Article by Amanda Burchell
Aesthetics of a prosthetic and over-regulated world
One of the suggested topics for this discussion was: The aesthetics of a prosthetic and over-regulated world.
Though I had a problem in tweaking the word aesthetics to suit my purposes in relation to prosthetic, I learnt to use the latter word in a metaphorical sense and the rest found poetic license in its final expression by me.
And did I want to challenge the meaning of the word aesthetics in order to suggest precision, restraint, a certain punctilious and concrete approach?
Yes, I thought that I did.
So the translation for The Aesthetics of a prosthetic and over-regulated world would be:
The precise and concrete arrangement, to which a world propped up on plastic, is delivered in a rigid and untenable manner, devoid of joy and equity.
Welcome to Australia, folks!
Welcome to Australia, folks ~ this is the world we appear to be striving for.
… ‘A mundane metal cupboard in the bowels of the Australian Museum is a last resting place for lost mammals.’
… ‘In the past 200 years Australia has driven 27 of its mammal species to extinction.’
You may not give a damn that a Quoll or a Caladenia brachyscapa (Short Spider-orchid –Tasmania) – is rare or extinct but you might, however, spare a thought for your own survival, if it comes to that.
What's next? You perhaps?
Having ruined the habitat for other mammals and flora to boot, you might think – what’s next?
You, perhaps? Since it is always all about you, you may well consider that, if Australia keeps importing extra people – and you keep producing children yourself, you may just run out of room.
Perhaps each person who steps onto Australian soil, as well as the current residents, should be buying multiple blocks of land.
A man marries a woman and has two children: multiply that out by three generations - a house for the original couple, two more for each of their children and their families, and so forth.
Well, unless everyone stops procreating for a while, we are going to have serious problems in supplying sufficient housing, food, jobs and water, for everyone.
Water
Water… do you remember that, during Jeff Kennett’s regime, he made it illegal to buy and install water tanks?
That’s because during his time, water was privatized, and he, the politician – elected by the people - had a mandate to support the private enterprise that he and his government had further encouraged in the purchase of our public utility.
By the way if you’re wondering who would like to see Australia’s population expand infinitely, I would suggest that developers and real estate agents have a vested interest in population growth, wouldn’t you?
Immigration means more listings and sales – but, if you take a good look at where they’re building these house and land packages, they’re getting further away from real infrastructure and the CBD than ever before.
Now demographers are discussing self contained satellite cities where people are contained within, never needing to leave, really.
Is that what you want? Because that’s what they are talking about as a means to grow Australia, in a 'sustainable and manageable way'.
'They' includes those politicians I mentioned before; politicians like Jeff Kennett’s who just know what’s good for us and for Australia.
Well, I’d like the voting public to think about how tough things are at the moment – and how much tougher they are likely to get with a bigger squeeze on strained resources.
The Builders and Developers are Wrong
The builders and developers are wrong. More people does not equate to a cheaper, better standard of living.
I heard the case for increasing Australia’s population back in the 1980’s and I cannot see any proof to date, that an increase’ has served the interests of that population, in general terms.
And forgive me, my youngest son; I am not a racist pig, as you once accused me of being – I just want a country that will give you a job and home – and enough water to drink.
I want a sustainable population with equity for all – for a long, long, time to come.
Amanda Burchell
Online References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extinct_flora_of_Australia
http://metapsychology.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=book&id=3915&cn=394
Comments
Vivienne (not verified)
Thu, 2010-04-01 11:11
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We are being driven into blandness - "nothing like Australia"?
John Marlowe
Thu, 2010-04-01 17:11
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Waves of multiculturalism burying indigenous into memory
The repeated policy waves of immigration to Australia from transportation to free settlement to gold fever to industrial boom to soldier settlement to 'populate or perish' to refugees to multiculturalism, have delivered us a melting pot of cultures, like a mini-Europe.
I still receive my old school magazine annually. It's now 'spot the Anglo'. Never did we have an Aboriginal attend and as far as I know none since. Never was a scholarship offered by the school to an Aboriginal student. Never was there an attempt to teach all us Anglo students back in the 1970s about Australia's traditional cultures. Now they're reducing the time allocated to teaching Australian history at secondary schools. So much time is spent on teaching foreign languages instead.
