Look, I know this is going to be a deeply controversial and unpopular statement to make, and it is based on my observations, rather than significant tangible "evidence", but...
You all know what has been going on in Australia. You know how shit it is. However I thought I would share a... Bit of an anecdote, to support that.
Yesterday I went to a national football (in this case, not the round ball type) finals match, in my home state. I don't want to give too many details, for obvious reasons, but this was in a fairly conservative regional city, so not somewhere I would consider overly "liberal", by Australian standards...
So, here's what went down: to get into the match, we had to "check in" on thr government app. No smartphone to "check in" - no entry. Simple as that. The app allows the government to track you, and to see wherever you have been, outside your house. It uses QR codes, and it's mandated, everywhere here. This is in addition to only allowing pre-purchased tickets. You couldn't buy any at the ground, and, of course, you have to supply your address and confact details when you buy those tix...
You then get patted down, security guards literally CHECK your phone screen to see that you checked in "properly", bags are checked, and then?
Well, we only THEN were told we had to wear a mask. In a state where there hasn't been a single case in the community in 15 months or so, and no deaths in near 18. In this state, there hasn't ever really been a mask mandate at all, and I literally went to the football a few months back, with the pandemic in full swing, with no one even recommended to wear masks, in the same fucking venue...
So yeah... Shit then spiralled from there, and I saw security guards bash a man, and then have the cops drag him out, for not wes Aring his mask, and for "cheering too loud"...
Lots of other bad shit happened, and I videoed some of it, but it warrants a separate post, to go into details...
Suffice to say, after the bashing of the man near me, I was then verbally abused by a cop myself, and decided to give as good as I got straight back. But I wasn't arrested, so there's that. However I did have security guards stand near me to "keep an eye on me" for the rest of the match... Beyond that, though, it scares me to have paid $70 for the privilege of this "bread and circuses" bullshit, only to find the crowd around me so scared of the authorities that they didn't even fucking stop to talk to one another, while standing up, lest they be warned by the police, because that was made illegal within the stadium...
Now, to Russia: this morning I watched the final of the Beach Soccer World Cup, on the TV, live from Moscow.
Now look, I know this is a fairly obscure sport (in the Anglosphere, at least), and a small sample size of sports fans, but... The atmosphere was quite literally the exact opposite of what I experienced the day before. Partying, cheering, Mexican waves, Viking claps, fireworks, (presumably) drinking, and almost NO ONE was wearing a mask. Even the official party weren't.
Families were there. There was music and dancing. People were HAVING FUN. And fans had come from fucking Japan (they were playing vs the hosts), Switzerland, Africa and elsewhere in the world, to watch.
Gianni Infantino (head of FIFA) even "man-hugged" some of the players, and had a photo with them. All smiles.
And you know what the biggest thing was, for me? Everyone there was fucking smiling, and laughing/crying with jubilitation, which is the polar opposite of how Russians are stereotyped, in our media. People looked genuinely happy, and genuinely glad for one another's company...
This is in direct contrast to what I saw, and experienced, in supposedly the currently most "free" state in Aus...
And look, I hate FIFA. I know Russia has its issues, and I know... Things will be different, in the reality outside that stadium. I don't want to go with the line that "Russia is right". But... Seeing all that, and experiencing what I have, it made me realise that, in many ways, at least in terms of COVID restrictions, Russia is more free than Australia. Which is... Bizzare to think of, and also rather scary, when you consider that the media down here goes out of its way to say the exact opposite, especially the so-called "trusted" or "legitimate" media outlets...
Yeah...
Re your last sentence - this has been a thing at sport matches here for a while now (like, prior to the pandemic), but each stadium here has a text line, for major events, where you can "anonymously" report "antisocial behaviour" to the authorities...
Essentially, it's a snitch line. Someone says or does something you don't like? Text that number, along with the seat number of the "party of interest", and the cops will come to their seat and drag them out by their cuff, or by their legs, as was the case yesterday, that I saw...
Somehow I find that even scarier than most of the rest of what I saw. They are relying on patrons to snitch ON THEIR neighbours, not just their literal neighbours at home, but other people sitting near them at the fucking football... And then it becomes a case of hearsay, "he said she said", and guilty until proven innocent...
