I am heartily sick of all the government funded advertising that assaults me at every turn of my daily perambulation through life. We are told what to eat, what not to eat, how fast to drive (or how slow, more like), how much to drink, how to spend our money, where to save it, how to climb ladders, what we must wear when climbing ladders, what light bulbs to buy, what cars to drive and so it goes on , and on, and on, and on, and......... Nanny state at every bloody turn in the road. And I have to pay for it all. The government would have to be the single largest spender of the advertising dollar in the whole land.
I have become numb to it; it has lost its impact. Whether that is because they have overplayed their hand and it is just no longer having an effect or it is because I make a conscious effort not to notice it I don't know.
However things have changed over the last few days. There is a new brand of Nanny in the paper and on the box. Sustainability. What the hell is this?. The Urban Dictionary has the most worrying definition. 'Sustainability is a lens through which to view all issues. The sustainability movement encompasses environmental justice and social justice, because one cannot be obtained without the other. It means living life to the fullest without compromising future generations' ability to do so. It respects the interconectedness of all life and acknowledges the responsibility that each person has to consider the effects that his actions have on other life forms, both living and to be born.'
'Sustainability is a lens through which to view all issues'. Hellfire, we are in trouble already - it covers everything. There is a 'sustainability movement'. It gets worse by the sentence. The rest of the definition is just bog standard lefty weird beard nonsense speak that just makes me puke all over the Axminster. 'It respects the interconectedness (there is no such word) of all life and acknowledges the respon.........' Spare me this bollocks.
Anyway this is just the sort of tosh that our Dear Leader and her sable hued minions of satan (got to use it twice in three days) would be in like a robber's dog. So much so that the adverts in the paper point you to a website that has .govt.nz suffix. This is official gummint stuff.
I was foolish enough to go to the website (I hope my web browser is stable enough to withstand this) and it is even worse than I imagined it would be. Try these riveting links for size:
Thinking about a sustainable Christmas? (No, since you asked)
Organic River festival 2008
Climate rescue carnival
I bravely clicked the Climate rescue bizzo (purely in the name of research you understand) and I am confronted with:
Hosted by Be The Change and featuring the Be The Change bus, the Climate Rescue Carnival will be a fun day for the whole family. There will be live music, organic food, a bio-diesel powered bouncy slide and the Be The Change bus will be on site.
Well won't that be vying for my attention as an alternative to a days gamefishing? I'm on a roll now and I clicked the link to the Be The Change tossers (I urge you not to do this - you won't like the result) and we hit pay dirt. These are some of things you can 'Pledge' to do:
Gift a green membership for Xmas - see where this is all leading?
Carpool to all the summer festivals - more of the Climate Rescue rubbish I'll be bound
Get to school without harming the planet - pulllease
How many cars do you need? - please don't ask me this, you won't like the answer
Get political - the link for this one does not lead to the Nats website
Get the idea? OK, onto their 'Bright ideas' - and I promise I am making none of these up:
Turn plastic bags into art
Electric power assist for your bike
Give a tree for Christmas
Go largely hydrocarbon free in you transport needs! (not sure what the exclamation mark is all about)
Stop using flyspray
Community edible gardens
Nappy free babies
Community edible babies (alright, I made that one up)
Now the government is endorsing, nay, actively promoting this crap with my money. It is firstly just complete and utter balderdash but it also has that all too familiar undertone of control all through it. A nasty smug 'we know best' and we are making it 'fun' for you to do as we want - at the moment. However, if you don't do as you are told on the fun filled biodiesel powered bouncy castle we'll bloody well make you do as you are told later.
Off to stain the Wilton.
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