Extinction Rebellion nutjobs need a dose of reality | Caleb Bond
Blue rinse-haired grannies gluing themselves to the road was amusing but enough is enough, writes Caleb Bond.
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Enough is enough.
These Extinction Rebellion nutjobs have done their dash.
It was almost funny to begin with. Blue rinse-haired grannies gluing themselves to the road was amusing, even if annoying.
But once you reach the point of suspending yourself from a bridge, and paint bombing not only buildings but police officers and family-run cafes in the name of global warming, then you have lost the plot.
Harsher penalties are undoubtedly needed. Increasing the maximum fine for obstructing a public place from $750 to $50,000 is sensible. As is forcing the protesters to pay the costs of emergency services such as police and fireys attending.
But money is transient. You can always earn more of it – that is if you can hold down a job, which I imagine many of these people cannot.
The others are geriatric and left the workforce long ago.
The abseiling ass, Meme Thorne, is 69.
The youngest of the four people charged on Thursday was 49. Two of them were 66 and 68.
They need something to do, I suppose.
But these people need to be taught a real lesson.
If you want to dangle from the Morphett St bridge, go for your life. We’ll just block a lane 10m in each direction and let you hang.
Want to glue yourself to the front door of the Santos building? No problem. Enjoy the motion sickness that ensues from it opening 1000 times a day for people who are actually contributing to the country.
Affix yourself to the road? All good. The coppers can put some bunting around you and let the traffic flow on either side.
Actions have consequences.
When a group of climate activists glued themselves to the concrete floor of the Porsche pavilion at a German Volkswagen dealership last year, the staff simply left at the end of the day, turning off the lights and heating.
One protester later complained that staff refused them a bowl to do their toilet jobs in.
There is an online saying – f**k around and find out. They did exactly that.
Not even two years ago, Victorian police unleashed rubber bullets and pepper spray on mostly peaceful protesters demonstrating against the state’s long, strict and unnecessary Covid lockdowns.
Journalists were arrested and put in divvy vans for reporting from these protests. A 70-year-old woman – posing a threat to nobody – was shoved to the ground and attacked with pepper spray directly to the face by two coppers while she lie there defenceless.
I was living in Melbourne at the time and attended one of these protests as a reporter. The show of force by the police was incredible.
But Extinction Rebellion cuckoos who hold up peak hour traffic and ambulances? They get the softly softly treatment.
Protest is central to democracy, but this is not protest.
In a world without religion – and I write this as an atheist – some people need something to believe in.
Much like religion, these protesters are convinced they are the righteous people. They are saving the world from sin, albeit a different kind.
Through that prism they can justify any kind of behaviour.
It’s time to give them a dose of reality.
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