Who's read Affluenza?

Discussion in 'Planting, growing, nurturing Plants' started by Jet, Nov 21, 2005.

  1. Jet

    Jet Junior Member

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    Just ordered a copy.
    You can download the preface and 1st chapter here.
    https://www.growthfetish.com

    Edited to add, have a look at the Wellbeing Manifesto.
     
  2. forest

    forest Junior Member

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    I haven't read this book (except for chapter 1) but I've read some things that Clive has online. I have heard him talk about Affluenza on Radio National. I think he's spot on. It's one of the points I'm trying to get across in the book I'm writing. Mine will be more focused on practicalities though.
     
  3. Jet

    Jet Junior Member

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    That's brilliant Forest. I've been harping on for years about this. I'm so sick to death of people I know whining about how stressful their lives are and how they can't afford this or that. Yet they live in massive houses, buy a new car every two years, have morgages that they can barely afford ..............blah, blah, blah. Sorry I'll spare you the rant.

    When people ask me what I do for a living and I tell them I don't work (retired) have'nt since I had kids they think I'm an idiot or make some smart arsed comment about how nice it must be not to have to work.
    The thing is Tony and I worked hard in the begining for what we have now. We went without a hell of a lot (and still do) to get here, and somewhere along the way we figured out what's important and what's not. I think some of my friends feel sorry for me, living in my little old house and wonder why the hell would I want to milk a cow and grow all of my own food. Well more fool them, in a few months time we will own this little old house and money can't buy the food we eat. We may not be wealthy but by god our lives are rich. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

    ok, ok I'll stop now, it's just that this is a subject very close to my heart. :D

    Can't wait for your book Forest. :wink:
     
  4. forest

    forest Junior Member

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    Jet, I so agree with you. We paid off our mortgage in 8 years by living a frugal simple life. My friends used to think I was nuts, but now they ask for recipes for this and that. They're getting there, but slowly.

    Congratulations on your soon to be fully owned home. No amount of new shoes, flat screen TVs or OS holidays comes close to the feeling you get when you pay off your house.
     
  5. Cornonthecob

    Cornonthecob Junior Member

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    Wealth is measured is more ways then just monetary.

    So says I!

    :)
     
  6. Tezza

    Tezza Junior Member

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    I agree

    Tezza
     
  7. Dani

    Dani Junior Member

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    cool, thanks for the info Jet. Just looked it up and the local library has it so thats cool, hopefully will get it out in the next couple of days, looking forward to a good read.
     
  8. heuristics

    heuristics Junior Member

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    whose read affluenza?

    “Affluenza” is the thread. But first, a minutiae moment. Lunch room. Today. A bright voice at my elbow. “So, what are you doing for Christmas?” I froze, mid mastication. Whaaa-huh-ohno-ohno-ohno-sob. OMG Its started!!!! (Like, they're back!!!) Again. For another year. The capitalistic orgiastic frenzy of obliged consumerism. .
    There's a woman here at work who still looks at me very strange after my little outburst last year. Prompted by a a dancing Santa. “Oh isn't it cute”. No – its NOT, It's instant LANDFILL. It's made entirely of petroleum-based products, designed to break immediately, and will be landfill by New Year. (Scrooge got a lot right, as far as I can see.)
    So – who on thus board has brilliant Christmas gift ideas for friends and family that reflect a genuine exchange of affection and consideration? Gift ideas that aren't only factored on their monetary value? (which might be next to nothing?).
    Any strategies to fight affluenza, starting in YOUR space this Dec?
     
  9. forest

    forest Junior Member

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    This is our strategy. We have a number of friends who always exchange gifts. I opted out of this a number of years ago and no one minded. This year we're inviting 8 of our friends to our home for Christmas lunch - our chef son is cooking the main meal, I'm doing dessert. The meal will be done on a budget of $100.

    My husband and I are not giving each other gifts. We don't see the point. We have everything we need and are content with what we have. I'm making my son a queen-sized quilt. He lives in a flat and is slowly aquiring things for it. I'm also giving him some money for his travel fund. He's travelling to africa, europe and north america next year.

