2021: Year In Review

This time last year, when we neared the end of 2020, we said something along the lines of “after what’s happened this year, 2021 couldn’t possibly be any worse. It should be better.”

Boy, were we wrong.

This year has been like a bad sequel to what was already a terrible movie. It is a film series in which the world is crashing and burning, and everyone is so naïve and panicked that they believe that only the elite among them can save them from total annihilation. The irony in the plot is that the elites are the ones causing the chaos; the so-called saviours of humanity are really their enemies.

Proceeding with this analogy, there have been numerous spoiler alerts of what is to come in this trainwreck of a film. But, like spoilers for a decent show, many do not wish to pay them any heed. Instead, they are lazily labelled conspiracy theories and ignored, much to the detriment of a society seeking to escape this nightmare. Yet the success rate of the ‘conspiracy theorists’ has been extremely high, to the point where they may as well declare themselves oracles.

Given this is a wrap up of the year, what better time to produce a comprehensive list of the conspiracy theories turned realities in 2021?

Of course, we should start with vaccine passports, which are now being utilised to segregate society by vaccination status in several countries and cities around the globe. We were laughed at for suggesting such a system would be implemented but look at where we are now. If you do not get the vaccine, you are locked out of society. If you do not get your booster, your vaccine passport expires and you are treated as if you have not had a single dose of the vaccine.

Next up, the quarantine camps – or, as the elite like to call them, quarantine facilities. Don’t mind the naming of these facilities being so Orwellian it would have any sane person questioning the motives of those who have built them. Take, for example, the Northern Territory and Victoria’s Centres for National Resilience, and the new facility in Queensland, which has been called ‘Wellcamp.’ There is far too much doublespeak going on here that sends a chill down the spine. To make matters worse, positive cases and close contacts in the Northern Territory were being whisked off to these camps by the army. But when critics called them out, labelling the facilities as ‘quarantine camps’ (which they practically are), they were hounded by those supporting such facilities, including individuals in the media, who claimed they were nothing of the sort and instead were more like a resort for people who needed to quarantine for a couple of weeks. But is it truly a resort when you are forced into it and cannot leave, let alone step off the balcony of your unit?

In addition to these two more significant theories turned reality, the following were also labelled ‘conspiracy theories’: the vaccinated can spread the virus, boosters every three to six months (we’re already down to three in several places, including the UK and Australia, with the European Union looking to follow suit), segregation based on vaccination status, unvaccinated people being denied work, contracts between Pfizer and governments, and making access to medical care difficult for unvaccinated individuals.

Oh, and despite many claiming it was insane to even consider this to be true, there are also people getting microchips installed in their hands or wrists so their information, including their vaccination status, is readily accessible. (If you don’t believe me, just look up what’s happening in Sweden. It’s mental.)

Much like what happens to film critics, the critics of this dystopic horror film were attacked, many being censored and silenced to limit their voice in the public sphere. As things progressively worsened throughout the year, those calling out the atrocities being committed by politicians and health bureaucrats against the people of their nations were labelled all sorts of unsavoury terms. Those in power spoke out against them, calling them ‘crazy,’ ‘dangerous,’ ‘lunatics’ or the like, doing all they could to discredit what they were saying to make us appear deluded.

Many of us who could see the parallels between the medical tyranny espoused through COVID-19 and the actions that led to the abominations committed by the Nazi regime were degraded. But what those who chastised us for drawing such parallels failed to recognize was that we were not saying this was the Holocaust; we were merely pointing out that the roads being travelled now were disturbingly similar to those travelled by previous authoritarian regimes of the past. The ‘papers please’ mentality that had been adopted by governments around the world was practically the same as what occurred in the beginnings of Nazi Germany. It has become even more concerning in recent months, with Germany and Austria locking unvaccinated people out of society completely. Comically, Germany imposed a rule whereby euthanasia could only be accessed by those who had been fully vaccinated, which means you have to be vaccinated if you want to die. But Austria took the covid totalitarianism even further by imposing nationwide vaccine mandates and asking for vaccinated people to come forward to work for the government in hunting down any unvaccinated individuals remaining after the mandate comes into effect in February.

