Campaigning by sound bites.  This poem is as relevant as ever.

I have no patience for your lies; no tolerance for your excuses.
I’m hot and getting hotter.
I have no patience for your greenwashing, nor tolerance for your mistreatment.
Unlike you, I am not profiting from your grubby mistakes.
I have no faith in made-up economic benefits, when you use my scarce clean water to pollute and fracture.
And those in the vicinity, literally eat my dust every single day.
I have no patience for your promises of financial riches and jobs, jobs, jobs for digging ditches.
Now that robots can replace them, the only jobs left are ‘for the boys’.
I have no patience for the supposed miracle of trickle-down economics, nor tolerance for royalties frittered surreptitiously away.
For when all is said and done, you just stick your filthy snout in the taxpayer’s pocket.
And when it all goes pear-shaped, do you compensate and remediate?
Oh no, you merely shut up shop and cry poor.
I have no patience for your same-old same-old platitudes or excuses.
So off you go.  Just piss off.

Author’s Note:  The weather was unpleasant yesterday.  It was hot, dry and blowing a gale.  The sky turned a dirty grey colour and the dust obscured the surrounding hills.  Further to the south, our Victorian friends were faced with raging bushfires and property was lost.  Our town suffered from a massive bushfire in 2003.  I was speaking to a lady I met in passing yesterday.  She thought the whole trauma of that day was embedded in the collective psyche of the city.  She’s probably right.  Throughout the day, we waited.  For the wind to calm and the skies to clear?  For some impending disaster?  Who knows.  Don’t mention climate change…

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29 thoughts on “No Patience for Your Same-Old Excuses”

  1. She’s totally right. My town in CA was surrounded by a wildfire in 2003. I was evacuated for 10 days. It was. horrific to sit in the city park of a nearby small town watching flames and smoke crest the ridge of mountains west of where I was sitting and not know if I (and four dogs) would find anywhere to go if the flames crossed the top of the mountains. It was horrible not knowing what had happened to my town and house once I was able to drive to a friend’s house in San Diego near the ocean. Watching the news? There would be the bridge to my town, the mountains 1/4 mile from my house, firefighters. It was traumatizing and I have no calm at all when it comes to wildfires. It was the biggest fire in California history until this year, and it was only “beaten” by a few acres (but even a few acres are too many).

    It’s new. The first 20 years I lived out there, there might be an isolated fire in the mountains, quickly controlled. But it kept getting worse. This past year was the worse ever. But no, we don’t mention climate change. As if it mattered what we call it. The fearless leader of my country and his geriatric minions seem to think if they don’t NAME it it’s not there. Fuck them all. Without the earth, where the hell are we? 😦

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Yep, I think hell is where we are headed.

      It must have been horrendous being evacuated to a park for 10 days. Scorching hot with no where to go! Also not being able to breathe because of smoke.

      I dread this aspect of Summer. Nearly every year there seems to be a massive bushfire somewhere in the country. The fire season now starts earlier and finishes later. And there are insufficient resources to fight fires on this scale. In 2003, people were just left to fend for themselves.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. I was only in a park for 1 day, thank god. By dark, they opened the freeway and I got to drive (between burning hillsides) into San Diego. Our “fire season” started two days ago with a huge grass fire outside of Colorado Springs.

        I’m so mad about this I could spit nails. But then as you probably picked up, I prefer a tree to most people. 🙂

        Liked by 1 person

      4. Hi Tracy, I wanted to reply to Martha, but there wasn’t an arrow on her comment. We should spit nails! We should spit goddamn axes! And we should not apologise for our anger, because that is what makes us get out and demonstrate and write to politicians and try to change things. It’s interesting at the Adani demos — there is always a sprinkling of young people, probably students, but most are middle-aged and older. People in their thirties and forties are tied up with their careers and child-rearing. Also, we grew up with demos — endless peace marches and so forth. To us it seems normal to get out and protest. So let’s do it.

        As for January 16th, 2003, you are right. The fear has never quite left me…

        Liked by 1 person

      5. Diana, it looked like there was a strong grassroots movement for change (think Kevin ’07), but then the weather turned clement, Kevin acted like some demagogue and people forgot. But I think there is one helluva wake-up call coming.

