Melburnians have taken their anger to Dictator Dan Andrews for a second day by defying his quasi-military lockdown.

Today, it was reported that “hundreds” of freedom protesters hit the streets bound for an anti-lockdown rally at Victoria Markets. Tensions rose at around 11.45 am as protesters faced-off with Dan’s Blue Army (They wear black really) on Peel Street before making their way to the markets where a huge police presence awaited them.

Chanting “Freedom” and “Power to the people”, anti-lockdown protesters at one point allegedly grabbed fruit from nearby stalls and hurled it at police. That’s what the media says anyway, and who knows whose side they’re on from one day to the next? If the media tells you the sun will rise tomorrow it’s best to seek another opinion.

Aside from other claims, a protester kicked a police horse and bananas were thrown at Dan’s Blue Army, the gathering was largely ‘peaceful’. That’s a word that’s taken on contradictory meanings in the wake of Portland’s Antifa riots, so we thought we’d be cute by using it. ‘Peaceful’ in media jargon can now mean anything up to and including World War 3.

In point of fact, it was very noisy — raucous even — with hysterical shouting coming from the crowd, who could be heard expressing sentiments of fear about the government and shaming Dan’s Army for their heavy-handedness. One woman was treated for shock as she faced an “iron ring” of armoured police, while police wrestled a man to the ground with the assistance of mounted cops. Another man was tackled but managed to break free and run away from the police. Elsewhere, protesters were picked off and led away. One man wearing a bandanna was issued an on the spot fine. He yelled, “Dude, I’m scared. I don’t even know how I’m going to pay this fine.” Turning on the cops he added, “Heartless, soulless people. We’ve all lost faith!”

Little wonder that the police were the focus of the crowd’s anger; an understandable response to the apparent glee with which VicPol has mishandled men, women, and pensioners during this illegal lockdown and curfew. After all, absolute power corrupts; yet to corrupt VicPol any further you would need the intervention of the devil himself. Not a shred of civic identity or human empathy remains in the men and women of Victoria Police, which outnumbered the protesters, and included the public response unit. Yet, no government buildings were set alight, so in that sense it was peaceful. However, it would be inaccurate to describe the mood thus, as Melbournians, sick of being treated like the poor slum-dwellers of El Salvador, were clearly expressing a boiling sentiment they hope that Dictator Dan heeds.

Evidently, organisers are banking on similar protests being mounted and eventually overwhelming Dan’s apparatus of illegal control. While police have trimmed the participation of previous events, today’s showdown was organised using encrypted apps to rally protesters. This enabled those involved to keep the rally’s location secret.

According to the Herald-Sun, organisers advised people to “be agile like water” and stay together in the main group, to make it harder for the cops to disassemble their gathering.

“Be ready to swarm the location to assemble. Once we have assembled, we are all safe,” another message said.

The organiser, whose identity was gleaned from social media posts under the alias Arkwell Tripelligo, is Tony Pecora. Last week, the 43-year-old was arrested and charged with inciting protest activity. During the hearing, the court heard that Pecora believes COVID-19 is a “genetically engineered virus created by world banks to kill off weaker humans.”

Right, so we’ll stop things there. Let’s be frank about this, many in the crowd were undeniably of the tinfoil oeuvre. If Mr Pecora believes the virus was created by “world banks” — and god knows what drugs he needed to be hooked by that conspiracy theory — all he’s doing is letting China off the hook. It seems people are forgetting who started this. If he wants to peddle an unsubstantiated but plausible theory, he should be blaming Beijing for engineering the virus as some Chinese doctors have claimed.

Some aren’t championing these protesters as “heroes”. These folks believe anyone breaking Victoria’s strict Kung Flu Stage-Four lockdown restrictions are endangering others. Those who question the China Virus should take a look at its potential. While Australia has largely contained the damage, in the U.S., the numbers are stark. Compared to those who died of the emergent AIDS epidemic in the years 1981-83 when it was recognised, the number of dead was 1,292 (notwithstanding those who passed away before it was determined to be a disease). Remember, that was over three years. Coronavirus hasn’t yet been with us for one year and it’s killed over 150 times more than AIDS.

Naturally, the comparison of the diseases ends there, since AIDS mainly killed gays, but in terms of a recognised epidemic and, well, let’s face it, pandemic, Kung Flu’s destructive power cannot be ignored. Currently, medical science is some ways to curing AIDS, but it’s taken nearly four decades.

Australian cases of AIDS, the first of which occurred in Melbourne in 1983, spread between ’83 and ’85 infected 4,500. The total of deaths compared to the U.S., again, is quite low, measuring from ’83 to 1996, infections aside, deaths are estimated by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) at around 5.100. So far, in Australia, the number of deaths from C-19 stands at 803 at the time of writing, 704 of those in Victoria. Medical experts differ in opinion, and there are those concerned more with economic recovery than human safety, but having said, is lockdown necessarily the cure? By the evidence of those figures it appears so, yet Sweden, a country which because of its wokeness deserves to suffer more deaths than any other country, lists 5,846. This is out of a population of 10 million. These figures have been touted as having laughed in the face of lockdown measures. We would have to disagree while taking into account that Sweden hasn’t the advantages of Australia, in that we are a continent sufficiently isolated. Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that pro-economic voices diverge from pro-humanitarian and that recent boasts of Sweden’s success by media are dubious after you weigh it on a per capita basis with Australia. Again, we also concede that Sweden is much smaller than Australia, so that must be factored in.

Nevertheless, others seem to believe that more danger is being done by the restrictions, which came from no medical authority but were purely on Dictator Dan’s orders to enact. Many perceive this as being purely about “control” and nothing about Andrews behaviour contradicts that opinion. If you are hoping for us to make a definitive pronouncement, all we can say is that Andrews has exceeded all that is reasonable and tolerable.

As to the lockdown, must it be so severe? We have not the expertise to say so, but Andrews alone definitely doesn’t. While ultimately such decisions come down to the Premier, they must be guided by the advice of those whose opinion is informed by their professional skill and expertise, which in this case, does not mean political. Andrews hasn’t listened to anyone but his wife and drug dealer. Probably.

Moreover, while sticking it to Andrews, remember too that anger should be directed at Beijing, which, when focused on Andrews, is pretty much the same thing anyway.

Speaking of which, ’old jug ears had this to say about the protesters as he signed off on another four weeks of misery for Melburnians. “Protesting is selfish, protesting is stupid and protesting is dangerous and if you do it, you will be dealt with.”