Another far Right effort to destabilize civil society.
"This is Jan. 6 in slow motion, but here they stayed." - Catherine McKenney, an Ottawa city councilor,
,”The vast majority of terrorism in the United States comes from the hard Right...and the number of terrorist incidents in the U.S. has tripled since 2013." - Stephen Marche, p. 32, The Next Civil War- Dispatches From America's Future
"They’re essentially putting their foot on the throat of all Canadians. It can’t be allowed to persist.”- Bill Blair, Canada’s minister of emergency preparedness,
"The so-called “freedom convoy” – which departed for Ottawa on 23 January – was the brainchild of James Bauder, an admitted conspiracy theorist who has endorsed the QAnon movement and called Covid-19 “the biggest political scam in history”. Bauder’s group, Canada Unity, contends that vaccine mandates and passports are illegal under Canada’s constitution, the Nuremberg Code and a host of other international conventions."- The UK Guardian, Feb. 8th
As usual, the resident Trolls at FOX have been busy working the Right's aggrieved minions into a hysterical lather over "freedom", in this case the brazenly lawless 12-mile long "freedom convoy" laying siege to Ottawa, Canada. Thereby keeping hundreds of thousands of citizens captive and fearful in their own city, often without needed supplies or medicines. Or even a decent night's sleep because of the incessant honking.
Let's get straight in our heads, this is not a "test of democracy" as a NY Times editorial recently claimed. It is TERROR - caving in to mob rule anarchy and massive civil instability - as well as more economic devastation. (A lawyer representing Canada’s Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association told the Ontario court Friday that the estimated cost to the economy was nearly $40 million a day.)
Subjecting a law-abiding captive citizenry to the politically-incited (by far Right crazies) anarchy and economic dislocation of a lawless bunch of yahoos and right wing nuts is not "testing democracy", but rather engaging in civic terror. You heard it here first. No one else involved in blogging or media appears to want to call a spade, a spade.
Rightists, however, always bray about their "freedom" but never responsibility. Everyone demands "rights" (like the 1,000-odd pack of "Freedom Convoy" renegades laying siege to Ottawa) but no one wants responsibilities, such as for masking and vaccinations - as legitimate ways to escape the predicament of the pandemic. Doing what enhances the collective welfare instead of acting like spoiled brats. Do any of the FOX media machine- driving disaffection and disturbance in the U.S.- even know that last month more Americans died from Covid than in the 10 years of the Vietnam War? NO, probably not. They all want the pandemic to be over, like it's a freakin' frat party, but don't get that it ain't over until the worst of the virus is over. With hospitals still at capacity it's not over by a long shot. This is why all the Right's efforts to launch a similar bogus "freedom" convoy in the U.S need to be slapped back, especially after a Dept. of Homeland Security alert day before yesterday about such threat.
Author Stephen Marche on ALL In last night, aptly pointed out that these asinine Canadian "truckers" (actually mostly far Right former cops, army vets) - contrary to the distortions of U.S. media- are opposed by the majority of Canadians (60 percent). It's costing jobs, it's triggering more inflation by adding supply problems and it's having major ill effects on the mental states of Ottawa citizens. As Marche noted too, it is a (relatively) small group of malcontents causing all the chaos because they claim to disdain vaccine mandates. Also, as Marche explained to Chris Hayes, it is really about exerting pressure to try to oust Justin Trudeau and demanding the "dissolution of parliament". (A la the 'Enabling Act' of Hitler and the Nazis.) A right wing coup in another guise, hatched in the US of A. But if Trudeau has a grain of sense he will act now to mobilize the Canadian Army into Ottawa to toss the bums from their trucks and drive them off the highway. Then get the Ottawa police - or Royal Canadian Mounted Police- to arrest the bastards.
Marche, author of 'The Next Civil War- Dispatches From America's Future', put the kibosh on any notion the Canuck trucker terror had wide support. When asked if he was surprised by the Foxites' taking up the Canadian Right wing cause he replied:
"Not really because I think what's clear to us over here is this is spillover from American political toxicity and what we're seeing is a sizable element of U.S. involvement in the Ottawa blockade. So it's not surprising to me at all that American Right wing people are the biggest supporters of this.
