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Canadian Trucker Protest

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Harvestdancer
Post subject: Canadian Trucker Protest
Posted: Sat 12 Feb , 2022 1:23 am
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It is interesting to me. Fascinating. The worker are rising up protesting, and the more left leaning parties are siding with power against the workers. There are attempts to portray this as far right and white supremacist, after the truckers said "you are not with us" to one person waving a Confederate flag and another person waiving a Nazi flag, both coincidentally accompanied the whole time by the same photographer. People tried to donate support to the truckers, only to have GoFundMe refund the donations (minus a processing fee).

Of course mainstream social media is not happy with this either. There is a movement to create a similar drive to Washington, and they get their organizing attempts removed.

Right now the Ontario police are trying to make it a crime to bring food / fuel / etc supplies to the truckers. It is being called an insurrection, probably because they are not looting and burning the city. Tow Trucks were called to tow away the protestors, but the drivers of those trucks joined the protest instead.

A Judge has ordered that the protest blocking the border to the US be ended, but those at the border are not complying.


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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: Canadian Trucker Protest
Posted: Sat 12 Feb , 2022 12:42 pm
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I find Heather Cox Richardson, a political historian, a reliable source of information, especially when you want a summary. Here is her latest on the "Freedom" Convoy.

The Fox News Channel is cheering on the so-called “Freedom Convoys” of disgruntled Canadians driving commercial trucks who have shut down Ottawa, Canada’s capital, as well as key border crossings between Canada and the U.S. They have created traffic jams that have made it impossible for auto plants on both sides of the border to get the parts they need, and the resulting production cuts, as well as the idling of hundreds of millions of dollars in trade, are hurting the economies of both countries.

According to Justin Ling in The Guardian, the convoys appear to have been organized by James Bauder, a conspiracy theorist who believes Covid-19 is a political scam and has endorsed the QAnon movement. Canada’s recent vaccine requirement to cross the Canadian border provided a catalyst to pull together a number of different groups opposed to public health measures with anti-government protesters. The protests were neither popular nor representative of truckers: there were never more than about 8000 protesters, 90% of truckers crossing the border are vaccinated, and the Canadian Trucking Alliance strongly opposes the protest.

On Tuesday, a spokesperson for the Canadian Trucking Alliance told Rose White of MLive that many of the Freedom Convoy protesters “have no connection to the trucking industry and have a separate agenda beyond a disagreement over cross border vaccine requirements.” Ling noted that the convoy participants flew neo-Nazi and Confederate flags and had QAnon logos on their trucks, but Bauder urged his supporters stick to the message of “freedom.”

The “Freedom Convoy” has been pushed by fake accounts on social media and has picked up supporters from the U.S. right wing, including leading lawmakers. Facebook officials told NBC News today that fake accounts tied to content mills in Vietnam, Bangladesh, Romania, and several other countries have been pushing the convoy. Their disinformation is working; donations from the U.S. have flooded into accounts supporting the convoy protesters.

Former president Donald Trump, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), and others have endorsed the convoy, and the Fox News Channel has talked about the convoy two and a half times as often as CNN and five times as often as MSNBC in the last month, according to Philip Bump of the Washington Post. Matthew Gertz of Media Matters for America tweeted that the network has spent more than ten hours on the story since January 18, with the network personalities—especially Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity—explicitly calling for an American version of the protest.

The idea of shutting down supply chains does not interest the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which yesterday denounced the convoy. “The livelihood of working Americans and Canadians in the automotive, agricultural, and manufacturing sectors is threatened by this blockade,” Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa said in a statement. “Our economy is growing under the Biden Administration, and this disruption in international trade threatens to derail the gains we have made. Our members are some of the hardest workers in the country and are being prevented from doing their jobs.”

But that is almost certainly the point. Disrupting a nation’s supply chains destabilizes its economy and thereby weakens the government in power. Indeed, U.S. lawmakers know this quite well: in 1972, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency funded a 26-day truckers’ strike in Chile that helped to destabilize the government of democratically elected Salvador Allende, who would be overthrown the following year by right-wing dictator General Augusto Pinochet.

The economy under Biden shows that his traditional vision of a government that supports ordinary people rather than cutting taxes and funneling money to “makers” works; the extraordinary unity of NATO in the face of Putin’s determination to advance authoritarian goals shows that multilateral cooperation rather than unilateral military action works, too. For those determined to regain power, disruption and destabilization are the order of the day.

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Jude
Post subject: Re: Canadian Trucker Protest
Posted: Sat 12 Feb , 2022 2:14 pm
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The original post in this thread shows an almost complete ignorance of what is actually going on here in Ottawa. No mention of the truckers torturing the residents with the constant and deafening honking of horns at all hours of the day and night. The unsafe levels of diesel fumes from them using their trucks to keep warm. The unembarrassed display of racist and hate symbols. The violent harassment of residents who choose to wear masks. For these truckers, freedom means "you have to do whatever I want."

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Harvestdancer
Post subject: Re: Canadian Trucker Protest
Posted: Wed 16 Feb , 2022 2:54 am
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The few news reports that cover this say the truckers are operating from 8 am to 10 pm.

There was one person with a Confederate flag and one person with a Nazi flag, both accompanied by the same photographer (surely a coincidence) before the truckers expelled those two people as not being part of the protest. However, truckers of all colors, races, and ethnicities are being called white supremacists for participation in this protest.

This is being condemned as shutting down business, which is what each and every strike through history has done at least in part.

They are protesting what they perceive as government overreach. There is a theory among some that a protest can be as violent as the participants want as long as they are protesting for more government overreach. These truckers are not looting and burning, which is the indicator that the protest is "mostly peaceful."

