Freedom Convoy protests [Split from All things 2019-nCoV]

[Edward Campbell]

We were discussing this at a family dinner and I our forward the idea that we have "fear fatigue:" we were, and in any cases still are, rightfully, correctly, afraid of what a viral pandemic might do to us, ourselves, to our communities, to our health care system and to our society. We went along, largely willingly, with draconian measures. But nothing worked. And we begen to lose confidence in elected leaders and in those who advised them. The fear remained but now it began to be mixed with a fear of authority and a new fear: the fear that those advising those in authority didn't have any useful answers. Then, late last fall, around Christmas, around the arrival of omicron variant we got really tired of being afraid.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

Yes. that 10 percent can have a tantrum and we should just give them what they want. Got it.

Remember that next time certain groups block pipelines, railways or take over a golf course. I didn’t support any of those things and I don’t approve of this. But some are comfortable being hypocrites (with a few even calling for lethal force at the time) depending on whose team they support.

I am not saying give them what they want. I am saying we shouldn't be surprised that we have a high level of a civil disobedience as a result of policies that have been enacted. The fact people are shocked by this with a big "I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS IS HAPPENING" is what surprises me .

Now the question is, what are we going to do about it? Do you want the Police to go in and beat them with billy clubs or do you want to negotiate with them? All are in the realms of possibility.

I can tell you what didn't get the railway blockades you mentioned to end.... Excessive Use of Force. In fact, it was negotiation and a signing of a Memorandum of Understanding that ultimately ended that crisis.

I'm trying my best to ignore the political aspects of this because like I said earlier, I don't really care about the politicians. Doug Ford, Justin Trudeau, John Horgan, Jason Kenney, François Legault, Erin O'Toole, Pierre Poilievre, Jagmeet Singh, etc are all cut from the same cloth, they just wear different colours.

 

[Edward Campbell]

I am not saying give them what they want. I am saying we shouldn't be surprised that we have a high level of a civil disobedience as a result of policies that have been enacted. The fact people are shocked by this with a big "I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS IS HAPPENING" is what surprises me .

Now the question is, what are we going to do about it? Do you want the Police to go in and beat them with billy clubs or do you want to negotiate with them? All are in the realms of possibility.

I can tell you what didn't get the railway blockades you mwntioned to end? Excessive Use of Force. In fact, it was negotiation and a signing of a Memorandum of Understanding that ultimately ended that crisis.

I'm trying my best to ignore the political aspects of this because like I said earlier, I don't really care about the politicians. Doug Ford, Justin Trudeau, John Horgan, Jason Kenney, François Legault, Erin O'Toole, Pierre Poilievre, Jagmeet Singh, etc are all cut from the same cloth, they just wear different colours.

Bingo!

 

[Remius]

I am not saying give them what they want. I am saying we shouldn't be surprised that we have a high level of a civil disobedience as a result of policies that have been enacted. The fact people are shocked by this with a big "I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS IS HAPPENING" is what surprises me .

Now the question is, what are we going to do about it? Do you want the Police to go in and beat them with billy clubs or do you want to negotiate with them? All are in the realms of possibility.

I can tell you what didn't get the railway blockades you mwntioned to end? Excessive Use of Force. In fact, it was negotiation and a signing of a Memorandum of Understanding that ultimately ended that crisis.

I'm trying my best to ignore the political aspects of this because like I said earlier, I don't really care about the politicians. Doug Ford, Justin Trudeau, John Horgan, Jason Kenney, François Legault, Erin O'Toole, Pierre Poilievre, Jagmeet Singh, etc are all cut from the same cloth, they just wear different colours.

True. To be honest I am not actually surprised. It validates a lot of opinions about that side of the argument. We’ve had coffe shop talk here on this site about which side right or left are the bigger threat when they don’t get their way.

Events in the US have shown what the 10 percent will do when upset.

The City leadership utterly failed to deal with this appropriately. But they are starting to take action. Starve and freeze them out is fine by me. No need to smack heads. Arrest the trouble makers and ticket them into oblivion as long as they keep violating laws.

Other cities in the country have learned from Ottawa’s incompetence and those protests were never allowed to turn into occupations. Lessons learned.

