Summary Offences

Last Monday about 70 people quietly slipped up to the top steps of Parliament to sit with mouths taped shut for twenty minutes. For 32 minutes they sat silently in the hot sun, breaking some kind of law about protest on those steps, holding placards about the coming darkness, the end of real protest in Victoria for at least a generation, fun stuff like that.  

Changes to the Summary Offences Act are to be rammed through by the conservative State government. We're not in good shape. At one point after the Silence bit I spoke to the people there but I was flummoxed because all I wanted to say is, "Occupy Parliament. We don't have any other moves left."

I guess I'll keep saying that, but I don't feel confident because it seems like people are already resigned to the police being given new powers. Fuck knows what we'll do then. Go to jail I suppose.

When I first heard of these amendments at the end of last year my immediate reaction was that there needs to be mass arrests to overcrowd the system and force a backdown. My tune hasn't changed but I'm not sensing people are willing to go there. It may well end up that a small number of people push the envelope at some personal cost. I'll be one of those people and I hope when we do risk real jail time the people are there for us. Fingers crossed, eh?

Now I'm going to vomit.

Take care. 

      

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