At first the news didn't want to cover this, but as it grew they switched to saying it was a small fringe. As it grew even more, the reporting switched to calling this a terrorist insurrection because they are protesting.


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Jude
Post subject: Re: Canadian Trucker Protest
Posted: Thu 17 Feb , 2022 2:25 pm
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There's so much misinformation that it's hard to know where even to start...

"This is being condemned as shutting down business" - that's because that's exactly what's happening. The Rideau Centre has been closed for over two weeks now. Local businesses are shutting because of harassment from the protesters. Now they have to figure out if they can even pay their employees.
Quote:
They are protesting what they perceive as government overreach.
They are protesting perfectly reasonable guidelines that have saved thousands of lives.
Quote:
At first the news didn't want to cover this, but as it grew they switched to saying it was a small fringe.
Are you saying the news didn't want to cover the protest? What utter bullshit.

If that's not what you meant, please post again to clarify.

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Frelga
Post subject: Re: Canadian Trucker Protest
Posted: Sat 05 Mar , 2022 12:00 am
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A nonprofit says it collected over $1.5 million for a D.C.-region-bound truck convoy. Its director recently pleaded guilty to fraud.
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... AFCLF Foundation, which launched last year and names as its executive director a Texas woman named Pamela Milacek, whose arrest is sought, records show, by authorities who allege she violated the terms of her community supervision after pleading guilty to felony fraud and exploitation charges in 2020.

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Harvestdancer
Post subject: Re: Canadian Trucker Protest
Posted: Fri 22 Jul , 2022 12:10 am
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Jude wrote: *  Thu 17 Feb , 2022 2:25 pm
They are protesting perfectly reasonable guidelines that have saved thousands of lives.
That is not how they saw their actions. That's important. I find today fewer people acknowledge different points of view existing.
Jude wrote: *  Thu 17 Feb , 2022 2:25 pm
Are you saying the news didn't want to cover the protest? What utter bullshit.

If that's not what you meant, please post again to clarify.
Yes, that was the case, until it got too big to not cover. A few truckers can be ignored, but something this big cannot.

The protest is now over, but we did get to see a disturbing development near the end. Justin Trudeau assumed emergency powers reserved for terrorist attacks. This was not a terrorist attack. He used it to seize bank accounts of some of the truckers involved in the protests. He relinquished the emergency powers before they could be challenged in court, giving a precedent next time some Prime Minister is confronted with a protest he does not like.


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Jude
Post subject: Re: Canadian Trucker Protest
Posted: Wed 27 Jul , 2022 3:23 pm
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In the first place, I'll commend you for responding to what people have actually posted. So I'll respond...
Harvestdancer wrote: *  Fri 22 Jul , 2022 12:10 am
Jude wrote: *  Thu 17 Feb , 2022 2:25 pm
They are protesting perfectly reasonable guidelines that have saved thousands of lives.
That is not how they saw their actions. That's important. I find today fewer people acknowledge different points of view existing.
Whether or not the guidelines are saving lives is not a point of view. It's an objective fact that can be proved or disproved by measuring it objectively.

Whether or not following the guidelines is worth the inconvenience is a point of view. Considering the potential to save lives, I'm amazed than anyone could not find it worth the inconvenience.
Harvestdancer wrote: *  Fri 22 Jul , 2022 12:10 am
Jude wrote: *  Thu 17 Feb , 2022 2:25 pm
Are you saying the news didn't want to cover the protest? What utter bullshit.

If that's not what you meant, please post again to clarify.
Yes, that was the case, until it got too big to not cover. A few truckers can be ignored, but something this big cannot.

The protest is now over, but we did get to see a disturbing development near the end. Justin Trudeau assumed emergency powers reserved for terrorist attacks. This was not a terrorist attack. He used it to seize bank accounts of some of the truckers involved in the protests. He relinquished the emergency powers before they could be challenged in court, giving a precedent next time some Prime Minister is confronted with a protest he does not like.
I'm not sure what your news sources are, but I can assure you that it was covered from the very beginning here in Canada. If you're not in Canada, there's no reason why it should be covered locally until it became big news. Why should the rest of the world be interested in every little protest that takes place?

And, don't tell the people of Ottawa that it wasn't a terrorist attack. It was. For weeks, many of them were afraid to leave their homes. Many of them still suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome. When Trudeau finally put emergency powers in place, the local reaction was mostly "what took you so long?".

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Harvestdancer
Post subject: Re: Canadian Trucker Protest
Posted: Fri 12 Aug , 2022 2:07 am
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When I think of protests that lead to PTSD, I generally think of protests that have arson, looting, assaults, and even murders going on. Truckers honking their horns during daylight hours generally doesn't make the list.
Jude wrote: *  Wed 27 Jul , 2022 3:23 pm
Harvestdancer wrote: *  Fri 22 Jul , 2022 12:10 am
Jude wrote: *  Thu 17 Feb , 2022 2:25 pm
They are protesting perfectly reasonable guidelines that have saved thousands of lives.
That is not how they saw their actions. That's important. I find today fewer people acknowledge different points of view existing.
Whether or not the guidelines are saving lives is not a point of view. It's an objective fact that can be proved or disproved by measuring it objectively.

Whether or not following the guidelines is worth the inconvenience is a point of view. Considering the potential to save lives, I'm amazed than anyone could not find it worth the inconvenience.
In modern western civilization, we've gotten to the point where we are so badly dichotomized that people don't even acknowledge different points of view as having any legitimacy. You are either with me or you are knowingly wrong and probably evil.

-- note, I'm not talking about you but a viewpoint I see more and more often --

Those truckers do not agree with your premise about the guidelines you say are saving lives. Or if they do, they have done a cost-benefit analysis and have come to a different conclusion. Sometimes safety precautions can be considered "overkill".


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