Giving multiculturalism a bad name

[erudito]

So, the Gillard Government, starting with the PM herself, is already distancing itself from a taxpayer-funded study which claimed that celebrating the centenary of ANZAC could be divisive. This shows that the Gillard Government is not suicidally stupid

Comments

[quatrefoil]

As an Anglo-Celtic Australian, I deplore the celebration of ANZAC Day. Not its quiet rememberance with regret, but the nationalistic, jingoistic celebration it became under the Howard era at a time not co-incidentally when the last veterans of the Gallipoli campaign no longer had a voice to protest (and protest they did). I loathe the glorification of war in all its forms, and I fail to see that we should be spending any more money to 'celebrate' such an anniversary. (Note, I'm not objecting to the kind of dignified commemoration that was held for the 75th anniversary, though I think it's kind of pointless when there's no longer anyone who remembers it

[yamamanama]

That just makes it harder to sympathize with the nobility, though I wonder if I was even supposed to, and the summary was just terrible/based on ideology instead.

[oronoda]

Uh... my story is not about nobility versus the peasants. It is more about a government who systematically treated a group of people as second class citizens. You aren't to be sympathetic of the government. The story is about going to one extreme to the other and those who are caught in the center. It is a group of rebels who felt their revolution was stolen from them and how they plan to take back the narrative from extremists.

Because you are so bent on judging the story without even reading it, I see no point in even letting you see it. I'd rather not have your negativity spewed all over it because you are not even going to give it a fair go. Your head is way too far up your ass for that.

[jordan179]

Why do you assume that, in a fictional conflict between two groups, that one group must be "good guys" and one the "bad guys?" -- in the sense that one group is purely Good and the other purely Evil? Both in fiction and reality, it is possible that one side is better than the other but far from Good (South Vietnam compared to North Vietnam); it is possible that both sides are fundamentally Good but locked in a tragic miscommunication (the American Revolution); it is possible that neither side is particularly Good or Evil (the Seven Years' War) and it is also possible that both sides are Evil (World War II on the Russian Front).

You have a simplistic view both of history and of fiction.

[yamamanama]

Because this description makes me think someone meant the nobles to be sympathetic: a well-plotted tale following the children who must now suffer the world made unintentionally by their parents' wish for equality between mundane and magic user.

And much like Seda, the fact that they don't come off as likable is unintentional.

[jordan179]

The nobles' children, who must suffer persecution by the Revolutionary regime, didn't create the system which the Revolution hated. And if this is like most real-world Revolutions gone bad, the other group most at risk are the Old Revolutionaries, and their friends and family. Why shouldn't one sympathize with them?

The Tsarist Russian regime was bad. The Bolshevik Russian regime was worse. If I write a story about the attempt of a group of likeable young Russian nobles and gentry to escape the Bolsheviks, does this mean that I'm a Tsarist?

Come on, you must have some functional logic in your brain, or you would stop breathing -- and, presumably, tying. Use it!

[yamamanama]

Didn't you write a Tsarist story earlier, about a Tsar-ruled Russia that went into space around the time of World War II?

The way Drow phrased it and with Drow's opinions on Arabs, Africans, Latin Americans, and indigenous Americans, you'd think the story was an allegory for the dangers of "giving equality to people who clearly aren't equal."

[jordan179]

Didn't you write a Tsarist story earlier, about a Tsar-ruled Russia that went into space around the time of World War II?

Yes, I did.

The point of that story was not "Tsarism was a good idea!" but rather "Tsarist Russia was evolving in the right direction before Nicholas II's poor decision to declare war on Austria-Hungary in 1914 led to a disastrous war and revolution." And by the ATL's 1940's, the ageing Nicholas II had rather obviously become the Constitutional monarch of a Parliamentary monarchy -- one of his self-gripes was that he'd let power devolve to the Duma.

... and with Drow's opinions on Arabs, Africans, Latin Americans, and indigenous Americans ...

I've heard her disapprove of Arab culture. I don't recall her saying bad things about "Africans, Latin Americans, and indigenous Americans ..." as groups, and strongly suspect that you are simply assigning to her the opinions which you believe she must hold given the mental box in which you have placed her.

[yamamanama]

A pity it wasn't actually evolving in the right direction in real life.

[jordan179]

Not only was Russia's economic growth rate higher in the last 50 years before World War One than in the first 50 years of the Soviet system, but there was a clear political momentum toward parliamentary representation and other liberal reforms. And even had Tsarist Russia simply stagnated politically at the level of oppression it engaged in around 1900, the Russians still would have been freer than they were around 1950. And there would have been more of them -- where the Tsarists killed thousands, the Communists killed millions.

[jordan179]

I don't think that Mary's (not Rory's, you have them confused) story is all that similar, witness

http://www.affsdiary.com/cgi-bin/vb/showthread.php?1272-Revolution-Chapter-1

and thank you for giving me a chance to plug aff's site and Mary's story! Oh, Yama, you're the gift that keeps on giving! :)

[yamamanama]

You know what? I'm not registered there and since I can't register without giving Aff my IP, you're going to have to repost it somewhere where I can see it.

I can't help it if the summary makes it sound like Illusion without the good.

Also:
note the word:I'm not the one promoting a ripoff of Paula Volsky's Illusion.

[oronoda]

Don't judge a book by its cover, Yama. You don't want to be like the French, do you?

[yamamanama]

Going by the cover, I'd definitely take Illusion.

lcrazzy1 .narod .ru/image/fantasy/michael_whelan/michael_whelan__illusion.jpg
This is the cover of Illusion drawn by Michael Whelan. It is worth something.

vs.

cutelildrow .deviantart. com/gallery/?offset=24#/d4d4g8f
This is a sword, drawn by nobody. It is worth nothing.

Which one would you rather read?

(a cover I had in mind for something I'm writing: a communist-style poster with three upraised arms, brandishing a rose, a machine gun, and a hammer and a border of art-nouveau flowers)

[jordan179]

If Rory has the power to draw things without actually drawing them, then she has a psychic power worth more than any number of pictures, including ones by Michelangelo and Rubens!

I have no idea which I'd rather read, because you have specified only one book. Hint: a drawing of a sword is not a book. I guess I'd rather read Illusion for a few hours than stare at Rory's sword picture for a few hours -- Rory's picture is nice but is not worth staring at for hours.

[yamamanama]

The second picture is the cover for Aff's Diary, which has elves with their name changed to the Hungarian word for shit. I don't think that was intentional. The description actually says this: This was the commissioned cover art for a fantasy novel by a friend of mine, David. The original cover was a rather vague smoke pattern, and it didn't bring to mind a fantasy setting at all. When I offered to create a cover art, David was happy to accept.

Also, your post was uttermostly un freaking believable in every way possible. You're obviously making a joke; there's no way someone could be that dense.