<< YET MORE COLDENING FOR CALIFORNIA ~ MAIN ~ "FACT" NOW "CLAIM" >>
CARING FELLOW WISHES TO PENALISE POOR
Daniel Donahoo, writing in Brisbane’s Courier-Mail, exposes obesity’s connection to hyper-individualistic consumerism, wealth, and - ahem - climate change:
Obesity is a symptom of a culture that doesn’t know how to care for each other.
It is a visible identifier of our hyper-individualism, the push towards perfection in our work, education and with our bodies.
Our push for perfection with our bodies is visibly identified by us becoming Moore-class waddlers? Fascinating. Do continue:
It is driving us to try to fill an unexplained emptiness. And, the more we talk about it, the more apparent it becomes.
It is this emptiness that is the cause of obesity and many other issues.
That explains Phillip Adams.
It’s a big hole into which we pour our consumerist lifestyles in an attempt to fill it up.
Consider the thousands of youth blurring the dance floors on weekends filled with ecstasy and speed.
Not a particularly obese segment of the community, you’d think.
So, we fill our houses with Ikea furniture and stainless-steel appliances. We fill our lack of conversation and interaction with TV and internet screen time. We fill our sadness with comments like “it’s all good”. And we fill our bodies with food in an attempt to gain some control. The real issue isn’t that any individual child is overweight, the issue is that we live in an obese society.
Fat City! Samuel Brannan’s vision is at last a reality.
It’s a society too big for itself and that is splitting at the seams and has lost its sense of what it wants and values.
It wants stainless steel appliances and Ikea furniture, apparently.
Obesity, human interaction and climate change all need to be addressed together. The creation of a healthy environment will lead to healthier and more connected people within that environment.
Solutions to improve the environment will improve our health.
And what might those solutions be?
We must consider policies such as carbon taxes or carbon-trading schemes that will increase the cost of fossil fuel-based activities such as driving a car because of the increasing petrol prices.
This leads to less car use, more walking and bike riding and a reduction in greenhouse gases. In the long term, we will see people trying to find work closer to home and communities again localising.
No, Daniel. Increase fuel prices and only poor people will reduce their driving. Only poor people will be forced to locate whatever work is available close to home. Hey, bring it on; add a dollar to the price of petrol per litre and it’ll make no difference to the likes of me, apart from thinning the roads of traffic when I’m driving to work. But people on low wages who balance their weekly budget down to the last cent ... they’ll be condemned to your “localised communities”, formerly known as slums.
Of course, Donahoo is a tilter.
(Via Don D.)
And their ‘solution’ to almost every problem is to tax people and reduce mobility: things that almost never actually inconvenience them, but by God they know what’s good for everyone else!
I wonder if this jerk has ever actually tried to carry a big bunch of groceries any distance on foot or on a bike? Oh, that’s right, I forgot: we’re not supposed to buy a large amount of anything(bad for mama Gaia, you know).
So financial penalties will make us all more soulful and spiritual? I can recall when I was a penurious college student, and I don’t remember any excess of spirituality then.
I do recall thinking about where I could live and what I could buy once I graduated and got a job. As it happened, I went to Navy Officer Candidate School right after graduation - obviously I hadn’t studied hard nor appllied myself. And naturally, life in the military killed any possibility of a soul’s awakening, making me the crass materialist you see today.
Posted by Steve Skubinna on 2007 01 21 at 12:07 PM • permalinkThe old “It’s noble to be poor” fable again. Usually uttered by clueless twats who’ve never been poor. Well, Mr. H and I have been poor, and we worked our asses off for decades so that we wouldn’t ever have to be poor again. Being poor sucks and nobody who is poor likes it, or feels all noble and spiritual because of it. Which is why I utterly despise envirocultist idiots who want to adopt policies that would drive everyone (except themselves) into poverty.
Don’t blame yourself, Steve, it’s society’s fault. Oh for the good old days of the Irish potato famine. Culture knew how to take care of each other then. The Poor Laws, Transportation for Life and the Work Houses. *sigh* We were happy back then. Happy because we were poor. I also look forward to biking to work or grocery shopping in February in Toronto so that there can be more snowfall in Australia. Maybe Danny would like to join me?
