I found this op/ed piece cogent. While I don't agree with many points of view, I do think they deserve to be aired. I think the Truckers are wrong--even as i also think that they are being wronged by the govt. and social media. the comparison with the treatment of the BLM is telling.
The 1st does not depend on whether or not one agrees with what is being said or represented. Now, let it be known, that Canada is not the US...and there is no Constitutional right...however, i do think that there is a distressing tendency to define what rights we do have by what viewpoints we support.
I cannot think of anything more unamerican~
Police in riot gear block trucker protest area on US-Canada border
Canada appears to be facing its greatest threat since Benedict Arnold came close to seizing Ottawa in 1775. The source of this "insurrection" and "attack on democracy," however, is not a foreign government but Canadians who have descended on their own capital to protest continuing COVID mandates.
The protest has been peaceful - and highly successful in cutting off key highways. But the most alarming development has not come from the convoy but from the commentary about it, including calls for mass arrests and even vigilantism. Ottawa's police services board chairman has called it a "nationwide insurrection," adding: "Our city is under siege."
CNN analyst and Harvard professor Juliette Kayyem was apoplectic at the thought of truckers shutting down roads and interfering with trade. She tweeted out a call to "Slash the tires, empty gas tanks, arrest the drivers, and move the trucks." CNN correspondent Paula Newton said this act of civil disobedience was nothing less than a "threat to democracy. An insurrection, sedition."
Blocking streets, occupying buildings or shutting down bridges have long been tactics of protesters. Yet what constitutes a protest or an insurrection often seems to depend on the cause involved. When rioters caused billions of dollars in damages, burned police stations and occupied sections of American cities in the summer of 2020, for example, few in the media declared them to be terrorists or a threat to democracy. But CNN's Kayyem once called conservative protesters occupying a state capital to be "domestic terrorists." GoFundMe, which previously helped fund arrested BLM protesters, froze over $10 million raised for Canadian truckers to prevent it from being used to support them.
After the money was frozen by GoFundMe, supporters switched to GiveSendGo to "adopt a trucker." The Canadian government then moved successfully to freeze millions of donations to the truckers, and Canada's supreme court approved the freeze in a major blow to free speech and associational rights in Canada.
In the meantime, the government has demonized the convoy. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who praised truckers just two years ago as heroes, has denounced them as "trying to blockade our economy, our democracy."
What is most concerning now is the unwillingness to consider Canadian truckers as anything other than knuckle-dragging, racist insurrectionists. Like so much in our age of rage, our political opponents cannot be anything but caricatures or cutouts, because reason no longer has a place in our national discourse. Yet it is precisely the isolation of dissenting voices and groups that leads to such acts of disruption and disobedience.
Canada's truckers obviously feel marginalized and dismissed by their government. That feeling was magnified when Prime Minister Trudeau fled to a secure location and refused to meet with them. Officials then threatened anyone giving aid or gas to the truckers.
There is a worldwide movement against COVID mandates and rising complaints over the censorship of those with opposing views of these policies. Many of those objections are now being treated as mainstream questions, from the efficacy of masks to the value of lockdowns, from the origins of the virus to the protection of natural antibodies.
Once again, an alliance of government, social media companies and the mainstream media is fueling public divisions, even as such condemnation of the truckers appears to be having less and less impact. Rage gives a license to treat opposing views as unworthy of expression or tolerance. But people who feel marginalized tend to get mad and find their own outlets for speech.
I believe the truckers are wrong to continue the blockade unless the government yields to their demands. But the government also is wrong in how it has dismissed the truckers and cracked down on fundraising and other support for the movement.
The 1st does not depend on whether or not one agrees with what is being said or represented. Now, let it be known, that Canada is not the US...and there is no Constitutional right...however, i do think that there is a distressing tendency to define what rights we do have by what viewpoints we support.
I cannot think of anything more unamerican~
MSN
www.msn.com
Police in riot gear block trucker protest area on US-Canada border
Canada appears to be facing its greatest threat since Benedict Arnold came close to seizing Ottawa in 1775. The source of this "insurrection" and "attack on democracy," however, is not a foreign government but Canadians who have descended on their own capital to protest continuing COVID mandates.
The protest has been peaceful - and highly successful in cutting off key highways. But the most alarming development has not come from the convoy but from the commentary about it, including calls for mass arrests and even vigilantism. Ottawa's police services board chairman has called it a "nationwide insurrection," adding: "Our city is under siege."
CNN analyst and Harvard professor Juliette Kayyem was apoplectic at the thought of truckers shutting down roads and interfering with trade. She tweeted out a call to "Slash the tires, empty gas tanks, arrest the drivers, and move the trucks." CNN correspondent Paula Newton said this act of civil disobedience was nothing less than a "threat to democracy. An insurrection, sedition."
Blocking streets, occupying buildings or shutting down bridges have long been tactics of protesters. Yet what constitutes a protest or an insurrection often seems to depend on the cause involved. When rioters caused billions of dollars in damages, burned police stations and occupied sections of American cities in the summer of 2020, for example, few in the media declared them to be terrorists or a threat to democracy. But CNN's Kayyem once called conservative protesters occupying a state capital to be "domestic terrorists." GoFundMe, which previously helped fund arrested BLM protesters, froze over $10 million raised for Canadian truckers to prevent it from being used to support them.
After the money was frozen by GoFundMe, supporters switched to GiveSendGo to "adopt a trucker." The Canadian government then moved successfully to freeze millions of donations to the truckers, and Canada's supreme court approved the freeze in a major blow to free speech and associational rights in Canada.
In the meantime, the government has demonized the convoy. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who praised truckers just two years ago as heroes, has denounced them as "trying to blockade our economy, our democracy."
What is most concerning now is the unwillingness to consider Canadian truckers as anything other than knuckle-dragging, racist insurrectionists. Like so much in our age of rage, our political opponents cannot be anything but caricatures or cutouts, because reason no longer has a place in our national discourse. Yet it is precisely the isolation of dissenting voices and groups that leads to such acts of disruption and disobedience.
Canada's truckers obviously feel marginalized and dismissed by their government. That feeling was magnified when Prime Minister Trudeau fled to a secure location and refused to meet with them. Officials then threatened anyone giving aid or gas to the truckers.
There is a worldwide movement against COVID mandates and rising complaints over the censorship of those with opposing views of these policies. Many of those objections are now being treated as mainstream questions, from the efficacy of masks to the value of lockdowns, from the origins of the virus to the protection of natural antibodies.
Once again, an alliance of government, social media companies and the mainstream media is fueling public divisions, even as such condemnation of the truckers appears to be having less and less impact. Rage gives a license to treat opposing views as unworthy of expression or tolerance. But people who feel marginalized tend to get mad and find their own outlets for speech.
I believe the truckers are wrong to continue the blockade unless the government yields to their demands. But the government also is wrong in how it has dismissed the truckers and cracked down on fundraising and other support for the movement.
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