I know when freedom is a right it has no taste, because you take it for granted, like breathing. That‘s the freedom of a motorcycle ride from Melbourne to Sydney, on back roads where no one knows where you are unless you call them.
It’s the freedom of meeting a mate at a cafe, or a tinder date in the hope of a hook up, without having the waiter police your passport.
It’s the freedom of going for a walk in the evening, under the moonlight, and the possums, without ever once being concerned that your neighbours will dob you in for breaking curfew, or that the next car will be a police car and you could end up face down on the nature strip as they handcuff you.
It’s walking around bunnings without the police coming in, because someone’s vaccination passport has turned out to be fake and they’re not sure whose it is, and so they need to recheck everyone’s, and even though you know yours is legit, you’ll be oddly worried that it isn’t.
It’s the freedom of being able to be naturally and publicly disgusted when the police shove an old woman to the floor and pepper spray her face. The freedom to be so appalled that you join the chorus of citizens demanding the officers are sacked and charged.
It is not the freedom of staying silent in your staff room as some louder person, says it serves her right for that old woman shouldn’t have been there, or that she was a plant. Or worse, it’s not the freedom of being forced to agree with them, even though you know it’s a lie, just so others in the staffroom won’t suspect that you stand with the fallen old woman, whose prostrate body won’t leave your silent thoughts.
It’s the tasteless freedom of going shopping without storm troopers, with pellet guns and tupperware shields, barging through and yelling at everyone to get back, as they scour the shops for a few young people, who dared to group up and challenge the government. It’s the freedom to look in a mirror without knowing that it is all a lie. That it is all hollow, and that in that hollowness you now not only live, but know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, even though you will never tell anyone, that you are a coward, and the freedom of that cowardness will feel like a grey stubborn chill infecting your soul, and taste, perhaps, like lemons.
It will be a lemon scented chill that will get even colder as you stand there and watch your child take their fifth booster shot, even though you know that you’ll never know what’s in it.
No, this freedom, for as a vaxxed person you will officially have more freedoms, will be a status you earn and regularly update via a needle.
Routinely you’ll lift your phone to the vaccine passport reader of every store you enter, every show you attend, where you’ll stand back in line, smiling, as you patiently wait for all your children and or your grandchildren and your wife to hold their passports to the reader until it ticks them off as a free person, until one day they’ll turn back and look at you, puzzled, as everyone will look at you, puzzled, because with tears in your eyes, you’ll be smashing the reader with your phone.
Michael Gray Griffith
Because of the Mandates Anna couldn't reach her sister, so she couldn't be there when she died.
Also, in part two, Anna talks openly about her experience with domestic abuse and why she could see the similarities with her relationship with the stage.
Recorded in Altona 4/5/2024
Cafe Locked Out recording Brave Australian Voices
How people feel after talking to cafe locked out
From Anna.
I have been wanting to tell my story for a long time but yesterday i decided to make it real and to tell someone that tuly cares.💗Your hearts must break everyday with the stories you are hearing and I thankyou Michael for giving me and all of us a chance to tell our , my story to someone who genuinely cares.💗
When I saw you tear up during our interview I was very touched and felt sad that you have taken all our pain on board.!! and your courage.
There are so many more things I could have said about my Dear sister.
She was extremely funny and joyous and we called her Hali.
I have another sister and...
We didn’t know where we were going. When we first turned up at the spot that was yesterday’s battle ground, our numbers were so small that the lines of police, including riot and mounted, matched our number. We were jittery but we didn’t move and neither did the police, then as the time ticked by, our numbers grew but not by the numbers we were expecting, or rather hoping for.
At one point the police moved forward and we were told to prepare. But they only moved forward a short distance and then they stopped again.
An hour passed like this as the tension of yesterday returned with the same chants. But then the crowd started moving, and when it did we suddenly got to see how many of us there were. We were no longer a pocket of defiance, or as the media portrayed us a load of right wing extremists, we were a river of people whose demands were simple. We wanted choice, and no segregation. Or in old speak, freedom. And not just for ourselves, but for our country, for our kids.
At parliament the police ...
Stop making me do this, he said as he pounded my head into the ground with his plastic shield. Stop making me do this.
I’m not making you do it, I said, though I don’t know if he heard me above all the yelling and screaming.
Next to me, Giuseppe Grasso an Italian man, short and stocky was being pounded too. On the steps of the shrine we had interlinked arms as the police, dressed like storm troopers, finally came in. But Giuseppe was strong, and he refused to let my arm go, forcing the officers to wrench us apart.
Finally, our link broken, I was thrown to the ground and cuffed, which felt like I’d always thought it would feel. Briefly, as they did this, I had a knee pinned against my upper back, making it very difficult to breath and allowing me to briefly experience what George Floyd must have felt. I actually wondered if this was where I would die, for there was nothing I could do as I heard them ask, “Are you happy now? Aye, are you happy?”
Finally I was dragged up and led to a grassy area where they sat me on...