    For my good friends and sister who live far away, I'm making cards that contain vegetable seeds and photos taken throughout the year. Here's a photo of the cards I made last year. I'll do something like this again.

    https://www.villagephotos.com/members/im ... _=14926067
     
  10. Douglas J.E. Barnes

    Douglas J.E. Barnes Junior Member

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    Re: whose read affluenza?

    Home-brewed beer. Great for friends and helps to quieten children down.

    BTW, I'm having a Christmas party, Heuristics, and you're invited. :D
     
  11. Jet

    Jet Junior Member

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    Well ok, let's see. I have my family coming for Christmas. Our whole Christmas dinner will be sourced on-farm. I made this promise to myself years ago and can't tell you how great it feels to finally come good.

    As for gifts I make hampers. Tomato relish, lemon butter, shortbread, Tony's tasty balls (otherwise known as rum ball's) fresh eggs, soap. This year I'm also going to sew some table cloths and napkins, that kind of thing. My in-laws love this pressie they rave about it for months, I think because it's something I've gone to the time and effort of making it that they appreciate so much.

    Hubby and I don't exchange gift's for any occasion, haven't for years for the same reason as you Forest, we have everything we need and I can't bring myself to spend money just because some overpaid marketing guru tells me I have to! The kid's buy me a rose bush every mothers day. I picked a beautiful "blue moon" the other day. It's so nice that a gift given to me two years ago in May gives me so much pleasure.

    On the subject of Christmas has anyone seen the k-mart add with the little blonde haired, blue eyed "poor kid" in it. This kid is in evey ad I see, huggies pull up ad, a lolly ad. If they are going to try and guilt you into buying a gift (which we do anyway) why can't they use a kid thats not on the screen every five minutes? Or shock, horror pay a kid in real need to do the ad!
     
  12. sab

    sab Junior Member

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    Heuristics I had to laugh at your comment about Scrooge. That's how I feel every year at Christmas-time, "Bah Christmas" and I'm a Christian. I've never given my kids Christmas presents and they've never cared. Christmas was the birthday of the sun/Horus/Mithra. If they want something they don't have to wait for a certain day to get it. We got a mortgage four years ago and have paid off 80% of it. We stick to a strict monthly budget and usually the money runs out before the end of the month but tough. The rest goes into the mortgage. Our weakness is books though and I'm watching 11 on Ebay now... (ugh I forgot the Earth Garden Herbal and it's just ended) but an occasional splurge on books doesn't hurt.

    Rampant consumerism is insane. I heard recently that people in China used to want the big three (bike, sewing machine and watch) now they want the big ONE - a car. It's the same across developing nations. The whole planet groans under its inhabitants - that's from the Bible.
     
  13. heuristics

    heuristics Junior Member

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    who's reading Affluenza

    hi Widenut
    Was thinking the other day about the increasing salination of so many countries.... and thought I remembered something vaguely from the Doomsday part of the Bible about the world turning to salt.
    Do you (anyone) know the bit I am thinking of?
    The idea reinforced itself watching Landline on Sunday – AusAid is in China working in a remote province where the Gobi desert is advancing – they said – at 1000KMS a YEAR. ( Mentally I went 1000km????? – that's Sydney to Melb EVERY YEAR ) The bureaucrats of Beijing joke that dust is the best-known export from Inner Mongolia province. (yeah, really funny guys).
    The Big Book has something about the world turning to desert, doesn't it?
    And then I thought – what the hell would AusAid know about stopping the encroachment of desert? – I mean, where's the evidence on the ground here in Oz itself?
    I was in Beijing about 8 years ago. Our guide was saying there were 10 million bike riders in the city, and almost everyone of them wanted to be a car owner/driver. She seemed to think this would be a wonderful advancement. Looking at the smog and the choked city roads I just couldn't imagine 10 million more cars, but I was obviously just lacking vision (!)
     
  14. sab

    sab Junior Member

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    Ezekiel 47:11 But the miry places thereof and the marishes thereof shall not be healed; they shall be given to salt.

    Seems to be about Israel.

    That may simply mean it becomes a salt marsh though. Great for wildlife.

    The verses that talk about it becoming a desert are about Babylon (Iraq) which was like a garden of Eden when this was written (about 600 BC)

    Jeremiah 50:12 Your mother shall be sore confounded; she that bare you shall be ashamed: behold, she shall be the last of the nations a wilderness, a dry land, and a desert.

    and v. 39 Therefore the wild beasts of the desert with the wild beasts of the islands shall dwell [there], and the owls shall dwell therein: and it shall be no more inhabited for ever; neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation.

