As my life is trashed by police state crap in Melbourne, Australia, I look to certain people to seek a recovery.
The innate systemic goodness of most human beings can defeat the evil which sometimes corrupts this world.
But it takes work.
Together, we shall return.
I revere the leadership towards such ends of General Douglas MacArthur in World War Two.
He took the essential human yearnings for discipline and peace and channeled them for victories from this date in 1942 (when he was recorded making his iconic “I shall return.” promise in outback Terowie) till Japanese imperialism was decisively destroyed.
He had to get past lazy stupidities like the Brisbane Line to achieve his success.
He once said, “There is no security on this earth. Only opportunity.”
America’s iconic anti-war politician, Robert Francis Kennedy (RFK), was born on this day, American time, in 1925.
In words that remind me of the efforts and ethos of my freedom fighter friend Billy, of AUM (Australian Unified movement), Kennedy said:
“The glory of justice and the majesty of law are created not just by the Constitution – nor by the courts – nor by the officers of the law – nor by the lawyers – but by the men and women who constitute our society – who are the protectors of the law as they are themselves protected by the law.”
The current, horrible, dictatorial government tyranny in the Australian State of Victoria will not prevail, if leaders like Billy and other Australian freedom fighters get the justice which they both deserve and earnestly strive to build.
RFK could have been talking about the challenges faced by Billy and his many courageous colleagues and followers when the American leader said:
“Every time we turn our heads the other way when we see the law flouted, when we tolerate what we know to be wrong, when we close our eyes and ears to the corrupt because we are too busy or too frightened, when we fail to speak up and speak out, we strike a blow against freedom and decency and justice.”
When Kennedy said this, he was speaking for freedom fighters of all eras in all places.
Kennedy had a very privileged background but also served in the navy during World War Two. He enlisted 6 weeks before he turned 18 and was undergoing V-12 officer training at Harvard when the War ended.
Billy is young and overcame enormous personal challenges to become the self educated man he is, but his thinking is philosophically deep and rhetorically powerful:
God Bless Freedom.
God Bless Billy, who is a gifted rapper and respects freedom culture, unlike the nemesis of freedom in Victoria, Premier Daniel Michael Andrews who has yesterday tried to win votes by saying:
“We’re much better than violent extremism. We ought to leave that to the United States. This is not America, and I for one will do nothing to contribute to the Americanisation of our politics.”
Daniel Michael Andrews, Criminal-In-Chief in what is now, for many innocent victims of a politicised police force, the police state of Victoria, I say to you:
This state and nation needs something like an American style Bill Of Rights because of all the ways you have trashed the human rights of the people you are supposed to serve.
So as the grandson of professional theologians, I pray with all my heart and soul that the wrath of God descend on Daniel Michael Andrews in the form of a crushing defeat at next Saturday’s election and his arrest for his human rights and other crimes and long, long subsequent imprisonment when convicted, if justice prevails.
Geoff Fox, 20th November, American time, 2022 (It is American time as I publish this post so I use that time to honour and respect RFK, whose son, RFK Junior is now one of the world’s best critics of lockdown excesses by stupid corrupt incompetent and IMHO evil governments.)
NB I neither totally condone nor condemn the red mist comments of Member Of Parliament, Catherine Cumming, to which Andrews was responding with the above quote. Cumming’s words were tasteless, open to misinterpretation and therefore poorly chosen. It was excessively robust free speech on the campaign trail. If free democracy is to prevail, human errors like this have to be accepted as part of what is going to happen. Robust freedom of speech must be defended not criminalised.
100 years ago today, Benito Mussolini’s fascist followers marched on Rome on their way to totalitarian power.
Exactly 18 years later, at 3 a.m. on October 28, in 1940, Mussolini demanded that his axis forces be allowed to enter Greek territory. When the Greek Prime Minister Metaxas courageously stood up to the dictator, the Greek people took to the streets shouting “OXI” ….. meaning “NO”.
