Down and Out in Kitakyushu

[Samurai_Jerk]

:rolleyes: so you make an over-generalisation about somebody who has just given you and others who have no idea about what's going on in Australia information about their own country.

Samurai Jerk - well named. Your brain probably hurts too much if you try a bit of logic so shit talk is all you can resort to.

I didn't "over-generalize" about someone. I made a generalization about eveyone in Australia. Looks like you're the one with logic issues.

Americans get more shit that anyone about our country so I don't really feel too sorry for you. I've just noticed that many Australians seem to feel like it's OK to give me and other Americans shit all day and all night about how fucked up the US is, but mention Australian racism or aboriginals and suddenly we've crossed the line or don't really understand the issues.

I'm not Charles and I don't have a problem with Australia or Australians. I've just noticed that most of them seem to be overly sensitive about any negative comments made about their country and especially about anything to do with aboriginals. I don't see the same reaction from Brits, South Africans, or even those drama queen Canadians

[Samurai_Jerk]

You shouldn't be saying that to me. I simply pointed out what you were saying about midwinter's posts.

I have noticed on net forums that there are people who can't handle debate and logic. If you express your point by drawing on experiences they don't have, they resent it.

I went to midwinter's defence because somebody slagged off his post by bringing up (yet again) Australia and a situation that most of the non Australians I have read the posts of on this forum seem utterly ignorant about. Unlike SamuraiJerk and Guyjean, Midwinter and I are Australian and live in Japan. We can comment on Japan with credibility. Since when did the two jackasses live in Australia?

Parading ignorance isn't a virtue. Samurai Jerk and GuyJean think they are 'clever' for doing it - their loss. I'd say to to them - if you can't compete in the debating stakes then withdraw. Don't keep yapping and posting and slagging.

And if you're going to ignore facts from Australians and generalise about them as people, be sure you write and say 'Australians'. Not 'Australias'. Maybe another piece of evidence of the 'superiority' of Samurai Jerk?

Finally, you don't own this board. I'll post when and where I like. I don't do it that often because of the kind of jerkish behaviour I just referred to. These points were not made in reference to Americanoyaji.

First of all, what did I write about about Australia before your original post? Secondly, "Australias" was a typo. I'm sure someone who writes as well as you has never made one of those, though.

I'm glad you recognize my superiority, but I'm not sure why you brought it up since I didn't mention it in this thread.


Back to the issue, how common is this really in Japan? I don't know. I know their welfare system is not the most extensive in the world and people here are probably more likely than people in some other countries to allow their neighbor to waste away while pretending they don't know anything is happening.

However, a NYT article about fucked up Japan (a favortive topic of the NYT) doesn't really tell me anything about the system in general. I want to see numbers comparing Japan to other industrialized nations before I pass judgement. And I don't believe in systems like the one described in Australia where my tax money would be used to pay for deadbeat losers who don't want to work.

[American Oyaji]

Rooboy, I singled you out in my post specifically because you did so to me even though I initially had not mentioned a single bloody thing about Australia.

Reread the title of your second post in this thread.

[ttjereth]

I love it when noobie gaijin respond to everything with "in my country..."

Please notice the first person to bring Australia into the debate was an Australian. You don't want it to be talked about don't bring it up?

[rooboy]

and I don't give Candians, the English, New Zealanders etc 'shit'. I would never insert a thread claiming to show that those countries treat certain people badly there in a discussion about Japan. I never have.

I also don't weigh in with generalisations about those countries unless I know what I'm talking about. Australians ARE quite rightly pissed off with assertions made about them and the Indigenous people who are Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islanders for good reasons.

One of these was a while back (but not that long ago) where a delegation of black South Africans and other Africans came to Australia and demanded to know why Aboriginal and Islander people were not allowed to leave their townships and not allowed to vote, not given public funding etc etc.

It had to be pointed out that the homelands were controlled by the Indigenous people, the budgets for Indigenous people were an impressive chunk of the annual national budget and Indigenous people had been voting since the 60s. It also had to be pointed out that Indigenous people had been employed extensively in a no of government sectors despite not having the qualifications that whites and non Indigenous people had to have, and that educational grants were higher for Indigenous students.

It also had to be pointed out that the glue sniffing, lack of healthy eating, eye diseases etc in these homelands was where there was Indigenous self determination and Indigenous people had received the right to control their communities. Where there were increasing budgetary amounts devoted to Indigenous health.

The latest revelations this year about just how much sexual and other abuse has been going on in the Indigenous community for so long because certain white authorities had decided they couldn't intervene because it would be 'paternalistic' and 'racist', were a shocking window into just how Indigenous policy has been fuelled by irrationality on the part of leftist whites

It has also been fuelled by the refusal of too many prominent and well off Indigenous 'leaders' to take responsibility for their snouts in the trough at the expense of their own people and to encourage their fellow Indigenous people to stop talking about 200 plus years ago and to realise that only they can start turning their lives around.

