Appology for my Mistake
From: Helen
Date: 12 May 07 - 08:46 AM

Yes, Rapaire, we are! Even if we are no longer practising the profession.

Helen