Search for what's real: new seachangers crowd out the old

Discussion in 'The big picture' started by Michaelangelica, Jan 24, 2010.

  1. Michaelangelica

    Michaelangelica Junior Member

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    No you can't you just get "Not found"

    There always seems to be some Arcadian Dream sold. I have an 1890's Real Estate brochure offering 5 acre plots at Erina near Terrigal NSW for that Citrus Orchard (£5 --$10). The climate might be OK but the soil is non-existent and at that time virtually the only way of getting there was by boat.
    The capital gains may have been worth it ?

    After both World Wars weren't the soldiers sent to the bush to eek out a living in "soldier settlements"?
     
  2. ecodharmamark

    ecodharmamark Junior Member

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    Yes, often with disastrous consequences in terms of social, cultural and ecological destruction.

    The area I know of best is the Mallee region of Victoria (Australia). Hundreds were trucked up there with the promise of 'green pastures' at the end of battles fought in fields that were full of 'red' (blood).

    See: Fry (1985) Soldier Settlement and the Australian Agrarian Myth

    The land (Mallee) was never going to be able to sustain the numbers of 'farmers' that the government of the day dumped up there after WWI. Sure, many tried. In fact they were legally bound to clear the land or lose their hard won 'settlement'. Five hundred acres each, most of them did receive, and for a time some they were able to eek out a meagre living growing wheat or running sheep. But hard times were upon them, economic downturns (The Great Crash), and a variable climate that meant they were lucky to get 'one good year out of five' saw many of them (the lucky ones) literally having to pack up their families and walk off the farms - the unlucky ones were driven to starvation, or suicide!

    Post WWII saw the same thing happen again!

    See: Coony (2010) Cleary History of Carwarp

    Governments (at all levels, and of all persuasions) to this day still collude with unscrupulous 'speculators' and flog off degraded land to unsuspecting 'dreamers'. I personally know of many instances where land has been rezoned to a use that is at best a joke, at worst a nightmare for the would be 'farmer'. Land use zoning (and therefore, practices) in this country clearly need to be driven from an ecological rather than an economic perspective. However, try suggesting this to your local member of parliament and see how far you get!

    If there is a dollar to be made, you can bet that there will be someone prepared to sell a worthless dream, somewhere, which in all reality soon becomes a nightmare.

    Not only were the colonialists prepared to murder the traditional owners of the land a couple of hundred years ago in order to get their filthy hands on 'fertile plains', such as Major Mitchell's fabled Australia Felix, unscrupulous developers with government backing are trying to steal it again right now!

    See: Elder (2003) Blood on the Wattle: Massacres and Maltreatment of Aboriginal Australians Since 1788

    and

    ABC (2009) ICAC to Probe Aboriginal Land Developments

    Anyway, I am ranting now, time for bed.

    Peace to you all, Marko.
     
  3. Mechandy

    Mechandy Junior Member

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  4. Mechandy

    Mechandy Junior Member

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    Dannyboy, as to who is benefiting from it, that starts to become very obvious once you start delving into it. What's less obvious is who or more importantly, what, is losing out to it.

    Our local Farmers' Market is one of the most popular in Regional Victoria, and as with most Farmers' Markets, it is sold on the false concept of a 'lighter footprint'.

    One Sunday a few weeks back, the same day as the Talbot Farmers' Market was being held, I took a 40 minute bike ride from Clunes to the turn off to the road where our property is situated, I was passed by 120 cars, that equates to 180 cars per hour. This would have gone on for approximately 2 hours leading up to the opening of the Market. On any other Sunday, you'd be lucky to see 5 - 10 cars. You can work out the CO2 emissions on 360 cars for the average 100 Km round trip yourself. (.262 Kilograms per Km). And that is only 1 road. There are approx 2500 to 3000 people who head into Talbot on Market day, most travel 2 per car, I'll leave the bigger picture arithmetic to you. It's a lot of Carbon.

    These cars travel on a road that goes through the Dunach State Forest, a place where the extinction rate of Native animals is 3 times that of the National average. What more is there to say?

    I'll be writing about this and more in an upcoming issue of the Anarchist Savants if anyone is interested.
     