The COVID era has brought to light the authoritarians among us, and has exposed much hypocrisy, especially in our leaders. Many of them have decided not to live by their own rules, excusing themselves from the mandates they impose on everyone else. But there are more people becoming privy to this. They are seeing politicians trip over their own feet. Minor parties are rising like a phoenix from the ashes of the major parties, who are bleeding supporters left, right and centre.

And this brings us to some of the finer moments of the year, the moments that brought some elation into our lives despite all the attempts to break us. Because the COVID era has also demonstrated the strong will of the individual in the face of relentless attacks on their rights, freedoms, livelihoods, jobs, families, friends – practically all they have.

At the forefront were the protests, so great in magnitude and growing stronger every week. Not only did people turn out in incredible numbers in major cities around Australia, including Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane, but also in nations around the world. The weekly protests in France were a sight to behold, tens of thousands turning out each week to make their voices heard to a government that was trying to force them into submission. When vaccine passports came into effect, people sat on the streets outside restaurants sharing food and company to demonstrate that they would not be excluded from society, nor exclude others. And, most recently, in Vienna, and outpouring of protestors graced the streets to show their leaders that they vehemently opposed vaccine passports.

Speaking of the French, it was a rough year for Macron this year, as he learnt that not everything is set in stone and that people can actually change their minds. The submarine saga saw the French President acting like a petulant child when they do not get their way, upset that the Australian government would back out of the ridiculous submarine deal struck in the Turnbull era and instead strike a new agreement with the US and UK governments. Macron subsequently threw a fit at the G20 Summit, which the Australian mainstream media lapped up. The Chinese were also upset to hear that Australia was getting nuclear subs, but they should not be too disappointed given we probably won’t have them for at least a decade.

Meanwhile, in the United States, Joe Biden was making a fool of himself in his first year as President. Gas prices soared, as did crime levels in Democrat held cities. Kamala Harris kept cackling every chance she got, the administration kept Biden away from the press as much as possible, and Jen Psaki spun a web of lies. While the chaos that is the Biden administration ensued, Trump continued to live rent free in their heads. When anything went wrong, they somehow managed to find a way to blame him. The Democrats must be practiced archers, given the incredulous number of long bows they were drawing. But the Dems also had trouble within their own ranks, with Democrat Senator Joe Manchin voting against their agenda multiple times throughout the year, most recently putting a pin in the infamous Build Back Better bill. Dr Fauci continued to do all he could to keep the covid narrative alive and deny the lab leak theory, although once the truth emerged it appeared he had lied to Congress, a federal felony for which Senator Rand Paul referred him for investigation. And, of course, who could forget the Let’s Go Brandon chant, which fast became the catch cry of those opposed to Biden’s government. All our Christmases came at once when he uttered the phrase himself at Christmas.

While UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson denied a Christmas Party that members of his government had and Canadian PM Justin Trudeau trapped his own citizens in the country, the only way out being the vaccine, after somehow managing to get re-elected, Australia had several plot twists of its own.

After being viewed as the only seemingly level-headed Premier in the country, Gladys Berejiklian plunged NSW into months of lockdown, only to end up resigning after the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) announced an investigation into her surrounding her dealings with former MP Daryl Maguire. Subsequent to her departure, a shootout began in the NSW Liberal Party. Three MPs in total resigned, forcing by-elections in their seats. The Deputy Premier John Barilaro also fell flat, leaving a spot open for contention in the National Party. The scramble persisted for only a brief time until deals were done and Dominic Perrottet somehow managed to emerge as the victor, much to the celebration of Conservatives across the state, albeit with a little disappointment that Matt ‘Green’ Kean was now the Treasurer. But it did not take long at all for Dom to disappoint and show us all that he was just another politician, unable to keep his promises.

Meanwhile in Victoria, former Labor MP Adem Somyurek, having undergone interrogation by the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC), made a surprise return to state Parliament to spite Daniel Andrews by voting against his permanent pandemic Bill. Unfortunately, despite the amusement that Somyurek’s antics brought to Australians, it was not enough to bury the bill, which passed after crossbencher Rod Barton did a deal with the Andrews government.

And finally, we must not forget that this year has seen new variants of the virus emerge. For most of the year Delta was the talk of the town. That was until a subsequent variant revealed itself. When it came to naming the new variant, the Greek Alphabet method was continued. However, this time there was a slight alteration, whereby the World Health Organization (WHO) politely skipped over the letter Xi so as not to offend their Chinese overlords and went straight to Omicron. Next up is Pi.