Likewise, in modern Australia a corrupt government which trashed human rights is being rejected by a freedom movement with the moral strength and determination to win.
Early on Saturday afternoon this week, as I was exercising my rights to freedom of speech, freedom of movement and freedom of association in the central city march of the weekly freedom demonstrations in Melbourne, one or more than one police officer attempted to drag me away from behind but I initially held my ground.
I wanted to continue chanting “Freedom! Freedom!” and tried to hold my megaphone up as best I could against their pressure so that I wouldn’t blast out anyone’s eardrums. I didn’t chant because I could not hold the megaphone up high enough.
I couldn’t even hold myself up and collapsed to the ground under the pressure of police hands.
I am 64 years old. They or he were/was too young and too strong.
Almost immediately a wall of protestors rushed in and helped me up and I knew I was safe.
Later on that night a witness to my collapse told me that there was one police officer with malevolence for me in his eyes but that the rest were appalled and frightened by what was happening and pulled him into line.
As far as I knew at the time I had been assaulted by police.
I took every opportunity I could for the rest of the march to tell people that I was there against this sort of police state shit.
l said that my paternal grandfather, theologian Professor A C Fox, was an early opponent in Australia of Hitler’s mistreatment of the Jewish people.
My other grandfather, the Right Reverend J R Blanchard, was a strong public supporter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration Of Human Rights.
My father “Rick” Fox faced Japanese bullets on the beach at Balikpapan in 1945 for freedom.
Standing up and speaking up for freedom is a patrimony for me.
In mid afternoon, still very angry, I attempted to report the assault to a police officer, pictured above, who appeared to have a role in liaising with protestors. She was juggling a few things at the time including pulling up her face mask.
I was not satisfied that she had taken my complaint seriously and I became very vocally angry at her and others.
I feel the need to acknowledge that she probably or possibly did not deserve to be the butt of my anger. I am not apologetic because the only healthy thing to do with anger at the growing police state oppression in Australia is to express the anger and to denounce the oppressions.
Complaints against the police in Victoria are rarely investigated and when police here commit crimes they are not subject to the rule of law like everyone else. Their crimes are treated as professional standards matters and dealt with is secret.
Making a mistake by being rude to one police officer is better than blind conformity to the sickness of silence. (I borrow this idea from iconic poet activist Wiki Thukul of Java. His Indonesian language phrase was penyakit kebisuan.)
I do not know at all times what is in the hearts of individual police officers. Sometimes you can read it in their faces, eyes and voices. Often it is good. But sometimes it is evil.
Far too many sheep are not speaking up in Australia as freedoms disappear. Both inside and outside the police force.
Not all freedom has been destroyed. But the trends in that direction are appalling.
Today is the 80th anniversary of the first day of the World War Two battle which lead to the fall of Singapore.
Singapore fell because much larger British forces could not accurately assess either the size of the enemy or the nature of the British ruled terrain through which the enemy travelled. The British forces couldn’t even talk with each other.
They couldn’t live in The Word. So they lost.
Today my life in the police state of Victoria is in ruins like so many other lives here. That never would have happened if people in Terra Nullius could talk with each other instead of habitually denying each other the basic act of recognition as human beings.
This morning I wrote the poem below for three of them. A trinity. At the end of a service last Sunday to celebrate the 1953 coronation attended by my grandfather Ralph Blanchard and his wife Doris, I remember them in their doorway with their backs to me.
They are human beings without the time to really talk with me. Somewhat powerless. A modern and ancient police state disease. Scribes. Pharisees. Teachers. Doctors. Parents. Priests.
Stuart Piggott was an English archeologist who died on September 23rd, 1996.
In his poem “Wessex Harvest” Piggott wrote:
“….. new from old treasure / is this year’s miraculous / rebirth in the harvest.
And so in all years / is nothing forgotten …..”
In my 64 years of life, these words ring true in more ways than one.
I studied classical Latin for ten years at high school and university, so a commitment to ancient knowledge has been with me for a long time.
