Invasion Day Sydney 2017: Crawling under stones for Barnaby and upsetting Gladys on her first days in her new job

Newtown pavement poster

This from the Sydney Morning Herald 25 January 2017 : me summary like no disrespect to the reporter: Gladys was "Disappointed". Yer can protest, that's democracy boot not on the sacred "Australia Day"- (the very point of the march Gladys- it does not bring everyone together to eat snarlers, chug beer and wrap ourself in union jack stamped flags).

And then the beasts marching burnt flags and took on the police! Errr, one person tried to burn a flag before the tactical riot squad over tackicked in trying to put out flag with a fire extinguisher and a phalanx rush of blue romper suited and armed police. Most who saw it thought it was an overreaction when the police had done a good job in not getting in the way of the march. It were a peaceful march except for the one incident Gladys-the police even said so.

Voters, youth on the march, miserable Barney-Dont think so

And attempting to burn a flag compared to the point of the march?  The organisers who spoke at beginning of march said- for the majority of the first people this, the arrival of the first fleet day is not a celebration it is a memorial day of the start of genocide and slaughter of their people. Like the old uncle who said most of his people were murdered and he is one of the survivors grown from that generation who still feel the pain of their loss. Something visceral in peoples lives you don't just get over, it is still ongoing, reverberating, hurting, an almighty bloodied, weeping sore on this land called Australia. People on this march Premier, expressed themselves in the most appropriate way to our community-that they could not and would not celebrate this Australia Day until it does truely bring people together. As for Barnaby Rubble wishing all those who marched in similar protests across the country to hide themselves under stones as we are just plain miserable. Actually Mr Rubble, that were not my experience of the event-not only were there a whole lot of kids and younger people looking owt but miserable. Angry sometimes, shoutey but enjoying the company, the march and in expressing the issues they believed in. Post Trump Barney, better get used to people hitting the streets, signing petitions, picketing your electoral offices, parliaments, oh and not voting for you because you don't have a vision for your country despite all the hype dragged out each Australia Day.

Those who marched did so to show our support to first people. To listen. To share. To stand shoulder to shoulder on issues so uncomfortable they make my balls itch. And my conscience says instead of being disappointed or calling us misery guts raining on the myth that is Australia Day, lets fix stuff. So we don't keep having the conversation about deaths in custody, stolen generations and saying sorry means we won't do it again. Don Long anyone? Northern Territory intervention based on lies but still ongoing. Last but not least I marched because Kev Carmody is my national treasure, he and the organisers of this march are my people and I love them one and all!!!

Oh dear, stop the presses. The 20 year old man arrested for attempting to burn the flag is affiliated to the wild greens!!! Left Renewal. Granny Herald tells it in shock and awe-I think in this country we have lost the plot around social action-it was only a flag. He was not attacking someone-it is a gesture, a political action and a flag that is quarter owned by Queen Lizzie-time to move on people. A point has been made and a bit of blue, white and red material harmed. Surely not grounds to rush in and arrest someone. Or fur Granny Herald to get itself in a tangle of tiara an' populist megaphone. And Left Renewal are not blurry anarchists! That mob woudda ha burned every blurry flag and pocket handkerchief an' then some!!!!

err Glad! Pay attention

That blurry Ken told a joke and dropped the F bomb

Socialist alliance making a call

Young Zac from MUA paying his respects

Now when we burn the flag you send in riot squad

David Shoebridge

Look at 'em! Miserable one and all! How dare they protest on this sacred day

Blurry MUA flags framin' an SBS interview

Leaving Redfern

Come on people make Barney happy-back oonder yer stones 

Yabun and Marlene Cummins on stage

Wee Jessie showing' us misery-well it were C&W

Ms Cummins dancing to Route 66 after her uplifting set

Kev Carmody, champion! National treasure and bloody ace more grunt than a dingo on steroids and playing through pain

Enter stage left the ghost of 2016 dressed as 2017...wearing a wig with a mouth like a puckered anus

"Whoa now people let me tell you 
Oh, now people let me tell you where the money is
It's lying and cheating and thieving and dealing"  

Dan Sultan "Money" from Making Waves (A Gadigal Music compilation)

There moost be summat in watta or wurld is off to shite in a handcart! 2016 was more bitter than a pint drawn from the bottom of a keg of a landlord with piles an' splintered teeth. Oh aye there were threads of decency in the wurld at large. Boot it were a struggle to connect these. I am still trying to make sense of the insensible with the Don Long outrage that lasted all of five minutes while the aunties combusted in grief and rage an the deaths in custody continue and there is still no glimmer of justice for any of this*. The folk of Australia seem to prefer to adopt ongoing blindness to detention centres, refugees and indifference to those in the world fleeing war and dying to reach safety. Not in my back yard syndrome and they only have themselves to blame for not being born in a more stable country. And the wars, like cancers destroying and killing indiscriminately. The green fanged rotten rise of the white supremacists. uber nationalists; who live among us in comfortable bigotry and a unique form of snarler eating , canned beer drinking, flag wrapped (and one with enough union jack to go "Oh I say old chap" in it) patriotism. Go figure! The neo libs and their variety of bed mates continue to wallow in greed while telling the disenfranchised to tuck in their tummies and take one for team Australia.