As Noel Pearson, an Indigenous leader who really cares about his people (and by the way has never liked nor agreed with the current Liberal-National party in power especially John Howard the PM) said, "Ask the kids cowering in the dark as they hear the adults getting drunk and ready to abuse them if they want a bit of paternalism."

That's why a lot of Aussies get really pissed off by bullshit generalisations. If you don't know the reality, don't make assertions.

[Adhesive]

That's why a lot of Aussies get really pissed off by bullshit generalisations. If you don't know the reality, don't make assertions.

I agree with your reaction, for the most part; people are too quick to pass judgment on other nations without having the requisite knowledge of the particular country they are trashing.

That being said, I do believe that Australians (at least the ones I encounter) typically handle criticism of their country different from, say, Americans and the British. I think people from the U.S. and U.K. are soooo used to hearing foreign critique of their homelands that they start becoming numb to it, and in many cases, hop on the bandwagon of simple-minded bashing. I actually prefer the reaction I get from most Australians, which is to be slightly offended at the audacity of a person with no knowledge of Australia what-so-ever to tell them how it is.

However, I do think that one should be careful in this line of thinking, because there will always be foreigners who actually do know the facts-on-the-ground, and are qualified to critique the shortcomings of countries outside their own. just as there are many citizens of a country who are not knowledgeable enough about a problem to justifiably defend it.

[GuyJean]

.. your use of these kinds of out of context articles is way off the mark and it's fucking ignorant and out of context. It makes good propaganda that's all..

So an article I reference is 'ignorant', but a blanket 'opinion' like this isn't:

.. Nobody fucking dies in Australia because they can't get money from the govt or charity groups or wherever.

:rolleyes:

There's a lot of good in Australia; I like the people and I've always wanted to visit.. But I know it's not perfect, and I'm sure what happened in KitaKyushu probably also happens in Australia.. Just like in every country in the world.

GJ

[Greji]

and I don't give Candians, the English, New Zealanders etc 'shit'. I would never insert a thread claiming to show that those countries treat certain people badly there in a discussion about Japan. I never have.

Where i agree with a lot of your post, I wish you would reconsider the part about not giving the Kiwis shit. It's a lot of fun.

[rooboy]

I've thought about the difference between fuckedgaijin and the other net forums I look at but dont post on and the difference is - you don't have trolls here. If you do they are takechanpoo - but Im not sure the guy is a troll and maybe he is Japanese.

Re-reading the posts - I'd say there's reason in most of them including where I don't agree. I don't want to rant about fuckedgaijin and its posters because its truly the only net forum on Japan that has a lot of really good humour and good posters. No real arseholes (not even Charles).

I feel like posting more in the future - see you again guys and gals.

[unkosando]

I've thought about the difference between fuckedgaijin and the other net forums I look at but dont post on and the difference is - you don't have trolls here. If you do they are takechanpoo - but Im not sure the guy is a troll and maybe he is Japanese.

Re-reading the posts - I'd say there's reason in most of them including where I don't agree. I don't want to rant about fuckedgaijin and its posters because its truly the only net forum on Japan that has a lot of really good humour and good posters. No real arseholes (not even Charles).

I feel like posting more in the future - see you again guys and gals.

Dude throw another shrimp on the Barbie and relax!!

Great thread by the way. I like it when people mix it up!!

I am just surprised that "banging J-girls" hasn't somehow been worked into this thread yet.

[Jack]

Dude throw another shrimp on the Barbie and relax!!

Great thread by the way. I like it when people mix it up!!

I am just surprised that "banging J-girls" hasn't somehow been worked into this thread yet.

So why don't you start?

[rooboy]

I wasnt saying that the victims should be blamed - and I wasn't saying that there's no harsh reality behind all the problems Aboriginal and Islander people in Aus are going through. Yes there's racism, yes there's heavy handed policing, yes there are fucks of white bureaucrats who have been incompetent, etc etc.

I was just pointing out that real efforts have been to made to improve the living conditions of Indigenous Australians especially in the areas of health, employment etc. This has been happening in a big way since the 70s - maybe we started late but better late than never.

I really question the approach, however. There's only so much that focusing on the destruction of Indigenous culture when the whites first arrived over 200 years ago can do. That way of life can't be brought back, no amount of wishful thinking, political correctness or anger at the loss of Indigenous culture as it was before we arrived can solve the kinds of problems they face now.

Their problems were made worse by the ideology that you can go back to the past for the future - sorry, no can do, not in the case of Indigenous Australians. The blank cheques written out to the relative handful of Indigenous families who control the wealth from public funding were a completely fucked way of dealing with reality.

Just like the morally indefensible path these policy makers and govt. wankers took - the path of least resistance. Ignore the nightmares that were going on in some remote communities and other places because we don't want to be accused of racism and paternalism.

Blame the white bureaucrats for their incompetence and willingness to sanction policies that were long on public posturing of white guilt but short on practical ways to tackle deep seated problems and issues of black-white relations in Australia.