It's only a thousand people in Canada. It has absolutely no support from any mainstream party here. Even the conservatives have told them to come home. Doug Ford has aggressively attacked their fund raising. So yeah there's almost no support for it here and almost all comes from the United States."
This is important to process as it once more dispels the canard that there is any equivalence between the left media in the U.S. and the far Right machine (at FOX) which incessantly stokes disruption and chaos. Thus the American far Right rage machine, not home grown Canadians, is behind the 'GO Fund Me' efforts to support the Canadian renegade truckers. It also clearly does show the reach and power of the American Right to infect other nations, including when it erupted in France in 2019 for the "Yellow vests" protests.
That the Right also fancies stoking civil upheaval and supply side chaos in this country should also not be surprising. But it cannot be tolerated, given the stress already to our supply systems - as well as a pandemic still raging. As Chris Hayes asked, why would the Right here even be motivated to cause chaos and blockade convoys when the Trump Supreme Court already ruled in their favor, against mandates. Adding: "There is no vaccine mandate to protest here while there is one in Canada."
But it doesn't matter because it was never about protesting mandates anyway (85% of Canuck truckers are vaccinated as Marche noted) but sowing civil disruption and outright terror on a captive populace. Also, holding a nation to ransom. As Marche pointed out:
"This isn't related to any policy, even on health care. For example, they're demanding the resignation of Justin Trudeau which is not realistic."
But it is realistic for terrorists to make such insane demands. Thus, if the Right does try to foment trucker terror and siege across highways from LA to Washington D.C. then governors in the intervening states need to treat it as a terror attack and mobilize their National Guards. They absolutely cannot give in to any insane demands from these Nazi-inspired fools at FOX.
They cannot allow it to get out of hand like Trudeau has allowed in Canada. Again, this is not free speech, or 'testing democracy' it is open, bloody-minded thuggery and mob terror. It cannot be tolerated, not at the Super Bowl (with whatever FOX's trolls are trying to incite there) or in D.C. or any other place. Also the U.S. and Canada need to act now and haul these blockading truckers off the Ambassador Bridge linking the U.S. and Canada. If they have to be bodily dragged from their rigs, so be it. You exercise renegade free-dumb with no responsibility, this is what you get.
The travesty of the "political theater" siege wreaking havoc in Ottawa is ironic, as Stephen Marche pointed out, given the vast majority of Canuck truckers are already vaccinated. This according to the Canadian Trucking Alliance. No, it is not about 'freedom' but rather using the ruse of "mandates" to marshal an attack on Trudeau's government - like the Right in the U.S. has marshaled against Biden. Including the use of Nazi and Confederate flags, e.g.
Nazi flags seen at freedom convoy in Ottawa - YouTube
The go-to markers of the Rat Right. In the case of the "freedom convoy" we now know it was launched by long time QAnon supporter and conspiracy nut, James Bauder. See e.g.
There is way too much allowance of open, brazen lawlessness - from Trump's destruction of presidential records to his vow to obstruct justice (by promising to pardon the Jan. 6th traitors if re-elected), to the threats from the Reep rogues in congress, to the "truckers" with their terror blockade. Drop the damned hammer on this B.S. and stop it in its tracks, lest even one "freedom convoy" tries to block roads in the U.S. .
Like one Tucker Carlson suggestion,
a 3-mile trucker "freedom" convoy parked in front of So-Fi Stadium in LA on Sunday. Meanwhile, citizens need to learn that holding a city hostage for weeks to spurious demands is not a civil protest but civil terror and ought to be treated as such. As an act of terror, leaders - whether Trudeau, Biden, Macron or whomever- are obliged to use the force necessary to neutralize the terror, including military force. Not to do so is to condone the terror inflicted by a minority of miscreants on the majority of lawful citizens.
Are you paying attention, Mr. Trudeau?
Update: 8:10 a.m. MT Sunday: From The Washington Post
Police arrest protesters, tow vehicles at vital U.S.-Canada border crossing
My suspicions these Canuck truckers were being used as pawns to foment this Canadian coup - to oust Trudeau and dissolve parliament - was also confirmed when I read from a Times report yesterday. I.e.:
"While the trucks themselves are the purported cause, symbol and tool of the protest, only a few of the self-proclaimed leaders are actually truckers. Some are, in fact, former police officers and army veterans who many believe have used their expertise to help organize the occupation."
