Had a lot of people angry at me today around my tweet on the #londonprotest . I agree with many of them. Mandates suck, passports suck, and I worry about the government finding more reasons/ways of disempowering people. But my focus is the virus, and what it may do to people.
The virus is relatively equaliser, it doesn't care if you are labor or conservative, rich or poor. The inequalities bred out are societal, not of its making. The government have taken full advantage of the despair and chaos to profit, and certainly advance their agenda.
With legislation around protests, whilst having parties themselves, they have shown themselves to be the selfish malignancies they are. However, I do not align myself with them, but the effort to reduce infection and save lives is a common theme that we all share.
People need to be supported financially as a result of any restrictive measures. People need to be supported. That is key, we would all agree. Do I think a government would use this to disenfranchise their opponents, yes. But I can know that and still realise we need to be safe.
The only comment that stung me today was being equated to Priti Patel. Look through my history, you could not be more wrong. But do I worry about the things you all do? Yes. But we need to survive to protest, we need to prevent lockdowns safely.
Large gatherings will increase the risk of spread, and bring them about. My comments are not about disempowering you, they are about trying to find a way of protecting people without becoming the enemy. That's hard to do, when the approaches overlap in some sense.
But if your doctor is telling you not to smoke, and your government (who you hate) is, its quite clear who to trust. But when your doctor and government are both telling you the same thing, we need to realise that even those who are opposed line up against a common foe.
When this is all done I will be just as likely as you to be protesting any demarcation of our rights. But we need to survive to get there.
tldr: i dont get paid by pharma, priti patel is a comic book witch, BJ is a selfish megalomaniac, lockdowns ruin livelihoods, but people survive. There is no simple win here, only losing less.
Anyway, go ahead, call me whatever. I won't hold a grudge. Keep safe, happy holidays, down with the man.
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