In the past 20 years a lot of the friends that I have made as an expat are Australian. This has a lot to do with the generally laid back nature of Australians (at least the ones I have met) and probably even more to do with the fact that Australia is relatively close to the places I have chosen to live in the past two decades.
When the "tradies" started to kick the lockdown / covid / vaccine protests into a totally higher level, the Australians that I know all support them and are experiencing a mix of excitement with a tinge of fear mixed in.
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Australia has endured a lockdown the likes of which the rest of the world hasn't even come close to over the past 1.5 years and this has been particularly true in the major cities like Melbourne.
I don't know the specifics of the lockdowns but they haven't seen a great deal of relief and in my completely unscientific opinion the idea behind total prevention is a dumb one that you can no possible achieve and even if you did so, good for you! Now you can never let anyone in or out of your country ever again since it has been shown that vaccinated people are still getting and transferring the virus to other people some of whom are also vaccinated.
What's the end-game plan here? Keep the country in perpetual lockdown until forever? It's just impractical and I don't understand the mentality of a person that can support this sort of thing, especially if they are being subjected to it while living in Australia.
My friends who live here in Vietnam, some of them started to investigate travel back to Australia only to discover that they can't. There is a massive queue of people waiting to get back in (I can't imagine why they would want to) and a very limited number of flights. The flights are also 10x as expensive as they would normally be due to (I think) restrictions on how many people can be on each flight and how close they are permitted to be to one another.
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So when a group of working-class people stand up to what I consider to be abusive authority, I support it and was kind of delighted to find out that all of the Australian people that i know also support it. The one thing they are concerned about is that they don't want this to turn into something like BLM or Antifa where the mob just starts smashing and burning stuff "willy nilly."
In case you don't know "willy nilly" means without regard or consideration or in this case (and Antifa / BLM) businesses and homes that don't actually have anything to do with what the mob is angry about.
I did find out that the opinion is different for people that are actually living in Australia and a lot of folks are not on the side of these or any other covid protesters. The reasoning being some sort of "we need to be in this together or it isn't going to work!" type way of thinking and while I do not agree with that, I suppose I can see some logic in this.
I think that sort of mindset is kind of like a business that keeps spending more and more money to stay afloat and the reason that they spend money to stay afloat is because they have spent so much money to stay afloat and don't want that spending of money to stay afloat to have been in vain. It's a Sisyphean method of thinking IMO and one of first things that you learn in business management is that you NEVER consider "sunk costs" (money already spent) when thinking about a strategy moving forward. Of course this is government so they don't have to worry about costs but in this situation I thing it would be more of a "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result" type of thing.
My Australian friends here have indicated that the public support that exists for covid restrictions and lockdowns in Australia is because of the fact that the media there, just like in the USA, is propaganda for the most part and that a large portion of the population buys into it. I dunno, I'm not Australian so my opinion doesn't matter. I've watched a few Australian news show clips and find it entertaining just because of the language differences.
I support the protestors and also hope they can manage to keep the violence at a minimum. It was just kind of neat to find out that all of my Aussie friends that do not live in Australia support anyone that is going to stand up to the government. I think it doesn't happen very often there.
I think this Coronavirus pandemic proved what I was already feeling for a while. The only thing Governments are effective at... is fucking things up. Governments are almost obsolete. If not for the security, judicial system and tax collectors, we could probably abolish them and let the free markets do their thing, without interference and regulations. Most times these regulations end up doing more evil than good.
Have you noticed that once the US Government started showing real fascist colours... the Antifa movement has gone dark? This is quite suspicious to me. 🤔
That seems to be the norm around the world. but many people are seeing right through that and it's no wonder the lack of trust in the media is at all time lows. It's not only the media, though. Confidence in all kinds of institutions is failing. People are fed up with the lies.
I hadn't thought about that aspect of Antifa but yeah, that is a frightening point. Their activities outside of the crazy parts of the world like Portland have all but disappeared, BLM doesn't seem very interested in anything anymore other than this recent thing in NYC at the restaurant.
I worked for the Federal government (USA) many years ago and I can personally attest to the fact that our involvement was mostly very expensive and counter-productive to what we were claiming was our objective there. I think everyone involved other than the people who are stealing the money of course, would have been better off if the govt had just gotten out of the way.
I look at places in the world that have very limited governments and even know people that live in these places. I expect them to be crime-infested shitholes but for the most part they aren't.
I've been to Australia once, it was a very strange trip because basically everything is against the rules and you feel as though you are being constantly watched... most of the time you were being watched. You are constantly harassed by police and other security to the point where I felt nervous basically all the time whenever I was outside of my friend's home.
I wouldn't want to live there under any circumstances.
I didn't have that idea about Australia. Until last year I though it was one of the most free countries...
I am almost where I think they should just let it go. A vaccine is available. The likelihood of dying if you had the vaccine is much less. If people choose not to get it, that is fine, we will just let natural selection do its job. The thing that holds me back from that feeling is the kids who maybe can't get the vaccine yet or aren't able to because their parents won't let them. While the chances of them dying are much less, I still wouldn't want them to go through that. I think if we can get something available for people of all ages at that point you just step back and let nature happen.
