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My company, who I shall leave unnamed, made a big show of R U OK day today. Orange and black balloons flying. Iced cake fit for 200. Spiel by the area manager.

They posted an R U OK thread on the internal comms forum. It filled up quickly with ways employees were not ok. Within 1 hour, many of those comments were deleted. Within 4 hours, all comments were deleted and further comments banned.

I felt this was a suitable metaphor for what many of us have been through in the last 2 years.

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I'm sad to say that your experience doesn't surprise me. So disappointing - when it comes to the crunch, many of these larger companies talk the talk but don't walk the walk.

Would you mind if I share your comment on insta? I can remove your name/bio pic if you would like.

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Anonymising me, I give permission.

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Noted, thank you.

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Ridiculous. What was the point then?

Typical corporate ticking the boxes yet not offering anything of substance apart from cake! Ugh, Let them eat cake...

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Simply complying with their little ESG guidelines mate. They don't give a rats arse how you're doing, at all.

Remember when I quit my job, how my boss reacted? Even though he was the one who was saying to me "life's too short, it isn't worth it" etc?

That's why I refuse to participate in this stuff at work. I've found it's not a good idea to talk about mental health struggles at work. Everyone puts on a show of being accepting, but that's not what's really going on. People silently judge you and gossip about it later, that's what is really going on.

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Ah but the gossip falls on dead ears, dying ears.

What i'm finding disconcerting at the moment is to see how some unvaxxed people have been blackmailed by a purloined letter of sorts. I feel like my current boss was duped into debt or some other unneeded commitment, with their obvious healthiness being capitalized upon by an unscrupulous jabbed business coach.

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Official Company HR Email:

To all staff:

Earlier we asked if you were ok and celebrated today's R U OK day. This is a celebration we honor and we ask you to join us in honoring it in silence.

Anyone who refrains from this official company policy will most certainly not be ok.

Signed,

HR for Mgmt

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Damn funny!!

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Wow! Whoever did that deleating must have felt very threatened! And probably felt like it would just stir up negative emotions in all who read them. Pretty useless way of dealing with problems and strong feelings on the part of employees!

Your assessment could be correct — that the whole thing was just a "feel good" PR stunt that didn't go the way they expected, or, again, it could have just been the inadequacies and emotional immaturity of those doing the deleating.

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With all due respect, since your comment is very sensible and level-headed. But perhaps we are completely and utterly wrong to expect anything even remotely humane from either big business or the government. They are, after all, corporations, and corporations from their very origins and forever are and will solely be concerned with looting and plundering. If they feign any ostensibly charitable cause, or any social sensitivity whatsoever, it is only as subterfuge, because too many well-meaning, decent people easily fall for such trickery, which the corporation manipulates and exploits them with.

Corporations employ conscientious and well-meaning individuals because the corporation needs to represent itself well in order to win the approval of the people. Only when it can justify itself so can it be maximally effective at the devastation it exclusively exists to inflict.

We must face up to this undeniable fact: the corporation is not only anti-human, it is anti-life. It must be abolished.

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Completely agree.

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Interesting point. We are somewhat cap in hand to our employer. I am damned if I shall give them more information than they require. HR are a formidable adversary at the best of times.

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Haha oh dear that makes me laugh and cry at the same time

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“Deleted the comments”. I laughed out loud. I probably shouldn’t have. And our relationship with work, dependence and making real sacrifices, does not lend itself to humor. Your work place is showing you its shadow. Hang in there. Have courage. Be good.

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Stupidity and virtue signaling collided spectacularly at your workplace. Sigh!

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Great post. I was most definitely NOT ok from the moment the jab frenzy started here in Melbourne in about May, 2021 to about October 2021. I nearly lost my mind. The enormity of what was going on shocked me in a way that I never thought possible. I could feel a kind of oppressive malevolence in the atmosphere. It was surreal. Today, I am still not ok, but have come to accept that something truly diabolical is going on and I need to think about ways to actively resist without being shot out of the sky. Nothing is remotely normal and yet most people I know seem to be shuffling around pretending it is still 2019.

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Sun in Capricorn - I could have written what you said. I was also worried they would come to my door and "no" wouldn't be an option. At least 3 premiers mentioned going door to door including Dan Andrews so it's not paranoia as much as it is listening skills.

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I only heard about this once in Perth, but a woman reported in a group that I'm in that a pair of nurses turned up at their door offering to inject the family.

They knew:

a) that they were unvaxxed

b) their address

c) pretty sure they also knew who lived in the household.

The woman declined but they were so spooked that her husband trailed the van and it parked either at the hospital or police station, I can't remember which, I think maybe it was the hospital, but the point is that the van was from an official institution, it was not just randoms posing as nurses. It really put the wind up me that this was happening right here in Perth. And it's only natural to think - if they'll do that, what else will they do? It's only a matter of degrees before they turn up again, but this time with a threat, like what the Balinese man described to me in our conversation:

https://rebekahbarnett.substack.com/p/conversation-with-a-balinese-driver

Do you have any links to premiers saying they would send ppl door to door? Either in print or video? I would like to see it.