2021 has been a year full of tyranny, absurdity, and absolute insanity. Definitions have been changed, including those of ‘vaccine’ and ‘anti-vaxxer,’ which now comprises anyone who merely opposes vaccine mandates. The same people that have told us constantly to “trust the science” think gender is fluid and cannot seem to comprehend basic biology. The Science™ has become a religion, people worshipping it like a golden calf. Practically every politician is now a wannabe dictator. And those who are voices of reason are cast out as crazy conspiracy theorists. Logic has become a rare and priceless commodity. Much like the volcano in La Palma, just when the chaos is over, it bursts back into life creating more havoc and destruction.

If 2020 was the first film in a dystopic film series, and 2021 was the sequel, 2022 may well be the third installment in a terrible trilogy. But how much worse will it get? Will people line up like good subservient slaves to Big Pharma to get their third and fourth doses and subsequent ‘boosters’ every time the government says jump? Will politicians be able to maintain their power now that a more infectious but less deadly variant is on the loose? Will the ‘conspiracy theorists’ finally be widely believed? Will we see endless jokes about Pi/pie? Will this chaos and hysteria all finally come to an end?

It is all up to you.

Think of 2022 as a choose your own adventure film, but a special one where the choices you make could bring the medical tyranny that has plagued the world for the last two years crashing down or build it up even more to the point where we are beyond saving.

If we truly want to leave this world of dystopic tendencies behind us, we must be prepared to fight back hard in 2022. We must be willing to defend our liberty, and to stand up and say no. This goes for all people, regardless of your beliefs, your vaccination status, or whether or not you have been affected in any way by arbitrary rules and restrictions. We can either descend further into the rabbit hole of tyranny which only leads to a tragic ending as in 1984, or we can rise to the occasion and put a heroic end to government overreach like the people did in V for Vendetta.

We should not speak too soon about 2022 being better than 2021, given when we said last year that 2021 would be better than 2020, we were way too ahead of ourselves. 2022 does have the potential to be a year of good change. But, like all good things, it is not going to come easily.

So as we bid farewell to 2021,  let us consider what we want to see in 2022. Hopefully, we can all agree it is time for change. The power for change lies in the people. It is up to you to make a difference.

So Much For Perrottet’s Personal Responsibility

Last week, most restrictions in NSW were lifted in what was celebrated as “Freedom Day.” Premier Dominic Perrottet scrapped useless QR codes and mask mandates and allowed unvaccinated people back out into society. He said it was time for the people of NSW to take personal responsibility, as it should have been from the start. But, as predicted by those of us who have seen this all before, it was far too early to be celebrating.

For an entire week, the mainstream media pelted the Premier with questions about lifting restrictions right before Christmas just after the Omicron variant had begun to spread and cases were increasing. They put pressure on him to reinstate restrictions, including QR codes and mask mandates but Perrottet stood firm, refusing to do so and reiterating the notion of personal responsibility, saying that the government were now treating people like adults (which goes to show they have had a mentality for the past two years where they have considered themselves the parents of everyone living in the state, treating us all like children). In some sense, it seemed promising.

But on Thursday morning, two days prior to Christmas, Perrottet capitulated to the demands of the fearmongers, reinstating QR code check-ins in all retail and hospitality venues across the state. People acted as if this was not a big deal, taking issue with those who were concerned about it. But they had every right to be dismayed by this backflip. It was not simply the restoration of QR codes that was the problem, but the principle of the matter. The fact that Perrottet had backtracked on QR codes was cause for concern that he would do the same on mask mandates and other restrictions, quite possibly including vaccine passports, most likely post-Christmas and New Year. It did not take long at all for the Premier to prove us right.

Mere hours after announcing the return of QR codes disappointing Dom caved even further, reimposing mask mandates and density measures. That freedom he promised lasted little more than a week. So much for personal responsibility; so much for treating us like adults.

The whole concept of personal responsibility lies in people being able to quite literally take responsibility for themselves. They assess their own risk and live accordingly. If they consider the virus to pose a greater risk to them, they might choose to limit their movement. Others who are not so concerned may live more normally, unperturbed by the virus. It is a fantastic way of living because it actually allows people to live.

