Bogans confused by Categate (Sydney Morning Herald)
June 3, 2011 - 3:37PM
The question of climate change has long been a vexed one for the bogan. During the mid-00s, when the weight of public opinion began swinging behind the scientific consensus, and the need to take action about it, the polling suggested that the bogan jumped on board.
Far be it for the bogan to stand out from the crowd with its opinions – only with its brightly hued attire and accessories. However, much of this support was predicated on the notion that the bogan would not have to do anything in particular to remedy the climate change problem.
When confronted with the entirely unwelcome idea that an increased cost of pollution was the price of solving the climate problem, the bogan's throbbing cognitive dissonance gland turned as red as a Greek balance sheet. The bogan now stood against a heinous tax.
Not because it was lying earlier about its willingness to pay for change, but that it had reconsidered the science, and now believed the science to be incorrect.
With decades of experience studying the climatic data, and a daily dose of News Limited's stable of climatologists' input, the bogan was now a font of scepticism. Possibly Times New Roman. Definitely not Comic Sans.
When this started becoming apparent in polling, and the appearance of Tony Abbott at various factories and mines across the country spouting the phrase "toxic tax" to anyone willing to point a camera at him, the nefarious beardist cabal of climate change activists sprang into, well, action.
"What is it that bogans love most… something that we can use to convince them of the importance of action on this issue?" said Simon Sheikh, sipping daintily on his latte. "Surely we can isolate something more powerful than the bogan aversion to all kinds of tax."
As the sun set on another day of plotting a fierce redistribution of bogan incomes, one of the evil cohort sprang to his feet with an ecstatic "Eureka!".
'Celebrities! It's celebrities!'
"Of course!" chanted Beards #3-#7 in unison. "But which ones?"
"Well, obviously, we need that guy who was in The Castle. The only person bogans impersonate more than him is that guy who impersonates Eric Bana impersonating Chopper Read. And besides, he's on Packed to the Rafters. Bogans love that show. But we need someone bigger. Someone that will get real media attention…"
Weeks later, Cate Blanchett appeared in a commercial attempting to convince the bogan to do the right thing by the planet. The poor, misguided fool. Firstly, the financial pyro-technicians at News Limited lambasted "Carbon Cate" for having the gumption to ask the doing-it-tough Aussie battlers to fork out more money just because she's loaded.
This confused the bogan to the point of madness, as it was unable to reconcile the fact that its celebrity deity was asking it act against its own interests. Because Cate Blanchett has starred in upwards of 700 Hollywood period dramas set in England, she has been a key bogan gateway to cultural smugness. A palid, violin-less Andre Rieu.
It was like Jesus asking his followers to actively engage in homosexual acts with the neighbour's husband. Pure, (un)adulterated blasphemy.
Several bogan heads exploded, some converted to Scientology, and a few sought refuge in the dulcet tones of Delta Goodrem.
Of course, the bogan is not to blame for any of this. Only a few months ago, it was informed by the country's two richest people that it should indeed act as it wants and pay no heed to the nonsense being spouted by the "scientists" in the their climate controlled ivory towers. It was happy.
Now, the very same newspapers are telling it to ignore the opinions of wealthy people and listen to a wealthy celebrity that wants it to pay more money for its god-given right to own nine cars, and open the windows at home when the central heating gets too hot during January and February.
The bogan's typically uncomplicated life was now impossibly fraught with conflict. To add insult to injury, the bogan has recently been informed that Twiggy is now not our second richest person – it's actually an African that nobody has ever heard of. Between a sneaky African and a dishonest movie star, the bogan has nowhere left to turn.
By now, the bogan was furious about all of the lies and confusion, so it retreated from the sumptuous neon nourishment of its 138 inch LCD television, and applied itself to something it knew was definitely real and good: a four hour session of doughnuts on its Jet Ski. Climate change would have to wait until another day.
Boganomics is a weekly column available Friday's at MacroBusiness (www.macrobusiness.com.au), Australia's economic superblog. It is written by Michael Jayfox, E. Chas McSween, and Intravenus De Milo. By day they are mild-mannered Collins St economists, but they moonlight as crusaders against the gullibility of the modern Australian consumer.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/bogans-confused-by-categate-20110603-1fkdd.html#ixzz1OFmXGGKS
Noice.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that I have seen the word bogan used so often in a story ever before!
ReplyDeletewell BIQ, there's a lotta them out there.. :D
ReplyDeleteI am sure that there is :)
ReplyDeleteGood to see some clever writings in print. I'm still a bit undecided about the whole tax du carbon. On the one hand, I'm all for user pays, and those grubby industrialists need to be penalized for mucking the place up.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, will the tax be a disincentive to pollute? Will the directors bear the brunt of the tax, or pass it down the line? What will the pollies do with the extra pesos collected? Will the majority of funds be allocated for environmental patching up?
Hey, Betty Daisy, are you asking me as the obvious expert on political economics or as the expert on economical politics?
