The Tsunami of Freedom is here
Yesterday morning the ACT used hundreds of officers to remove us from our first camp. They brought tow trucks, riot police and a bear cat. A bear cat is an armored vehicle. There were a few arrests, a few cars confiscated and one poor woman was shoved to the ground by an officer, who […]
The Day the Australian Flag Became the Yellow Star
We set this image up. The day before we had stood before the doors of Parliament with all our flags and banners and t-shirts with messages that all read Freedom. But today we weren’t allowed any closer than the bollards in this image. We had been told too, the only flag allowed past this […]
The Rise of the Free Hug Army
I read a piece by Mattias Desmet, a professor of clinical psychiatry, who studied the psychology of totalitarianism. In it he states that when it comes to Mass Psychosis, 30% are lost 30% are not hypnotised and 40% are in the middle, and that they will lean towards the strongest side in a desire to […]
The Immortal Beauty of the Stubborn Moths.
Whenever I’m at a campfire, at night, I’m always intrigued by why the moths fly into the flames. All of this darkness to live in, to hide in, and yet here they are, trying to reach a light that eventually, or inevitably singes their wings until, unable fly they are forever lost in the […]
Happiness in a time of Covid
The Landscape has changed. She lived on a farm in a back road of Warrnambool. In the city, her vast front yard would have been a small park with a playground, or dozens of units, whereas here, visible to only one neighbour who was driving past, she was cutting the grass on her ride on […]
The Steps of Solace
Three times he walked past, mask on as if he was racing somewhere he was late for, before he stopped on the edge of the steps, where a man, who often came and sat on these steps, the steps of parliament, asked him if he was ok. My whole family has turned against me, the […]
The Siege of The Shrine
Stop making me do this, he said as he pounded my head into the ground with his plastic shield. Stop making me do this. I’m not making you do it, I said, though I don’t know if he heard me above all the yelling and screaming. Next to me, Giuseppe Grasso an Italian man, short […]
Two Marches Down the Yarra
Several of the police officers hold video cameras on monopod tripods. If you watch the streaming video of those independent journalists who are trying to record what is actually happening in Melbourne, you will see how truly dedicated these officers are as they work to capture the faces of these fleeing activists. No doubt somewhere, […]
When Freedom is a status does it taste like lemons?
I know when freedom is a right it has no taste, because you take it for granted, like breathing. That‘s the freedom of a motorcycle ride from Melbourne to Sydney, on back roads where no one knows where you are unless you call them. It’s the freedom of meeting a mate at a cafe, or […]
That Spreading Tone
I had a message in Café Locked Out’s inbox. Call this man, now. He was in South Africa. I had a name and the name of the group he was with, and since we were about to do a show full of international guests, I decided, despite the fact it was almost midnight here, to […]