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In some South East Asian countries, the military has showed up, albeit in poor areas, and threatened families that if the next time they visit they aren't vaccinated, they'll go to jail. In my view, it is not the case, they had no powers to do it, but I don't know who gave the orders, they certainly didn't try this in well to do areas. Anyone who called the bluff as far as I know weren't taken to jail. But some of these areas have a history of extra judicial abductions and disappearances. They also had draconian lockdowns and in one "smart city" of the WEF, they did not allow anyone in nor out who could not show a vaccination card. If I'm contacted privately I can share more. This is absolutely a world war but I do also believe that as usual, for the most part, if you handle it wisely and with patience, you are put in the "too hard basket" and they move on to the other 95% who aren't.

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I'd love to know where. Contact details on my substack blog.

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Spot on! Be smart but do not comply.

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Here's Dan Andrews https://www.news.com.au/national/we-wouldnt-rule-anything-out-to-boost-vaccination-rates-andrews/video/e636e5ed1da250ca04f77a4d8fe0b1fe

The others were in a compilation video I saw recently and I remembered their past words at the time as well. If I come across it again I'll post a link.

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It was just insane, they knew the virus was not so deadly, they knew that masks and social distancing did not work, they knew the vaccine was not safe and definitely not effective, they knew the Pfizer data was flawed, they knew that vaccine passports were immoral oh and BTW so did the MSM

LIE AFTER LIE AFTER LIE

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And the kickback must have been a very large one.

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Dan maggot andrews is so much ridiculous what. A 🤡

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They did this in the NT, in some of the indigenous communities around Alice Springs. It was horrifying to read about. Even more horrifying to experience, I imagine.

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Here in NZ they tried to force us to fill out a very woke census. Came to our door 3 times. The last time I spoke to the guy (there were two & the gal was American) about how dystopian everything was and that we had no obligation to fill out such a shitty census. He basically agreed with me and that was the last I heard of Census Inc.

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Yes, RFC, it was all utterly terrifying. Dan Andrews looked more deranged and despotic by the hour and he genuinely spooked me. This appalling covid nightmare has changed my view of the world completely and permanently. I never expected to be under such brutal attack from my own government, media, and medical system (as well as a good proportion of my fellow citizens).

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Exactly. Agreed with everything, word for word. My worldview, trust in humanity, mental health, all shattered. I can't just move on and find any peace while this genocide and great reset is ongoing.

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I have been in that state since long before this plandemic, I don't know how I've survived this long and retain sanity. Well OK, I do, faith is an important factor, and you need generally at least ONE person friend, family or animal that keeps you company, I was denied that in complete isolation for many years and that was absolute hell, how I survived those years, is honestly a miracle as I had no pet, no friend with me, no family, I had lost everything in the space of a few days. It was complete isolation and hell for years after, of course I have not recovered from it, may never, and it has had traumatic consequences to health.

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I'm saddened and regretful that you have been made to endure so much unjustifiable torment and loss. But I am extremely glad you survived it and are still with us.

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You need a friend or two. Perhaps meetup.com would help you meet people through an interest group? Or try a dating site with a detailed matching questionnaire and choose the friend option, eg okcupid.

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This was years ago, I'm now no longer socially isolated.

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I do believe that one key is to not try to go back to the way it was before. Allow yourself to grieve and feel anger. But then try to adjust to a new normal that YOU decide upon. Maintain your values, freedom and sovereignty but be realistic......step forward......don't look back.

In my experience, it's the times of greatest shaking and pain that directed me to greater truth, a peace (that didn't come from me) and the humility to reach out in prayer (and it was answered by the way).

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I was not ok, - it was clearly a psych op, my son was banned from training and playing with his footy team along with other young men, I lost work, my daughter was pregnant and harassed constantly to be jabbed and TBH my wife just didn’t see it the way I did and is still to be convinced - we agree to disagree- she thinks it is about money, I think it’s much much more sinister.

Not one mate, workmate, interstate family member or local non immediate family member contacted me to see if I was ok, in fact I think the majority hoped I was not ok, I was outspoken in my beliefs.

But at the end of the day I don’t care, I know I did the right thing for myself and my family and have been proven correct.

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I agree that there is a sinister undercurrent to all this. And the longer it goes on, the more sinister and deliberately harmful I think it is. The Australian government, media and medicos are STILL pushing these barely tested junk science injections despite the indisputable damage these things are doing to people. I lost my job over the mandates, too, but no way was I going to be bullied and coerced into getting something I neither wanted or needed. Yes, you most definitely did the right thing!

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A lot of legends hanging out here. Kudos to you all for toughing it out. The convid psyop has been the most intense level of perseverance we've had to endure, probably. I feel like I'm ready for martyrdom now.

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Wouldn't go that far ;) - i just simply stopped watching FTA tele, i used Kayo for the footy and its pretty much ad free, the only game not on Kayo is the GF, last year i could not believe the jab propaganda during the ads, i was simply shocked and sickened by it, i really was.

I just recently watched this short film about a vaccine in Kenya touted as a tetanus vaccine but was really a anti fertility vaccine, interestingly you were meant to have 5/6 doses a few months apart, it was apparently 'safe and effective' and doctors who asked questions were sacked and threatened - exactly the same scenario as the covid vaccine here in Australia and around the world.

the parallels are remarkable

If i am not mistaken the producer Andrew Wakefield exposed the vaccine industry in the UK and correlated kids vaccines to cases of autism

https://forbiddenknowledgetv.net/infertility-a-diabolical-agenda-2022-documentary-by-andy-wakefield-rfk-jr/

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You must read The Real Dr Fauci” by Robert Kennedy Jr. traces the history of vaccine misdemeanours, or should I say crimes.

