What is going on in Australia, with the Government’s violent repressive attacks against demonstrator’s in Melbourne, citizens who were simply exercising their rights to protest for our LIBERTY and FREEDOMS against unjust and tyrannical government regulations?
Melbourne is the capital city of the State of Victoria, once known as the world’s most liveable city; now it’s infamous as an authoritarian, oppressive city with the world’s longest COVID-19 hard lock-down and curfew; brutally enforced by the State’s militarized and overtly politicized police force.
No wonder the city’s disenfranchised citizens are demanding their Freedoms back. Look at the ‘Human Cost’ of lock-downs! With the exception of ‘Essential Services’, the population has been in lock-down for approximately a year and prevented from working or allowed to open their businesses.
Many have lost their livelihoods and struggling to keep a roof over their family’s heads. Their children are left isolated with home-schooling; household’s are splinter, stressed from being forced into welfare dependency and the indignity of needing to rely on charity. Mental health issues have soared, with overwhelmed hotline’s flooded with cases of anxiety, depression and suicide prevention.
The long-term damage to the country’s economy, the personal financial hardship, the forced social-disconnect, plus the mental health considerations courtesy of prolonged lock-downs, will potentially be more damaging than the actual COVID virus i.e., the cure has become more harmful than the disease!
Critically, when COVID infection rates were low, there were no strategies to minimize lock-downs, in fact the opposite occurred. State Politicians actually slowed down the rate of vaccine roll-outs and failed to beef-up the capacity of Hospitals and Medical facilities, at a time when the warnings from the early modelling (April 2020) predicted “peak daily Intensive Care Unit (ICU) bed demand is 35,000, which would greatly exceed Australia’s expanded capacity of 7,000 ICU beds“.
Dragging their feet, distorting the truth, cultivating ‘public fear’, quelling civil liberties and prolonging lock-downs; where all strategies to suppress political opposition and conceal mistakes, particularly those blunders made with ‘contact tracing’ and ‘hotel quarantine’ which was linked to 801 deaths. These ‘deceptions’ helped cover up the governments continuous incompetence, while securing political tenure.
COVID-19 was politicized when the vaccination roll-out was slowed to extend lock-downs. This was done by surreptitiously planting ‘seeds of doubt’ in the public’s mind, about the safety or efficacy of the only vaccine available in the country at the time – AstraZeneca.
The public were convinced the risks were too high, which persuaded many people to delay getting vaccinated until alternative products were made available in Australia. The State manipulated ‘community anxiety’ using fear to control a compliant public into accepting extended lock-downs!
The deception around misrepresenting the risks associated with the AstraZeneca was a national disgrace, as Australia allowed precious vials of vaccines to expire on the shelf, while hundreds of thousands of people in neighbouring countries were dying from the virus.
Adding to the public’s ‘fear factor’ were the daily roll-outs of the worsening COVID ‘infection rates’, which mathematically can only go up when the population was largely unvaccinated. Far better to monitor the ‘hospitalization and mortality’ rates of those who are normally healthy and vaccinated; but these statistics were never used as a realistic measure to unwind lock-downs and encourage people to get vaccinated.
The welfare costs of Victoria’s lock-downs are paid by the Federal Government, their political opponents. So, having your adversaries picking up the costs and taking the blame for your mistakes, was another motivation for the State government to go slow. That was a blatant weaponizing of COVID for political gain, all at the expense of the citizens; the good people of Victoria’ and those who died unnecessarily.
It has taken a long time for the Victorian public to wake up and realize that their government had no plans or exit strategy to get out of lock-downs. As the rest of the world started to return to something resembling ‘normality’ the people of Victoria realized that their government had managed to orchestrate an unmitigated disaster, where peoples Freedom were stolen, thousands unnecessarily lost their livelihoods and hundreds lost their lives.