I don't really think this is entirely an anti-vaccine thing anymore, dude. There are certainly some people in it that feel that way but I don't believe it is fair to paint it with one brush like that. This is an anti-authoritarian thing. All the Aussies I am referring to in Thailand and Vietnam are either already vaccinated or plan to do so as soon as possible. For them they are applauding the protests and resistance because they have chosen to not live in Australia at least in part because they are fed up with their government.
I have been to Australia and seriously, I have never been subjected to so much of a "police state" as I did in that country. It's really quite shocking because you have this idea of Australia being fun and wilderness-filled but it's just a long list of rules and being shouted at by officials.
When jogging one day, i was "pulled over" by two gigantic police officers in full military-style gear who left the lights flashing on and made a big scene about shouting at me about what I was doing wrong. My crime? I was jogging on the "wrong" side of the footpath that had zero other people on it, there was also no signs indicating that we were supposed to be jogging on a particular side of the footpath.
I think the people are just fed up with the complete lack of freedom and aren't going to take it anymore and this is something I can totally get on board with.
That does sound pretty harsh. Clearly it sounds like there are other factors involved here, but at least where I live I stand by my opinion. We are lucky to not be locked down though. Mostly just a lot of people still complaining because they would did if they didn't have something to be pissed about.
Australia is pretty doomed at this time. I hope for the sake of those that are living there, the uprising will allow for some type of change. I’d would be terrible to see it go in the opposite direction and be met with force. The last thing I want to see is citizens trying to get their freedoms back and instead they are met with more pain and suffering.
Another bit of info... mail going into Australia has been blocked. Well sort of. I was mailing something out the other day and noticed that USPS is only allowing Express and above to go to Australia. This means if you want to ship for instead a lightweight t-shirt there for USA, you can no longer do so for $15 with first class. Not even $40 with Priority. Instead you must pay nearly $100 for Express, or well over $100 for Global Express Guarantee. The prices are even more asinine for heavier objects. I watched a lady be forced to pay $350 just to ship some special crafting silks to her friend for her birthday.
It doesn’t make sense to me why slow/affordable mail isn’t allowed, but faster/more expensive can still get in. It honestly seems like some sort of scheme.
When i see things like this it makes me think about how any crime that has a fine attached to it instead of some other form of punishment is a tax on the poor. The wealthy people of the world can pay this so therefore they don't care. I'll look at sin taxes for example. When I was visiting Australia the cigarettes were so expensive that I didn't smoke while I was there (I have since quite anyway). Ciggies for cheap brands were nearly $25 a pack. One of the people we were visiting was extremely wealthy and he smokes all day, every day. This cost did not effect him in the slightest but to your average person this tax could be the reason why other essentials in their life don't happen.
I would imagine that your shipping story does not at all apply to consumer goods like electronics and whatever else is sold to the population, just stuff that the average person wants to send is no longer going to happen. Funny how that works huh?
Yes truthfully I’d never sweat a crime punishable only by fine if I had infinite money. Those types of things definitely seem to be aimed at the individuals who aren’t as well off. I’ve never been a cig smoker, but even I know that $25 a pack is unreal.
Yea I’m sure many large companies are getting things in and out of Australia still. It did shock me to notice average people couldn’t ship in unless they were willing to pay the new/drastically raised costs.
It's time to fuck them all up... This bullshit lasted too long...
Rather than that I would prefer that the crowd grew to such massive sizes that the police would start to realize that they are working for the baddies
There's one conversation someone taped with a cop in Aus where the cop is saying something along the lines of "I don't want to do this but if i don't i'll get fired. my wife already lost her job to Covid and I can't lose mine as well."
There's probably a handful of cops in the ranks that enjoy bashing the heads of anyone they are allowed to but I would imagine that most of them really don't like that they have to do this.
Yeah i understand...i'm referring to the government. To all world governments.
We don't need them.
i'm not gonna argue with that. I don't know of any government that improves the quality of life of its population.
Exactly!!
Anyway, were you able to buy a plane ticket?
People that think the whole population going along with the program, is what will work, are blind. If everyone submitted to the rules, the jab, the lockdowns, the masks without question this would complete a step in the plan that they've had long before the supposed "flu". They would then move on to the next step to complete control and depopulation to their satisfaction, which probably never would be enough for the entities controlling the puppet leaders of the world. They're crazy mad psychopaths.
I told people on the first day of the apocalypse announcement what the plan was. I told of vaccine passports a year and a half ago. I told of continuous tyranny. Everyone I told laughed at me. They aren't all laughing anymore. Many are crying. These plans were always in our face but the mainstream media had more elaborate distractions. Getting a jab is not about saving people from a flu.
I love that the Aussies are getting mad.
No offense of course, but of all the proposed agendas that I have seen mentioned the depopulation of the planet is the one that I have the hardest time getting on board with.
Unless it really is just a group of evil overlords that get their jollies by fucking with the inhabitants of the planet, what possible benefit would this have? Especially for the pharmaceutical industry that thrives on overpopulation?
The creation of fake virus for the sake of raking in billions for the pharmaceutical industry, that one I can believe but i just don't get the depopulation one, it just seems a bit too out there for me.
Me too, it's long overdue.
You can only push people so far before they crack. I support protests and am about as anti-government as they come, but I would rather people resist peacefully and only turn to violence as a last resort. The thing is, governments commit acts of violence upon their own citizens every day. So part of me understands why protesters are so quick to become violent and destructive.
Anyhow. At some point the lockdowns will just have to stop. The world can't live like this forever.