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Yes, I have wondered about autism.

My youngest son was doing well until he had his 4 year old jabs.

After that he had a severe febrile delirium and developed a range of physical upper body tics. Was eventually diagnosed with tourettes syndrome and autism.

That was years ago, and I never let him have another vaccine from then. We have gradually seen an improvement in symptoms over the last few years (now in his late teens), but it has taken a lot of therapy and dietary changes (and prayer).

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I can only imagine very little that could be worse for a parent. I'm very sorry you, your son, and family have been put through such an ordeal, and I sincerely hope the lad makes a full and complete recovery, even if that might take more time than it is already taking. I imagine the sense of guilt - understandable but certainly not deserved - would have been a living hell.

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Yeah there's no such thing as a good vaccine. They're all bio-weapons.

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Yep, I've phoned the NDIA in Australia so many times asking them to explain their continued push to vaccinate NDIS participants (many who are children).

I've pointed out the injury statistics and that research is showing that the 'vaccines' (and masking) were not safe or effective. They just pass the buck and refuse to listen.

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Proud of you Paul for standing strong. That is what a real man does. So glad you were there to help your daughter through in her pregnancy. That was one of the most disgusting things about this nonsense. Never before have pregnant women been advised to take an experimental drug that was still in a clinical trial. Even after the thalidomide scandal......they still choose to push this poison without having the years of follow-up that normally goes into vaccine research. And don't get me started on how the older generations were happy to let young children take these shots and wear oppressive masks to 'protect grandma'. Selfish cowards the lot of them for not making a commonsense stand to stop this madness.

My husband stood up against this nonsense as well.

I'm so sorry you lost your job. Hope everything is going ok now.

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I am struggling still to fully render, and even more to evoke the mercy to absolve, the ... is it ignorance? is it complacency? guilelessness? ... which allows people, including my own self, to continue trusting authority and return themselves, or worse, with a new generation of children each time even while the SV40-contaminated Salk poliomyelitis "blunder," then the thalidomide "blunder," etc., remain events still present in our living/collective memory. I have never committed a child to vaccination, but I did willingly submit myself to too many, alas, voluntarily. Never again.

Stating what is now painfully obvious, the intentional obfuscation and prevention of awareness of the means of extermination of the people, as executed by governments (as their globocap-oiler-banker-owner-investor bosses decree), is as much and as severe a crime as is the actual execution itself.

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:-( my little sister was in Melbourne at the time I was sitting pretty in sunny WA. It was torture to hear her voice on the phone, feigning good spirits while I was on the phone to Insurance Claims officers in Melbourne and Sydney daily - they were absolutely not ok.

You got through it though - hold your head up high. I stll get a little shaky when I think about the onslaught of 'oppressive malevolence' and diabolical language wielded like a weapon to batter Victorians with!

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Someone from Melbourne on instagram said they had helicopters going over at all hours of the night, presumably to look for curfew breakers? They said it felt like they were undergoing a foreign invasion. We were locked up here in the golden cage in WA but we didn't experience anything that insane. I do recall armed police officers at the beach checking people were 1.5m apart, and a few businesses got raided and random unvaccinated workers were packed up in a paddy wagon for the crime of showing up to work.

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Yeah the public health directives here were still not so heavily enforced or rammed down our throats like in the Eastern States.

Melbourne had drones flying overhead at one stage doing IR scan surveillance apparently.

I remember on the first day of compulsory masking there was a middle aged man at Midland Gate shopping centre who was arrested and jailed! I was horrified, that was probably the intent though - make an example of any one who defied from the outset.

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Very CCP

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Have you been to Melbourne lately? Not sure that "felt like" quite covers it. More like you could remove the "it felt like" and the sentence would be more accurate.

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I was escorted off the premises of my Drs in December 2021 and banned from ever going back because I politely but firmly declined to wear a mask ever again. They were giving me sinus infections and breathing problems. Mind you, I had already told them that they would not be vaxxing my special needs son and was a little tired of having to say to my silly over-educated GP, "No, for the last time, I will not die if I don't get vaxxed myself". He basically told me I would die alone in ICU if I didn't submit. Give me a break! I no longer trust doctors.

BTW.....I tried so many different Drs to get a mask exemption. No success!

I have many friends/acquaintances who lost their jobs because they declined the experimental poison. My husband was dobbed into his workplace by a random person on a train because he wasn't wearing a mask over his nose. They saw his work shirt and tried to get him fired from his job!!!

We have all been mocked and ridiculed (and of course called a 'cooker' so many times it's laughable).

So, while it was easier to cope in WA for some.....others had it tough and we were ALL vilified constantly. Don't minimise your experiences people. Each person's story is real and needs to be heard.

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If WA was anything like here (NZ) or the Eastern States then just saying that you were exempt from wearing a mask was enough to stop any further questions. They were not allowed to ask you why you were exempt. But few used it, I think I was the only one on a plane from Wellington to Brisbane last May who did not wear one. The woman next to me asked the attendant if she could take hers off and was told no. I told her that she didn't need to ask but she kept hers on. The attendant also told me as I left that it was fine not to wear a mask on the plane but if I tried it at the airport I'd get trouble. That didn't happen. At customs they asked if I was vaccinated and I told them that I was not required to answer that question and soon after I was allowed to go.