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  2. It was a bad day here too, Tracy, although mercifully there were no fires. I think the lady you were speaking to is right….that little spurt of fear as you scan the horizon for smoke, that waking up in the middle of the night- is that smoke you can smell? We despair at the way our government does so little. And now in SA, there’s a good chance that the splendid efforts there to do something about the environment could very well be dismantled.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. That is exactly what happens, Jane. Everyone here seemed very subdued yesterday, and we were all anxiously looking toward the horizon.

      I’m glad you got through it yesterday. Nowhere is safe, not even being in town.

      I could have cried when I heard about the SA election result. South Australia is particularly susceptible to climate risks. I just wonder if the South Australians fully realise the implications of this change.

      Like

    1. Thank you, Dawnbird. I’m having trouble finding my zen at the moment. The fires are/were horrendous, and are still raging down the south coast. 40c and huge winds. I really feel for those people. And the PM said we are a land of drought, bushfire, flooding rains and we shouldn’t be politicising these disasters. But if not now, then when? I’ve lived in this area for a long time and only in the last 15-20 years have we seen the likes of this type of weather. I cannot fathom why we are not doing everything possible to curb emissions and care for the environment for the sake of future generations.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Hope your son is safe and well. Worrying, I’m sure. I’ve noticed, too, the weather pattern has changed so much over the years. In Dec and Jan I experienced the worst flights ever through storms. And, hail in summer!

        Liked by 1 person

  5. I live on the coast in a rainforest. You’d think we were exempt from all that. We are not. A few years ago, I bought a second cistern because the one I had (1100) gallons was not enough to get us through the new ‘dry periods’ we were experiencing each summer. What kind of rainforest has a 4-month dry period? In the middle of all this, the interior of BC burned. We lost zillions of acres. And some of it came to the coast. At the worst time, smoke filled the air and the smell of campfire was everywhere. I picked up some friends from Hong Kong. As we drove from the airport, I apologized for the poor air quality. I claimed that it was never like this. They (five students) looked at me and looked around and said, “What smog? What fire? I don’t see anything. I can’t smell anything.” To them the smoke-filled air was NORMAL! NOT being able to see forever was normal. Haze was normal. A few days later when the smoke had cleared, they were amazed. “Never see nature like this. Never smell air like this.”
    If we don’t at least write and speak up, it will get worse.
    It is already getting worse.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Perhaps hosting your Hong Kong friends will enable them to see that they can aspire to live in a different world.

      Once rainforest is lost, the world will be drier still. It creates its own micro-climate, attracting rain. Every year they burn more rainforest in Indonesia. The smoke regularly drifts across to Thailand. When it doesn’t rain, crops fail.

      I guess I will just keep banging on about it. Thanks for the follow. It will make up for those I am bound to lose due to my lack of faith….

      Like

      1. Faith…in what? Hope? Or truth? In truth there is some hope. In hope only, there are too many lies and deceits. Gotta start with the truth. It sets you free. And the truth is: the planet is suffering and we are complicit in that if not the cause. We have to do more. WE have to do better.
        The good news is that we do not have to suffer or want. We can have it all. But we cannot trust our leaders to do it for us. They are NOT leaders, anyway. They are followers. Followers of the status quo (that’s how they got there). That is how you get to the head of the party, you follow the rules, the protocols and the mindless chanting while worshiping at the feet of mammon. You believe the lies and drink the Kool-Aid, attend the committee meetings and do as you are told. Option B: think for yourself. Do for yourself. Help others. And clean up the are in which you live.

        Liked by 1 person

  7. In my area, we aren’t threatened with fires, but I can’t imagine the horror of those who are! Tornadoes, which we do have, are over in a few minutes, but fires last for days. And no one knows which direction they’ll take. I’m so sorry for everyone living through this! And yes, our weather has become much more extreme in these past few years too. I can’t think of any other reason than climate change.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Thank you, Ann. We are starting to see a a rare tornado in our part of their world too. They may be over quickly, but they are very scary. Plus as they are new, we have nowhere to take shelter. As for climate change, I think no-one will be able to escape its effects. We are lucky to have wonderful communities that always leaps in to help those in need. Long may it be so.

      Liked by 1 person

  8. Tragedy, in any form, brings out the best in people, it brings communities together. Now if only that spirit could be extended to every day life and to the politicians…

    Liked by 1 person

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