Journey to Irrelevance

So, ah, yeah, I fuckin wake up to my girlfriend tossing an envelope at me, very nicely by the way, she didn’t throw it at my head, shrieking, “Get up ya lazy fuck!” No, she flipped it through the air and it landed lovingly, this luscious letter from the Law, John Law, the cops, the Man, the fucking Victoria Police, who really are just doing their job.

There was a time when I was angry at the police, but after a certain series of incidents failed to elicit an outcry from Melbourne’s population of People Who Are Concerned About Everything, it became clear to me that the cops really do think they are doing the right thing when they’re doing the wrong thing. 

The incidents were crystal moments in time that will be forever in my memory and on my hard drives, because I did video the police as they went about their holy mission of sexually assaulting female protesters on the Tunnel Picket. I started to get a bit screwy in the head about that shit and did not know, lost in the desert of no one seeming to give a fuck as I was, O what to do. 

I thought the cops were arseholes, but I made so very much noise about these incidents and so very little action occurred because of it. And a weight lifted off my shoulders. The cops really are operating within a belief system that makes sense. And people are useless cunts.

Now look. When I say people are useless cunts, I mean that it’s very hard to express what I feel as a big fat police envelope reveals itself to me, as I open this fucking thing knowing it can’t be good, as I read that I am to appear to in court, it is very hard to know what to say. Who am I doing this shit for exactly? Why did I go into Parliament and refuse to leave, setting into train the events that led to me being dragged out by head, yes, by the head, guys. Why? What was I thinking?

Well people, bearing in mind I have just called you a rude word, the rudest word in the universe, I did it because it seemed like the thing to do. 

I’m not made of courage and from time to time I get very bitter about why it seems to have to be me and my mates who do this getting arrested shit. By the way, do give it a shot, it’s a great way to make a splash. Our arrests in Parliament made the news around the world and I go to do a bunch of interviews explaining our world view. I was heard. That’s nice.

So many of us wish to be heard but even more of us don’t seem to want to gamble anything for that privilege. We want justice, we want peace, but we barely understand police. We want change and rainbows but we think we’re just going to impose that on people with pop-up protest carnivals that look exactly like aliens have landed. We want to  celebrate diversity but we we are so fucking out there that it’s just intimidating to people who’d like to get involved. And let’s not mention the force field of dickheads you’ve got to get through to actually meet leaders and people of substance on The Left (and don’t get me started on the fucking Left, which seems to be a machine purpose built to kill movements.)

I take part in direct actions that could well result in my arrest and have resulted in fines I struggle to pay and have resulted in me spending huge amounts of time in court and I have done this because it’s real.

We went into Parliament to sit-in because we wanted it on the record that Victoria, Australia is not just sliding into a right wing nightmare, it’s being pushed there one shove at a time. We got this shove into the media around the world by taking risks. Risks, you say? But Sean, you’re white and middle class and a m-m-m-*vomits* man! 

I get that a lot, that everything we do in our group is theatre and we are spoiled and self-dramatising. Sam needed medical treatment after that night. I was dragged out by my head and I have no idea why that didn’t injure me. We’ve been assaulted by cops again and again and again and though I did hate them for it, for a while, I have more respect for them, who try to do a job, than many of Australia’s image, message, metaphor and identity politics “Left”. 

The Left is almost entirely lost. The only Lefties who don’t know that are in paid positions. It’s hard to face reality. There are some successes and they should be celebrated, but we are losing across the board, we are up against it and we are arguing about fucking pronouns and using minority group recognition as a club to bash people. I swear I cannot keep up with the constantly updated list of things and words that are offensive as of today, decided on by activists who celebrate diversity so successfully they have completely lost touch with the common man.

I have the right to say this shit because I put my body on the line. I take risks. I don’t live an activist lifestyle, I don’t think of myself as “awake”, I don’t call civilians “sheeple”. Come to think of it, why do I call non-activists "civilians"? How fucking wanky.

I do direct actions because I can’t stand the shit that dribbles out when people talk about changing the world. My god, go join an NGO and die.

What I see is people living an illusion of activism but not actually joining the fucking dots. You’re welcome to feel I am simply angry and bitter because I, er, am. But the point is a tiny number of people take direct action and the rest are trying to set themselves up as experts in a craft they don’t practice.

If you reckon I've disappeared up my own arse, I'm just devastated.