Meanwhile, nattering simpleton nabobs for The Hill, scribbled:
When rioters caused billions of dollars in damages, burned police stations and occupied sections of American cities in the summer of 2020, for example, few in the media declared them to be terrorists or a threat to democracy
Which is total twaddle, for one thing because it was not "billions of dollars" in damages, as Ali Velshi pointed out back in January last year on MSNBC - citing $550 m in property damage. Not "billions". But even if it was billions the context of that property damage is different. As Velshi also noted:
Any violence at all that fights injustice is violence with meaning behind it, born of the failure of other means and methods redress. Violence that means to spread democracy and justice and encourage fairness and the equal application of the rule of law has nothing at all in common with the wanton, anti-democratic riot of January 6th, fueled by Donald Trump and QAnon conspiracy theories
The fact is the Ottawa occupation is also an insurrection, a national one for Canada. The Hill is also guilty of false equivalence and journalistic malpractice because those George Floyd protesters were not being paid off to protest by fifth columnists, like the American far Right is funding (and inciting) these fake "truckers". Most of whom aren't truckers but former cops and malcontent, Right wing army vets with an axe to grind against Justin Trudeau. The Floyd protesters didn't lock down a whole city for WEEKS with economic costs of $40 MILLION a day for Ontario, and now over $50 million/day in estimated lost U.S. auto workers' wages - because of the blockage of the Ambassador Bridge to the U.S. Nor threaten TWO nations' economic stability with their illegal economic blockade. The Hill's clowns also bitched that the police in U.S. "allowed the Floyd protesters to take over streets" - but again, those were REAL, legitimate protesters not far Right agents posing as "truckers".
So The Hill's deranged writers, who also condemned Harvard prof Juliette Kayyem for wanting to arrest the drivers, have their heads up their asses. Again, anyone able to use a realistic lens of perception and rationality can see this is not a "free speech protest", or "testing democracy" but bloody anarchy and terror, holding tens of thousands of innocents hostage. See e.g.
Opinion | When ‘Freedom’ Means the Right to Destroy - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
Excerpt:
So this isn’t a grass-roots trucker uprising. It’s more like a slow-motion Jan. 6, a disruption caused by a relatively small number of activists, many of them right-wing extremists. .. Any attempt to put a number on the economic costs of the blockade is tricky and speculative. However, it’s not hard to come up with numbers like $300 million or more per day; combine that with the disruption of Ottawa, and the “trucker” protests may already have inflicted a couple of billion dollars in economic damage.
That’s an interesting number, because it’s roughly comparable to insurance industry estimates of total losses associated with the Black Lives Matter protests that followed the killing of George Floyd — protests that seem to have involved more than 15 million people.
This comparison will no doubt surprise those who get their news from right-wing media, which portrayed B.L.M. as an orgy of arson and looting. .....In fact, the demonstrations were remarkably nonviolent; vandalism happened in a few cases, but it was relatively rare, and the damage was small considering the huge size of the protests....What it’s really about is an attempt to exploit pandemic weariness to boost the usual culture-war agenda.
As you might expect, the U.S. right is loving it. People who portrayed peaceful protests against police killings as an existential threat are delighted by the spectacle of right-wing activists breaking the law and destroying wealth
The yen to call the Ottawa occupation "democratic" shows how far our collective level of critical thought has devolved even since the Watergate era. Especially given the masterminds behind this lawless onslaught are conspiracy nutcases out of the QAnon rat warren.
Anyone in the media calling this siege a "democratic protest" is as boundlessly clueless and brainwashed as the RNC imps who called the January 6th insurrection "legitimate political discourse". While it is encouraging the police in Windsor, Ontario are arresting the bums there, blocking the Ambassador Bridge, law-abiding citizens need to see action in Ottawa as well.
If the Ottawa cops are diffident in busting up the siege there or refuse to go after the Right's haters, creating havoc with innocent residents, then Trudeau needs to grow a pair and dispatch the military. Else, go down as the "Neville Chamberlain" of Canada, allowing far Right terrorists to take over his nation's Capital. It's one or the other.
Make no mistake the rule of law is on the dock in this standoff, and Canadian authorities - especially Justin Trudeau - can either acquiesce to terror or show that their laws still mean something more than dried ink on paper.