Posted by andycanuck on 2007 01 21 at 12:20 PM • permalinkShoot, and here I thought I was bringing in appliances to store (fridge) and cook (stove, microwave, toaster) food. Well, they do fill an empty feeling in me, namely hunger.
Thinning the roadways does have a bit of merit to it. More space for me. My proposal, if you have a “no blood for oil” sticker on your car, keep said car off the freakin’ road.
Jeez, Donahoo is a pompus, nihilistic windbag! If you haven’t done so, read the first 5 paragraphs of his drivel. Paragraph #4 is the money quote, which leads to the first line that Tim quotes:
You see, obesity isn’t a problem. It is, along with other indicators, a symptom of our wealth. It has been referred to as “affluenza” and the symptoms of this consumptive disease can be seen in our physical well-being, in our relationships and the impact it has on the environment.
Obesity is a symptom of a culture that doesn’t know how to care for each other.
Paragraph #5 is a flat out assertion; there is nothing in his entire article proving it. His application of skewed and highly partisan logic is a study in begging the question. We see little more than his opinion on how to save us from ourselves.
And it is fascinating to note that Donahoo is “...a fellow at OzProspect, a non-partisan, public policy think tank” (emphasis is mine).
“Curing” obesity and “saving” the environment by through increased taxation? Where have I heard this concept before? Primarily from lefties!
If Donahoo is “non-partisan”, then I voted for John Kerry in 2004.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 01 21 at 12:36 PM • permalinkNote to Rebecca: Yes, being poor does suck! I’d like to take those wealthy, leftie envirotards, dump them in a slum for a year, and see how “happy” they are living hand to mouth. The myth of the nobility of being poor is right down there with the myth of the noble savage.
Maybe materialism ain’t the cure to the problems of the world, but I find it hard to focus on problems when those hunger pangs hit. So I see it as an excellent method to overcome the obstacle of poverty.
Donahoo is a stupid wanker.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 01 21 at 12:41 PM • permalinkTime to setup the Deconcentration Camps to force waste waist reduction so the culture can care for each other again. (Although, obviously, Grammar Camps should be second on the list.)
Posted by andycanuck on 2007 01 21 at 12:50 PM • permalinkWhy is it that all the grandiose schemes the ever-so-compassionate Left comes up with involve the government taking money from someone else and giving it to… well, them?
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2007 01 21 at 12:58 PM • permalinkOdd how they always want to make it harder for me to live and work where I want instead of making it more efficient for me to, say, work from home or even just get from home to work. Almost as if their goal has more to do with restricting mobility than with doing something about the environment.
Of course, there’s the simple fact that 30 years ago, hunger was proof we had a society that doesn’t care for each other. Now obesity is proof we don’t care about each other.
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2007 01 21 at 01:22 PM • permalinkSo, we fill our houses with Ikea furniture ...
So Ikea furniture leads to obesity? Well those friggin’ Swedes have a lot to answer for then. Particularly the extra 20 pounds I’ve been carrying for the last few years.
You see, I just knew those Swedes were up to something with that damn furniture. First, they raise your blood-pressure by including complicated instructions on how to put it together. Then, you end up with cuts and blisters all over your hands as you put it together. Finally, it makes you obese as it sits there in your house. Tricky ones those Swedes. Very tricky.
Posted by David Crawford on 2007 01 21 at 01:24 PM • permalinkIt’s just too bad that Donahoo is too young to have joined in the fun of the Jim Jones move to Guyana.
Posted by Harry Bergeron on 2007 01 21 at 01:27 PM • permalinkIt is this emptiness that is the cause of obesity and many other issues ... It’s a big hole into which we pour our consumerist lifestyles in an attempt to fill it up ... So, we fill our houses with Ikea furniture and stainless-steel appliances.
Ho, wait I tell Mrs. wronwright. In the past six months, she has purchased a new stainless steel stove and refrigerator. (I wanted white, we got stainless steel. “The woman chooses dear”.)
And just this week, a whole living room suite (couch, love seat, two chairs, ottamans, lamp tables). Damn I wish Donahooooo had wrote that column before she went on a shopping spree. I could have waved the column at her, accusing her of emptiness.