Unions to capitalism-bring back a strong united union movement

Boot we need to wake up in 2017! We are in danger of losing much of what we have taken granted. Sooch as our daughters growing up to do and be what they want as human beings. Sooch as that diversity is not a bad thing and being Australian is complex and ever evolving-not some 1950's charade of the world as was but actually never was. Nowhere is stable if we continue to suckle ignorance and indifference to the plight of others. We cannot keep being the Christmas Turkey that keeps giving to the fat cats. Shall I spread more dripping across me drumsticks as I go down the conveyor belt of life towards the oven marked "Bird your fooked!" It is a national shame that a tiny minority (and mostly men-based on consistently depressing economic research which shows  a majority of rich white men getting richer) are sucking the marrow out of our bones. Then they tell us, the people, there is no other solution but to privatise, steal from the poor, disenfranchised and disadvantaged. Because it is the "leaners" who are dragging us all down - not the robber barons and the entitled. Stealing from within the law is still stealing - like using taxes to fund your holidays and pretending to do a bit of electoral business to legitimise expenses. In the same mouthful they are all berating us that white men are taking such big hits to their esteem and are going to fight back to readjust the balance of power-tipped sideways by all those crazy, rampaging women and uppity people of colour! We've just gone too far in this equality business!!!

The rise of the right and the level of debate

Some days I am breathless with the improbability of it all. Boot for me the pledge of 2017 is its one foot in front of other. No point in being demoralised, better to get out and talk to folk, march sign petitions. Boot more so, educate yerself on the issues. Listen to what is actually being said and learn to listen by watching the weasel folk who don't want you know their real business. Make it your business to question their business (trust holdings, off shore accounts and dodgy accounting, no taxes paid and all). As their coffers grow by taking from yours ask yerself why do they deserve so mooch more? If you are on forty grand to do front line work in yer office and yer CEOs on three hundred grand- what makes what they do so important? Other than sending yer job off shore where they pay someone so much less who has to work harder, while they pat themselves on the back with a series of golden handshakes from having had to graft. Their sweat is the nectar our society is built on? Bollocks! They're joost having a laugh while pissing on us from a great height.

We the people do need to get involved, engaged and draw a line between what we accept in our name and do not accept. Sooch as burst the bubble of Pauline Hanson's myth grubbing and riffing on white Australia. Taking a stand is not a bad thing. Wanting a better life and in a society where we care what happens to one another is not a bad thing. Wanting to give our kids and their kids a better future means us doing the work now to ensure the world can be a better place. That avoiding getting into wars, being played like chooks at a raffle by politicians who think we are so dumb we cannot tell the difference between truth, lies and spin. Get organised. At work join your union, be involved and hold it accountable to help create a more productive and constructive work environment. But hold your bosses to account. Working longer and harder for less income does not a productive society make. Become an activist, yer know it makes sense, because right now, right here on a street near you "Your Planet, its lifeforms, its people NEEDS YOU!" Step up, inform, educate and roar like lions, howl like dingoes and laugh like kookaburras on day release from torpor and step out and democratise. You are not alone!

Vincent Lingari- gone but not forgotten his spirit marches on

* Buy "Ms Dhu" (featuring Felix Riebl and Marliya) and listen and weep. One more outstanding first people's song of pain and anguish to add to mix.

Hennies on the march: Sydney Womens March 21 January 2017

As Mr Donovan (MUA) said there were summat grand aboot a march with seven thousand girls and women and aboot thousand* of their support team oonder instruction not ta get in way and interfere with owt. It were the Womens March in Sydney, in part to show opposition to yon Trump but more to remind folk of the need fer social activism. As me mate Wiremu said, if we all just did summat like close our bank account at the big end of town and give our business to a more ethical money lender (if there is sooch a thing); or stopped buying Apple oontill they pay their proper (and not monopoly money) taxes. That is social activism. Boot the message of this afternoon was if oonly we cared for one another and stopped picking the scabs of our small differences and instead concentrated our energies on change to what could be a decent society. Stand oop for justice.
Be counted on the issues our previous generations fought for. Yer know, all those unrealistic lefty things that get in the way of men making themselves rich. Sooch as a living wage, sick leave, holiday pay, maternity leave, penalty rates, subsidised childcare, reasonable access to education, healthcare, being looked after when yer awld, pensions, equality, the right not to live in fear or be owned by a man. I know red to the rims them blurry things.  What were those oldies thinking when they threw themselves in front of horses or chained themselves to fences and marched from Tyneside down to London. Boot what were great today were the young uns out in force. An although tilting at Trumpalism was visible there was plenty local flavour, in particular the fiery speech from Wiradjuri Aunty Jenny Munro who brought the park down with her statement that know she was the matriarch of her mob, they would have to listen and we had better listen because until we understand the struggle in this red land starts with addressing the injustices to our indigenous folk we will not be progressive or able to make a decent, more equal society.

