Nice to hear your voice and and receive your wisdom, mate!!

I was fairly 'active' back in the 90's... we had a massive protest and blockade at the World Economic Forum here in Melbourne (ironically, it was September 11, 2000 — a year before 9/11). It was an amazing and wonderfully creative blockade, with lots of art, costumes, music, workshops.... it was more like a festival!

And then on the 2nd night, the stormtroopers emerged and literally bashed the crowd. It was horrific. I'm not sure I can even describe it how fucked up it was, what was a peaceful protest (and a massive one) turned into a bloodbath. Police bashing women, kids, etc with truncheons, police horses trampling on people.

The next day, the front page of the paper had a close-up picture of a policeman with rage in his eyes (like he was coked up or something) strangling a protester who was clearly in pain. The headline read something like "Violent protesters attack" or something. Basically, nothing further to the truth of what had actually happened.

I realised then that something wasn't right. Other people I knew who weren't there were telling me how violent the protest was, and I was like... "you weren't there, and that is not what was happening"... cognitive dissonance and believing the narrative the media created. That pretty much was the end of activism for me, as I realised it didn't matter a jot what we did, the media, corporations, government, etc... just didn't care about 'public opinion' and do whatever the fuck they want. Marching through the streets is simply not going to work anymore.

Keep up the good work!
😊🙏🏽☯️