Posted by wronwright on 2007 01 21 at 01:53 PM • permalinkI used to hear this garbage about the East Germans being all spiritually superior, that’s why the place looked like that. Well the second the Wall went down we were trampled in the crush of East Germans and merchants of furniture, building supplies, clothing, fast food, plain food and bananas coming together.
The Volk are so much preferable as obedient concepts than scattered vulgar reality aren’t they?You know, there are several charming apartment communities in the Orlando area I’d rather move to, but the fact that I have no car has to be taken into effect. So there I was all happy that I found an apartment complex within walking distance from my job. The only drawback is the nearest grocery store is a bus ride away, instead of a mere two blocks walk away. But I don’t have a car and I’m tired of three buses to work or begging coworkers for rides, so…
And yes, I’d like to see this fellow drag a week’s worth of groceries home without the help of one of those nasssty motorcars. Then again, starvation is a great cure for obesity, isn’t it?
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 01 21 at 03:09 PM • permalinkYes! We must bring down any society whose poor are too fat! Starving is the ultimate expression of proletariat virtue!
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 01 21 at 03:40 PM • permalinkSo really, obesity is excusable because it’s not the fault of the individual, but society and has nothing to do with the fact that the individual consumes more than they work off.
I think the real problem is individuals not taking responsibility for their own actions. I hate when I read about some fat people suing McDonalds, or smokers suing cigarette companies just because the individual lacked the willpower to say no. Abrogate individual responsibility and the only recourse is to have the State intervene.
And why does Donahooooo have a problem with people buying stainless steel appliances and Ikea furniture? I’m not a fan of either but I don’t know why I would want to tell anyone else what furniture they should have.
“So really, obesity is excusable because it’s not the fault of the individual, but society and has nothing to do with the fact that the individual consumes more than they work off.”
Telling the poor that it’s their own damn fault is the surest way to end any public career!
Posted by nofixedabode on 2007 01 21 at 04:23 PM • permalink#29 typical load for daily 10 mile bike trip home.
puppy food bag
serious groceriesnot that I expect anybody to do it. Just mentioning that it’s easy enough if you’re into it.
Hey, I gotta lose 20 pounds. But I’ll tell my doc it’s society’s fault, and my gym buddy (we agreed to go together starting this week to encourage one another) that I won’t go because it’s society’s fault.
One thing I noticed when I was poor is that cheap food is usually crappy food, and healthy food is more expensive. And organic? I could not have afforded that and paid the electricity bill, too.
Poor Ikea. They are one of the most obnoxiously green-talking companies on the planet, and their furniture is pretty darn cheap (putting nice stuff in the hands of people who don’t have two thousand dollars to pay for a living room suite), but they still can’t catch an even break. The funny thing is, I’ll bet this fellow, and all his other Ikea-bashing friends, get all their stuff there. He probably typed this up sitting at a desk like this. (It is, appropriately enough, called the “Jerker.”)
Personally I’d love to buy all my stuff at Ikea instead of having to scrounge the local thrift stores for something that isn’t too beat up, but they have yet to build a store in Florida. A couple are slated for later this year, supposedly.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 01 21 at 05:20 PM • permalinkObesity is a symptom of a culture that doesn’t know how to care for each other.
You could just as easily say “Obesity is a symptom of a culture that cares too much for each other”. This would explain why my mother still refers to me as a “growing boy” and insists that I eat whatever is put in front of me when I visit. Luckily it has not made me obese, maybe I dont visit enough :P
One thing I noticed when I was poor is that cheap food is usually crappy food, and healthy food is more expensive.
Yeah. It’s odd—deep fried, heavily-salted, sugar-packed food is dirt cheap. I’m sure you can find “healthy” stuff that’s cheap, but it tastes like crap.
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2007 01 21 at 05:46 PM • permalinkObesity is a symptom of a culture that doesn’t know how to care for each other.
The highlighted bit doesn’t make sense.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 01 21 at 05:49 PM • permalinkEspecially since it is invariably the ones receiving the most public assistance that have most trouble with obesity.
Heh.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2007 01 21 at 06:07 PM • permalinkExtremly few people in Australia have ever been unavoidably poor. Not “I cant afford new shoes” poor but “I have nothing to eat” poor.
Note I say unavoidably, I have been a “poor” student before, Idve been considerably less poor if I hadnt gone out to the pub on the weekends though. For this type of article writer poor means “not able to get everything you want” not starvation.
