Make a Difference

Day: May 29, 2011

Blanchett to Australia – ‘Listen Up, Peasants’

The Australian Greens have accused polluters of an “ugly attack” on Hollywood star Cate Blanchett, who has come out in a new television advertising campaign in support of a carbon tax.

Yes, but if CO2 is a pollutant, then everyone still breathing is a polluter, right?

A tax on CO2 will have a serious effect on the ability of average householders to pay for fuel, electricity and ordinary household items. The whole point of a CO2 tax is to make it impossible for ordinary people to go on using the resources they use now. In other words, the point is to make people poorer.

But Cate’s response to these concerns is not just ‘Let them eat cake,’ but ‘No problem, let a few starve or freeze. Can someone bring me my second cappuchino. And where is the limo to take me to my private jet?’

And for heaven’s sake, why can’t the people who want a tax talk clearly about what it is they want?

They don’t want a ‘carbon tax.’ They want a tax on human production of CO2. Calling CO2 ‘carbon pollution’ makes as much sense as calling water ‘oxygen pollution.’

When Cate Blanchett lives in a two bedroom cottage like I do, uses only rain water like I do, car pools like I do, uses less than 6000 kWh of electricity per year as I do, then I will listen to what she has to say on the subject of reducing our resource usage.

Until then, she can keep her preaching to herself.

KI Accommodation Providers Have a Whinge

I watched the SA ABC’s Stateline programme on Friday night. There was a segment about KI Sealink and some of Kangaroo Island’s accommodation services.

The accommodation providers said it was unfair that they weren’t benefitting from a Sealink partnership programme they hadn’t joined and didn’t want to pay for.

They had complained to Sealink, then to the ACCC. The ACCC found their complaint was without foundation, so they enlisted a self-promoting politician and academic, and complained to the media.

I didn’t know whether to be amused or appalled.

Sealink is a commercial venture. Its future reliability depends on its continuing to make a profit.

Without strong profits it could not employ the staff it does on Kangaroo Island and elsewhere. It could not maintain and service its vessels and other infrastructure. It could not make provision to purchase replacement vessels and buildings when necessary. It could not pay $10,000 per week in wharfage fees (essentially a state government toll on the only road in and out of our community, the only community in the state that has to pay such an impost), and it could not pay taxes which contribute to roads, hospitals and schools.

Sealink is under no obligation to offer lower fares to residents, or any reduced fares at all, even as part of a campaign to bring more visitors to the island.

When it does offer below cost fares, that loss needs to be recovered from somewhere else.

One way to do this is to invite accommodation services to partner with it. Those who choose to be partners share in meeting the cost of the reduced fares. In return, they get more prominent publicity, and priority in accommodation bookings made through Sealink.

There is nothing remotely anti-competitive about this. It is not, for example, like service providers agreeing to fix prices.

But some providers who have chosen not to participate are complaining it is unfair.

This is a bit like complaining it is unfair that people who pay for advertising in The Islander get more customers than people who don’t. Fairfax has plenty of money. They should offer free advertising space to people who don’t want to pay, so those people are not disadvantaged.

That would be ridiculous. It is no less ridiculous for people who have chosen not to participate in a partnership programme to complain it is unfair when they get fewer bookings than people who have.

It is a simple commercial decision. If you think your business would be more profitable paying the partnership fee and commissions, then join. If you don’t, don’t join.

But whatever you decide, don’t whine about it.

Slutwalk = Nutwalk

Organisers of the Slutwalk rally declare: Sluts are sex workers. Sluts are virgins. Sluts are mothers with their teenage daughters. Sluts wear beanies, fishnet stockings, G-string leotards, polar fleece and jeans.

Really?

Are these women (and a few try hard blokes) completely and utterly crazy?

Slutwalk Rally - Clothes Send a Message

Of course rape is wrong. Of course ‘No’ means no. Of course women have the right to be safe wherever they are, whatever they choose to wear.

But hang on a second. What does a ‘right to be safe wherever they are, whatever they choose to wear’ actually mean?

Men don’t have any such right. Or maybe they do in theory.

But men, generally, understand that what they wear sends signals about who they are, what they might be up for, and what value they place on themselves. And generally, they stay out of places that might be unsafe. Even if they have a right, in theory, to go where they want, wearing what they want.

”My rape was not my fault!” Cody Smith told the crowd. A woman who has transitioned to being a man, he choked back tears as he described his guilt.

”I spent so many years blaming myself for my state of intoxication … for what I was wearing … for not being strong enough to keep the rapist off me.”

So you were alone with a man you did not know, dressed like a slut (their word, not mine) and crocked out of your brain, and what happened to you was not your fault.

I agree. It wasn’t your fault. If you said no in a way that your attacker could understand, then it was rape, and your attacker was criminally wrong.

But the reality is that we don’t just communicate using words. The clothes you wear, the make-up you use, how drunk you are, the way you walk, the way you talk, the places you go, all send signals.

This is true of men too of course. Women rightly use such cues to make decisions about the character and reliablity of the men they choose to be with.

This means both men and women should be aware of, and take responsibility for, the messages they send.

Right or wrong, like it or not, sometimes non-verbal cues outweigh what a person says in words. And if you make a series of decisions to dress in a certain way, drink more than you should, behave like a tart, pash on with a stranger, then don’t be surprised when a person whose physical responses you have elicited becomes confused about the messages you are sending.

Women should be safe. That is their right. If they want to be taken seriously and treated as equals and adults, they should also be responsible.

And yes, even when women won’t take responsibility, men should. Rape is always wrong.

Update.

I have stopped comments on this post. I have let most of those already made stand.

Really, people. I would have thought it obvious if I allow comments which swear at me or wish me dead, that I don’t agree with or endorse every comment made. So it makes little to zero sense to insult me further for the opinions of people who comment.

Secondly, as I thought I had made clear in my original post more than once, rape is an abhorrent crime. It is never acceptable or excusable. It is never right to blame the victim.

It is surely, however, given that there are rapists out there, reasonable to ask how women can be safer.

Asking how women can be safer is not the same thing as blaming them for being raped. Why would anyone make that assumption?

One of the things that concerned me about the Slutwalk is that it suggests that women are to be identified as sexual objects.

If you advertise yourself as sexually available in dress or speech, some people will assume you really are sexually available. Even if you say you are not, at very least you are sending mixed messages.

People should accept your no. Anyone who doesn’t is a pig and criminal. But the reality is, some people will either misread the messages, or choose to ignore what they don’t want to hear.

That is not your fault. It is theirs. But that doesn’t mean there is nothing you can do to avoid being in that situation and to make yourself safer.

Being aware of your dress and actions and what they communicate, and taking steps to make yourself safer is simply part of being a responsible adult.

It may not be fair. But lots of things are not fair. We all have to live in the word as it is, not how we think it should be.

That seems obvious to me, and like one of the commenters, I am baffled about why saying so has caused so much anger.

You may disagree. I am happy to hear why. But telling me I should die a slow painful death, or swearing at me or calling me names is not going to convince me you are right.

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