On 16 March this year, around 112,000 people marched in Melbourne, Australia, against the policies of its government that are clearly against any principles of decency, fairness, social justice or just plain humanity.
It was one of many marches across Australia that day for the same purpose – some of the largest in the country’s history – yet you probably never heard of it. No surprise – even the Australian media chose to almost completely ignore the protest, focusing instead on the St Patrick’s Day revelries that took place the following day.
All the while, state governments are pushing through laws against protesting with penalties of up to two years’ imprisonment.
In October 2012, I was one of hundreds of thousands of people marching through London in protest against our own (excuse for a) government’s policies of victimisation and demonisation of ordinary people to smooth the way for draconian penalisation of poverty and infirmity in order to fund tax cuts for the richest.
‘Our’ media almost entirely ignored the protest, except for the few that chose to highlight booing of one section of a speech by Labour leader Ed Miliband by a tiny section of the crowd.
Last year, well over 50,000 people took to the streets of Stafford to protest against the government’s decision to close an absolutely essential local hospital. I posted spine-tingling images of that crowd on this blog – but the mainstream media ignored it almost entirely. Plans for its break-up proceed.
This is the tactic. This is how the ‘powers that be’ hope to get away with robbery-writ-stunningly-large. Press ahead, then either pretend it isn’t happening at all, or else try to twist our thinking into accepting it’s justified.
Don’t let them get away with it.