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In WA people were not allowed on public transport without a mask or exemption which involved a Drs certificate (but few Drs went against AHPRA). Others were harassed in the community by the police. I'm not sure how far they were prepared to go to enforce the emergency health directive. I'm also aware of kids being asked to leave classrooms and parents harassed if they refused to wear a mask without an exemption....but again it was so difficult to get a Dr to give an exemption.

One church service was interrupted by police and threatened with fines because of a complaint about mask wearing. The churches unfortunately capitulated to this authoritarian nonsense. Churches should be a sanctuary from state oppression and a beacon of freedom. I say this as a Christian believer.....I feel that many Pastors and leaders gave in to fear and threat of financial retaliation. I apologize for this cowardice. This was not Christ's example.

I was also the only person that I could see attending appointments at SCGH (hospital) without a mask in 2022 and I was constantly threatened by security and staff at each visit.

That was my experience in WA Australia anyway.

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It was pretty similar here.

I'm an atheist and have studied the Dead Sea Scrolls as well as the Classics. I therefore feel that this has been done before.

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I'm very late to see and respond to your great comment - thank you for sharing.

I've not been okay since September 11, 2001, but I kept going nonetheless. Since then, while not being okay, I kept at it and I even managed to graduate, further a career, fall in love, more than once, gain the privilege of access to some of the most magnificent places on Earth, collapse my career, three times, and finally succumb to emotional and psychological collapse about ten years ago when I lost all ability to deny the undeniable.

The undeniable is this, borrowing Francis Richard Conolly's phrase: everything is a rich man's trick.

COVID-19 was for me only the most emphatic confirmation of what I had long known to be the reality that was menacingly stewing beneath the surface scum of exasperating, suffocating absurdities that make up modern life and the observances expected in order for us to operate within its tightly-defined and ever tightening bounds.

I am still not okay, not by a long chalk. But then again, things are very, very not okay.

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You refer to 9/11....is that because you're awake now to what really happened and have seen the doco or is it just because of the enormity of the actual event taking place?

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I don't know which "doco" you're referring to, and in any case, I didn't need to see any doco at all to realize something gargantuan and unprecedentedly foul was afoot.

The morning I heard about the event on the radio (I used to set my alarm clock to the local news radio station), I met with a friend in a shopping center gallery for brunch and we watched the news stories on the teevee monitor at the public broadcast point. I actually laughed out loud as I first saw the tower collapse neatly into its own footprint because I thought we were being royally pranked. What I saw on the monitor, in a delayed broadcast, was obviously a controlled demolition, and being as familiar as I was of the infamous Orson Welles' 1938 Hallowe'en radio broadcast of H. G. Wells's "The War of the Worlds" and the panic it caused in the radio audience that listened to it, who misapprehended what they were hearing as genuinely being the invasion of Earth by Martians, I reflexively interpreted the "terrorist" narrative overlay of this professional, and humongous demolition job as a practical joke being played on the world.

As the days passed and it became clear that they were definitely running with this Osama bin Laden-Al Qaeda "terrorist" h0rsesh!t, then the weeks and months passed and they invaded Afghanistan (?!!! WT actual F?!!!!), and then the turbo-charged roll-out of the surveillance state all over the freaking world, and the security theater that was now playing out at every damn airport, and it was always and everywhere about "terrorism" and "security", well, how could anyone have interpreted this all in any other way than a mind-boggingly enormous operation?

Incidentally, that friend I met with for brunch the morning 9/11 kicked-off still believes it was carried out by terrorists, and that there is nothing untoward about the way the buildings collapsed. He also believed that the policies and proceedings by the governments and all the U.S. and NATO military activity in the Middle East, Central Asia, and northern Africa has been an expected and proportionate response. Mind you, he's also been injected at least twice with these COVID-19 mRNA spike protein gene transfection injections, so there's that.

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“The Slough of Despond” but the stoic Pilgrim does overcome. You are sensitive and intelligent. There are many who now see what you intuited. It is a lonely journey though to stand apart. It is frustrating and shaming to be humiliated and ignored. A sense of desperation overwhelms when you are attempting to protect those you love. Bret Stephens in the NY Times (channeling Harold Rosenberg) made the following statement about Independent Minds - “there are very few people who don’t see themselves as independent thinkers. There are even fewer that are. Most people just want to belong, and the most essential elements of belonging are agreeing and conforming. Would be believers engage in what’s known as “preference falsification”, pretending to enjoy things they don’t, or subscribe to ideas they secretly reject. They go along to get along, because the usual emotional companion to intellectual independence isn’t pride or self confidence. It’s loneliness and crippling self doubt”.

You are not alone.

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Sister, whenever I have needed it, no parent, nor friend, nor confidant, no one in fact has ever spoken words of reassurance and approval and comfort that have penetrated me as deeply and affected me as profoundly and, in my time of need, have been as appreciated as have yours.

Thank you.

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“Something truly diabolical is going on”.. you can say that again!