What is raising eyebrows around the world are the harsh and especially brutal measures the Victorian State government has taken against ‘Freedom’ protesters; tougher than ever seen before. The government has squashed dissenting citizens in the most abhorrent and repugnant manner, in what was considered a civilized democratic society. Witnessing the full force of a militarized police, set upon ordinary people seeking to exercise their democratic right, to defend and preserve what was once a ‘birth right’ in Australia … shocked the world.
The State’s disproportionate and violent force was akin to combat, where armored Police pepper sprayed elderly woman, and using tear gas and rubber bullets against ‘the people’ to quash any public decent against the government’s draconian laws. The State government is using the Police to arrest and jail their political opponents, with questionable charges like ‘incitement – to break a fineable offence’ resulting in 22 days of imprisonment. Even the judiciary is embarrassed about having to deal with a pregnant woman, who the Victorian police arrested after storming into her home and handcuffing her in front of her partner and children. Her crime was to make an anti lock-down comment on Facebook.
It is clear that some Police are not comfortable with the level of overreach they are being ordered to participate in on behalf of the State. I cannot recall ever witnessing State Police randomly firing rubber bullets into the backs of retreating protesters before; or jailing political opponents; or arresting a heavily pregnant Mum for a Facebook post, certainly not in Australia!
So, why the double standards when ‘Freedom’ marchers are ‘shot’ and BLM protesters are only fined or threatened with fines? Why is the Premier taking the ‘Freedom’ civil disobedience so personally? Is it a ploy; a convenient distraction to deflect the public’s attention away from media stories, that the Premier, won’t stand down over reports that The Independent Broad-based Anti-Corruption Commission were probing past dealings?
It was the Leader of the Federal Government who declared that Covid-19 vaccinations were not mandatory. The Prime Minister of Australia’s declaration was ‘pro-choice’ not ‘anti-vax’. So why is the State of Victoria preventing Victorians from working, if they choose to exercise their pro-choice rights; rights declared by the country’s Prime Minister no less?
Meanwhile the State continues to deal out intense, cruel, tactical enforcement methods to crush those who have a Constitutional Right to protest against injustice.
Then there is the propaganda machine to discredit protesters. Politicians and the mainstream media erroneously label and stigmatize the pro-choice, anti lock-down protesters in Melbourne as, extreme anti-vaxxers, far-right groups, fascists, dangerous right wingers, and man-baby Nazis. This is a ploy to discredit, demean and trivialize the concerns of ordinary people.
This is what represents balanced reporting and informed commentary in one of the highest vaccinated and affluent democracies in the world. No wonder the ‘politically bias’ mainstream media are broadly associated with Fake news.
The lack of balanced reporting from the media, means the press act more like surrogate agents of the government, than independent reporters. They are ‘spoon feed’ the party line at televised daily briefings, clearly keen to retain favor with the Premier or are they too fearful of the ramifications if they challenge the government?
The government and therefore the media, disparage and ridicule those protesting for freedom and fighting for their livelihoods. It’s a case of the elite who are being fully paid during lock-downs VERSES the great unpaid. It’s a modern-day version of ‘Let them eat cake’!
One would have to question whether our democratic rights and civil liberties are under threat. It certainly looks like it. The State has exceeded its authority and misused enforcement agencies, like the elite Police Special Operations Group, to maltreat passive dissenters with a level of brutality previously unseen in this country and more akin to what we have witnessed on the streets of Hong Kong.
The Counter Terrorism Tactics Group has been rolled out against ordinary citizens who were armed with posters and banners exalting FREEDOM. The response from the State was clearly disproportionate, vicious and brutal.
Eventually, politicians will answer to the people, as this is not the democracy our forefathers fought and died to defend! As the Visit Victoria website states; Visit Victoria and plan your next great escape!
6 October 2021
“IN THE TRUEST SENSE, FREEDOM CANNOT BE BESTOWED; IT MUST BE ACHIEVED.” Franklin D Roosevelt.
Billy Blogabout 