Sam’s spam plain dangerous
NEVER thought I’d say it, but I am almost missing the misogynist Sam Newman we’ve loved to hate over many years.
Sexist Sam would be a lot better than Crazy Anti-Lockdown Sam.
Back then, Newman was ignorant and annoying. Now he’s downright dangerous.
Newman is calling on 250,000 Melburnians to protest stage four lockdown restrictions.
“Of all the protests that we have put up with, how about a ¼ million of us gather in the CBD to take the City/ State back, before EVERY previous march will have been pointless,” he tweeted on Sunday night.
He’d be lucky to get 250, but even one protester is too many at a time like this. As Victorian Assistant Police Commissioner Luke Cornelius said a few days ago, such protests risk undoing the hard work done by the rest of us. They come when many of us are feeling sad, defeated and vulnerable.
Victorians are wearing masks, staying home, rationing our trips to the supermarket, keeping the kids inside and adhering to the curfew.
And we still don’t have an idea when our lives might restart. Our economy is in deep depression, our kids are sad and anxious and our jobs are hanging by a thread – that’s if we’ve still got jobs.
Contact tracing is still not fully effective, our road map out of this is still a week away, and state and federal ministers are bickering.
And we’ve lost faith in Premier Daniel Andrews to safely and effectively steer us back to normality. So, to use the fine words of Luke Cornelius, the last thing we need right now is “batshit crazy nonsense” from people banging on about their personal freedoms as sovereign citizens.
Newman may be a 300-game AFL veteran and a well-known TV personality, but he’s also a moron.
The tinfoil hat brigade of protesters is now spearheaded by an old guy in a baseball hat who’s 25 years past his amuse-by date.
Doesn’t Newman realise that as a man in his mid 70s, he is in a high-risk category?
Police have enough to do patrolling streets without clashing with anti-lockdown protesters and risking wider spread of the virus.
On Sunday, police had to put the health of more officers on the line by breaking up anti-lockdown rallies in Melbourne’s north involving gangs of masked protesters brandishing flares.
In Dandenong people think it’s amusing to dress as if they’re exercising and hit the streets en masse to demonstrate their right to break the rules. It’s not clever, it’s pathetic.
It’s easy to dismiss Newman as just another well-connected crackpot, but his celebrity imprimatur gives these anti-lockdown protesters kudos they don’t deserve.
Sadly, he is not the only wellknown Australian to push a rabid anti-mask and anti-restriction agenda. More anti-lockdown protests are underway, with one in the CBD for next weekend promoted by MMA fighter Vik Grujic, who says he was “born free” and will “die free”.
Grujic thinks the pandemic – which has killed more than 800,000 people worldwide – is a hoax and an “attempt from the Marxist playbook to destroy our way of life”. “I will not wear a mask. I will not pay a fine. I will not comply. I will not bow down to you,” he’s tweeted.
Celebrity chef Pete Evans has urged Victorians not to wear masks and “get a $200 fine then elect to have it contested in court”. He also thinks the pandemic is a hoax and has urged people to refuse to have flu shots.
Another outspoken anti-vaccine advocate is Taylor Winterstein, a former NRL WAG, who “refuses to be coerced and forced into wearing a mask for the greater good”.
Winterstein joins actor Isabel Lucas, who’s on record as an anti-vaxxer and for promoting alternative “cures” for the virus.
These people inspire the 10,000 people in corona hot spots who refused to be tested back in July. They inspire those planning “freedom” marches for the weekend. And they inspire those who don’t self-isolate after they’re tested positive.
Yes, we need to hold government to account. But listening to idiots like Newman, Grujic and Evans is not the way to go.
Newman says his actions are not for himself as he doesn’t go out much anyway, but to help friends who are “going stir crazy”.
Better stir crazy than dead, I say.
THE TINFOIL HAT BRIGADE OF PROTESTERS IS NOW SPEARHEADED BY AN OLD GUY IN A BASEBALL HAT WHO’S 25 YEARS PAST HIS AMUSE-BY-DATE