In three decades of cross cultural involvement with the Republic Of Indonesia, I was exposed to many living ancient wisdoms. And it was in Indonesia that I came to fully understand and feel how important WW2 was in recent history.
Then negative, misandrist, profoundly damaging, pseudo-progressive reactions against my sharing of cross-cultural endeavour, showed me just how hollow idealism can be when it seeks to impose it’s will on those of us who want to build slowly on the lessons of the past.
Now, as the society I live in is destroying its own humanity with lockdowns of itself, I look to a deeply Christian Prime Minister to stand up strong against ignorant tyranny for freedom’s sake.
In his maiden speech to Australia’s federal Parliament, he stressed that Australia is “not a secular country (but) a free country.”
Mr Morrison, Australia needs you to stand by those words. It will not be easy.
But I believe it is possible for you to lead a miraculous rebirth of freedom.
“To deny people their human rights is to challenge their very humanity.” – Nelson Mandela.
Today I make a personal appeal on human rights grounds to Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison to take a stand for freedom against the human rights violations committed against millions of people in Victoria by the state government which has imposed the most and possibly harshest Coronavirus pandemic lockdown days in the world.
I am not a pandemic denier. I was a health professional for 32 years.
In 1945 my father faced imperialist Japanese bullets on the beach at Balikpapan in the final battle of World War Two.
When that victory over totalitarianism was achieved, the nations of the world created the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) against totalitarian ideology and practices. Australia was among the first nations to sign on to this declaration.
Now in Melbourne, Victoria, Andrews state government imposed lockdowns lead to me suffering the following ten human rights violations which I list by naming and quoting from the relevant articles of UDHR . Millions of others suffer too. I hope that by speaking for myself I can speak for at least some others too.
Article 1 The climate of fear under the Andrews government means too many people cannot “act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.” (or sisterhood)
Article 3 Victorian lockdowns trash the “right to …. liberty.”
Article 5 prohibits “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” I consider this a perfect description of the imprisonment in my own home which I and millions of my fellow Victorians have suffered.
Atricle 9 prohibits “arbitrary detention”. In Victoria, lockdowns aren’t carefully targeted. They lock up millions of people when only a tiny percentage of people have been exposed to the virus.
Article 13 promises “freedom of movement.” Broad prohibitions on going more than 5 kilometres from home make free movement impossible.
Article 19 promises “the right to freedom of opinion and expression” including the right “to seek, receive and impart information and ideas”. Now my favourite libraries are closed to me and the streets where I used to communicate freely with many people are off limits to me too.
Article 20’s “right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association” is denied to me because I can no longer legally meet most of the people I used to be able to meet.
Article 23’s “other means of social protection” are now restricted for me because of travel restrictions and the emptying of the Central Business District.
Atricle 27’s right to “participate in the cultural life of the community” and “enjoy the arts” is now severely limited for me because most of the places where I used to do that are now closed or almost deserted.
Article 28’s right to “a social order which protects rights and freedom” does not apply for me in Daniel Andrews’ locked down Victoria.
A lost right that concerns me more than the rights lost by me is other people’s loss of the right to life. Stories I have heard and things I have seen convince me that lockdowns kill. Suicides of teenagers are reported to have doubled.
Prime Minister Morrison, across Australia, how many people do lockdowns kill?
The people have a right to know.
What will you do to protect human rights?
Geoff Fox, Melbourne, Down Under, 21 September, 2021
The patrol torpedo boat PT-109 commanded by Lieutenant John F Kennedy sunk 78 years ago, on August 2nd 1943, after being rammed by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri. This incident gave Kennedy lifelong back problems and a war hero status because of the bravery he showed to save his surviving crew. The disaster was also one of the foundations for his political career.
As I face the tremendous uncertainties of life in a society which is trashing the legacy of freedom from World War Two, JFK is one of the heroes whose legacy I cherish.
As he said, “Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try.”
FREEDOM, DEMOKRASI AND CIVILISED HUMANITY 