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Something truly diabolical is going on”

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I think we underestimate the adjustment disorder that results from the clear and irrefutable realization that the world is not what it seemed. I have had mistrust of drug companies and public health for decades, but was shocked at the depth of depravity and the realization that all these other organizations and the judiciary are captured. Once you get past attempts at denial its a big adjustment in your world view!

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Me too. It was profound and life-changing.

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I have no doubt you are a much stronger and more resilient person today though Rebekah. Just like most of us now....

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"Once you get past attempts at denial its a big adjustment in your world view!"

My word, it certainly is!

But it is essential, and the trauma must be endured.

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Love your post. But isn’t this the elephant in the room. Nobody wants to admit they are not ok. It’s like we all have to be tripping down the yellow brick road in eternal sunshine. The reactions of your friends is interesting and something I have also experienced. It goes ‘I don’t want to know in case I get infected by whatever you’re going through’. Still hopefully it sorts the wheat from the chaff and what remains are genuine friends. And aren’t they a dwindling cohort!

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Yes, for me, the harder the times, the fewer the friends who are equipped to be a friend through that. I don't pretend that it's easy to be a good friend to someone who is losing their mind 😅 At the same time, I've made some new friends who are very skilled at witnessing and being a friend through the dark times - I think going through darkness makes you better able to handle it in others.

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"I don't pretend that it's easy to be a good friend to someone who is losing their mind..."

Losing their mind, or is that gaining clarity?

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Gaining clarity. “If you can keep your wits, when all around are losing theirs and blaming it on you, the World will be yours and everything in it. What is more you will be a man, my son” Rudyard Kipling.

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Anyone who demonstrates humility and amenity towards a greater or even another's wisdom is someone who is deserving and has gained my earnest esteem.

Your choice of quotations is inspired and evidences an exceptional mind, indeed.

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To say I was not OK for most of 2021 would be an understatement. It was my Annus horribilis. I developed temporary heart arrythmia, my cat of almost 19 years died, governments were oppressive, business took a dive and people were generally just HORRIBLE - including friends, family, teachers and other government officials, work personnel, random people; you name it.

I still had my sanity because my hubby and I are on the same page, and a few of my patients were, too, but otherwise it was the worst year of my life. I home-schooled the kids, I closed my practice in early 2022 and my hubby & I decided to quit our jobs of 16 years, sell our property and move 1000km away! I had to fight to seemingly just lose a few things, but better to lose my business, home and lame people in my life - by choice in the end - than to lose my bodily sovereignty, my own family and my sanity!

I never want to repeat 2021. But it DOES repeat in some ways because now I know what people are really like: now I know what stuff they're truly made of. And that does NOT sit well with me because it makes me very distrustful of a positive future. So now I somehow try to figure out ways forward for myself and my family knowing 99%+ of teachers & health professionals have been jabbed, most other workers have been jabbed, most people still have NO IDEA, the economy is failing and things are basically just screwed. Great time and place to raise your kids, hey?! :-(

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I relate to a lot of that. So sorry about your cat. I believe mine was murdered by my neighbour in 2022 - hence, 2022 was my Annus horribilis. That's when I realised that, though Solzhenitsyn points out the line between good and evil runs through all of us, some are more inclined to act out the evil than the rest of us. Some of them are neighbours. Some of them run corporations, institutions and the world.

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I'm so very sorry to hear about your cat! I couldn't imagine someone killing my cat! She died in my arms, in bed with me, of old age. But to have someone take away her life like what happened with yours?? Horrible beyond words :-(

Good point about all the types who might be inclined to act out evil more than others...

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My wife just about left me because I said that we were at war and there was every chance of it impacting directly on us. We're fine now, she's more radical than me in reality. I just get to voice it.

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Eesh. That must've been awful!!

It's not really fair that those who voice their opinion (and people are invariably thinking the same thing some of the time, anyway) get fried for it.

Glad she's come to her senses!

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We'd had 3 months apart. I'd been in Melbourne for business (Nov - Jan 2020) and then two weeks in Auckland in "isolation" so had shit food, a shit refrigerator & shit conditions such as not allowed outside (middle of hotel) in the sunshine without a mask. I think NZ at that stage had not been so bad except for those coming back in. So not only the normal getting used to each other after running your own show for 3 months but also added covid tyranny with different experiences of it (by May 2022 NZ was much worse than Oz, even Victoria). I'd also had nothing more to do than to read up on what was going on and watching the local covid gaslighters on Twitter. So I guess I was a bit further down the road.

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I think the trigger was that I said something like "they're coming after us"

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Ah, women. The true female brain is a strange beast. Luckily for my hubby, I have a 'low' female brain (if it were on a scale, it'd be just on the female side of the 'crossover' section that lies between male & female brains), so I wouldn't get upset if someone gave me an honest answer if I were dumb enough to ask "do I look fat in this?!"

Perhaps your wife has more of a female brain than I do...it's quite likely. Most females do!

People haven't been rational these past few years. Even a lot of the unjabbed have been a bit unhinged.

I'm glad you've come out the other side, hopefully not TOO scathed....!!

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Not unscathed no. But yes out the other side.

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You truly are heroic, and I salute you!

