Tag: Protest

Police State Crits #4 – Becky Spelman Awake To The World

Henry James died on this date, the 28th of February, 106 years ago, in 1916, in the middle of the Great War.

He wrote: “Life is, in fact, a battle. Evil is insolent and strong; beauty enchanting, but rare; goodness very apt to be weak; folly very apt to be defiant; wickedness to carry the day; imbeciles to be in great places, people of sense in small, and mankind generally unhappy. But the world as it stands is no narrow illusion, no phantasm, no evil dream of the night; we wake up to it, forever and ever; and we can neither forget it nor deny it nor dispense with it.”

People like Beck Spelman confront the world as it is and by doing so they make it better. They name problems which others deny and that naming is the first step to solving any problem.

Becky Spelman calls out arrogant bureaucrats at the Melbourne Freedom protest on 26/02/2022

Geoff Fox, 28th February, 2022, Down Under

My Brief Time as The Freedom Man

Last Saturday at the massive Freedom Day March in Melbourne, a woman in the crowd at Flagstaff Gardens pointed at me and said, “There’s The Freedom Man.”

I told this to one of the organisers later and he said to me that I wasn’t just The Freedom Man, I was now Australia’s William Wallace.

To day I was prevented from speaking at a much smaller but related Occupy Parliament protest and I think the reason given was that I talk too much about God.

If I cannot talk freely about God on the occupied steps of a corrupt government’s parliament, then my time in that movement is ended.

But it was an amazing experience.

I was able to lead thousands of people in chanting: “Freedom!”

I was able to press for police investigation of crimes committed by government against the people.

I was able to condemn what I see as the police state of Victoria on television.

I was able to appeal directly to many police officers present that it is not in their interests for a minority of police officers who had assaulted protesting citizens to appear to be above the law.

A Royal Australian Navy veteran who was disgusted with what he called government terrorism gave me his service medals because I was the first person he met who wanted them. (I was the first because I arrived hours before anyone else at a protest site where he was waiting.)

I was able to share my idea that, if God is the Word which is Logos which is rationality and discourse, then God is deeply embedded in freedom of speech and democracy.

I learnt important Djabwurrung phrases from a spiritual leader from that aboriginal nation. (My grandmother may have been one quarter Djabwurrung.)

This leader gave me the confidence to speak about Bunjil as a supreme spiritual force in Australia.

I met a profoundly wise and funny old man who saw himself as a wizard but came across to me like Moses.

I am sad that my involvement in this people power movement is over.

But, for me, expressing my faith in God freely comes first.

Geoff Fox, 22nd November, 2021, Terra Nullius