The only people that appear to have a problem with personal responsibility are those who just want the government to run their lives for them. They are the same people who beg for restrictions to be reimposed as soon as they are scrapped. For some strange and utterly insane reason, they actually enjoy life under the thumb of authoritarianism. It could easily be argued that living that way is not living at all. It is actually more dangerous than living with COVID-19.

Authoritarian rule has, historically, led to great atrocities being committed against the people by their governing powers. It ends in destruction and death. Yet people have now become so dumbed down by the never-ending cycle of fearmongering and panic that they have succumbed to a psychosis which renders them ignorant to reality. They actively want to be ruled, they want to be told what to do. They lack independent thought. They have completely bought into the fear at the expense of their own freedom and rationality.

A rational mind, on the other hand, would consider the fact that case numbers were increasing before QR codes and masks were removed last week and ask what exactly reimposing them now is going to achieve. They would consider that Omicron is a mild form of the virus, which is nowhere near as deadly as previous strains. Rather, it is more infectious, but this is not unexpected. Viruses mutate to survive longer in their host population. If a virus mutates to become extremely fatal, it will kill off its hosts before it can spread, thus killing itself off in the process. This has happened in the past with several highly fatal viruses, including filoviruses like Ebola and Marburg. In these cases, once the infection is contained, it is merely a waiting game to see if the patient/s survive the virus.

In the case of Omicron, COVID-19 has mutated to become more infectious but less deadly. This is so that it can infect more people and survive longer in the human population rather than eradicating itself. As has been seen around the world, the vast majority of cases of this variant have nothing more than a mild illness which they recover from fairly quickly.

It should therefore be expected that case numbers will continue to increase, but this should not be cause for panic. In fact, many in the medical industry have said that Omicron could increase natural immunity in the population, which would result in greater resilience to COVID-19 and a subsequent decrease in infections. Even the Chief Health Officer of Queensland, Dr John Gerrard, said that:

“Not only is the spread of this virus inevitable, it is necessary.

We all have to have immunity, you will all have to develop immunity, and there’s two ways you can do that: by being vaccinated or getting infected.”

As to measures of protection, most are futile. The vaccine will not protect you from Omicron, let alone COVID-19, given it does not prevent transmission nor infection. You are not morally superior nor heroic for getting the vaccine. You can still contract and spread the virus. Masks have clearly not been curbing infections, given they have continued to increase despite mask mandates previously. And, contrary to popular opinion, QR codes are not going to help ease the burden on the healthcare system, because with the high infection rate of Omicron, every man and their dog is a close contact. Even the Prime Minister admits this to be true, saying that QR codes are pointless because, as the UK has taught us, everyone ends up as a close contact.

There is no doubt in my mind that the tremendous backflip Dominic Perrottet has just performed came at the behest of the mainstream media and Health Minister Brad Hazzard. Their dirty little paws are all over it. But Perrottet should not have capitulated to people who thrive on fear and division. If anything, he has once again demonstrated that he is just another politician lacking a backbone.

Dominic Perrottet is just Gladys in a suit.

The Liberal Party Never Learns

“The situation is telling of a party devoid of morality and respectability. They are no longer a party of sensibility, of reason, or of decent economic management. Instead, they are stumbling around in the dark – flailing about trying to save themselves by pleasing everyone – but they have tripped over their own feet and managed to lose their base instead.”

The Liberal Party have well and truly lost their way. They are a far cry from what they should be. And they will need a miracle to survive.

Read my latest for The Spectator Australia here.

Did We Learn Anything From 2021?

“That said, the absolute sorry state of society has shed light on significant issues that must be addressed, and valuable lessons that we all must learn, if we hope to avoid further insanity in the coming years and well into the future.”

In my latest piece for The Spectator Australia, I delve into the important lessons the last two years of the COVID-19 era have taught us. Read it here.

Whatever Happened To The National Roadmap?

“The National Roadmap has fast become a thing of the past in only a matter of a few months. Politicians have demonstrated to us time and time again that they cannot be trusted. It is time to stop putting your faith in those who claim they are “leaders” and start believing those who are genuine in what they say.”

Despite agreeing to a National Roadmap out of lockdowns and restrictions mere months ago, each State has veered off course and gone their own way, tightening restrictions when they should be lifting them.

Read all about how each State has failed to adhere to the agreement in my piece for The Spectator Australia here.