Oh, the wailing and gnashing of teeth, because I have not been able to escape the atrocity that is the city for a gentler existence elsewhere. As my circumstances are, I am stuck in the suburbs, and living only on the sufferance of others, moreover, because I possess not the means to escape. COVID-19 was rolled-out just as I began picking myself up again from the collapse of a career, and as a consequence of my inability to comply with crime, I am left destitute. That is why I do so admire and envy (in the best way possible) you and those who like you stick to your principles and find another way.

On the other hand, I'm still in great shape, and actually, I'm in or near as great as my shape (health, fitness) has ever been, so I got that going for me, which is nice.(*)

(*) with full and just acknowledgements to Carl Spackler.

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Hey, being in great shape is fantastic! Good to see you still have control over your own body, regardless of your financial situation! Well done (for sticking with Carl Spackler!)! :-)

Thanks for the compliments, by the way. We got a good price for our property which has meant we've been able to do what we're doing. Sold it ourselves, too. Would've had $100K less in our pockets using a local agent! Bought land 1000km north at a good price a year before we sold. Hubby is currently building our house as an Owner-Builder and with any luck, we'll be moved in early next year. Of course had we not moved we'd be well and truly debt-free by now...but we'd also be living through freezing winters along with cold springs & autumns. I hate the cold! 16 years of it. Finally got the shits with it. We'd been thinking about moving somewhere warmer before covid, but that hideous year of 2021 nailed it for both hubby & I. We just HAD to move!!! There was literally nothing keeping us there.

But it wasn't easy doing all this. There was so much stress pulling it off - and there's still stress! I don't think many people would have the gumption to do what we've done, true, but when you gotta move, you gotta move, right?! If something is THAT important to you, you MAKE it happen!! At least that's how things seem to roll in my world! :-D

Perhaps I make it seem easy, but it's been a long hard journey, with a lot of research thrown in there. It's been years in the making. We need to give our kids a future, and we couldn't do that where we were. And at least where we now live we can grow food all year round and the trees all blossom twice a year!

Unlike you, though, I was my own boss (still am, but I'm not really working these days, by choice!). With 12+ years in town and a good name, even though business dropped off due to covid, it still paid the bills. JUST some weeks, mind you. Plus hubby was working (mostly from home, just the way he likes it!), so we were OK financially.

I had a sign on my work door asking my patients to take off their mask before entering my room - and they all complied. But I wouldn't have been able to work if they all wore masks. The sheer stress of being surrounded by masked sheeple would've driven me over the edge. And it was a shit-fight to get that sign sorted at the place I worked in (multi-disciplinary practice). Still, where there's a will there's a way. I am very flexible and imaginative when I need to be, and very stubborn when my morals are on the line!!!

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"I had a sign on my work door asking my patients to take off their mask before entering my room ...."

LOVE IT!!!!

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Yep. It was the only way I could work. Masks are insanity. Chiropractic wasn't a mental asylum last time I checked!! :-D

I also put that info in my SMS reminders for my patients so they had a chance to cancel beforehand if they wanted to wear a mask. Only one person cancelled because of it; EVERYONE else took off their masks. Between the SMS & the sign, I barely had to mention it, which was good. It was a VERY stressful time for me (and loads of others, I am sure, but at that point, I had to be rather self-focused and just try to keep one foot in front of the other!).

Funny thing is, although I meet occasional health professionals who refused to wear a mask themselves, I know of no-one else who actually asked people to take their mask off before entering the room. I've met those who gave patients the option to take it off or leave it on, but I went further, I suppose. And I did this because I was super duper stressed and anxious and this was the only way I could manage to see my patients! However, given masks are ineffective for illness transmission, but they're great at reducing your O2 whilst increasing your CO2, as well as bacterial overgrowth, I personally think I was doing people a favour. Plus I couldn't see their faces and might miss facial winces if they were in pain!

I do think people mostly only complied, though, because I was their long-term practitioner and they liked me and my care and knew I was stressed about masks (I took a month's stress leave in July 2021 because, well, I really needed to!!). Had I been a new practitioner in town, I don't think I wouldn't had much compliance with that sign...

But yes, I had it up, and people complied. So there's at least ONE health practitioner I know with sense - ME!

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I had discussions with a doctor fairly early on about how crazy it all was. He told me about a friend of his on a bus into Brisbane quarantine being screamed at from the streets for being lepers basically.

On that topic maybe it's time to turn Typhoid Mary into a saint.

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LOL!

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"Funny thing is, although I meet occasional health professionals who refused to wear a mask themselves, I know of no-one else who actually asked people to take their mask off before entering the room. "

Well, let's face it, many of the "health" professions are amply-remunerated. The corporate pharmaceutical medical complex has all but ensured compliance by the operators within it for precisely this reason. The hard part required the creation of a debt-as-wealth financial system, one where the only money is all the money that anyone is allowed to accept, and it all is a complete fiction as the "expression of a balance sheet liability" of a bank which, if you take it all the way up, is the Bank for International Settlements. Once this is in place, then it's trivially simple to appeal to human pettiness, vanity, and stupidity and dangle lots of that money in front of them so that they will, like trained circus animals, dance for you whatever gigue or gavotte you order them for their treats. True, humans are a little more sophisticated than ponies, so they can't be rewarded just with sugar cubes for treats, but all that moolah gets them into Porsches or, better still, Teslas which have become the du jour assertively-ostentatious vanity-gratifying motorised conveyancer, as well as into fancy houses, glamorous holidays, and multi-million dollar investment portfolios, which admittedly are a little more complicated than sugar cubes, nonetheless when taken along with the negative motivator of punishment through expulsion and hence deprivation of all that filthy money, these kinds of human-appealing treats fulfil the same role in the punishment-reward system of they mesocorticolimbic circuit in the mesolimbic dopamine system in the brain.