  5. Grahame

    Grahame Senior Member

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    We are considering moving to Costa Rica - which is apparently the Happiest and Greenest Country in the world - I am just about ready to abandon Australia as a lost cause as beautiful as she is. I don't know what it is, apathy, fear, whatever, but these days I might say something that I think is common sense and accessible to even the least holistically aware and yet they stare at me blankly. I was under this false impression that people actually care about the environment, that people actually want to live in a nice community but in reality they are just wearing the face of what they read in tabloids and see on TV - they think they care because Big Brother is telling them they should. They don't even realise they are being seduced (I am sure I can be included in this too, but I can't see it because I am in it). I spend my time reading about the good stuff that is going on and because my attention goes to those things I get this false sense of something actually happening. The point is, I have bamboozled myself into thinking Australia gives a stuff about anything, even a sub-culture that gives a stuff, but in reality it doesn't - there is just a handful of wackos who have for some reason or other seen the 'light of greenness'. Just a small handful.

    Don't get me wrong, I am under no illusions that Costa Rica is some sort of greenies paradise, some utopia for social misfits, but lets face it, if I am going to live out my days like this I might as well be in a place where they do care about what they have, where there is a sense of each other, where they have actually made a commitment to do something in the face of the bullies of the world saying 'why should we, no one else is'!

    It's getting more and more difficult to love this country, to the point of becoming embarrassed or ashamed to count myself amongst its people.

    Vexed in Victoria
    Bound for Costa Rica
     
  6. ecodharmamark

    ecodharmamark Junior Member

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    Hey buddy, I hear what you are saying. I too spend half my waking hours immersed in the theory and practice of making our world (or at least my little part of it) a better place. True, when you go looking for goodness (in every sense of the word), you tend focus on only the good. It is for this reason why I spend the other half of my conscious life studying 'the bad' (that which degrades 'the good') across all sectors of society - cultural, ecological, social, psychological... In essence, I try and strike a balance between the two - a perfect yin/yang. Like you, I find it increasingly difficult to outweigh the negatives with the positives, and believe me, I continue to look very hard. Costa Rica, hey? As good as place as any. However, my friend, I truly believe that the only way we are ever going to experience true ecological and social freedom from the carnage that we have wrought against ourselves and the planet that sustains us, is to work at where we most feel comfortable. For me, that place is here (wherever 'here' may be). If you do get to Costa Rica, I wish you and your family the very best that life can offer. Failing that, and you do decide to stay and battle against the forces that seemingly are multiplying as we speak here in this land we currently call home, then from my perspective the outcome will be the same. You, and all the 'weirdos' just like us, will forever walk beside me as we fight for all that is good, and the right for both we and the planet to be free from domination.
     
  7. Grahame

    Grahame Senior Member

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    yeah, thanks man - I felt better as soon as I got that off my chest. Nothing like a good bit of blood-letting
     
  8. purplepear

    purplepear Junior Member

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    Occupation:
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    warm temperate - some frost - changing every year
    I think you know, Grahame, that fighting is fairly futile and the real secret to "success" is in being content with the contributions you make and be happy within yourself. You could live anywhere in the world and discover opposition to your way of thinking untill you think for your happiness and contentment.

    Great rant man! I think mine is due soon - it is the effect of Kimbo on us moderates?
     
  9. Grahame

    Grahame Senior Member

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    Yeah I do believe that Mark, I do my best to be Buddha but sometimes I just get cross, it's a human thing :D Kimbo definitely catalyses a bit of cranky in us. I think you should go for it! hehe It's very liberating.
     
  10. Nick Osbaldiston

    Nick Osbaldiston New Member

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    Author of this Study

    Hi all,

    just found this site. Great discussion going on. I particularly like the response to the idea that Seachange in itself is essentially destroying the very foundation that it began upon. My belief is that these movements are colonised by the real estate industry and turned into something quite different though.

    Interested to continue on in this discussion though. You might be interested (whoever it was sorry) to hear that Angela Ragusa and I will be publishing a paper in the second half of the year on this very subject.

    Cheers

    Nick
     
  11. "They only want a few affordable acres, which they intend to develop only a little bit. They want urban amenities and a flexible, mobile lifestyle. They want community to almost magically, though sensibly in their minds, to converge around them. Yet, they want to be somewhere else several months each year..." via Moving Nearer to Heaven, The Illusions and Disillusions of Migrants to Scenic Rural Places, Patrick Jobes.




    .
     
  12. ecodharmamark

    ecodharmamark Junior Member

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    G'day Nick

    Great to have you on the board!

    I have been following both Angela's and your own research on this subject for a while now. Looking forward to that joint publication!

    Cheerio, Mark.
     

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