Going Underground

During World War II, in the occupied territories of France, the Netherlands and many other countries that had been taken over by the Nazis, an underground movement grew which opposed the dictators and fought to bring back their elected governments. Working from the shadows, they found ways to circumvent the fascist dictatorship that ruled their countries. In the end, their efforts were an instrumental part of assisting the allied forces to claim victory in Europe.

Over it’s almost 225 year history, many Australians have fought and died in wars which were supposedly to protect freedom – whether the freedom of Australians or of our allies. Yet, I believe our government today is guilty of taking away or abridging many of the essential freedoms our fathers and grandfathers lived and died to preserve.

Though Australia is nominally a democracy, as I have explained in past blogs and articles, its law-enforcement and government bodies have chosen to turn a blind eye and ignore tort law in regards to the obvious bullying and interference with commerce and contractual relationships which have been perpetrated so openly by members of the Australian Skeptics and their splinter organisation, Stop the AVN. These organisations, science's Brownshirts, are blatant in their opposition to freedom of speech and freedom of communication.

They want to take away our voice, burn our books and destroy our right to choose.  Just as the original Brownshirts wanted to blame the Jews for the institutional failures of Nazi Germany, these organisations want to blame complementary medicine and the unvaccinated for their own failure to promote health or prevent disease. As a result, they are losing the faith of Western society as evidenced by the fact that, though their treatments are free while others are costly, people are refusing to 'drink their kool-aid' because they know more about the risks and ineffectiveness then ever before.

Many of the members of these organisations are working hard to ensure that our right to choose natural therapies (see the activities of Friends of Science in Medicine for one example of these efforts) or to say no to vaccines or dangerous and potentially unnecessary medical treatments for our children is taken away.

As anyone who has been reading this list for any time at all would be aware, these bullies have also targeted the venues and locations where the AVN and other health freedom activists have been scheduled to hold seminars or public talks by:

1-    Contacting the venues and telling them lies about the organisation and people involved in an effort to get the venue to cancel contracts.

2-    Putting ads in local papers in opposition to these seminars or appearances.

3-    Targeting the event even if the vaccine safety group is not the organiser but simply the participant to try to get them to cancel the appearance (as evidenced by the recent Woodfordia Festival kerfuffle).

4-    Spending massive amounts of money (from where?) setting up stunts such as hiring an airplane to circle the venue towing banners.

5-    Intimidating attendees in advance by stating they will be there to ‘set the record straight’, implying a confrontation between themselves and the people who are coming to hear the speaker.

None of this should be allowed in a democracy but of course, when it comes to the issue of vaccination choice, government authorities and regulators seem more than willing to not only turn a blind eye towards these breaches of our laws, but in fact, can often be seen openly participating in them.

Another activist in the area of vaccination has also been copping flack from these abusive bullies at the Australian Skeptics and Stop the AVN. She is a woman who lost a child to vaccination. After close to 30 years of research and participation in the health freedom movement, she is now sharing her knowledge and experiences locally at small seminars she has set up herself.

Being aware of the targeting of these events, she has worked out a way to counter these pseudo-skeptical abusers – she has gone underground. At her latest talk yesterday, where 60 people were in attendance, she was able to exclude the trouble-makers by taking the following steps:

1. There were no tickets sales at the door.

2. All tickets were sold on-line or by credit card prior to the event.

3. No location was revealed until the night before the seminar – the only details were that it was held within a certain number of kilometers of a central location.

3. Mobile phone-numbers were required at the time of booking.

4. The venue location was notified by SMS the night prior to event.

In this way, she was able to keep not only herself, but those who came along to hear her speak, safe from the threats posed by these two groups.

Going underground is a valid and intelligent way to deal with those who break the law with the full cooperation of those who are meant to uphold it.

If we can’t rely on the police or the government to protect us from persecution, we have to take matters into our own hands and find ways to work around the institutional abuse apparently approved at the highest levels of our society.