From the Foreign Desk: John A. MacDonald

Having too much fun

CANADA, Citizen of Canuckstan - The problem with using fear and intimidation is it becomes a habit. People were told first to be afraid of the virus, afraid of what it would do to our health care system and how it would be overwhelmed (it wasn’t). Then we were told to be afraid of anyone not wearing a mask, followed by anyone who isn’t vaccinated. Now the protesters are the ones we are supposed to be afraid of. Fear, fear, fear.

But as I’ve watched the trucker protests, I’ve noticed something fundamentally different. The truckers and the other protesters are....having fun. Not the cruel, mocking fun most leftists use today but genuine fun. Dance parties in the streets. Bouncy castles. Popcorn makers. And the latest one, a hot tub in the middle of the street. Kids and families with pets are seen everywhere. Yet politicians and media condemn them constantly. Children’s aid has threatened to take away the truckers’ children for....being at a protest. The elite are acting in a strange way. Or maybe they are simply weak and can’t figure out how to deal with these protesters.

Compare this with Antifa, Occupy Wall Street and CHOP. Violence was everywhere. Hundreds of police were injured and many killed. Billions of dollars of property damage. Rapes and assaults by the dozens. Yet the elite called the violence of left wing and anarchist groups “understandable” and they had to be given “room to protest”. The truckers receive no such room.

I think the media and the “powers that be” need the truckers to be violent. If they are largely peaceful, they can be ticketed, but it is hard to justify harsher methods. Especially with so many private journalists or just vloggers walking around the protest freely and filming pretty much anything. Antifa would never allow such a thing. Once the protesters are shown to be violent, then a radical and brutal crackdown can be justified. The problem is, other than some blindingly obvious false flag operations, there hasn’t been violence. We’ve heard that “healthcare workers have been threatened” but with no video – and everyone has a cell phone with video capabilities these days – it seems hard to credit.

What’s the next step? The powers that be still refuse to meet. I think there is a danger of a serious manufactured incident. The question is will the police really move in? The rank and file of the Ottawa police don’t seem inclined. The next few weeks will tell one way or the other.