"Meanwhile they cut down, burned up, defaced and mutilated billboards." The Monkey Wrench Gang, Edward Abbey, 1975
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I can't resist this, even if it is off-topic:
"Speaking after visiting the Bathurst 1000 motor race, Mr Morrison said The Everest [horse race] was one of the biggest events of the year and generated 'massive opportunities' for the city and the state. 'Why not put it on the biggest billboard Sydney has?' he said. Mr Morrison... said he would 'put the Bathurst 1000 on the Harbour Bridge if I thought it was going to get more people there. It's just common sense and I don't know why people are getting precious about it'." (Racing boss puts blame on state, Garry Maddox, Sydney Morning Herald, 8/10/18)
So says our newly-minted neoliberal prime minister Scott Morrison, weighing in on the controversy over projecting advertising for this, that or the other time-wasting activity onto Sydney's landmark structures such as the Opera House or the Harbour Bridge.
Whether iconic or world heritage-listed, man-made or natural wonder, it matters not. To the neoliberal mindset everything is just a potential billboard.
As the High Priestess of the neoliberal cult, Ayn Rand, put it in her 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged:
"Uncoiling from among the curves of Wisconsin's hills, the highway was the only evidence of human labor, a precarious bridge stretched across a sea of brush, weeds and trees. The sea rolled softly, in sprays of yellow and orange, with a few red jets floating up on the hillsides, with pools of remnant green in the hollows, under a pure blue sky... 'What I'd like to see,' said Rearden, 'is a billboard'." (from Here are 10 things I learned about the world from Ayn Rand's insane 'Atlas Shrugged', Adam Lee, alternet.org, 24/8/18)
The Australian poet Denis Kevans (1939-2005) once wrote a memorable poem from the perspective of an Indigenous Australian. It begins thus:
"Ah, white man, I am searching for the sites sacred to you, where you walk, in silent worship, and you whisper poems too, where you tread, like me, in wonder, and your eyes are filled with tears, and you see the tracks you've travelled down your fifty thousand years."
Kevans' poem was titled Ah, White Man, Have You Any Sacred Sites?
The answer to your question, Denis, is no, the neoliberal white man has no sacred sites.
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2 comments:
One of the most vivid recollections of my first visit to the American Mid-West was the stream of garish ugly billboards advertising lawyers to handle your accident claims and used cars on the highway from the airport to my accommodation. On the other hand if we can have a public holiday for a horse race, it is not a big leap to advertising a horse race on one of Australia's icons.
The neoliberal white man has a sacred site of sorts, even if it is only an affectation, a mantra chanted by rote, a distant illusion and someone else's nightmare. It is the 'shitty little country' (to quote the French diplomat).
However the strongest instinct of the neoliberal white man is self interest. Sooner or later he will work out that there is no profit in backing that lame and tired old horse. The Bandit State is bad for business.
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