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On-message, turning a blind-eye.

Article Excerpt
It is always disarming to hear a heartfelt capitulation, a recognition of a past wrong now owned up to. If the Left has believed anything it has been that people's behaviours are socially formed, and are therefore open to reconstruction--indeed to the flowering of the fullness of human being: that redemptive story about the possibility of overcoming the distortions of the miserably narrowing grip of life lived under capitalism.

Somehow, that sense of possibility did not rise up in me when John Howard announced his reconstruction: openly admitting fault, seeing a way forward to reconciliation with Indigenous Australians, declaring himself distorted by the historical circumstance of growing up in the fifties.

Truly?

As this announcement was surely researched and market tested before delivery, the spin doctors must have thought it would strike a chord with someone. You may be worried that he's conned you in the past, but look, here is real sincerity! An old story. Here's a man who can face his demons (all those black devils turning their backs on him): he's human after all. Was that it? He's flexible and dynamic, not defined by the past! That seems to be the consensus of The Australian's stable of commentators. Departing from the tactics of dog whistle racism in his dealings in Aboriginal affairs, Howard was now exploiting the very same issue, not for division this time, but for harmony...

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