(yeah, I am venting my spleen)

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Lots of cool words in there ;-) I'm glad your spleen is happier now that it's vented ;-)

And yes, humans are dumb, and easily swayed, and once they have nothing else to lose, they will literally dance for sugar cubes if that's what it takes to get some food into their system!!

So sad.

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Thank you for sharing your wonderful story. I appreciate how hard it was, but it seems you and your husband have the gift of knowing the right timing, and of making the judicious choice.

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Ha! I'd hardly call it a 'gift' - but I suppose that's one way of looking at it! Keeping your pulse on the general tenor of things and using your gut instinct, but also your research skills, is indeed useful! It just hasn't always felt that way...

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I guess you went north rather than south. How's Rockhampton?

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Ha ha, we didn't go THAT far north! We're in Kyogle.

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I had distances a bit wrong. My Uncle used to work for Channel 7 in Brisbane and said he was rung by the bosses in Sydney once to get his arse up to Cairns in an hour. He had to tell them that he was further away from Cairns (by about 800km) than he was from Sydney.

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But, great threats can produce terrific rewards. Victorian, locked out of everything, wondering if I'd be locked out food shops, I did look to shore up provisions. Our shed was full of Fowler's preserving jars from various deceased estates, and I thought, "we have a plum tree, why not get into it"?

Seven months later... I had to defer posting for 10 mins while I finished a bowl of the Most Divine plums in a heavenly light syrup that only 2 and a half hours of warming at 160degF (the bottles came with instructions from 1913) could produce.

I might have made 40 jars of plums, plus pickled plums and brandy plums, plum sauce and plum jam.

If any of you anti-vaxers are locked out of the shops in the future, short of food, I have a lot of plums.

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You, Madam, are a sublime Earth Mother! And I, and all that loves life (I will speak for us all), loves you too!

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:D I don't know what to say to that! It seems complimentary, so I'll also share some of the preserved sliced apples and nectarines.

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It is a compliment, as sincere and as highly as I can make one.

I'd gladly go a whole day and a half again without a crumb of food for some of those apples and nectarines!

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:D Thanks. Me too! They're really nice :D

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Thank you very, very much for this open and vulnerable post. I have been through much the same experience. I definitely went close to falling off the deep end in the middle of the mandates; i alienated some people; I just remember this almost insane level of stress inside me that would erupt out of me at times like a volcano.

Thankfully I had a small group of friends who stood by me and prayed for me and helped me through.

I think it is hard for those who complied to understand or even imagine what it’s like to suddenly be banned from entering your workplace etc, to be banned from nearly every corporate human activity, and be left without an income. Ordinary people’s compliance in Western Australia was shocking and extremely distressing.

The key to healing, though, is forgiveness - and to truly forgive means to understand that the person who did something to us don’t deserve to be forgiven - but to forgive them anyway.

Just as we ourselves don’t deserve to be forgiven, for the wrongs we have done.

I believe this attitude of loving forgiveness is at the heart of the whole universe, actually - Christ on the cross saying “forgive them Father for they don’t know what they’re doing” - which is His attitude towards us and those who have wronged us. Praying for you Rebekah.

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I so agree with all of that

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Thanks for sharing this Rebekah, I had not read it before today. I find R U Ok is similar to Diversity and Inclusion where there is a limited number of acceptable issues that are to be inclusive and other are not, as there are only a certain amount of issues you are "allowed" to be not Ok with.

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Yes I agree

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Keep coming back to your post. Has really struck a chord. That being, nobody wants to acknowledge what is going on in somebody else. Why? Embarrassment? Too messy? Don’t burst my bubble? The reality is that many have chosen to compartmentalise and disengage from our fellow human beings. But on the other hand the most meaningful encounters I’ve had of late have been with strangers when I comment on “what is”, usually something trivial. The response is usually a simple “me too”.

The quote “the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another“ strikes to the core of this modern day disengagement. I’m about to loose another couple of friends in my dwindling cohort of friends for calling out their smug self centred rudeness. Bottom line....they just don’t want to know. And I’m not talking about the vaccine. I refuse to even go there. They are ‘invested’ and nothing will change their minds. I used to think it was only my parents generation who believed every word that Menzies uttered. Nope, nothing has changed. Does nobody do the research or think for themselves? Yep, it’s lonely out there. Luckily I’m pretty used to it. Thank god I discovered twitter and various substacks. I find like minded people in the comments. Kept me sane.

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people are busy micro living to invest the time to research what is going on ATM, i am convinced they think the old normal is coming back- IMHO IT AIN'T!

