farmdoc's blog post number 188

There are moments in my life, as I’m sure there are in yours, which have long-term and even permanent ramifications. For example notification of a blood test result, a job application, a publisher’s response to a submitted manuscript. You open an envelope or an email, answer the telephone, or meet someone face-to-face, and within a microsecond information you receive determines your future. For years. Decades. I call these ‘pivot points’, and I’m always conscious when I encounter one in my life, or when I see Sweetheart Vivienne or one of our darlings come to one. They can happen to individuals, families, subcultures, societies, and even populations. Sometimes you see them coming, and sometimes you don’t recognise them until afterwards. Last Tuesday in southern Tasmania logging thugs (aka forestry workers), kicked a non-violent protester in the head, and sledge-hammered a vehicle placed by protesters to block a logging road. Footage of it is here. I’ll be surprised if watching it doesn’t set your pulse racing. The activists must’ve been terrified. I was, just viewing the footage. In our society there’s no excuse for such violence. None. It’s happened before and little’s come of it. The Tasmania Police are investigating. I’m not confident of charges let alone jail sentences. This is Tasmania. But this outrage may be a societal pivot point. It’s unlikely but not impossible. Here’s hoping.