isildae_g

The term bogan (pronounced /ˈboʊɡən/, rhyming with slogan) is Australian and New Zealand English slang, usually pejorative or self-deprecating, for a person who is, or is perceived to be, of a lower-class background. According to the stereotype, the speech and mannerisms of "bogans" indicate poor education, cheap clothing and uncultured upbringing. 'Bogans' usually reside in economically disadvantaged suburbs (often outer metropolitan) or rural areas^.

The term is a regional equivalent to the English slang terms chav or pikey, Scottish ned, Irish scanger or spide, Dutch tokkie, and the North American white trash, redneck, or hillbilly.

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I know I live in Boganville but I do a very good job of pretending I don't unless I'm confronted with obvious signs which are suprisingly rare unless I venture to well known bogan hangouts like the main street and the hospital. Unfortunately, even with all the new development, the area seems to be getting worse, not better. This morning there was a shopping trolley in our road and while driving the boys to school I saw a girl, aged about 12, walking along the road towards the corner shop wearing mismatched pyjamas - singlet and shorts in 11 degrees! - fluffy slippers (obviously an amateur otherwise she would have been wearing ugg boots) and a pair of black fingerless gloves.

She was probably pregnant.

And I will probably find myself sharing a maternity ward room with her 15yo sister. In which case I should probably consider putting a padlock on my hospital bag...

anarchists [stumblingbl0ck]

If you grow up in a time, in a place, with a tribe, they will show you how to live based on what has been passed down from generations upon generations, aeons upon aeons, of tried-and-true methods of living. They will pass them down to you in the form of stories. Those stories will probably involve gods. That is where they become very real to the peole who believe in them.

Those gods died a long time ago.

Today the gods have been reduced to things you buy in books and boxes, kits and trinkets. They teach you virtually nothing. They have things they want you to do that are nothing more than superstitions that have virtually no real merit, nor change in any way of your daily life. And that's due to the advancement and invasion of civilization.

When the people of one land invaded another, they brought their gods with them. Those gods taught them how to live in that land from which they came. Although chances are, because they're invading, they need more land. So those gods taught them poorly. Thus they're transferring bad gods onto good people. And they usually always insist on imposing their gods.

But to the invaded, the gods teach ways that make no sense whatsoever. Why would a desert god's teachings have any bearings on the ice-dwelling peoples of the north? It is for this reason that, for a world where everyone now lives in apartments and condos, shops for food rather than growing it, and shapes their entire world on how they earn and spend money, none of us understand what a god actually is. We pick our gods eeny meeny miney moe out of vending machines and give them no real special place in our lives. They teach us nothing. We make them a cute ritual that has no bearing on our lives. We still earn, spend, and sit in our condo watching TV.

To the people growing up, gods were not consciously chosen. Choice had nothing to do with it. It was simply the language. It was simply the method of communication. It was the air they breathed. They weren't really trying to explain how everything happened, they were simply explaining what was happening. The why wasn't really a concern. If you asked them what story they created, or what religion they had, they'd stare at you with absurd faces. What the devil are you talking about?

That is the same response as you'd get if someone asked you the same. Yet your story of how things came to be this way is historical. Believe it or not, your gods are the media, pure and simple. And your media tells stories to preserve your life, but are absurd to the other people.

The point is, gods that are pushed onto others are the bad gods who taught their people poorly and ways of life that do not work. Notice, therefore, how they insist their ways are superior. The people, and the gods, who have to insist constantly that their ways are the best, are usually the self-conscious ones who know that they are not.

And that is where we stand. Our gods are very real, in a way we don't actually expect them to be. They are the language we use to propagandize. They can be the truths that get us through a sustainable reality. But today, in our world, they are the lies we tell ourselves so that we can continue to live a way that we know is killing everything.

And that is why it is considered blasphemy to live sustainably.