Air Control to Major Tony

Being the vast scorched land that Australia is, the most effective way for our defence force to protect the nation is through superior air control. And our Government is very puffed up with their 12 billion dollar purchase of 58 state of the art F-35 Jets. Add to that the extra 12 billion to weaponise and maintain the jets and the fact that our intention is to double our order in the next decade. Is this a fair price to pay for air control in a time when even the Australian Defence Force is saying that the biggest threat looming on the horizon is a completely different type of air control - Climate Change?

We are told that we are in a budget emergency and so have had to cut funding to programs and services like foreign aid (4.5b), indigenous legal services (13m), cuts to Gonski, to the NDIS, dismantling of Climate Commissions, cutting back on the CSIRO, letting the auto industry die etc. all resulting in thousands of job losses. independent australia - tracking tony abbotts wreckage

And while they didn't take from these services to pay for these jets, I don't see why we can't have less jets to balance everything else and provide Australians with better services, I'm sure those on the pension even would appreciate just a portion of the ADF's budget. the guardian zero public demand for fighter planes

The ammount of money spent worldwide on military hardware is obscene. On the rise towards 2 trillion dollars annually. That doesn't mean much to me but when it is calculated as each person in the world contributing $249 annually towards it, it carries more weight. Especially when you think of the billions who live on the meagrest of wages. The most obscene of all is the U.S. who spend almost as much as the rest of the world put together. It is not like they don't have internal problems that need attention either.  Dare we keep heading down a path towards being more like the U.S?

 

Did the rest of the world fail to see the progress and infrastructure that was possible in places that were freed from the yolk of military spending like Germany and Japan? They were forced to demilitarise but in an ideal world we could fix near everything if we could all forego finding more and more effective ways to remove each others heads. It is not an ideal world but it us up to us to strive towards demilitarising the world instead of initiating arms races. Hard because it requires logic and trust and selflessness but if we do not try then we are lost.

Facing criticism for the record spending purchase of top line jets our PM Tony Abbott said in defence of it that "you never know what's around the corner." He seems full of this 'shit happens' verbatim doesn't he?. Well the ADF is actually charged with figuring out what is around the corner, they call it 'intelligence.'

This intelligence gathering of late has seen ADF personnel attending briefings on climate change. And earlier this year in an address to the Lowy Institute Lieutenant General David Morrison said that there were no regional military threats to Australia even despite the sometimes frosty relationship between us and Indonesia. He did however say that the impacts of climate change need to be factored into future military plans and importantly that “I think the most likely role for the military, however, will be providing immediate assistance for humanitarian and disaster relief.”

ABC climate change and the ADF 

ABC Aus army chief says climate change great challenge of time 

And we have already witnessed this in action with some of the largest deployments of Defence personnel within Australia being in response to floods and cyclones. I'm not entirely sure what an F-35 fighter jet provides in a humanitarian and disaster relief effort. At least those on the ground getting their hands dirty can do so safe in the knowledge that they wont be bombed from the air as they rescue people from the roofs of their homes.

 

So if Climate Change is the biggest threat to our national security, through climatic events and through dwindling resources putting pressure on people to migrate then what should the ADF and the Australian Government do about it? What will F-35's produce other than more carbon in the atmosphere. Well I guess they could help us feel more secure driving us towards a more insular approach to the world where we protect what we have and blow little rickety boats of desperate people out of the water.

The cynical side of me wonders whether the ADF is just trying to deflect criticism of this purchase back onto the government. And that Tony is just trying to garner more support from the military by upping their budget and giving them new toys to play with. If the ADF really believes that climate change is our biggest threat how about they say 'NO' to the jets and ask for more hardware to be able to offer humanitarian assistance. Why don't they demand that the Government faces its responsiblities in protecting our security and our future by actually implementing policies that reduce the risk of climate change and our reliance on fossil fuels?  No need to fight over oil if we've moved to renewable energy right?

So Tony is all thumbs up with his ear to ear smile in the cockpit of a new F-35 having just spent 24 billion on not knowing what's around the corner. Yet he wants to repeal the carbon tax and spend next to nothing on addressing issues that we know are around the corner and are a bigger threat to us all. I can see it now 'this is air control to major tony, our squadron has the cyclone in our targets, do you want us to hit it with everything we've got?'

emotion in motion

How is it that emotionally derived opinions are sufficient even in the face of facts and logic that would suggest otherwise?