I think about 10% of the population is awake in different ways and i know personally a few people making plans ahead of the projected financial system collapse along with making plans regarding power outages, internet outages etc etc, i think that is wise, but if anywhere is partly insulated against this it may be WA because of the mining industry and the continued need for workers and labor

i guess i am the same as you as i have sought out like minded people via these type of forums

i will say it again but on the whole unfortunately Australians are gutless, compliant weak sheep, on one hand i think they get what they deserve but on the other many were blackmailed to jab up etc, so i feel sorry for them, but there is no way this country can claim to be the anti authoritarian independent true blue Aussies we think we are - WE ARE NOT- as far as i can see that went generations ago, if it ever existed in large meaning full numbers, i caught glimpses of it as many of my mates including myself growing up were kids of men and women who lived through the great depression and WW2, they knew bullshit when they saw it- and they acted on it

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100% 💚🙏

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No properly thinking person can be ok after all that we've been able to learn about the lies told by our so called governments.

How can we be ok when we're not allowed to reveal the truth?

How can we ok when we know that government is trying to reduce the population [life expectancy] via toxic jabs even though they've raised the retirement age?

How can we be ok when we still haven't figured out how to turn things around in our favor?

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Very well-expressed. Love from your trying-her darnedest-to-stay-sane friend in SF 💗

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Rebekah, I'm glad that you are currently & generally OK 😊👍

Being so cometely immersed in what are colossally disturbing issues, we need frequent breaks to take the edge off. Hoping you continue to improve. Keep up the amazing work!!

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Goodness me, Rebekah this is magnificent!

Friends?! I think I'm falling in (platonic, of course) love with you! ;-)

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Wholly bejeezus your second paragraph describes me toooo a teee - to this very day.

Maybe Im not OK... hmmm. I feel fine - ANGRY - but fine. I should be angry. You should be angry.

The mediocre and morons have gotten into positions of power and are dictating moronic values. I didn't do this. Society did this. They make choices to signal their virtue with zero thought of consequences. The cost of this going to undermine our civilization and its only just begun.

We should all be incredibly angry. Angry and horribly disappointed.

Forgive yes! Forgive because its vitally important to your fundamental well being but please do not forget. We cannot allow people to damage us in multiple ways and just forget.

The mediocre morons are in power, they will literally kill you to stay in power, and this isn't over by any measure.

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I still feel angry but it’s not uncontrollable.

I prefer to transmute my anger into positive action as much as possible.

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100% I wish you all the very best. I hope you feel incredibly proud of yourself. For what its worth I rank your articles as high as any I read.

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Me too.

Rebekah Barnett is one of my favourite journalist/writers. The wit and perception is wonderful.

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Couldn’t have put it better myself!

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Rebekah, I just read your very honest account of your experience above. Thank you for this.

As I read this, I wanted to encourage you with a few thoughts as someone who lived abuse and gaslighting for many years through the family court system (in NZ) while trying to protect my son as my ex-husbands alcoholism went from a hidden functional state - to a slow train wreck - to one final emergency admission and death. He was a very damaged individual and sadly had probably been abused in his younger years.....however it was the family court system that eroded my trust and very nearly broke me.

I'm not asking for sympathy or compassion at all in mentioning this as I know that I am stronger, wiser and less gullible now.....it was years ago (plus I also had to grow and change a lot).

I simply mention this past experience as it has made me sensitive to others pain. My heart wept for you as I read how devastating it has been for you to feel so vulnerable and powerless and enraged by it all. I have also felt these things recently but, in a perverse way, my previous experience years ago prepared me. In many ways, I found that experience eerily similar to what we experienced in Australia over these last few years. I live in Perth WA now so I understand much of what you went through.

May I offer some thoughts for you to consider:

1. You have NOTHING to apologise for and owe nobody an explanation for your sense of rage, frustration or feelings of hopelessness. I think that writing about it is an amazing outlet for you to process your experience and feelings and you are incredibly gifted in your journalism skills. I am grateful you chose to share your unique journey through this hellscape of tyranny since 2020.....I believe it will help many. However, do not think for a minute that your thoughts and feelings were irrational. Again, you have nothing to apologise for so please don't wear anyone else's expectations of how you should think, feel or act. Your reactions to all the covid madness and aftermath are normal and should be the appropriate response if someone is awake to what was really going on. It was brutal and evil. FULLSTOP!!!

2. There are those who will never understand or respect your perspective and actions. Some don't know how to, some are cowardly, and some just don't care. It's sad but let them go. You did your best to reveal the truth and warn others. You may be pleasantly surprised later down the track to discover there were many that admired your passion and courage - they just didn't verbalise it to you at the time.

3. You have been like a lighthouse withstanding the constant, relentless waves in a storm. You are stronger than you realise and you shone the light so others could navigate through. A lighthouse doesn't get a lot of thanks......there is a presumption by many that it will always stand strong. But even a lighthouse needs repairs in fair weather and the lighthouse keeper needs time off too.

Pretty obvious thoughts and not profound.

4. This is not yet over.....rest up and prepare accordingly. The 'rats' may get pretty frenzied and irrational as they try to preserve themselves on their sinking pirate ships. We need more lighthouses to shine the light and expose them and the jagged rocks they tried to steer the rest of humanity into. More people need to speak up and unite against the lies and tyranny (and damn, I've mixed all my metaphors).

Rebekah, we love and appreciate you.

I would be honoured to share my phone number with you privately if you ever need extra support. Even just an ear or a mum type hug.

Bless you,

- Gill (I don't care who knows who I am any more)

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Thank you Gill, very kind words 🙏

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