I am watching matters develop with regards to the trucker strike, with appreciative interest, seeing that is really another variant of a grass-roots spontaneous civic spontaneity, much like the Tea Party was, some years ago. The Canadian trucker protest has that in common with the Tea Party protesters but the difference might be that the independent trucker community is a smaller, a more cohesive and even more media-savvy and self-disciplined party. The various Tea Party protests were more general, cut across class lines (at least the urban-focused one that I was involved in was, no matter what the establishment national media might insist) and focused more upon voting in various political races then upcoming, and protesting the general monetary incompetence of the Obama Administration.
This excited a great deal of mostly temporary interest on the part of several different parties. The established GOP locally were initially thrilled to bits, seeing this as a brand-new pony for them to ride, already saddled and bridled; votes for the usual useless GOP establishment creatures, and a bounteous source of volunteers and funds. The establishment media outlets were initially intrigued and then horrified, upon seeing ordinary people who had never gone out for politics at any level … suddenly become intensely interested to the point of participating in massive street gatherings. Upon discovering that Tea Partiers were generally conservative in outlook, and placed a high value on leading balanced, family-oriented and fiscally-responsible lives in well-run communities … well, that would never do! It would be bad for ratings, and because Obama was the inspiration for generating such protests, was obviously raaaaacist.
Also, as far as the establishment media seemed to be concerned, a lack of civic dysfunction, quiet order and economic self-sufficiency would be bad for ratings and would upset the various apple carts and overturn the iron rice bowls of all those credentialed expert on speed-dial to such media commentators as NPR. As the media rep for the local Tea Party at the time, I was rather boggled at how little interest our activities excited among the established media. Any of us on the board could have explained ourselves very coherently to any media rep who would have called up and asked. Instead, they seemed to prefer going to the experts enshrined in their golden Rolodex under the divider of ‘domestic political movements.’
In contrast to all that, the trucker protest is one which, if they put their minds into it might have certain urban localities and industries by the throat a capability which the establishment media doesn’t quite seem to grasp, so deeply embedded are they in a class-oriented structure. There are those who can and do work at home on their laptops and know all the right people because they have gone to the right universities … and then, there are those beneath their notice, like grocery clerks, supermarket shelf-stockers, delivery drivers, plumbers, electricians … and truck drivers. (Also air traffic controllers, nurses when they aren’t doing TikTok videos, the janitors who clean public spaces, the housekeepers at hotel chains, taxi and Uber drivers, farmers and mechanics … all of them people who have to actually show up at the work site and put in hours actually being there and doing physical work …)
Suppose the truckers begin to refuse in a large way, to make deliveries, refuse to take contracts to convey goods between one point and the next. Suppose that some truck drivers are sidelined, by their own choice, or by the decisions of high-handed political bureaucrats … Stopped at the borders, or the bridges, or at the ring-roads around various cities? The distribution network is already stressed almost to the breaking point … and what if even more truckers in North America decided to ground their tools, park their trucks and go honk their horns and set up bouncy castles for the kids to play in?
What then, oh wolves?
Deliveries wouldn’t be made, of course. And Peppermint Psaki, the blandly-evasive spokes-liar for the present administration, upon being asked for a reaction to that development at a White House news conference, would likely make some snarky comment about the tragedy of the delayed treadmill. Not a word regarding the delayed or non-delivery of groceries, infant formula, necessary spare parts, and whole boatloads of essentials.
What then? Discuss as you have insight and local knowledge.
I keep waiting to see if Trudeau and the idiot Ford in Ottawa really intend to attack the truckers. There is a lot of scare stuff going on with threats of $100,000 fines, etc. Is this real? Russia seems to be doing something similar in Ukraine. Whose nerve will be first to fail?
Apparently they do, Michael. Police moved in today in Ottawa arresting people and threatening to tow trucks.
Otoh it looks like lots of people walking into Ottawa today to take part in the strike.
I can’t find the video now but earlier today I saw drone footage of thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of people on foot.
Also massive demos in Australia, France and elsrwhey.
Aussi demo https://t.co/VrugHFG3Sm
The system is based on conservatives behaving themselves, and deferring to the state because it’s the legitimate authority. Once that’s gone, all bets are off…
And that’s gone.
