Sermons on the Mount, Canberra, 4th February 2020
a fair time was probably had by most (‘Out, Damned Scott!’), but where were we going, sliding imperceptibly down the slippery slope of Federation Mall into nostalgia
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at the climate rally, platitudes and youthful hope were on for young and old (‘Grandads for Climate Action Now’), police laid-back but one, so I heard, out of sight near the Parliament with a huge automatic weapon on a stand
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we sat there or stood, old and young and middle-aged, in straw hats and sunglasses for this hot hot summer, listening to Dr Karl (the other) and our own joyful and trenchant Johnny Huckle
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the Indigenous presence was well-received if at times slightly tangential; the ‘Government’ (thumb jerked at the famous edifice) got blamed, up to its own underground tricks inside its bunker; the police looked on from a respectful distance
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(we were maybe five thousand or so, but no loaves or fishes today)
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for all the rhetoric, this close to Heaven, capitalism seemed far away
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