    It's heading that way fast.

    This one: The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore has the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate: therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left. (Isaiah 24:5,6)
     
  15. heuristics

    heuristics Junior Member

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    who's read Affluenza

    Hmm – there's an appropriate emotion with a great little expression I would use here as my reply if I could just get the jolly things to work for me. But yeah.
    Talking environment with some Christians, all I have got is a lot of verbiage about God giving Man “dominion” over the animals.
    Starting from that premise, some have seemed to think we have “licence” to root the world, and God will think that's great stuff. I doubt it somehow.
    Poor bloody Babylon/Iraq.
     
  16. sab

    sab Junior Member

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    Too true. Humans were supposed to be caretakers not exploiters. A quick scroll through history and one thing we can learn from history is that we never learn from history.

    Revelation 11:18 says, "I will destroy them that destroy the earth." and Isaiah 5:8 says "Woe unto them that join house to house, [that] lay field to field, till [there be] no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth!" Consumerism is greed and it's one of the seven deadly sins in Proverbs. In the New Testament it's on a par with idolatry. A warning to wealthy Christians in James 5:3 - you've heaped together treasure for the last days. (The last days incidentally being the entire last 2000 years) There are dozens of references like this - about the fish in the oceans being depleted, about cruelty (Proverbs 11:17) - "a man who is cruel troubles his own flesh" - that covers a gamut of situations from how we raise animals to how we kill them and animal testing to plain old abuse.

    Scary stuff. What's really disturbing is that we have the capacity to make it beautiful. Instead of making all this plastic for shopping bags and aluminium for beer cans we could use the same materials to make solar panels and reduce the price to make it affordable for everyone. Meanwhile nations pour all their wealth into the military and spend zilch on agriculture or social programs. Try telling Asians they don't need bear gall, or rhino horn, or tiger penises or shark fin soup, birds nest soup, whale meat, ivory ornaments, exotic pets... Or Aussies they don't need that big house, SUV, plastic packaging, latest fashion item, big screen TV ... What I read about South Africa lately is just too distressing - babies raped because African men think sex with a virgin will cure their AIDs. A social worker who sleeps in tips so she can hear the cries of babies who are dumped and rescue them. (only one woman) Are we doomed?

    I was really moved by Permie videos I saw of India and Africa. I cry a bit thinking about it. Anyone else see those? They were brilliant.
     
  17. Tezza

    Tezza Junior Member

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    Chrtistmas BAH Humbug!!!!!!!

    I have no time for Xmas,havent for years,Sick of the bills that take 9 months to catch up with,Sick of being broke over,during,after xmas...My Wife does not agree with me(shock horror)...I just cant bide with it,especially the xmas cards that get tossed onto side board for a few weeks then tossed away like so much other junk.I wonder how many trees it takes just to satisfy the card envelopes of planet earth...But One thing I do agrre upon is the Holidays were paid for over the break,For those who enjoy public holidays ,i suggest you enjoy them while we still have them,theyll never stop xmas ,but theyll stop the p.hs if they could get away with it.......Comming from uk its never been the same anyways its too bloody hot............Im Dreaming of a Cool Christmas.

    We do have family get togethers every year,but theres never the goody goody feeling anymore(yes we are a close family no fights lol).To most we know its just another day,Work never stops,things still need doing.

    To me Xmas is one of mans biggest con acts thats self perpertrating due to humans greed, Funny how some people use it to promote peace on earth and season of good will. funny how it only lats untill boxing day.
    Why was it called boxing day,was it all the punchups :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

    Tezza(not a scrooge just telling as it is)
     
  18. Douglas J.E. Barnes

    Douglas J.E. Barnes Junior Member

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    "I wouldn't give Israel another 20 years."
    - Bill Mollison

    (With apologies to the faithful.)

    "And thy dopey bastards shall create a desert by cutting down all the trees and ask "why hast thou forsaken us, oh Lord? And the Lord God shall roll His eyes and focus His attention on a more intelligent planet."

    - Somewhere in the Bible.
     

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