They can arrest these truckers, and fine them, but they’ve showed they can raise millions, so so what? They’re not going to jail nice peaceful truckers or their supporters, there’s way too much footage out there to show the truth, and the truckers have been incredibly disciplined and effective so far.
Basically Fidel Jr and his ilk need an exit strategy, because they’ve lost already.
Bystander At the Switch
The Moral Case Against Mandatory Public Health Measures
https://theideasinstitute.org/2022/02/04/bystander-at-the-switch-the-moral-case-against-mandatory-public-health-measures/
Should we start a pool on when Trudeau steps down as pm?
I want next Saturday. But it may be sooner
I’ve seen people at FB claiming the truckers’ protest…well, more specifically, the proposed US version of same…is motivated by ‘foreign influence’, by which I think they mean **Russians**. The basic assumption seems to the that the Common People are merely passive, waiting to be told what to think by sinister foreigners, or by Trump, or whoever, unless the more-enlightened can get influence over them first.
OTOH, Tyler Cowen…who I see as a fairly credible source…reports that a lot of the Canadian truckers have been calling for the Governor General to simply dissolve Parliament, which power she apparently does not have and certainly should not have. Tyler also links a source which claims that there are groups consisting “seasoned street brawlers whose primary goal is to further erode the legitimacy of the state ”” not just the city of Ottawa, or Ontario or Canada, but of democracies generally.”
I don’t doubt that there are street brawlers showing up looking for trouble, but I doubt that they are specifically anti-democracy, just looking for a fight. And I doubt if there are very many of them in proportion to the whole. Anyhow, here’s Tyler’s link:
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2022/02/you-want-to-have-educational-polarization-on-your-side.html
Cowen appears to be completely out to lunch on the truckers, which is sadly typical. That link you discuss is complete lunacy. My guess is if you asked Cowen about John Durham, he’d look at you like you had two heads, and have no idea what you were talking about. He lives in a tiny box of an alternate reality, where the important people write about the best Indian restaurants in Buenos Aires and truckers are non-existent non-humans.
As for Cowan’s rumors of thugs, please remember that antifa is not monolithically a liberal org. Anarchy can be served from many beginning points. Turning a peaceful truckers’ protest into a violent riot serves their purposes well.
Technically, the Governor-General doesn’t have any powers; they act as a stand in for the monarch, who is generally considered too busy with the UK to spare the time to reign over Canada directly.
That said, the monarch (and thus her viceroy, the Governor-General) explicitly has the power to dissolve Parliament.
In practice, for the last century and a half what actually happens is that the prime minister advises the monarch on what to do and the monarch (or their Governor-General) does it. It’s unclear what might happen if the monarch is publicly at odds with their prime minister and their government; technically everybody swears an oath to the monarch, but power has been exercised by the government for longer than anybody has been alive.
John Henry:
Resign? Not likely, at least not immediately. For one thing, it’s his whole identity on the line. Justin the Good, Son of Pierre, First of His Name, Paramount Chief of the First Nations, Leader of the Parliamentary Liberal Party and Prime Minister in the Great White North …and all that.
Normally, if things deteriorate further, I’d expect a motion of confidence in the near future. There is one problem…..the Conservatives just trashed their party leader (another bland one) and have to go through a leadership election before they are prepared to fight an election, even when events have handed them the opportunity of a lifetime. And NDP will probably stand behind the current government because it’s not clear that they’d make enough (or any gains) in a snap under these condition. Given that the current government is a minority, NDP has leverage that they won’t have under a Conservative majority.
Now sometime this autumn……… it’s a sign of the times that they’ve had repeated snaps annually instead of the usual three year interval.
Observer,
I did not say “resign” though it is a possibility. I said “step down” if the queen, the governor General as the Queen’s viceroy, or fellow politicians decide they’ve had enough of him, they might ask him to resign as an alternative to being fired.
I doubt that he will resign on his own unless forced for the reasons you mention.
Boobsh,
At the risk of being pedantic, everyone swears an oath to queen Elizabeth personally, by name
An oath of loyalty to a specific person feels different to me than an oath to an office.
It would be, roughly the difference between swearing an oath to the US Constitution vs swearing an oath to Joe Biden.
John Henry:
I’ll grant the point but I think it’s an unlikely scenario. As long as things stay at the level of civil disobedience (a term I’d like to see employed a whole lot more) and recedes in the near term (i.e. when the provinces all take the lead and pull their mandates without waiting for Ottawa), I don’t see it. It’s just not in the political character. Now if we were to see serious violence in several quarters coupled with tacit stand down by the constabulary, -maybe-.