The feds will likely not talk to these guys or negotiate. Demands to overturn the government is a non starter. Restrictions are being started.

You talk about négociations but this group isn’t interested. They made demands and ultimatums. They didn’t say “let’s discuss a middle ground”. They showed up with extremist leaders, fuck Trudeau signs and a goal to hold the city hostage until demands are met. I doubt they would accept anything Trudeau et al have to say anyways short of giving in to all demands. They’ve said as much.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

We were discussing this at a family dinner and I our forward the idea that we have "fear fatigue:" we were, and in any cases still are, rightfully, correctly, afraid of what a viral pandemic might do to us, ourselves, to our communities, to our health care system and to our society. We went along, largely willingly, with draconian measures. But nothing worked. And we begen to lose confidence in elected leaders and in those who advised them. The fear remained but now it began to be mixed with a fear of authority and a new fear: the fear that those advising those in authority didn't have any useful answers. Then, late last fall, around Christmas, around the arrival of omicron variant we got really tired of being afraid.

I've been tired of being afraid for a while. Well, I haven't been afraid at all in a while. I've also been working the entire time this thing has been going on and for some brief moments of that time, did some pretty dangerous stuff.

In my travels and at work, I've also come in to contact with many plague rats because most of us have caught the disease at some point (I am one of the few I work with who hasn't tested positive).

Thankfully all of them were healthy fighting age males who seemed to be largely unaffected by this disease. So knowing the statistics, the fact I am triple vaccinated, the fact that I have continued to work as has my wife the entire pandemic, why should I even be remotely afraid at this point?

 

[OldSolduer]

And ANTIFA and BLM were so much better. Same with the ones who tore down statues and burnt churches.
I think the whole trucker thing is silly for the record.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

True. To be honest I am not actually surprised. It validates a lot of opinions about that side of the argument. We’ve had coffe shop talk here on this site about which side right or left are the bigger threat when they don’t get their way.

Events in the US have shown what the 10 percent will do when upset.

The City leadership utterly failed to deal with this appropriately. But they are starting to take action. Starve and freeze them out is fine by me. No need to smack heads. Arrest the trouble makers and ticket them into oblivion as long as they keep violating laws.

Other cities in the country have learned from Ottawa’s incompetence and those protests were never allowed to turn into occupations. Lessons learned.

The feds will likely not talk to these guys or negotiate. Demands to overturn the government is a non starter. Restrictions are being started.

You talk about négociations but this group isn’t interested. They made demands and ultimatums. They didn’t say “let’s discuss a middle ground”. They showed up with extremist leaders, fuck Trudeau signs and a goal to hold the city hostage until demands are met. I doubt they would accept anything Trudeau et al have to say anyways short of giving in to all demands. They’ve said as much.

Every group ever in the history of conflict has made demands.

That's just how negotiations commence.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

And ANTIFA and BLM were so much better. Same with the ones who tore down statues and burnt churches.
I think the whole trucker thing is silly for the record.

It's all silly @OldSolduer but it's all just a symptom of a breakdown in healthy political dialogue.

The sad part about our politics atm is I don't think any of the political parties in our Halls of Power do a very good job representing any of us ATM.

 

[Halifax Tar]

It's all silly @OldSolduer but it's all just a symptom of a breakdown in healthy political dialogue.

The sad part about our politics atm is I don't think any of the political parties in our Halls of Power do a very good job representing any of us ATM.

100% This amongst other things you have said.

Its all a symptom of our shitty electoral/governmental system.

 

[lenaitch]

I don’t buy into the whole treaty system, its fundamentally racist at its core. As is the indian act and all the provisions that go along with it. One country, one level of citizenship. We should all be equals, not some pigs are more equal than others.

As to it being a pipeline protest, what it was actually about was a (ultimately successful) power grab by unelected hereditary chiefs over a democratically elected group of chiefs who had approved the pipeline going through their lands like every other band along the route. Lots of other drama in there like the hereditary chiefs kicking out certain ones who were approving of the pipeline.

Not that I'm disagreeing, the treaty 'system' and Indian Act no doubt create inequity, but you would be hard pressed to find any FN willing to eliminate either, or even agree how they should be re-written. Many FNs do not accept that they are pigs in your analogy.