See Also:
by Henry Giroux | February 13, 2022 - 8:59am | permalink
Excerpt:
The “Freedom Convoy” movement, consisting of hundreds of trucks, has ground to a halt the busiest border crossing between Canada and the United States and occupied Ottawa, Canada’s capital, effectively blockading the city and disrupting daily life for most residents in the core of the city. The convoy participants reject all vaccine requirements and mandates and support a decidedly anti-government discourse reminiscent of far-right ideology in the United States.
The convoy participants lack the support of the general public, which is largely vaccinated. They also lack the support of most Canadian truckers, 90 percent of whom are vaccinated, and of the Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA).
Support has also come from powerful anti-democratic social media figures such as Tucker Carlson, Jordan Peterson and Elon Musk, and an array of white supremacist groups. Some of the more powerful right-wing groups in Canada include Action4Canada, which makes the false and conspiracy-riddled claim that the COVID-19 pandemic “was carried out, at least in part, by Bill Gates and a ‘New World (Economic) Order’ to facilitate the injection of 5G-enabled microchips into the population.” With the help of the social media, support for the Freedom Convoy protests snowballed globally with upcoming convoys being planned for the United States, France and all 27 European countries.
......
The Canadian Anti-Hate Network, a nonprofit group, has reported that “The so-called ‘Freedom Convoy’ was organized by known far-right figures who have espoused Islamophobic, anti-Semitic and other hateful views.”
The Ottawa protests have made clear that extreme elements supporting fascism and white nationalism are attracted to the movement, and visible in the appearance of neo-Nazi and Confederate flags and an abundance of QAnon logos emblazoned on trucks, signs and stickers.
And:
by Linda McQuaig | February 11, 2022 - 8:13am | permalink
Excerpt:
Residents of the nation’s capital have been subjected to a rare and curious phenomenon that could be dubbed “police docility.” It wasn’t as if police were caught off-guard; convoy organizers had signalled their aggressive intentions.
Before the convoy left B.C., Patrick King, a long-time far-right activist (with no apparent trucking experience), told a Christian talk show that the convoy “plans to shut down Ottawa.”
So Ottawa police had plenty of time to take basic police actions — like putting up concrete barriers — which would have prevented the men in large trucks from driving right up to the Parliament Buildings and the Prime Minister’s Office and deciding that that was a nice place to park.
Having met no resistance as they secured the finest parking spots in Ottawa, the foreign-funded truckers behaved like they had just been handed the keys to the city, which in a way they had.
And:
The next US civil war is already here – we just refuse to see it | The far right | The Guardian
Excerpt:
The right has recognized what the left has not: that the system is in collapse. The right has a plan: it involves violence and solidarity. They have not abjured even the Oath Keepers. The left, meanwhile, has chosen infighting as their sport.
There
will be those who say that warnings of a new civil war is alarmist. All I can
say is that reality has outpaced even the most alarmist predictions. Imagine
going back just 10 years and explaining that a Republican president would
openly support the dictatorship of North Korea. No conspiracy theorist would
have dared to dream it. Anyone who foresaw, foresaw dimly. The trends were
apparent; their ends were not.
And:
Excerpt:
One woman, a nursing student living in downtown Ottawa who requested anonymity over fears for her safety, said she had been accosted multiple times for wearing a mask by people appearing to belong to the "Freedom Convoy."
"They’re targeting anyone who’s wearing a mask, anyone who’s respecting public health policy," she said. "I myself have been accosted at least three times."
And:
by Jen Senko | February 11, 2022 - 8:04am | permalink
Excerpt:
There is a whole library of information about how Fox News influences mom and dad to become rabid right wingers. This is hardly surprising, because Republican operative Roger Ailes teamed up with media baron Rupert Murdoch for the specific purpose of a purported "news" channel to hype Republicans and malign Democrats.
Less is known about how the network propagates incitement to sedition and refusal to follow lawful orders to members of the military, the very persons charged with upholding the Constitution and national security. And the Pentagon is abetting it.
As to the seriousness of the problem, a former Marine has told the authors: "Right-wing society has captured the military . . . If you walk the Pentagon halls there will be not one TV tuned to anything but Fox." Another source told us that at their Air Force facility, Fox News is always blaring in common spaces during duty hours. Far from always being a service member's choice, the situation is often as at an airport lounge, where everyone is subjected to it like it or not.
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