The preferred method would be the threat of a motion in confidence accompanied by a whip count showing that he’d overwhelmingly go down. (i.e. the threatened impeachment of Nixon model). There is that outside chance that, under these conditions, he’d turn the keys over to Freeland rather than see the Libs lose their hold on government. If the current government can just hold on, it will be another two years before they go to the polls and that will give enough time to paper things over and move on to…..wherever.
Until/unless the Conservatives manage to find an effective leader, the underlying political geography remains unchanged and enough of the Libs will think they can hang on indefinitely. They still dominate the Francophone space and they still have the urban clerisy.
candice, the new conservative leader, was a little weak, what happened to the reform party, were they utterly purged, at least when stockwell day was leader, they presented an alternative
Miguel:
Candice is only a placeholder until a leadership election can be held. Don’t count on her being the ultimate choice … especially in light of events. The Conservatives were in a foul mood over not beating Justin in last fall’s snap and turfed O’Toole -before- the convoys formed.
After Harper, the C’s went back to being the alternating establishment party….very pastel, no hint of bright primary colors. C in Canada is more like the UK than down here.
“The Conservatives were in a foul mood over not beating Justin in last fall’s snap and turfed O’Toole -before- the convoys formed.”
Not correct. He was booted on February 2, the truckers had already been in Ottawa for days at that time.
Brian….
I stand corrected. Thank you. We’ve been a bit preoccupied by the Ukraine thing.
Nit picking: the formal boot was on 2 Feb, the skids had already been greased for about two weeks. Would have happened regardless. Doesn’t alter the fact that I messed up the chronology.
Oops.
No problem lol. I know nothing about Canada politics really. I do remember the vote was after the truckers had been there a few days, since I have followed that. All the internal stuff I don’t really understand. It seems like the electoral system there must be stacked against conservatives, because Fidel Jr’s party I think won something like 30% of the vote but 48% of the seats.
because ndps and greens got the rest, o’foole was generally useless, now bernier did less well than I thought he would,
I think the whole thing boils down to the essential idea that the Left had a revolution, and didn’t bother to tell anyone about it. They took everything over, and nobody really paid attention. Now that they’re in charge, and screwing things up by the ideological numbers, well… Now the normies are cottoning onto the idea that there’s been a revolution while they weren’t paying attention, and they ain’t happy about it, or the direction the Left is taking them.
The really interesting thing about all this is watching the way the mentally ill Left (which is most of them…) so easily demonizes everyone and everything opposite of their espoused beliefs. Back when it was “Trump’s vaccine”, they were all on line, saying they’d refuse to take it. Imagine what would have ensued had Trump retained office, and then tried mandating the vaccinations the way that the various leftoid scum did…? There would have been riots that made the St. George Floyd episodes look like minor events, by comparison. You know this; I know this. There’s no doubt about it, at all.
The Left is basically mentally ill, across the board–Note the way that the “unvaccinated” are suddenly Public Enemy Number One. No dissent is tolerated; to point out the issues with regards to the actual science involved, or the obvious conflicts of interest in regards to the pharmaceutical industry is to mark yourself as a target, someone worthy only of scorn, derision, and un-personing. There is no critical thought displayed; the “leaders” on the left point out the enemy of the day, and in lockstep, there go there flying monkey minions in the media, echoed by their vast echo chamber out in the PBS-listening masses of morons. All of whom have credentials to beat the band, but who cannot perform the simplest functions of daily life without hiring it out to someone who didn’t waste their time in the indoctrination camps of modern academia.
The root of what is going on here is that the vast game we’ve been playing with ourselves no longer replicates reality, and as such, the inherent contradictions are coming to a head, which further means that the dues will be billed out, shortly. Paying them will probably mean incredible dislocation and destruction of the status quo, which I think would be a good thing if it means that the current lot of utter cretins running things have to find other employment.
On the whole, I think time is running out for the entrenched elites. They were never really elite; just credentialed. And, since the gamesmanship that got them those credentials was never really validated in the real world that isn’t “game”, they’re mostly screwed once reality ensues.