It is a matter of perspective on who power-grabbed who. Elected councils band councils are a child of the Indian Act (regional, provincial, etc. FN bodies are not legislatively supported). I'm all for them to sort out their internal politics and have the government deal with the winner.

There have been several commentators, Aboriginal and others, who claim that this protest sets a double standard and that if it was an Aboriginal protest the police would have quickly gone in with force. I can't think of any FN protest or blockade in recent history that hasn't been protracted, and most, if not all, ultimate police action was supported by an injunction. In some cases, FN blockades are complicated by a claim of right, not all of which have been settled by the courts.

 

[Good2Golf]

You talk about négociations but this group isn’t interested. They made demands and ultimatums. They didn’t say “let’s discuss a middle ground”. They showed up with extremist leaders, fuck Trudeau signs and a goal to hold the city hostage until demands are met. I doubt they would accept anything Trudeau et al have to say anyways short of giving in to all demands. They’ve said as much.

If everyone else was being reasonable, you would have a very sound basis upon which to critique the protesters.

However, there were unreasonable positions all around - local handling of the situation was essentially absent (cops in cruisers calmly watching the honking and nary a peep from the mayor or other local officials); media focusing on the singleton troublemakers (Nazi, Confederate flags, etc.) to add conflict angle to feed their numbers; and then the PM who pretty much out the gate marginalized the protestors as an inconsequential and irrelevant fringe element by leveraging the outliers (Nazi guy, etc.) to gaslight the entire protest.

Shame on protest organizers for the discordant aim of the protest and an incredibly delayed press/public engagement plan.

Shame on Mayor Watson and Chief Sloly for perhaps the worst showing of handling a situation at the municipal level ever.

And shame on Justin Trudeau for a gut reaction to quickly and sweepingly dismiss the entire group and gaslight them as destructive to Canadian society - no coming back from that when you give not a shred of credit to the voiced concerns, as if that would make it all go away. Hard for everyone to see ‘Sunny Ways’ if the key personality in leading everyone to those sunny ways explicitly excludes a not insignificant number of citizens.

$0.02

 

[mariomike]

So the restrictions achieved their purpose. That’s good. I don’t understand why you keep circling back to the lack of catastrophic failure as proof of excess measures. I mean, reporting in several provinces put thier medical systems at or approaching max capacity due to anti-mask/anti-vax types. And there were also triage decisions across multiple provinces that will let cancer patients die to save anti-mask & anti-vax people.

Do we need really catastrophic failure to look back and say that maybe the restrictions were not to much? Should we also be looking at this from the perspective of risk to myself and my inner circle?

Bingo.

 

[The Bread Guy]

And ANTIFA and BLM were so much better.

You're right, and it's critical that ANY protest keep a grip on the worst elements.

That said, people complained about the excesses in those protests, so fair game to complain about the excesses here as well.

 

[Good2Golf]

Do we need really catastrophic failure to look back and say that maybe the restrictions were not to much? Should we also be looking at this from the perspective of risk to myself and my inner circle?

…or “Some of you may lose your jobs or livelihood, but that’s the sacrifice I’m willing to make.”

 

[Remius]

Or some of you have chosen to lose your jobs and livelihood but is a sacrifice that YOU were willing to make.

 

[PuckChaser]

Or some of you have chosen to lose your jobs and livelihood but is a sacrifice that YOU were willing to make.

Unless you work in a service industry or small business owner that's been consistently locked out of your work.

In other news, OPS pulling away fuel is actually going to make their job harder. Tow truck drivers are unwilling to bite the hand that feeds them to get between the police and the people that pay their bills on a daily basis (its not the "they're being threatened meme"). CBC is also reporting that without driver assistance, Just the 40 trucks on Kent Street with driver assistance is upwards of 10 hours. "Next to impossible" without. But great idea to cut off their fuel so they cannot start the truck and fill the air brakes.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/ottawa-protest-truck-tow-remove-1.6339652

Could take several days​

With hundreds of trucks parked downtown, removing them all — if it could be done — would still take multiple days of round-the-clock effort.

