What have they done to the earth? 
What have they done to our fair sister? 
Ravaged and plundered and ripped her and bit her 
Stuck her with knives in the side of the dawn 
And tied her with fences and dragged her down 

                                            Jim Morrison

Australia is in flames from coast to coast and judging from online posts someone is to blame. Placing blame for these Australia wide fires on individual shires or a lack of precautionary burns is a futile exercise .

We as a nation and a world have allowed organizations set up by an ignorant greedy lot of billionaires to distract us from the truth. Our collective arse is on fire but most of us have not yet realized it.

Money power and consumption has dazzled us into thinking we are in charge of the earth and its ecosystems even as our houses burn down in front of our eyes or are swept away by raging torrents.

We ignore the spreading deserts and the great rivers reduced to a dirty trickle, the foul air that gives us cancer and focus our eyes on baubles and beads. Indeed we are the age of ignorance, the deniers of science and truth.

Hallelujah to the great great billionaires for they will bring us wealth beyond our dreams. The golden crumbs will trickle from their tables and make us all whole. Blessed are the rich for they are Gods among men.

These giants of industry and commerce who have bought our democracy and direct our governments, listen to our conversations, track our mail, investigate our habits and purchases. They gauge and direct our thoughts to design fantasy worlds that we can buy with our future..

So what is this truth we ignore and the science from which, we avert our gaze?   It is that we have traded our children’s future for potato crisps, polar bears for a bigger car, gorilla’s for palm oil, bees for a quick buck.

We have untangled the web of life and found ourselves on the edge of extinction. But we have averted our eyes to the precipice we walk along because we are distracted by our new gizmo, we do not hear because we are on our mobile phones. Masters of the universe lost in a miasma of self- delusion.

We are to blame, we elected these lying deluding and secretive fools who sell us to the highest bidder.  We have listened to their baying for war while praying for peace. We allowed them to create a world of division and conflict instead of friendship and cooperation. We allowed them to plunder the earth and poison our air. We are the ones to blame and we are the only ones who can repair the damage.

We recently reported that “the revelations by Edward Snowden that the Australian Government is spying on the Indonesian Government, was a hammer blow for the Abbott Government and for the mass surveillance program carried out by the USA”. What has now become evident is that the damage goes further.

Most importantly Abbott through his arrogant and aggressive response combined with his simplistic and militaristic “turn back the boats” mania ,  has stupidly all but destroyed our most important regional defence alliance.

Ironically it was the Labor Government who had entered into this spying venture with the USA but it is the incompetent Abbott who will pay the price. That Abbott did not have the sense to apologise to the Indonesian President has meant that in the long term the Coalitions main platform, “Stopping the Boats” is in shreds because Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa aka, Filipino porn star responded to Abbott  by saying all cooperation with Australia is off including on the issue of returning refugee boats to Indonesia.

This followed the arrogant and diplomatically stupid statement from Foreign Minister Julie Bishop that (in regard to turning refugee boats back to Indonesia) “Were not asking Indonesia for permission, were asking for their understanding”

Indonesia must now understands that despite the Abbott Government parroting that Indonesia is our most important neighbour, it is well down the list of our real friends like the Americans.

They will also notice that Abbott is fixated with two issues that are at odds with Indonesia’s best interest. They are preventing refugees passing through the region to Australia, and Abbott’s climate change denial, which will result in rising sea levels and more typhoons and sea surges that will be devastating, particularly for Indonesia’s smaller islands.

Indonesia at some risk has pursued a regional strategy that stands out from most of its neighbours. It has allied itself militarily with the West. Indonesia must be now re-assessing its alliance with Australia and the USA as a counter to the growing influence of China in the region.                                                                    

Indonesia and other regional states might well consider that Australia is not a credible or trusted ally and hitch itself militarily to the regions other superpower, China.

This would be a disaster for Australia and bad news for the USA, who would have to massively increase its troop numbers in South East Asia.

