Tuesday, September 27, 2016

In which the Caterists deplore welfare but how about two cheers for a grants-based culture ...


Actually, if we read that splash, it possibly should be amended to read that the Daily Terror and the News Corp media hysterics take a heavy toll on recipients' dignity, as was clearly established last night on Media Watch here ..


It seems Buzz Lightyear and Chris Dore have much in common ...


But all this is taking the pond away from the joy of the Caterists and the mystery of the graphic in the google splash ...


Well that will become clear enough in due course ... even if we could rewrite that one to the Caterists aim to empower through the dignity of pocketing grants ...


Ah the old Marlboro metaphor. Strange, the pond thought the small government, libertarian Nick was all in favour of the mentally ill being allowed to buy their cigarettes over the counter for a modest stipend ...


Yes, that'd be the ones that would benefit from the much under-estimated, short-term therapeutic benefits of cigarettes. Better death than life in a mad house.

But enough of that deep concern for sending off the poor, the elderly and the mentally ill as quickly and as painfully as possible, because it's around this point that the pond always likes to suggest a better way to read a Caterist column.

It's a Tuesday ritual, like a reciting of the mass, and it never gets stale.

It's simple enough ... wherever you read "welfare", just insert "grant" ...

Here's an example ...

To put it in a language the Caterist may understand, the science is in on this one. 
Grants are the the new ­tobacco; they can have short-term therapeutic benefits (much underestimated, incidentally, in the case of cigarettes, but that's another bit of profoundly stupid Caterist pandering to big tobacco) but its long-term ­effects are pernicious. 
These grants eat away at self-esteem, damages physical and spiritual health, and become an addiction that some find ­impossible to kick. 
Grants' secondary effects ­damage the educational prospects of children and boosts the likelihood that they will become recipients themselves. Who doesn't like a grant to help with the pocket money?
The first duty of any provider of grants therefore should be to wean their customers off it. So it comes as a shock to discover that the federal Department of Finance — the peak body for ­do-gooders intent on cutting off bludgers and grants lovers — wants to make this poisonous substance easier to obtain.


It's also part of the pond's proud Caterist tradition to publish an example of the pernicious influence of the grants culture that is ruining this country ...

Think of it as a couple of Hail Marys and an Our Dept Finance Father ...


The pond used to publish years of them, but one is enough, because there's more Caterism waiting in the wings ... 



Yes, it’s not the size of government that matters but the pernicious tendency of bureaucracy to suppress the individual freedom of Caterists to blather on endlessly while making sure they score generous cash in the paw grants...

Oh there's time for one last play of the game ... think of it as a Kyrie Eleison for Caterists ...

Yes, the cost of the grants budget given to the Caterists at the Menzies Research Centre is overwhelming, with hapless citizens taxed to kick a cool $240k or so a year into the kitty ... 
The greatest moral imperative, however, is to remove the pernicious effects of a system that strips dignity, discourages and disempowers and encourages the Caterists to think they make the slightest jot or whit of sense while holding out their paw for the cash, a system that robs citizens and the Caterists of what Menzies defined as an essential freedom: “the freedom to seek and obtain greater reward for doing more”, as opposed to blathering on about welfare while hooked on the purest junk of all, a quarter of a million smackeroos a year in grants ...

It's a simple-minded enough refrain, and the pond will stop the day that the grants to a lobbying centre, designed to aid and facilitate the pumping out of prime blather, are stopped ...

Of course nothing will stop the addictive aspect of a Caterist puffing away like a cigarette or a cane toad explaining the fine distinction between welfare and grants ...

And so for a little visual relief from the grants culture, and as a break for the pond's misuse and abuse of admirable Fairfax cartoonists, the pond headed off to Twitter ...





Oh dear, the dreadful social media, always bypassing the reptile world view ...


6 comments:

  1. The "dignity of work?
    Tell that to the 50 million or more slave workers in the world, or all of those who work (slave) in the sweatshops of China and South East Asia. Or to those who work on time-managed production lines in the more prosperous parts of the world.
    Never mind too that the majority of workers in the Western world essentially loathe their soul and health destroying jobs.
    Tell that to the millions of slaves who were literally worked and/or flogged to death in the America's especially in the "freedom"-loving USA.

    Never mind too that it was because of the then power of the unions that many blue collared workers in the Western world were able to find any dignity in their work. This was especially the case in the USA. But all of that was systematically abolished beginning with "saint" Ronny Reagan - the great con-man

    And of course the sign on the gate of Auschwitz - "work makes one free"

    The smug little saint Nick obviously belongs to or is a preacher for the mindset described by Sharon Beder in her books Selling the Work Ethic - From Puritan Pulpit To Corporate PR and Suiting Themselves How Corporations Drive The Global Agenda

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  2. Isn't there a similar slogan above an old concentration camp in Germany?

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  3. Isn't there a similar slogan above an old concentration camp in Germany?

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    1. There is exactly the same slogan above the gate at the Dachau Concentration Camp, I understand.

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  4. I do a tad of consultancy here and there, and one of the big coprorates I call on has the usual panoply of papers arrayed on the reception coffee table. I like a bit of a sit and a read while waiting for my client, however recently, no Oz! The Oz was my favourite, I liked that day of the month where I could read an actual copy, then capmpre notes with DP that afternoon. I asked the sweet young thing behind the alter what the deal was - she said, "no one reads it" But I do!

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    1. Yeah, whenever I go for my 'free read' of the reptile press with my morning coffee, hardly any of the cafes have an Australian - just one, in fact. Lots of Hairoiled Scums - so I never miss out on my Bolter and the appalling H-S cartoons and my regular dose of Rite the Panhandler - and even a Fairfax Age or two. But only 1 has an Australian (and it's the furthest away and least visited that I frequent).

      So I have to rely on DP completely for all those lovely reptiles. And I guess she provides an "elegant sufficiency" ... or more.

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