It also didnt stop me from thinking at the time I was hard done by and was somehow being victimised.15 years later and its quite easy to see what a dick I was at the time, hopefully it wont take Daniel Donahoo more than the 5 or so years it took me to work that out.
Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2007 01 21 at 06:25 PM • permalinkJesus wept. Do Adams and Donahoooo and their ilk seriously think everyone else’s lives are as meaningless and lonely and angst-ridden as theirs?
I’ve got three teenage kids. My household is a bottomless pit of rampant and sometimes mindless consumerism. It’s not filling an unexplained emptiness. It’s not filling a lack of conversation and interaction. It’s called a FAMILY. That’s F-A-M-I-L-Y.
Tosspots.
BTW Obesity in advanced western societies is a symptom of poverty, not overconsumption. The more you earn, the less likely you are to be obese.
Raising taxes on using cars will not lead to more bike riding etc. It will need to more financial stress on the poor, and therefore more obesity due to increased consumption of fatty/salty/pre-packaged food.
No doubt there are problems with loneliness and alienation in our society. To my mind this is because people so easily give up on the two things that invest life with meaning: family and hard work
The tone and quality of the writing points to the fair assumption that Daniel is 12 and he just got his first pimples.
Posted by Honkie Hammer on 2007 01 21 at 06:39 PM • permalinkDonawho is missing the point. Humans are carbon based lifeforms. The bigger the human, the more carbon they have absorbed - walking, talking examples of carbon sequestration. At this point I wish to thank Phillip Adams and Michael Moore for their efforts in saving the planet. Phillip has single-handedly managed to balance the entire greenhouse gas output of the Hunter Valley power industry with his tireless consumption.
What a load of self rightous clap trap. Really, some of the left, live in a state of delusion, who think they a great thinkers and philosopher statesmen. They are fond of telling us ‘unenlightened’ how we should live, the communists called it ‘re-education’. The collective mentality of their thinking, never fails to amaze. The old ‘don’t do as I do, but do as I say’ addaged always seems to apply.
#11 CraigC: ” This guy is supposed to be a writer?
That’sHe’s just pathetic.”There - fixed that for ya’. :-D
Posted by Barbara Skolaut on 2007 01 21 at 08:13 PM • permalinkPoor Ikea. They are one of the most obnoxiously green-talking companies on the planet, and their furniture is pretty darn cheap (putting nice stuff in the hands of people who don’t have two thousand dollars to pay for a living room suite), but they still can’t catch an even break.
They’re still big business, and that’s enough for lefties to have a go at them. The most hilarious thing in the world will be when all the companies currently cozying up to the environmentalist lobby (especially oil and power companies) are forced to realize that it didn’t get them a damn thing. Well, except reduced profits.
So, conduct an experiment. Put two nude fat people together in a refrigerator and see what happens.
I’m betting you get a life sentence for murder.
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2007 01 21 at 08:47 PM • permalink...their vegetable patch which always produces great tomatoes, but never enough basil.
I guess his vegetable patch is fawlty, then.
Posted by andycanuck on 2007 01 21 at 09:24 PM • permalinkReminds me of the famous Thomas Jefferson Airplane quote:
“Tis easier for a fat man to get rich in heaven, than for a camel to shit through the eye of a needle.”
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 01 21 at 09:25 PM • permalinkIncrease fuel prices and only poor people will reduce their driving. Only poor people will be forced to locate whatever work is available close to home. Hey, bring it on; add a dollar to the price of petrol per litre and it’ll make no difference to the likes of me, apart from thinning the roads of traffic when I’m driving to work. But people on low wages who balance their weekly budget down to the last cent ... they’ll be condemned to your “localised communities”, formerly known as slums.
Spot on. I don’t drive myself, and use Melbourne’s partially-privatised transport system, but there are large parts of the country that this transport system can’t reach. (It’s my choice - that, and I’m lazy).
The left advocates for a solution to climate change - on the grounds that climate change will affect poor people the most - and ignore the fact that the solution will also affect poor people.
Do they know this?
Some of them.
Do they care about it?
Some of them.Ha ha - his photo - he literally is a tilter!
And a 29 year old with all the answers to parenting? Do tell, soap dodger!
