Fire, Blame and Alarmism

"More than 300 people would die in the first hour of a major bushfire in the Adelaide Hills" This on the front page of the Sunday Mail. Just under a larger headline that states "Hills fire could kill 300 in first hour."From could to would in less than a column inch.

In the past some people getting killed in a fire, while tragic, would have had people buckling down and rebuilding. Instead all we get are sensationalist headlines, page after page of pictures, many of them repeated. Everyone story from the cat to the grandma is printed, said or displayed on TV.

So what was the basis for this estimate of certain death? "Secret modeling from the CFS and the State Government." Ah, the same kind of modelling that predicts the oceans will rise by meters this century and that cannot explain why things that are happening for real or happening at all.

So it is society that has changed from the lets get on with it to lets dwell in the misery and sensationalism, or is it just the media trying to wring the last scraps of attention out of a tragedy to push up their numbers and advertising revenues?

Both. As a society we now spend all of our time trying to figure out who to blame. The Greens, the Government, the idiots who planted trees next to their houses, those responsible for warnings, those who ran, those who stayed, the lack of equipment, nature and god. Did we miss anything, oh yes anyone but us. It is no longer ever our fault but the greens who told us we could not clear. It wasn't we who stayed because the warning were not strong enough but those who were not forceful enough to make us go.

The same people would have been ridiculed for it a few decades ago are now getting face time on TV and radio. The Jihadists think that it is wonderful that Australians died, but this gets tucked away in a corner back on page nine just in case someone sees that this has been reported at all and gets offended. I doubt it would have even made it into Victorian newspaper.

So we get weaker, our society gets weaker, the media outlets get richer and Australia is one step closer to becoming someone else's.