The artist as protestor 

Aye, it were a softer, more colourful march than many Mr Donovan and I had been on as of recent times. Its what cooms with hanging oot with old hairy bellied unionists with an intricate knowledge of Mr Marx (the beardy one). I saw very few polis than say at the average oppositional front oop from the likes of Reclaim Australia. (The 'fascists are oos' group that pretends to be joost decent average white racist Australians. Who have an allergy to Islam, anyone of colour (and on one confrontation long ago in Martin (Big Bank) Place I heard one of them tell one of the first people that if they did not like Australia they should go back to where ever it were they come from. Sigh.) Then in light of today, their general view of women, is to know their place, being subservient or punch bags and lastly to scorn owt they think is not in their dictionary definition of common sense.) And not ta forget their dislike of the likes of oos (trade unions, anarchos, communists, Greens (well most)-they'd have us off ta yon Gulag one an all). An after today's march the news media ABC or New Matilda or the like reported some supremacists mounted their own tiny fingered 'God Bless You Mr Trump!' Counter demonstration at bottom of Martin Place; of no more than forty people with their faces hid and great big Australian flag thingeys to wrap themselves in in case they needed the Johnny Howard comfort stop with all those wild women hormones zinging around being busy multi skilling issues. Boot it were the women and girls that this show of togetherness was all about and it were a privilege to be part of summat with so much positive energy. As for yon tosser in social media said "it were no place for a straight white male to be on a summer's afternoon". You might want to invest in a dummy, coat it with honey, sit on a mat and have a little quiet time to reflect on what a twat you are. Women, like our first people are far more forgiving than we deserve and just blurry good company.

Fight like girls

This march were the best of women as community in action. Teaching bairns that you have to be visible. Be brave to take a stand and the first step is to get out to summat like this. Second is to start those conversations with those amongst that truly believe Trump or Hanson are for the people-well people as the disenfranchised, disabled, young, migrants. Because folk are feeling disenfranchised. Boot nationalism, being self righteous in ignorance is not a solution. And the posters and banners and t-shirts reflected joost that, multiple issues to set you thinking. Like Desmond Tutu's message below. The words bandying about were like bees on a mission to stock hive with enough ale to get through winter. Because make no mistake, as speaker after speaker reminded all there-it's coomin'. Progressives, resistants - knitting nanas, the first people, The CEO of Food Harvest (who as a South African reminded oos of segregation an' what they were like but telling' its already set root in Australia), socialist alliance, and the MUA again out in force providing support-but no sign of the Labor Party or Greens. It were a grand march to set the year off but one of many to come. Invasion Day soon. Boot for those already rushing to say these were joost middle class folk and all man haters. Think again. These were folk with a passion to stand oop and be counted and bringing a creativity of slogans, diverse opinions and views out onto the streets of Sydney. Aye I think Sydney heard yer roar. Long may it rage!

Clever bastard sign**

*Media Sunday morning downgraded numbers on this march to between 4-5 thousand-boot there were two demonstrations going on at both ends of Hyde Park, Sydney. Soom great pictures coomin' in from around the world and some predictable Trump democratically elected get over it and womens voices don't count because these marches are ineffective blogs and posts. Grow up lads! Use yer testicles fer summat useful instead of them making' yer strain with disbelief to think that women might be yer equal and teach you summat about making a decent society and better world and you a better person.

Desmond Tutu's quote

Has to be trade unionist and on a bicycle

Keep the red flag flying

MUA here to stay and support

The good son, boy and man to be

And she made an appearance

MUA and there is only one Jimmy Donovan

And first they came for my person...

**It means respect my existence or expect my resistance-or summat like that

After this march I had the privilege of sitting down with a 94 year old who was too old to attend the march but was there in spirit. We went through the snaps I'd taken and she told me she had worked too hard to make sure her daughters and granddaughters had access to education, health care- life they were in control of- for this to go into reverse. Already Trump is rolling back on the rights of women and civil society and not joost denying climate change but ordering govt agencies to remove any evidence of climate change from official sites...in less than a week. From this march you want to bottle hope for the days ahead!