One of the issues you have to keep an eye on when it comes to things like game simulation of reality, in terms of training and education, is that you have to ensure that you’ve retained fidelity to reality. You lose that, and the point of the game vanishes, because you’re no longer training or educating to meet reality’s hard-and-fast requirements, but the game itself. Which is but a simulation you’ve made up…
In military training, one of the things we lost track of in the 1990s-2000s was that everyone on the battlefield needed realistic combat training for how to operate on the modern battlefield. We forgot this, and ignored the people saying that it was a problem. What result did this have? It created the conditions which led to the infamous 507th Maintenance Company debacle in the opening days of the Iraq war. Why did that happen? We lost sight of the reality that every unit assigned to a division needed training in combat operations, realistic training, which we never spent the money for on the 507th. The moment those poor bastards got it stuck in, they were screwed–And, what was worse? The unit they were assigned to support, the 3rd ID, had not a clue how poorly they were prepared, because of the vast gulf between divisional combat units and the corps-level units like the 507th. On both sides of the dichotomy, utter ignorance existed as to the reality of combat operations.
And, why did this happen? Because we allowed a huge void to exist between our gamification of war-as-expressed-in-training, and reality.
That same gulf exists in all too much of our education and training for the so-called “elites”, who, as I point out incessantly, are totally unqualified to be termed such, based on objective performance standards.
Brian:
No, the seat return numbers are not unusual. Canada is a classic Westminster parliamentary system and ridings are won on a first-past-the-post basis. Keep in mind that, in the vast majority of ridings, you can have 3-5 -serious-candidates running (Lib, C, NDP for certain, Green at the margin, Bloc Quebecois in guess where) so, in swing ridings, the winner only obtained a plurality of the vote, not a majority.
Similar outcomes are the norm over in the UK. Both Labour and Conservatives have historically run up significant majorities in Parliament with only 38-40% of the popular vote.
Brian (2)
The other thing to keep in mind is that no party dominates on a -national- basis. Each has their regional bastions going all the way back to pre-Confederation. Libs are, historically, the Quebec/French party, C’s the Ontario/English party. They fight it out in the Atlantic provinces, the C’s win out in the prairie – particularly Alberta, and BC (the left coast) has become a hash between Libs and NDP (the Bernie party). Demographically – Ontario and Quebec, between them, outweigh the rest.
The concept of things waiting till Autumn when the so-called Opposition will be ready for a “snap” election where things remain the same under whatever label is not quite realistic. There are existential matters at stake. The Nomenklatura may plan for one thing, but events have their say on matters. If things turn violent [from either side under real flags or false ones], all electoral calculations are off. If the economy collapses because of events in the world, all electoral calculations are off. If war breaks out in the Ukraine, in Taiwan, or anywhere all electoral calculations are off.
SOMETHING, probably something unpleasant for a lot of people, is going to happen before Autumn.
Everybody needs to keep their codpieces buttoned.
Subotai Bahadur
I’d like to know how to help them – since the govt pressures internet groups that disperse money – so far $10-$15 million has been held up.
Some have mentioned Bitcoin – how does that get dispersed to help the truckers buy supplies?
Someone made the snarky comment directed at these hostile commentators such as on CNN and MS-NBC that if the American truckers join in the supply for Botox will dry up and we will see them as they really are.
The best government move would be to declare victory and pardon all those deluded protesters. Explain that the latest government science reports that have just been released, have now shown the situation has changed, as was proven by all those states dropping their mandates, so its no longer necessary to enforce any. See, the government was right all along! And as a sign of good will no charged will be pressed either.
Just declare victory and leave the scene for a week or two.
The best government move would be to declare victory and pardon all those deluded protesters. Explain that the latest government science reports that have just been released, have now shown the situation has changed, as was proven by all those states dropping their mandates, so its no longer necessary to enforce any. See, the government was right all along! And as a sign of good will no charged will be pressed either.
Just declare victory and leave the scene for a week or two.
PS: GiveSendGo is still committed to getting all the money they took in to the protesters one way or another.
Whats this then?
https://mobile.twitter.com/brianlilley/status/1493214619007168512
Provinces stepping back to be the “good cop” while Fidel Jr plays the “bad cop”?
https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1493238238860890115
JUST IN – Canada’s PM Trudeau to invoke never-before-used federal emergency powers in response to nationwide protests, CBC reports.