Abbott may gloat about preventing asylum seekers getting refuge in Australia for a month or two, but the cost of his foreign policy like his climate policy, could be catastrophic.

Blinded by the military medals  Australia’s mainstream media seems to have missed the clumsy sleight of hand by  Immigration Minister Scott Morrison.  Major Morrison, has stressed in his military style briefings that we need to keep all refugee information a secret because the people smugglers will get valuable insight into his military manoeuvers if he tells us the truth. “More importantly if the voters find out what a bungling fool I am I will be up for the order of the boot at the next election” he said..

On assuming his role as the Defender of Australian Faith from the Muslim hordes Major Morrison had told us that he wanted to send a message to people smugglers and would be “illegals” that there was no chance of getting into Australia by boat. How you send a message by keeping your actions a top-secret is difficult to understand.

Clearly the three boats that recently arrived at Darwin were either not aware of the steel curtain the Major has thrown around Australia or they have found some holes in the curtain that need darning. Loose lips bring ships may be the motto but the practice is harder.

Could it be the Australian voters that Major Morrison wants to keep in in the dark because what we don’t know won’t hurt him at the ballot box.

However we can be assured that the close relationship that Major Morrison, Mr Abbott and the Minister for Affairs Julie Bishop have built up with the Indonesian Government will ensure full cooperation in forcing Indonesia to hold onto most of the regions refugees rather than upsetting Mr Abbott’s re-election plan.

The recent revelations by Edward Snowden revealing that the Australia Government is spying on the Indonesian Government has been a hammer blow for the Abbott Government and for the mass surveillance program carried out by the USA.

Ironically it was the Labor Government who had entered into this spying venture with the USA but it is the incompetent Abbott who will pay the price.

Abbott’s refusal to apologise to the Indonesian President has meant that the Coalitions main election platform, “Stopping the Boats” is in shreds because. Indonesia’s foreign minister Marty Natalegawa responded  by saying all cooperation with Australia is off including on the issue of returning refugee boats to Indonesia.

This latest revelation follows the arrogant and stupid statement from Foreign Minister Julie Bishop that (in regard to turning refugee boats back to Indonesia) “Were not asking Indonesia for permission, were asking for their understanding”

Indonesia has understood very well that despite the Abbott Government repeating that Indonesia is our most important neighbor it is well down the list of our real friends like the Americans. They also notice that Abbott is fixated with two issues that are at odds with Indonesia’s best interest. That is preventing refugees passing through the region to Australia, and climate change denial which will result in rising sea levels and more typhoons and sea surges that will be devastating for small islands.

What Abbott does not understand or disregards is that the population of Indonesia will see his blank refusal to apologise as a deliberate insult to their President and therefor to their country. It is likely that this lack of nous by Abbott will set back Australia’s relationship with Indonesia for many years.

Abbott has also fallen out with the world view by supporting Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s war time atrocities against Tamils with a glib statement that things happen in wars. This phrase sounds very close to the phrase shit happens and is horrific in the context of mass murder and rape. 

Finally Abbott is moving backwards on climate change policy and at a crucial time in world negotiations has not even had a minister attend the latest round of talks. His actions are reprehensible to many especially as Australia currently chairs the UN Security Council and because Australia is one of the countries worst effected by climate change and is the largest per-capita emitter of greenhouse gas.

For Australia it signals a period of isolation from world affairs and from the critical discussions that shape the future of the Globe. While the previous government had attempted to expand Australia’s horizon the Liberal National Coalition is attempting to lock out the rest of the world.

After releasing records with 4AD for a large part of their career, Cocteau Twins decided to take a step towards independence and started up the Bella Union record label, through which they could release their own work as well as any collaborative efforts. The band split up not long after, but instead of letting the newly formed label go under, Robin Guthrie, Cocteau Twins’ founder and lead guitarist and Simon Raymonde, the band’s bassist since 1984, decided to take charge of it…more @ bellaunion.com