We see issues creating divisiveness where an emotional wave will roll over the bedrock of truth in arriving to a perceived majority consensus. These issues of climate change, asylum seeker policy, gay marriage, mining, the economy and now a fractured multiculturalism are at the forefront of public and political debate during this dark chapter.

Never mind that more than 90% and up to 97% of reputable climate scientists agree that the planet is warming due to human activity. origin of graphic from skeptical science

with 2 being unsure and 1 saying no.

One half of the people would rather listen to Tony Abbott or Alan Jones, neither who have any expertise in this field and dispute the findings as if scientists had some secret global agenda.

Tony also questioned the quality of our economists when they said a carbon tax or emission trading scheme was a responsible and efficient way for this nation to respond and move forward towards a greener economy.

From The Australian - Opposition leader defies economists on Carbon Tax 

Is he an economist as well as a climate scientist? No, so why do people listen to him? Not for facts and logic that's for sure so it must be that he appeals to the base emotions of many. And those many believe they know better, why?

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Just because we don't want a carbon tax (not that the public pays it - we are compensated for the rise in cost of living that the top polluters pass down to us from the impact of a carbon tax on them). 

I'm more concerned with the other cost they are passing down, the commodity of fear. With no rational foot to stand on they use their clout to sow seeds of doubt and pull at the heartstrings of fear. It's Un-Australian. They're taking our jobs. We can't afford it in this GFC (despite not being in recession and one of the richest countries per capita in the world).

Advocates for climate change can and do use fear to drive their cause as well and I hate it when they do that because then we end up downriver from the bridge to change in a quagmire of emotion, slinging mud at eachother.

And what of the asylum seeker debate? Our two major parties seem to have settled for offshore processing and long stays within detention centres as a detterant to refugees seeking asylum in Australia. They claim with emotion (much of it genuine) that this is to prevent the tragedy of refugees drowning at sea. The detterant has been shown to be somewhat effective but only when we treat refugees so abhorrently as to cause such mental anguish that we see numerous suicide attempts in detention and people sewing their mouths shut. And on all indications they say they are going to keep coming. 

Tony Abbott (leading the way again) refers to these people as illegal immigrants which is factually incorrect, and he uses it in such a way as to be imflammatory. He also had the gall to refer to them as un-christian for entering through the back door despite Jesus himself being a refugee and the principles of christianity calling on followers to love thy neighbour and care for the poor and downtrodden. They are often referred to as queue jumpers even though it has been widely acknowledged that there is no queue for them to join. How do you apply for asylum when in some war torn countries like Afghanistan it is normal for our embassy to move place from day to day to avoid becoming a target for insurgents. So what are the facts?

There are really only two ways to stop drownings at sea - gain a reputation for treating asylum seekers so abhorrently that no one will want to come, or create a queue that asylum seekers would see as worthwile joining. I'm for the latter option because our identity as a fair, just and compassionate nation is easily worth the extra people that we will have to accomodate. And if you welcome people with open arms then they're more likely to be grateful and want to contribute than to feel seperate and resentfully and barely tolerated.

Our emotions are primitive. We can be tribal with them and just last week we saw a tribal mentality riding on a wave of emotion lash out with ugly repercussions. Does this mean that I'm suggesting that our human emotions are bad and we should dispense with them and all become Spock-like characters?  ...Problem solved - let's party!!!...

Our emotions are important and part of what makes us human but I don't want to see emotions riding roughshod over rationality. Or our emotions being manipulated so easily for that matter. What happened to the inbuilt Australian bullshit detector? Emotions without logic can lead to crimes of passion and punching holes in walls. Logic without emotion is generally referred to as being psychopathic. Either on its own can be very destructive.

Wisdom comes from when our emotional and logical bearings are brought together to form opinion or to make a decision. Nelson Mandela said 'a good head and a good heart is always a formidable combination.' Shouldn't that be something worth striving for?

We need to ask ourselves why we stand where we do on certain issues. Is it emotion, fear or love that drives us? Are we deceiving ourselves? Are we leaning on our own understanding? Are we only listening to what we want to hear?