Enough people are becoming ungovernable, the government if it had any brains would look for ways to relieve the pressure, but Fidel Jr hasn’t ever been accused of having brains, he is where he was purely because of who his mother was married to…
How many people protesting would it really take to shut down cities?
How many truckers sitting out would it really take to shut down the economy?
How many people withdrawing their money would it take to shut down the banking system?
Sgt Mom
Your tea party experience (as well as your wisdom) gives a perspective that would seem to best understand the truckers.
Obama’s administration was full of people who knew how to subtly and dishonestly undermine the movement – media, charges of racism, using the irs (and osha and god knows what). Clearly Trudeau takes a much heavier hand – well a sledge hammer – approach. Is it that Trudeau is stupider or that the responses to grassroots rebellions have become more harsh, predictable and just plain snotty in the last ten yeas?
I can’t understand how far we’ve come that some think there was no purpose to the trucker’s strike nor do they see any reason for anyone to be against mandates. Nor see “freedom” as a worthy goal. People who see themselves as Bohemian rebels, or did in their younger days, take the words of CNN and MSNBC as gospel.
Why the hell can’t the Canadian politicians look at the Great Barrington group, look at the Johns Hopkins paper, see Fauci as hopelessly taiinted and consider their responsibility to their citizens. It would seem that that would lead them to stop the mandates, open society and prepare to take care (and identify Covid at the earliest possible moment in those with a comorbidity or sufficient age (isn’t age in the form it has taken with Covid a co-morbidity in itself?). Okay, I’m not an expert so maybe this is simplistic. But then at least it wouldn’t seem priorities mainly dictated by virtue signaling and ridiculous autocratic power grabs.
Anyway, thanks for setting out your observations.
It’s not about rationality or responding effectively to the virus; it’s about power. Pure, raw power–And, they don’t want to give it up. The panic about the virus, which they largely created themselves enabled them to do so much more than they normally could that it’s not even funny, and they don’t want that to change. This is why they keep yammering on and on about the “Great Reset”.
With any luck, what’s going to be “reset” is our relationship with the “elite”, a group I am growing more and more angry with. This keeps up, and there’s going to be an American Khmer Rouge going around looking for people with Harvard and Yale diplomas on their walls, and then hauling those people off to labor camps in the countryside where they can work off the national debt they’ve run up. I doubt many of them will survive the experience. I know I certainly won’t be at all sympathetic over their fates.
Thing the elites need to remember: Those sweet gated communities they’ve built? The enclaves? Those walls work both ways–They’re not walling the rest of us out so much as they’re concentrating themselves in nice, neat packets where they can be collected up and dealt with by the new (almost certainly radical) regime. They’re not going to make it to the borders or the airports, when the worm finally turns.
30 trillion dollars in debt, and I guarantee you that when that bill comes due, the “rest of us” are going to repudiate it, and deliver it to the people who ran it up and actually benefited the most from it. Most of those people make up our current kakistocratic “elite”, and I don’t think Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden are going to like being stripped of their “generational wealth” very much. It’s still going to happen, just like the way Henry VIII stripped the monastery system of its property and wealth, and just like the French Revolution expropriated the wealth of the French aristocracy. Won’t be pretty, at all–But, it will happen. Mobs have a habit of doing those things, and empowering the radicals. We may not get to the point that Cambodia did under Pol Pot, but it will likely come close. Harvard/Yale degree? Likely the same thing as glasses, in 1970s Cambodia.
Which, in the end, will be karmic justice, because the people responsible for that happening in Cambodia were mostly Foggy Bottom types with prestigious degrees and extensive credentials.
SGT. MOM [and I suppose everyone else]
I don’t have a way to contact you discreetly, so I will comment on the Canadian matter here. As you probably know, Trudeau has said in his decree under the Emergency Act that he intends to seize amongst other things, the bank accounts of the Freedom Truckers . . . and those of all who contributed to them. Since the Emergency Act supercedes what passes for a constitution in Canada, he is asserting the power to at will seize anyone’s money, at any time, for any reason. There are all sorts of implications. No matter who you are, that makes having your money in Canadian banks, brokerages, or financial institutions far less secure. There have been online calls for a bank run. There are apparently some answers to those calls. I suggest that people search the concept of Canadian bank run on Canadian sites, and financial sites. Apparently there are sudden “technical issues” that have been preventing online and phone banking all day at the major Canadian banks. There are anecdotal reports of people pulling money out. I am not Canadian, nor do I have money there. But I submit that you, and all of us here in our little family, should look at the situation and exercise due diligence as to the amount of risk you want to endure if you have money in Canadian banks, brokerages, or financial institutions.