Posted by boxofmatches on 2007 01 21 at 11:09 PM • permalinkWhat a great solution Daniel has for obesity in my town. Tax people out of their cars and onto public transport, where a 10km journey takes 15 minutes by car and an hour and 15 minutes by bus thanks to an unnecessarily convoluted system of routes. That’s a lot of time to be sitting unproductively on your arse in the cause of “filling up human emptiness.”
I believe the founder of IKEA some bloke called Kamprad I think, has the unsettling habit of popping into any IKEA store in the world unannounced and ‘shopping’ the store.
I belive he did it here in Australia a few years ago - bowls in buys something, bowls out. All incognito.
Then despatches a lengthy memo to the manager about his store’s neatness, staff helpfulness, stock presentation etc.Like I said, unsettling in the extreme.
#64 - On the other hand, Kamprad is a Nazi sympathising, public transport user.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 01 22 at 01:46 AM • permalinkAnd here I was thinking that obesity was about eating too much and not exercising enough.
But really all the claptrap that I hear from people like Daniel demonstrates the real problem some people have with the choices available to people in a rich, developed society. I can, if i wish, eat numerous brands of fast food and sit in front of my TV or computer. I can also eat a myriad of types of healthy food, go to all types of gyms, sports clubs, activites etc that were simply not available 20 or 30 years ago.
As for filling some emptiness, I’ve never met an obese person who needed some existential angst to eat. They just seem to enjoy eating a lot. A bit like i enjoy drinking.
In the end, the leftist mantra is all about reducing the amount of choice that we have. We’re too stupid to exercise our free will properly, so someone else with more social awareness, or planet-compassion, or a deep existential void in their soul will have to do it for us.
Fuck ‘em. If you want to be fat, be fat. That’s your choice. Just don’t expect to sit next to me in an economy seat on a plane, lardarse.
People all around me are always making consumption choices or lifestyle choices that I think are barmy, but that’s their perogative. I might scoff at them in the safety of my lounge room when they are not around, but I am not going to lecture them on the stupidity of their decisions. Because they, and only they, know what will make them happy. They might screw up from time to time and blow their money on bad choices, but that’s their problem. Faced with a bad decision, they might make a better one next time.
I would never have the gall to think that I know how to make someone else happier.
Knob-throttling know-it-alls like Donahoo really ripen my custard.
Posted by mr creosote on 2007 01 22 at 06:12 AM • permalinkIkea? How ironic. They are so green and poor friendly that they include a cramp inducing hand tool to assemble their products, but can’t find it in their hearts to include a simple bit to go into a cordless drill for us lazy rich carbon flatulate Americans. Or even sell one in their store. I always assumed this was to increase the virtue value of their furniture.
I have finally figured it out. The left has a deep, seething and irrational hatred burning not for the right, but for the poor. They’d end cheap food, cheap cars, cheap flights. They’d suck all the education funding into universities instead of literacy programs. They’d end work-for-the-dole so no poor 2nd-gen unemployed fella could ever be forced to realise he really WAS capable, competent and useful.
Real nice fellas, real nice philosophy.
This might help to explain Donahoo:
The OzProspect Fellowship program is designed to help outstanding individuals establish themselves as credible voices in the nation’s public debate.
Fellows, who receive a stipend of up to $15,000, have typically shown great promise writing for student, academic or popular publications but have yet to establish themselves as leading commentators in the public discourse.In addition to their stipend, Fellows receive mentoring, various professional development opportunities, and assistance in gaining exposure for their ideas via OzProspect’s strong relationships with editors and producers at major newspapers, magazines, television and radio outlets.
The purpose of this initiative is to support the next generation of Australian public thinkers. For this reason, applicants must be under 35 years of age.
The application process is highly competitive. OzProspect’s primary criteria for evaluating candidates include: originality of thought and analytical ability; intellectual range; writing talent and strength of the proposed writing project. Final decisions on all Fellowship awards rest with the OzProspect Board.
Posted by carpefraise on 2007 01 24 at 11:34 PM • permalink
Page 1 of 1 pages
Members:
Login | Register
| Member List
One thing I have noticed with each of the hard core liberals I have known is a sense of unquenchable emptiness they seem to feel and that they project onto others. They then attempt to explain this with their hairbrained theories.