Read:
Battle looms over cuts to history curriculum
'Making history in the classroom'
Education now favours business. Social policy now favours the immigrant. Both still disenfranchise the Aboriginal peoples. The Anglo mob supposedly can look after themselves - or so the economic policy assumes. What the policy doesn't measure is society. It doesn't want to expose the human cost on local culture - unemployment, families forced to move away from traditional roots because of unaffordable housing. It doesn't measure local displacement, depression, substance abuse, marginalisation, imprisonment or suicide.
As the numbers keep coming, the demographics change, housing demand rises, the voting patterns change, the politicans change.
Globalisation, free trade, mass immigration is diluting Australia's culture. Who are we now, us Australians, but a mixed immigrant mob? We are told we are international citizens.
While Australia's Aboriginal people and sixth generation immigrants are buried under each successive layer of each new layer of immigrant crying special treatment and funding.
This is not a comment on race or a person's origin. It is a comment on the rights of a people to their birthplace. Such a right should not be lost and sacrificed for any perceived benefit some newcomer may promise.
This is a call for heritage and birth rights to stand up against PM Rudd's newcomer takeover policy and his warped Hong Kong vision for a 'Big' congested foreign Australia!
No Australian aspires to live a congested shoebox life of Hong Kong.
Rudd with his aristocratic pension and privileged superannuation beckoning must be convinced he is above shoe box living - 'let them eat cake...' ...?
What the Eora Aboriginal People saw coming from the shores in 1788 can perhaps be slightly more appreciated by those colonial descendents now seeing their own homes and way of life have disappeared around them. I can imaging their sense of terror seeing the sailing ships invading.
Rudd's 'Big Australia' policy is socially degrading for Australia.
Both LibLab dominant political parties remain 20th Century baby boomer blinkered to the short term economic data to drive their policies. They seem to know no better. They represent Neanderthal thinking in our 21st Century world which demands humane and triple bottom line ecologically sustainable imperatives to survive.
JM
Agent Provocateur
Thu, 2010-04-01 22:57
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Waves of multiculturalism burying indigenous into memory
Agent Provocateur
Thu, 2010-04-01 23:20
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In Reply to We are being driven into Blandness
Agent Provocateur
Thu, 2010-04-01 22:41
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Q/land Population Growth Management Summit - Australia tied
James Sinnamon
Fri, 2010-04-02 17:22
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Growth merchants' sudden conversion to 'planned' growth
In the article, Amanda wrote:
For years, the growth pedlars have been perfectly happy to impose growth without bothering in any way to plan our cities to cope with that growth.
If they had to have growth, they could have at least adopted the sattelite city approach well before now, to avert the congestion that has been caused by too many people having to commute for outerlying suburbs to where the jobs were, but they did not.
In the 1960's Brisbane's trams were torn up as was the Brisbane to Gold Coast Railway line. The destruction of many rural railway services continued under the Queensland State Labor Government of Wayne Goss in the 1980's as recommended by his advisor Kevin Rudd.
From 1998, when the Beattie Labor Government won office, they continued to push population growth all along totally neglecting to upgrade Queensland's infrastructure, particularly its water and transport infrastructure.
Now that we are reaping the terrible combined consequences of population growth and no planning, everyone has suddenly become a convert to planning. See, for example, Queensland Deputy Premier Lucas's seemingly frank and forthright 'admission' of past mistakes by Queensland Governments and councils in the transcript of the SBS Insight program of 2 March 2010 "Housing 36 Million":
Of course Lucas, is silent about his own Government's role perpetuating that problem by continuing to back road construction through most of the last decade to the detriment of public transport as described by the damning Auditor General's report of last year.
It's a safe bet that these bouts of supposed forthrightness and the newfound discoveries of the necessity for planning are no more than ploys to divert public's attention away from the more fundamental problem of population growth.
For the last three decades at least, failure to plan was practically mandated by the othodoxy of free market fundamentalism.
We can be confident that whetever planning occurs form now on will be the bare minimum necessary to grease the flow of profits from our pockets into the pockets of developers and to provide a facade calculated to fool sufficient numbers of the public that real planning is actually occurring.
RichB
Fri, 2010-04-02 23:36
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What is wrong with
Sheila Newman
Sat, 2010-04-03 01:07
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This is what is wrong ...
Malcolm Spittle (not verified)
Sun, 2010-04-04 21:04
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Leaders not worthy of this land
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