We already crowdfund the ABC
I know the person on Twitter who suggested that we could all
crowdfund the ABC to save the 400 jobs and the services that are being
cut by Abbott’s savage ideological slash and burn of our national
broadcaster was just trying to be helpful. But no. Sorry. There will be
no crowdfunding of the national broadcaster. Unless by crowdfunding you
mean paying taxes and seeing the revenue from your paid taxes being
spent on the public broadcaster that we all value. Oh, hang on, I just
realised tax is a form of community crowdfunding. So yes, we
should continue to crowdfund the ABC. And we should continue to be
horrified while Abbott and his merry-wreckers continue to swing their
wrecking ball through public institutions that we, Australian
tax-payers, and generations of Australian tax-payers have, through our
hard work, payment of taxes, and community support, built through the
community act of paying taxes and giving public institutions support.
Because that’s what’s really at the heart of this whole shemozzle,
which is currently called the Abbott government, but in future will be
referred to as the
one-term-blip-resulting-from-the-biggest-mistake-Australia-ever-made. At
the heart of the Abbott government is an ideological war to cut, slash,
burn, decimate, belittle, downsize, nullify, reject, outsource,
kill-off, delegitimise and ultimately wreck the public institutions that
make up the Australian civilisation. Abbott and friends care to ignore
that these institutions, these publically funded, owned by all
Australians, including those who can afford to pay tax and those who
can’t, these valuable assets to our community, are not his to wreck.
It’s not his farm to sell off. It’s not his pool to piss in. It’s not
his hard work that has paid for any of this.
I’m getting mightily fed up with Abbott’s attitude towards our
collective assets. Abbott’s government has sold of Medibank Private.
They’ve smashed the ABC and the CSIRO. The Climate Commission was the
first on the chopping block and has since been generously crowdfunded by
Australians worried about climate change, and is now the Climate
Council. Abbott’s doing his best to turn our Medicare system into a
no-longer-universal-healthcare-system where ‘users pay’ for the
privilege of being cared for when they’re sick. Our higher education
students could soon have free-market interest rates assigned to
deregulated and growing university fees. Our public schools have had
massive funding cuts*. *School chaplains excluded. Our health system has
had massive funding cuts and is becoming the problem of under-funded
State governments who have no choice but to cut services. The renewable
energy sector is disappearing and the manufacturing industry has been
all-but killed off with thousands of jobs with it. Abbott’s slashing and
burning is ripping at the very heart of Australia. He’s ripping at the
very heart of our communities. He’s wrecking the civilisation that we
have all crowdfunded into existence and kept running. Why is he doing
this? Why does a dog lick his balls? Because he can. (And he enjoys it
very much).
Let’s have a look at a world where Abbott’s ideological utopia ‘user
pays’ agenda overrides the collective spirit of a social democracy.
Note, Abbott’s predilection for a user pays system extends only to
people outside of his family and close circle of fellow neo-cons.
Frances Abbott doesn’t have to pay for her own education. Abbott doesn’t
have to pay for his private travel to attend campaign events or to
promote his book for private profit. And Abbott’s friends, like Gina
Rinehart, don’t have to pay for the government-funded infrastructure
they need to continue to pillage our national wealth and to resent every
cent of tax they pay for this self-entitled privilege. No, it’s just us
plebs that should be forced to ‘user pay’. So this means every road is a
toll road. Don’t leave for work without your credit-card linked
toll-pass. You can’t get out of your driveway without it! Traffic lights
would also be toll points, as would zebra-crossings for pedestrians.
You won’t step foot in a school or a hospital without individually
paying for every doctor or teacher that you come into contact with. You
can swipe your credit card on the way into the classroom or emergency
surgery suite. Need the police? Before they respond to your emergency,
they’ll check your credit limit, by which stage the intruder may have
already bashed you to death. Is the government intending on sending
Australian troops to war? The war won’t start without at least 10,000
interested funders and everyone who doesn’t fund the war will be put on a
list and excluded from any peacekeeping in the future, and instead used
as human shields. Need to use a toilet? At home or when you’re out and
about? I hope you have your credit card with you. You can’t use the
sewers without it. There’s a nice big open park and playground down the
road. Admittance by booking and credit card only. What about access to
the internet? Yes, I know we already pay ISPs to hook up to their
streams, but whenever you access a wireless network, your credit card
will be charged accordingly to fund vital research work into
technological innovation that used to be done by our national
researcher, CSIRO, but is now done by private firms who will not make
their technology available to anyone who doesn’t pay for it directly.
Oh, and you want democratically elected leaders? One vote equals one
dollar. How many dollars have you got? Doesn’t this sound like a fun
place to live, in Abbott’s utopia? But the good news is, there won’t be
any need to pay for the ATO as there will be no taxes. So all the money
you earn you get to take home (well, whatever is left after funding all
of the above). What’s that? You can’t afford to see a doctor? You’re
unemployed and you’re sick. Well bad luck for you! You were born into
the wrong family! In Abbott’s utopia, only the rich survive. That’s
actually the point. That’s the fucking point of Abbott.
I know we have two years to go, but I’m ready to vote Abbott out
today. Does anyone feel like helping me crowdfund a new government? I’m
sick of watching this one wreck our place.
No comments:
Post a Comment