I just spoke to my cousin who lives in Ontario. From her point of view, this whole convoy thing is astroturfed by right-wing extremist entities, and the people involved are generally (white) middle-class, economically secure right-wing agitators who are taking lessons (and funding) from American fascists and white supremacists.
That’s it. Same shite, different decade. Freedumb convoy is basically the ‘Tea Party’ V. 3.01
In looking into James Bauder a bit more, it is apparent that he’s mentally ill, and somewhat divorced from reality.
He’s a full on Q-conspiracy nutter, who thinks George Soros spread covid as part of a worldwide conspiracy.
He’s behind the brilliant idea that the governor general should dissolve parliament and appoint him and his minions to government.
He’s not all there in the head.
Well, at least that shows they’re paying attention to current events, seeing the supply problems those Freedumb Convoys are having outside Kyiv, and learning from it.
Really, has there been any bigger PR blunder than these stupid trucker convoys?
I know the above isn’t the most common framing for this, but it did occur to me that from a marketing and branding point of view, these people are in the top 10 of all time marketing failures.
They damaged their brand. They got no one on their side. They exposed themselves as ridiculously, and then dangerously, manipulated. There was no coherent message other than ‘we are truckers and we are bigly mad’. They did this in a manner which was threatening even to those who supported them.
I do not think a single objective, other than some having personal satisfaction that they participated, was achieved. Quite contrary, they exposed the ridiculousness of their position for the world to see, put an even greater emphasis on the need for self-driving vehicles, and, as a side benefit, raised their insurance rates*.
These people wish they were New Coke.
*There is a near-zero marginal cost for State Farm, etc, to put a $40k/year actuary trainee on a task of getting every license plate of the participants… via govt records, photographs, etc… and then flagging matching accounts. The increased rates alone make this a very profitable task, not to mention getting people who use their insured vehicles for non-authorized means off your risk profile. Win-win!
Yes. Putin showing that his military consists of Keystone Kops.
Kirk Swearingen writing at Salon, March 12, 2022:
Sarcastic and snarky.
Keystone cops ridding Ukraine of Nazis.
If they were only in Illinois. I hate Illinois Nazis.
How is Putin ably to even convince Russians there are still Nazis around today? In Ukraine of all places?
Agitprop. State tv and radio.
Do you seriously think that there aren’t?
I mean, Ukraine, which elected a Jewish leader, most certainly doesn’t have a Nazi government; and Putin is a damn liar. But there are Nazis pretty much all over the world. Where are you living?
Ukraine legitimately has a bit of a Nazi problem. I think everyone admits that, surely? They aren’t RUNNING THE COUNTRY, And Vlodimir Zelenskyy isn’t anywqhere close to being a Nazi, but the country has had to make some deals with some nasty ass devils to keep as much peace as they could. It’s hard to even look at the Azov Battalion, but one should.
Geez, it is almost as if Putin is willing to use an excuse or pretext to invade, providing enough people in his country can be persuaded or cowed into going along with it. No doubt many can, but current technology obviously exposes much more than it did decades ago.
Reminds me a LOT of Trump and his boldfaced bullshit lies, starting with a wal to keep out the Mexicans (which has been compromised 200,000 times I heard) to election fraud to you name it. He’s a kind of Putin-enabler and his followers fall for it. And white supremacy is alive and well, certainly, but I hadn’t heard much about Ukrainian Nazis, forgive my ignorance.
Remember that before Russia invaded, two NDP MPs accused the federal government of supporting neo-nazis in Ukraine, because the federal government was opposed to Russia invading Ukraine:
Niki Ashton, MP, also re-posted a tweet that accused Deputy Prime Minister Freeland of having a “Nazi past”:
Freeland’s Ukrainian grandfather was editor of a Ukrainian newspaper that published Nazi propaganda during WWII. That was apparently enough for Ashton to conclude that Freeland had a Nazi past and was pushing the federal government to support Nazis in Ukraine.
And that’s from MPs in a free country with a democratic tradition and open media.
As far as I know, neither Singh nor the NDP have disavowed these comments.
The Beltway convoy has decided to drive back & forth on 395 instead.
These idiots don’t even know what they are protesting about. Stolen election? Having to wear a mask? Getting vaccinated? Getting magnetized? Traced by the government? Turned into robots? The south really won the civil war? All of the above?
But by gosh they are going to screw up every ones day.
Every one of their driver licenses should be suspended. Anyone so stupid should not be allowed to drive.
We sometimes get long lines of pick up trucks driving through our city on weekend afternoons. There are a lot of Canadian flags, a moderate number of “Truck Fudeau” spoonerisms, and a few American ones. They honk a lot. They come, and then they are gone. I presume their issues have not changed much, but it would be hard to tell. I wonder what they get out of doing this.
Attention.