Read on Twitter
Last night I went with some pals to check in on the Melbourne anti-lockdown protest. Mostly to keep an eye on what tactics right wing agitators are employing, what sort of demographics are showing up and what captivity is being built. Let me walk you through the night #COVID19Vic
I’m just gonna drop a bunch of photos or what one might call an extreme high production value photoessay or whatever. Some thoughts / analysis will follow. Might write about it more throughly at some point if I muster up the energy.
They started off at flinders with a couple of hundred people
Some of the usual suspects where there doing their usual thing
Lots of anti Dan Andrews chants, horseshoe politics in the age of Covid is a trip hey
Then they got on the move, crowd had built a little by this point
Made their way towards the aus open
Was mildly annoyed I wasn’t at home with a beer watching the King play so this part was fun
They stopped here for some more speeches
“To the police here today we are not against you”
Cops basically just facilitated the thing all night and just strolled alongside them. Gross, sad and also kinda funny?
“To the police here today we are not against you”
Cops basically just facilitated the thing all night and just strolled alongside them. Gross, sad and also kinda funny?
Then they did a little sit in(?) outside John Cain Arena.
The chants were not good.
The chants were not good.
Credit where credit is due though.
They were literally chanting the vicpol motto like my god just kiss each other already
Marching past the herald scum building. You gotta love the poetry in motion here.
Then they made their way to Parliament, some contingents had converged by this point and I’d guess there was 300-400 people
Some anti-vaxxers got the chance to speak and were very uh.... passionate I guess
I was pretty intensely bored by this point so a comrade set up the tennis for me while we vaguely listened to them rambling on in the background
I probably don’t need to tell you the whole thing was intensely white. This line calling hotel quarantine “detention centres for returning Australians” was particularly cooked.
As they were wrapping up there was one arrest, wasn’t close enough to figure out why, and someone was giving a speech about “informed consent”. Not sure if they were speaking about the lockdown or vaccines but either way hmmmmmmmmm
Anyway they lasted about 3 hours and marched all over the city and pulled together a few hundred people, which while it’s far from anything huge all of those elements sort of exceeded what I was expecting which is a bit concerning.
The crowd was a strange mesh of:
- anti lockdown crowd which has consolidated over 2020
- the usual far right agitator crowd
- anti-vax and conspiracy crowds
- smattering on newbie Karens and general wingnuts
- a ‘Free Julian Assange’ contingent (presented without comment)
- anti lockdown crowd which has consolidated over 2020
- the usual far right agitator crowd
- anti-vax and conspiracy crowds
- smattering on newbie Karens and general wingnuts
- a ‘Free Julian Assange’ contingent (presented without comment)
Got some similar vibes to early reclaim australia and I think the fact that they are building capacity is something to take seriously as a threat even though they are goofy as hell
@slackbastard @Utopiana tag anyone else who will find this interesting
Oh I almost forgot a couple of dudes took the opportunity to flash a quick Nazi salute on their way out before heading down Parliament station.... just in case you hadn’t already got a sense of things.