I suspect that it will take a no confidence vote to remove Trudeau to maybe restore some confidence in the banking system. I do not think the testosterone count is high enough in the Canadian Parliament for them to do that. As of this morning there were no votes or debates scheduled there on the Emergency Act and its implementation through Friday. Then they have a week off for recess. That is a long time for things to go Tango Uniform.
Of course, for everyone, YMMV
Subotai Bahadur
I think that what we’re observing in real time up in Canada is the implosion of an entire cultural/governmental paradigm. One that is conducting self-demolition as we watch…
I think Canada is going to have an entirely different government before summer, and that it may not even exist as the polity we know today. Couple of casual acquaintances from up that way are intimating that there is suddenly a lot more enthusiasm for “Western departure” than there was before this started.
I kinda think that we’re seeing a major turning point, much like the one when the Berlin Wall came down. The cracks are propagating, the contradictions are self-demonstrating, and people are tired of the bullshit from the self-named “elites” like Trudeau. Who, when you get down to it, has precisely zero accomplishments or real abilities, besides standing there and looking pretty. He’s even more of a non-entity than Biden, when you get down to it.
I think we’re watching the end of Canada, TBH. Certainly, as we knew it.
Does “Western Departure” mean a stand alone west?
I’d just like to note that our splendid leaders are also setting precedents.
We’ve just learned that they think it’s an acceptable tactic to simply take money from people they don’t like, for any reason or no reason. Noted.
They previously have decided that it’s acceptable to hold protesters in prison for a year without any charges at all. Also noted.
They’ve long since been silencing critics online and lying about it as well. Yet more notage.
Remember when Harry Reid abolished the filibuster for judicial nominations, presumably because he thought the other side would never have the power to take advantage of that?
I daresay that turned out to be something of a mistake.
In my view, the collapse of a cultural/governmental paradigm- to borrow Kirk’s phrasing- doesn’t happen immediately after it ceases to make sense. The failing regime and the people who profit from it of course make adjustments to retain power. Eventually, the adjustments required reach the point where they need to break previously agreed upon rules- like when Reid ditched the filibuster.
But it can’t stop with that sort of thing, because the sociopolitical regime- my phrasing- still doesn’t work. The failure gets worse and worse, and the rule breaking gets worse and worse- and then comes the implosion of the regime, quicker and sooner than almost everyone expected.
I think we’re getting to that point. That is, a change of regime. Which by definition, means that the people previously in charge suddenly aren’t.
Precedents, did I mention precedents- yes, I did.
Like I said on Tuesday “How many people withdrawing their money would it take to shut down the banking system?”
And I bet it wouldn’t take that many. Fidel Jr has just introduced something that we haven’t seen in nearly a century–the idea that your money isn’t safe in a bank. What catastrophic idiocy. All for a few trucks and bouncy houses. Kind of tells you how insecure the regime feels, doesn’t it?
I was reading an essay on substack yesterday, about the divide in today’s world between Real vs Virtual. Real is truckers, waiters, factory workers, “rural”, etc., and Virtual is the laptop/PMC/”urban” class, the ones who have consolidated their power to nearly total in the past few decades. Fidel Jr was able to dismiss the truckers a few weeks ago because the worlds are basically completely disjoint now, so he had no idea what was happening, or about to happen, and he’s never in his life seen real opposition from the Real. The problem the Real has is that the Virtual can unleash Virtual Violence, which is what Fidel Jr just did, but going to Real Violence would immediately mean destruction, so there’s a very strong asymmetry in potential actions. The question is if there’s enough life left in the Real, as I don’t think we’re quite yet living in the cage that the Virtual have been working to construct…My guess is it may be a close run thing, but I still say in the long run we win…
The thing that the virtual globalist types forget is that they have to live somewhere, physically–And, that the necessities for that life are things that their supposed primitive inferiors have to provide.
Note that the guy who hacked GiveSendGo has the testicular fortitude to come out and identify himself, boldly acknowledging what he did and is doing. Now, ask yourself “Was that wise…?”.
