Mother Nature : Terrorist Or Mass Murderer?

By Darryl Mason

Whose fault is it that so many died in the Victorian bushfires?

Is the Vic government blaming arsonists because they failed to manage the land and bush?

Is it the fault of Greenies, who opposed the burning of scrub and forests to protect the habitats of our cutest little critters, with a Fuck The Humans attitude that has now cost hundreds of lives?

Were regular burn-offs in and around The Valley Of Death actually dissuaded by local councils and tourist businesses because tourists panic when they see a beautiful little village wreathed with burn off smoke and flee back to the city?

Were 'tree changers' dangerously ignorant about the dangers of living amongst so many highly combustible trees?

Should we just accept that apocalyptic fires have swept back and forth across this land for hundreds of millions of years and sometimes humans get in the way and that's just the way it is?

There's a rising anger and bitterness slowly surfacing all over the media, in letters and comments and talkback about Who We Should Blame. Greenies? Global Warming/Climate Change? Those opposed to GW/CC policies? God? Arsonists? Power lines too close to trees? Outdated evacuation plans and policies? So many choices, it's hard to pick just one.

The liveliest, most outraged comments are coming from the public right now, while few professional opinionists are yet go where this ABC News commenter has. It's bitter, but for some it is bitterly accurate :

Give me a home among the gum-trees
With lots of cinders + exploding gum-trees...
A Greenie or two, a charred kangaroo.....
And a burnt rocking chair... the place that I abhore...
a little bush retreat... where the CFA never call.....

And the National Debate, or National Brawl, will get a whole lot more nasty than that, long before any Royal Commission reports begin to surface.

Maybe it's all part of how we deal with this ongoing, emotionally shattering, horrorshow. Maybe we need all the righteous fury, disgust and Blame Them! opportunism to get through this.


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