ReplyDeleteHere's my opine:
1. Will the tax be a disincentive to pollute? My short answer is hopefully. My long answer is: have you seen the film 'The Corporation'? A documentary featuring interviews with Mike Moore and David Suzuki, amongst others? The movie begins by describing the clinical criteria for diagnosing a person as a psychopath, then applying that clinical criteria to the behaviour of corporations. It found that if corporations were human beings, they'd be psychopaths because as entities, corporations gain satisfaction from antisocial behaviour, with no remorse attached. So I suspect that any attempt to penalise the big polluters will only be allowed through by the big polluters if they think that they can work out a way around it. But we need to get our foot in the door to change the whole system. We simply must. It's destroying the planet.
2. Will the directors bear the brunt of the tax, or pass it down the line?- Are you kidding? See above description of 'The Corporation'.They'll do anything they can to avoid being penalised. But we have to start drawing the line in the sand anyway.
3. What will the pollies do with the extra pesos collected? Um. Maybe they'll give themselves a bonus for getting the tax through. Or alternatively, they'll give it in grants to the polluters to compensate them for being taxed in the first place. Or maybe they'll fix up the roofing insulation scheme with it....seriously tho, I do recall hearing that they're working out a system of compensating households for additional costs on services which will be bumped up by the polluting dudes.
4. Will the majority of funds be allocated for environmental patching up? Oh, they'll probably say so at first. Then some months down the line there'll be stuff tucked into the next national budget about unexpected costs in infrastructure or some such guff and they'll use the money for whatever they like. But we still need to start the process of moving our economy away from non renewable and polluting fuels. There. Is. No. Future. In. It. A carbon tax is the best disincentive we have, even if it's imperfect.
Other thoughts: - I have heard from friends more economically minded than meself, that most business dudes accept that a carbon tax will be put in place at some point, and would prefer the tax to be put in place sooner rather than later so's they can all get on with their economic modelling, forecasting and business planning, because until they know what the tax structure is they'll be dealing with, they're all up in the air.
- I'm told via the Yes to Action on Climate Change people, that 31 European countries have had a carbon tax since 2005. New Zealand has a carbon price. California (which has a bigger economy than Australia) has a carbon price. China is running a pilot in key provinces, and India already has a coal tax that works similarly to a carbon tax. So all of this palaver about 'why should Australia go out on a limb etc & etc' is a great big pile of smelly Abbotty/Alan Jonesish/Andrew Boltesque (dunno who your right wing shock jocks are in Qland..)misinformation....
Ummm, sorry to say this, but after what Gillard did to Rudd over the ETS I will never trust her again. And besides, the rhetoric from the 'so called left' re Abbott and the liberals, loses sight of the fact that on many issues they are to the left of labour on social policy. Mental Health being a glaring example, but I could state several others, such as DSP criteria etc. As for the carbon tax, I think people have just lost any faith in Labor to do anything with a modicum of competence. Everything they've touched has turned to crap. They even bought a motorised catamaran for rescue at Christmas Island that is only registered for use in calm seas. Come on Wilma, Barney and me have had enough. Bailleau's plan for a food bowl to the south east of Melbourne is the best thing I've heard in years as a green project. Compares to Brumby's incompetent and corrupt Desal plant, it's like a breath of fresh air. Open to be convinced otherwise. I am far far far away from being a natural liberal voter. But I do vote on policy, competence, and transparency. Labor have lost me on all three. Yes, the Greens were good until the first thing they tried to forced through parliament was the gay marriage proposals. Not against this, just hardly seems like a pressing priority, what with war, pestilence, education and the University sector to deal with. I mean, come on...save me from this bull shit...
ReplyDeleteJonesy, I dont think you'll ever find me defending Jools or the rest of her tragic focus group obsessed bananas. How depressing- I would have loved to have been excited about Autralia's first female prime minister. And indeedy, everything that Labour has touched has turned to crap. In some ways, I may actually be a natural small l lib- I'm all for the rights of the individual, and I love the idea of little or no govt intervention...the IDEA...
ReplyDeleteI think you're just trying to provoke argument by whinging about the gay marriage issue. What's bullshit about that? I have many many gay friends to whom it is an immediate, every day issue....
So what would YOU do in the Green's shoes? How would you most effectively involve yourself in government decision making processes? Where would you start?
Little chat with Bobby Brown just for Jonesy:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/2744690.html
Nothing against Gay marriage if that's what people want to do, just hardly think it was appropriate as the first bill to be discussed in a new parliament, that's all. More about priorities than principles. Yeah, the Greens are the closest to the policies I would like to see introduced. Sorry, just a tad argumentative last night i think. Just get really cross when people fall into LAbor's trap of bad mouthing Lib personalities. Politics is about policy, and I will stand by my statement, that in some ways, the Libs policies are better than Labors (I feel sick having just having had to have spelt that out). Yuk. And boy, does that say a lot about me or more about the traitorous Labour hacks who pretend that they are 'working class'? Who knows. I'll probably vote Greens again.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, that DVD will have to be searched out.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, there need be no further discontent with the current labour/liberal choice, for now we have (tan tan tara fanfare) the new Bob Katter party.
Who'd have ever believed it?
@ Jonesy: 'hardly appropriate'?
ReplyDeletehehehehahaheeheehee. Basic human rights, luv.
@ Betty: Yes, Bob is an auspicious name for Australian Pollies. Bob Hawke, Bob Brown, Bob Katter...
By the way Jonesy, where are Pedro & Miguel this week? Exams are no excuse...