- Similar "convoys" are now being organized across the U.S. A Telegram channel boasting almost 40,000 followers is sharing updates on regional protests planned in states from Alabama to Wyoming, based on POLITICO's review of social media activity.
Get ready. The angry Anglo armies are organizing to terrorize American cities in a few weeks. They will be at Trump's command, but he's already given some pretty clear marching orders.
What it's like to live in the Ottawan "Red Zone".
You're kidding yourself if you don't think the best descriptor of the American political right is "fascistic terrorists". LoL @ "far-right". The "moderate right" is down to like 10 GOP members of the House and a handful of GOP senators, almost all of whom are retiring or probably set to lose their primaries to Trump-endorsed radicals. "Far-right" is the right.
Kinda funny seeing my city on the news all throughout these past few weeks - typically it's a boring little town up here. Went to the counter-protest this last Saturday and then walked through the downtown core (Wellington, Metcalfe, Bank) to get a feel for the situation... so AMA, I guess?
Is it really as bad as the /r/ottawa reddit post claims? I think things have gotten better recently, but surely everyone agrees that blasting train horns 24/7 in a densely populated residential area isn't "peaceful", right? That misrepresentation alone makes me skeptical about the rest of the truckers' claims of peacefulness. The arson attempt comes to mind. Are the truckers & co. really getting upset about people walking by with masks on? Does anyone know how many truckers camped out in Ottawa are American? Some more predictions: I can almost guarantee that the blockades at the border won't last more than another day or two, because they disrupt corporate commerce. Only blockades targeting city centers and federal buildings will be relatively un-policed. Disruption of government and liberals will be where this movement finds itself, and the small business closures in the area will be considered an expendable casualty.
It's definitely not good for the downtown residents, I simply can't imagine what it's like living with the noise 24/7. We brought ear plugs, which came in handy, but it's not like you can drown out what essentially sounds like an air raid siren blaring right outside your house. Regarding masks - can't really say whether it's as bad as others have reported, since my friends and I decided to go in with a nuclear option (a pair of anti-convoy signs and a communist hammer-and-sickle flag, just to see how far we can push it). This is to say that I don't think it was our masks that were the biggest problem to the protestors. A few did take issue with our insignia and got a little aggressive, at one point encircling our little outfit, but we ended up talking things through and got out alright in the end. As for the Americans, it's hard to tell whether many of them are from the US. What I did notice was that a very large chunk of the protestors on the ground, especially those with kids, are Quebecois, and (perhaps not too surprisingly) there was a good number of Russian speakers in the crowd. There was even a field kitchen set up right across the road from the Centennial Flame, with the tables draped in Russian flags - the cooks told me they were Ukrainians from Montreal. Not to say that the protest is necessarily astroturfed or something - my own parents are there some days, thanks to the antivax sentiment ever so present in the immigrant diaspora - it was just a weird experience to constantly hear your own language at a protest on Parliament Hill.
DHS is now all over this. Mark my words, this is going to snowball into a big threat to American social stability and the rule of law, obvz especially in the cities, where the democrats live. The American right has verified the trucker blockade method (and the trucker demographic for use as pawns, at least initially before expanding) as something that will mobilize their most rabid believers. They will use the free press coverage of the Super Bowl disruption to recruit, and by the State of the Union address, on March 1st, this gon' be ugly. Once this kicks off, the boots-on-the-ground people and "protest" coordinators will get some dope-ass funding from multi-millionaire/billionaire agitators. am_U's recommendations for the near future: Anticipate further supply chain disruption, avoid areas near government buildings, especially in the central districts of capitol cities of the larger population states (but especially D.C.), and expect any chaos to continue with minimal pushback from local law enforcement departments. If you can come back here after March 1st and say "Damn boiiiiiii, you were hilariously wrong!!", I will be so happy :D.
That's most of them, sure, but this is a very vocal, very small minority. Still, of the 3.5 million American truck drivers, it's enough to form a sizable cavalry. Even limited to the pool of independent contractors. I was also under the impression that many of the truckers in Canada are from the U.S., but it's been hard to find reputable reporting on that. P.S. - Trucker Carlson
I remember when air traffic controllers thought they were invulnerable Trucking is in a crisis and has been. It's the industry that will most likely get automated away first, frankly. Be curious to see what happens if, say, the DOJ decided to take a flyer at 'em.
My last Lyft driver was an ex-trucker, and had plenty of horror stories. I guess the blockaders could get blacklisted, but it'd be much more preferable if the trucking companies themselves were to do it. Any actions taken against them by DoJ, or any branch of the executive, for that matter, will allow them to claim vindication and possibly further recruit.
Supposing he was being genuine (big suppose), I agree with him on his economic framing. Front and foremost, this is class warfare. Globally, we have seen a pandemic exacerbate the already absurd wealth gap. The problem is that folks like Tucker Carlson, a millionaire at least a hundred times over, and so many others, like Pierre, here, have harnessed the lower socioeconomic classes' legitimate grievances to undermine trust in the very institutions that have been used historically to effect change; Unions, democratic majoritarian policy, and lately even science, statistics, and academic expertise. That's why there is a sizeable kernel of truth to these concerns: This is for posterity, because I know you know this. That "Don't Be a Sucker" production is a 75-year-old masterclass in the concept. Again, thanks for the recommend. That said, I can't over-emphasize how relatively tame Pierre Poilievre seems to me vs. someone like Trump, who continues to this day to condone and even incite violence against his political enemies. Don't worry, we are exporting the extremism your way, and it's not unlikely that Pierre has something resembling a plan to leverage the importation for his own political advantage. What's absolutely shite is that we clearly need to subvert the existing status quo, and at least one of the most popular movements has been lowkey appropriated by the billionaire class. And (you're not gonna believe this!) I don't think the billionaires want fuckall to meaningfully change. Instead, the wealthy actively work to cripple the ability of the proletariat to reverse wealth gap disparities. And stoking racism has proven to STILL be a very potent tool in their arsenal. I'm by no means a hard-line Marxist! I think I'm an actual populist in the flavor of Bernie Sanders. A democratic socialist. So hopefully Erik Prince assassinates me in my sleep tonight.
Yeah, and I worry that there aren't many left in the MAGA crowd capable of having an "Are we the baddies???" moment.