I’m not gonna advocate real-world violence, but I am going to point out a couple of salient facts: One, that dumbfsck is in Canada. He’s forgotten the lesson that the character Rorschach from Watchmen taught his prison peers–He’s not locked up with them, they’re locked up with him. There are no doubt a lot of potentially violent Rorschach types on that rather large list of people he doxxed; what, do you suppose, those people are going to do, now that he’s done that? I sure they’ll be typically polite, as Canadians are, but… Yeah. I had a sudden flashback to the Canadian Para Regiment in Somalia, contemplating his likely future. I suspect he may spend the rest of his life in police protective custody.
The delusional elite thinks they’ve transcended the physical and the national. They are about to learn that no, they have not, and that their not-yet-ascended peers aren’t well-pleased with their activities.
I suspect that Canada’s banking system will have experienced some significant blowback by the week’s end. It may not even exist, in a functional form. Trudeau will be gone by summer, and he’ll be lucky if he’s not in jail.
And, yes, Ginny, I was referring to the Western Canadian provinces doing a Brexit from the rest of Canada. They used to just mutter darkly about that sort of thing, but I think Trudeau just lit the fuse on Canada’s dissolution.
I still don’t get what the hell got him elected–A high school drama teacher…? What the hell were they thinking?
If there was any decent “conservative” politician in Canada they’d give some nominal amount of money to the truckers and dare Fidel Jr and his nazi supporters to do something about it, and not abandon the poor suckers to take the hammer. Also be right now threatening to have Fidelito and anyone else responsible thrown in prison, etc.
I think the mistake is in looking for “decency” in any politician. Sad fact of the matter is that our system here in the West during these sadly diminished times selects for and encourages people who are mostly narcissistic sociopaths to go into politics.
Jay Inslee here in Washington state is another of these Trudeau-like characters. I met the man when he was running for his first term in our district, which was then distinctly “not liberal”. He glibly made all the right noises, and then went off to Washington, DC once elected and then promptly began voting the national Democrat party line, which was diametrically opposite to what he’d clearly stated he would do during his campaign. He also didn’t deign to respond to constituents calling him on that, and was promptly thrown out of office during the next election cycle. After that, he sought more congenial climes, and ran for office where the Democrats dominate on the western side of the Cascades.
He and Trudeau have a lot in common, in that they’ve got no real accomplishments outside of politics to point at, and they’ve made a career out of being a professional politician. This is sadly the case with most of our elected officials, and it is something that needs to cease.
The Constitution limits the Presidency to people over the age of 36. This was intended to ensure that only experienced people would take the office, but what they failed to consider was the professional politician like Biden or Clinton. To my mind, putting people into office who do politics for a living is a huge mistake–You should not be allowed to fill an elective position for more than a fraction of your life, in order to ensure fresh blood in the jobs, and to prevent people from making careers in public office. It’s inimical to representative democracy. I’d even go so far as to say that if your dad was a senator or a representative, well… You won’t be.
The other thing is the bureaucratic dynasties we’ve allowed to happen, like Hoover in the FBI. That should never have happened, and men like Fauci shouldn’t be allowed to build empires within the government. There really ought to be no “career” bureaucrats like him–Career technical experts, sure. Life-long sinecures in positions of bureaucratic authority…? Oh, HELL no.
This is the kind of thing we are going to see more of:
https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/facing-texas-pushback-blackrock-says-it-backs-fossil-fuels-2022-02-17/
At the risk of being dropped from Texas pension funds, BlackRock Inc (BLK.N) has ramped up its message that the world’s largest asset manager is a friend of the oil and gas industries.
No more “muh free markets” nonsense. Time to start crushing our enemies and taking no prisoners, and any politicians not on board have to go.
Canadian Parliament was supposed to meet today to debate Fidel Jr’s “emergency” declaration. Instead it’s cancelled due to police activity to crush those who are left.
But tell me again that Donald Trump and conservatives around the world are the real enemies of democracy.
Any canadian politician worth anything would be down there getting arrested with them.
This video is three Canadians, one, at least, a very well known vlogger (Viva Frei — not familiar with the other two, they might be well-known, too).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1T_Uv5rWHY
Just in the first 10-20 mins it blows the claims of these truckers as somehow a negative force out of the water.