That's what happened yesterday. Of course, it's really just a modern evolution of lynchings and "kangaroo courts" (oh the irony, given that is an American term, but is being brought back here, in the land of the fucking roo...), but shh, don't tell anyone. It's digital, and "anonymous", so it's totally all modern and cool, like... :-(
Also, pretty much all stadiums here, now, are totally cashless. Even for basic shit, like vendors who walk around selling match day programs. Every transaction is tracked. We were heading that way before the "pandemic", but it is way, way more blatant now... And Australia in general is MUCH further along the "cashless dystopia" pipeline than the US, and it took us much less time than Sweden to get there...
Deposit and withdrawal slips literally don't exist here anymore, and checques aren't far off being made "illegal", except in select circumstances, such as prizes... ATMS are becoming almost as rare as hen's teeth, and in towns of less than say, 10000, there isn't even a fucking ATM in the town, let alone an actual BRANCH of the/a bank...
It's no coincidence, I would say, that all of this crazy shit down here has coincided with society becoming almost fully "cashless", in addition to the mandatory carrying of smartphones with a QR code reader enabled. This shit has been in the works for literally years, which... Honestly blackpills me beyond almost anything else. How they fucking KNEW this was coming? Well, that's too much for even me to "speculate", but let's just say... Australia is far too close to China, politically, for my comfort, and I am increasingly unsurprised at the path we have gone down, even if I am horrified and appalled by it.
Sports places the only ones I know of that are totally cashless here. They have these machines that will take cash and give you a card for it. I don't think you have to fill out your name but I'm sure there's a camera or something in it. So if they want to track you they can. You're right too, it was all already going this way, they just accelerated all that.
I've never heard of such of a text line to get the cops to escort people out. That's insane.
Haha it is insane, but that's... Australia, for you.
There are many things which are "normal", or at least "normalised" here (and increasingly in NZ) that I reckon you guys would find insane...
We're a very... Odd place, for somewhere purporting to be a "free and liberal democracy". But then again, once a prison colony, always a prison colony, amirite?
Bear in mind that this is a country that named an animal (kangaroo) after a word probably meaning "I don't know", because the redcoats were too stupid to actually listen properly to the Aboriginal they asked, before they shot him dead, lol... So... Our stupidity and arrogance started early, ahaha. Perhaps we've just come full circle, now?
It's funny how people overseas blame the "convict mentality" for how fucked up shit here has become, and our slavish obedience to bullshit rules, without recognising that you can't have convicts without jailers, and honestly? It's the ideological descendants of those redcoats who are the ones inventing and enforcing all this shit. Not the ones descended from the fucking convicts. Because why the fuck would we WANT to continue to live like fucking prisoners?
Anyway, yeah. I'm always disappointed in how my fellow Australians behave. And I find the textline thing just as jarring as you do. I guess I'm just... Used to it. Generally just roll my eyes when I see the PSA roll over the big screens at the venue.
"Report antisocial behaviour, text 04_____ ____", etc.
Another good one down here is "If you see something [suspicious], say something", which, again, is encouraging you to snitch on your neighbours. That's generally on the TV, and has been ever since this "War on Terror" shit started...
Side note: I'm probably going to be arrested for treason, eventually, for telling you guys all this, so... Make it worth it, ahaha.
That ramped up a lot here after the whole January 6th show. If you're familiar with automated billboards (like giant TV screens on side of road) the put up a bunch of these FBI ads on those wanting you to snitch on people who might have been there.
Yep, we have those too, fren... We're not that arse-backward (at least in that regard)! :-P
I believe Sydney actually has the largest billboard in the world (or did, at one point), on the side of the Glebe Island silos... Dunno if they've automated it yet, tho!
Oddly, then, what you describe is almost literally exactly the same, here, then...
Except we didn't have an equivalent Capitol riot/insurrection/uprising/whatever. The closest would be ads telling people to "dob" on anyone they know who attended recent anti-lockdown protests, I guess... Though those advertise for the state police, more so than our equivalent to the FBI (effectively the AFP + ASIS), or the NSA (that one is called the "Australian Signals Directorate", more or less), because, well, our equivalent agencies are MUCH less well-known than yours, ha...
But yeah, trust me, we're... Not that dissimilar, in that regard, ha. We just, uhh, don't have the guns to fight back or even resist. Or the will, even, seemingly. :-(