Even in a best-case scenario with driver co-operation, it would take at least 10 hours to tow just the 40 trucks on Kent Street, Whan said.

But there's also the fact trucks are not often stopped in the ideal positions to tow, meaning workers have to spend extra time winching them.

"If you're in a tight parking lot, or you're hooking up on a 45-degree angle, obviously things are going to change a little bit and it's going to be a little bit harder," Whan said.

One previous job that involved towing more than 30 trucks and 28 cars in difficult positions took his company over 18 hours, he said.

Most hilarious part of this whole thing has been Liberal/Progressive Twitter:

Liberals/Progressives: Police response to protests has been violent and heavy handed, they should use a new approach and negotiate without violence

OPS: Attempts to negotiate and not use violence against truck protest

Liberals/Progressives: No, we meant no violence against our protests. You should curb stop the Nazi truckers because my Soy Grande Mocca Latte is getting cold when I have to walk further downtown.

OPS: ...

 

[The Bread Guy]

…or “Some of you may lose your jobs or livelihood, but that’s the sacrifice I’m willing to make.”

Or some of you have chosen to lose your jobs and livelihood but is a sacrifice that YOU were willing to make.

One coin, two sides ....

 

[Remius]

Unless you work in a service industry or small business owner that's been consistently locked out of your work.

In other news, OPS pulling away fuel is actually going to make their job harder. Tow truck drivers are unwilling to bite the hand that feeds them to get between the police and the people that pay their bills on a daily basis (its not the "they're being threatened meme"). CBC is also reporting that without driver assistance, Just the 40 trucks on Kent Street with driver assistance is upwards of 10 hours. "Next to impossible" without. But great idea to cut off their fuel so they cannot start the truck and fill the air brakes.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/ottawa-protest-truck-tow-remove-1.6339652


Most hilarious part of this whole thing has been Liberal/Progressive Twitter:

Liberals/Progressives: Police response to protests has been violent and heavy handed, they should use a new approach and negotiate without violence

OPS: Attempts to negotiate and not use violence against truck protest

Liberals/Progressives: No, we meant no violence against our protests. You should curb stop the Nazi truckers because my Soy Grande Mocca Latte is getting cold when I have to walk further downtown.

OPS: ...

Except fuel isn’t the issue. Them locking their air brakes is. Fuel or no fuel they aren’t moving.

But fuel deprives them of heat.

I don’t approve of violence against them. But ticket, impound and arrest anyone breaking the laws. Choke the food and fuel supply and start making things uncomfortable.

If these people had not held the locals hostage I’d be more sympathetic to an extent. The court injunction that is being asked for isn’t even to remove the protesters it’s to get them to stop honking their horns. The locals are sick of that and the oh so nice occupiers can’t even give them that. They aren’t interested in negotiating in good faith.

 

[Good2Golf]

Or some of you have chosen to lose your jobs and livelihood but is a sacrifice that YOU were willing to make.

Absolutely.

There is an entire spectrum of decisions and consequences out there for many (most?) people out there.

Some though, have less option space, and even while supporting all levels of governments and the various strata of mandates, have had their lives notably impacted, in some cases to the extreme. I have a triple-vaxxed friend who lost his business (barber/stylist) and had to let all his employees go because the restrictions drastically reduced his income to unsustainable levels and he had to close shop. By the time restrictions were eased, it was a moot point, his business had folded. His employees were gone and he had gone from small business owner and employer of 8-10, to a casual part-timer having a tough time making ends meet. He complied and supported and did his duty and life was arguably still less than fair to him. Short of people who got vaccinate, caught COVID and got sick/died, there’s not much more of an unfair part to life than that.

That is to say, that anyone who tries to simplify this whole issue to a black/white, “either you vax with us, or you’re against us” issue is failing to appreciate that there is room for all (and that includes politicians) to consider the full range of choice, rights, responsibilities and consequences to the issue. I think many, far too many, are still taking an overly-narrow partition of the consideration space on the issue.

 

[FSTO]

Just caught the tail end of a press conference by the leader of the NDP. Questions being raised about employing the military to clear the streets in Ottawa. Did we learn nothing from Oka?