Businesses that are/were open are killing it, because they have lines out the door. Moreover, the truckers’ wives are going around volunteering at stores to help with cleaning… :-P
Contrast with not even BLM, but the remnants left behind by lefties after one of their big protest ops — mounds of trash all over the streets, layers and layers of discarded placards to the point where you cannot even see the ground. :-/
}}} The basic assumption seems to the that the Common People are merely passive, waiting to be told what to think by sinister foreigners, or by Trump, or whoever, unless the more-enlightened can get influence over them first
Viva Frei has a term, “Confession through projection”. What the left whines about is what they, themselves, think they would do in the same situation.
They have no idea how Cons think at all, so they project their own notions onto them.
The “Common liberal” IS a passive idea sink who does and believes whatever they are told. No thought or question shall ever be applied to it.
Just look at Pengy’s bloviations on this, and so many other things.
I sometimes wonder if Pengy is a stupid sock puppet of one of you guys, just to keep the place from being an echo chamber … :-P He just blathers out lefty talking points so utterly brainlessly.
}}} It would be, roughly the difference between swearing an oath to the US Constitution vs swearing an oath to Joe Biden.
By now, with his approval ratings, I think more people are swearing oaths AT Joe Biden than TO Joe Biden.
Jus’ Sayin’….
:-D
}}} I’d like to know how to help them – since the govt pressures internet groups that disperse money – so far $10-$15 million has been held up.
Some have mentioned Bitcoin – how does that get dispersed to help the truckers buy supplies?
Bitcoin is probably not the answer, the Ontario Elites have all declared that they plan to supervise all transactions in digital currency.
No idea how they’ll manage that, but you can bet it will make it difficult-to-tricky in the short run until the DCurr system manages to find ways to consistently subvert their efforts at control.
Southwest Airlines’ pilots brought the company’s operations to a standstill with a few days of sickouts. I wish the Canada truckers would declare victory and go home and then stay there. Try to get all the truckers to agree that noone delivers anything to Ottawa for the next month.
Politicians aren’t essential. They just think they are.
See, the thing that the Canadian truckers demonstrate is that the way to go about this is not to emulate all of the left’s Astroturf “grass roots” movements, demonstrations, and protests. Those are trademarked and protected as the exclusive property of the left, and they know precisely how to combat them–Because those are their tactics, their techniques.
What you have to do is approach things from a different angle, entirely. You can’t really have “organizers”, because as Canada demonstrates, those are easily gathered up and arrested. If you want martyrs, sure… Have a few outward faces. Otherwise? Remain leaderless.
See, this is the fundamental difference between them and the rest of us–They have to have “thought leaders” because they have no thoughts of their own. They’re easily influenced, because they have voids where their minds and souls should be, and anyone can fill them. It is not accidental that most of the left demonstrates mental illness–It’s because it is a philosophy that attracts the mentally ill and the deranged. If you don’t think so, go read some of the utterly depraved hatred they express towards people who don’t want the vaccinations, and consider the likely scenario if Trump had won, and then he’d been the one to mandate the vaccines… That’ll tell you all you need to know, and you know damn well I’m right about that.
You have to fight this through means they can’t understand, because then they can’t predict it. Outward demonstrations of protest? Forget it. Just don’t show up to pick up any loads going towards Ottawa. Sure, make the arrangements, but then when you’re supposed to be showing up to make the pick up… Don’t. Bank cooperating with the government? Take out your funds. Refuse to pay your mortgage. If everyone is doing it, what the hell are they going to do?
The thing with the banks and the finance system is that it’s basically all a con game; it only works so long as everyone is believing in the system and participating. They break the rules? Break them back. What, precisely is CBC going to do if everyone goes on a mortgage strike and start a bank run at the same time?
The thing that the “rest of us” need to learn is that the system only continues to work so long as we cooperate. Cease cooperating. Watch what happens. One guy fails to make his mortgage payment, and then he’s got a problem. 100,000 people don’t make their mortgage payments, and the system has a problem.
With situations like this, the best thing to do is just turn your back on the bastards, and let them rot. They literally cannot survive without your cooperation. They are parasites. Cease feeding them.
There’s no need to get violent, no need to be confrontational. Just cease doing whatever it is you do for them, and watch what happens. Refuse service. Refuse to work for them. Refuse to cooperate in your enserfment. Break the yoke, and be free.