Patriot Realm

Among many surprising developments during this pandemic, the most stunning has been the questioning of naturally acquired immunity after a person has had the Covid disease. 

We have understood natural immunity since at least the Athenian Plague in 430 BC. Here is Thucydides:

‘Yet it was with those who had recovered from the disease that the sick and the dying found most compassion. These knew what it was from experience and had no fear for themselves; for the same man was never attacked twice—never at least fatally.’ – Thucydides

I have never had a tattoo. Nor am I likely to. I hate pain and am rather partial to my skin colour without feeling the need to change its colour or use it as a canvas for artistic expression.

It seems somehow foreign to me. I am rather appreciative of myself and what I look like and, though I may not be as I wish I appeared to others, I am what I am as Popeye used to say.

Last night, I went down memory lane and stumbled on a long forgotten holiday when I ate scones and home made apricot jam and drank freshly brewed coffee in a stone cafe in Central Otago.

It was a typical holiday. Redhead and I headed off for a 5 day jaunt around a small region of the South Island of New Zealand.

To my younger readers: There was a time when people had things called " holidays. " They were when you could go where ever you wanted and travel and explore new and interesting places. We didn't have facemasks back then. We didn't have vaccine passports and all citizens could travel and mingle and meet and eat and greet. It was known as ": fun " and the amazing thing was that, in those days, it was none of the government's business what we did and who we did it with. 

I wake up every morning and, instead of feeling a sense of hope and expectation, I feel a sense of dread. I turn on my computer and catch the overnight news and see nothing but covid, vaccine, mandate, restriction and fear. All the buzz words in the current woke vocabulary. 

How I miss the days when I used to wake up and think about going to the bakery to buy some doughnuts and head down to Redhead's place and dine in the delights of a creamy strawberry jam filled pastry treat that would give us both a few moments of pleasure on the lips and a lifetime on the hips. As the saying goes.

This feature length production is an astounding effort from creator political commentator, filmmaker, and human rights activist Topher Field. It seeks to tell the story of human rights activists, protest organisers, business owners, workers, and ordinary everyday people who have taken extraordinary risks in the fight for freedom.

As Gandhi said “ Disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the State becomes lawless & corrupt”

Please watch this honest and sometimes heartbreaking documentary on something that is of global concern

“Totalitarian leaders often create ‘enemies of the state’ to blame for things that go wrong. Frequently these enemies are members of religious or ethnic groups. Often these groups are easily identified and are subjected to campaigns of terror and violence. They may be forced to live in certain areas or are subjected to rules that apply only to them”

Creating an enemy of the state requires othering: a process of dehumanizing through marginalizing a group of humans as something different, less than, and other. Such othered groups become an easy target to scapegoat, unfairly bearing the blame for a society’s ills.