Below is my column in the Hill on the government and media campaign against the Canadian truckers. The Canadian government has now cleared the Ambassador Bridge. However, there was lasting damage done to the rights of free speech and association after an alliance of the government, corporations, and the media sought to isolate the protesters politically and financially. The most disturbing element was the freezing of donations by companies and the courts. Most recently, the TD Bank joined in blocking support from thousands of citizens. The organized effort to cut off access to donations is alarming, particularly in conjunction with efforts to curtail social media and other informational avenues for the protesters.
Here is the column:
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-19 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. The Ottawa 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 and 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 “domestic terrorists.” GoFundMe, which previously helped in the funding of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protesters, froze more than $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 the Supreme Court of Canada 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.”
This is the same Trudeau who praised BLM protesters and stressed that “I have attended protests and rallies in the past when I agreed with the goals, when I supported the people expressing their concerns and their issues, Black Lives Matter is an excellent example of that.”
Protesters are routinely arrested for blocking roads, of course, and Canada certainly can enforce its public safety laws. But government responses, in the U.S. and now in Canada, seem heavily dependent on protesters’ viewpoints — just as much of the media coverage of Canada’s trucker movement could not contrast more strikingly with how protests across the U.S. in 2020 were often reported. Back then, many of these same journalists praised the civil disobedience legacy of the late congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis, who charged the next generation to go out and make “good trouble.”
In cities such as Washington, D.C., police allowed BLM protesters to take over streets and stood by as some protesters toppled historic statues. When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was asked about the destruction, she shrugged and said, “People will do what they will do.” In Seattle, the seizing of a police station and the occupation of an entire section of the city was tolerated by the Democratic mayor, who likened it to a “summer of love.” And when BLM protesters flouted COVID-19 mandates, health experts lined up to declare they should be exempted from pandemic rules because racism is a health crisis too.
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 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-19 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 freezing of funds supporting the truckers laid bare the anti-free speech trend sweeping across the world, including in the U.S. There is no principled basis for cutting off the ability of citizens to support other citizens in a campaign of civil disobedience. Although ignored by most in the media, the same claim used by the Trudeau government today could have been used to freeze support for the civil rights era’s freedom marchers or for BLM protesters in 2020.
Ottawa is not under siege; the roads can be cleared. However, our politics and media have become bunkered and blockaded. Free speech is being curtailed through government actions, including the freezing of these funds, or through corporate censorship now embraced by the left. And lost in all this is an outlet for our political tensions and channels for dialogue.
Acts of civil disobedience like these will remain part of political movements. However, if we want to reduce the impulse to take to the highways to protest, then we need to open up the information superhighway for full political expression and dissent.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. You can find his updates on Twitter @JonathanTurley.
OT
Why did John “Will-He-Dudley-Do-Right” Durham shade the report on Hillary’s complicity with the Obama Coup D’etat in America, by releasing it late on Friday before the Super Bowl?
If this trend persists, John Durham will be compelled to investigate himself as an integral component of the massive and pervasive conspiracy against candidate and President Trump.
For what? He is not obligated to tell media when he makes a court filing. Go check the liberal media that is shading it. They are more interested in spreading toilet gate.
Durham deliberately shaded by releasing on Fri. before Super Bowl.
Please see: Lesley Stahl @ 1:27 PM
Durham’s motion doesn’t once mention Hillary Clinton herself. Have you bothered to read it?
And did you notice that it doesn’t charge any crimes? or that Kash Patel has known about this for years, but apparently neither he nor Devin Nunes thought there was any crime?
You want there to be a crime where none exists.
“Durham’s motion doesn’t once mention Hillary Clinton herself.”
I gather that as a child you weren’t very good at connect-the-dots.
I gather that you can only look at one dot (my comment) and didn’t see that I was responding to George’s question “Why did John “Will-He-Dudley-Do-Right” Durham shade the report on Hillary’s complicity with the Obama Coup D’etat in America…?”
In the motion Durham filed on 2/11, he did not allege any Coup or any complicity from Hillary Clinton, and he didn’t imply a Coup or complicity from Hillary.
Have YOU read the motion Durham filed last week to understand what it does and does not say?
The guy who links and doesn’t know what the link says keeps complaining that others haven’t read the data.
ATS, you don’t understand the data, and you don’t get it right, so stop with such banal and Stupid complaints.
Awwww, poor Meyer is so obsessed with anonymous liberal commenters that he regularly responds with insults but cannot bring himself to discuss a single FACTUAL issue.
If you think I said something FACTUALLY incorrect, quote it and provide evidence that it’s incorrect.
I’ll get you started by highlighting some facts in my response to Sam:
In the motion Durham filed on 2/11, he did not allege any Coup or any complicity from Hillary Clinton, and he didn’t imply a Coup or complicity from Hillary.
And here are more facts from my response to George (the comment of mine that Sam responded to):
Durham’s motion doesn’t once mention Hillary Clinton herself. It doesn’t charge any crimes. Kash Patel has known about this for years.
Or you can do what you usually do and just respond with more opinions and ad hom.
Anonymous the Stupid, in my comment above there was no discussion of facts, only a discussion of your reliance on links that you do not understand and misquote. That you can pull out some facts is mechanical. You are unable to put facts together. That requires critical thinking skills you do not have.
The key difference is that when America invades countries, it is to liberate people from oppressors so they can vote and stop being tortured and raped. Phillipines, France, Italy, Germany, Iraq. So it’s not a double-standard. And it’s not a clever point, when put under a microscope. Better luck next time.
This message, as well as many previous and many to come, brought to you by the U.S. MIC — your trust in our decades of experience bringing death and destruction to foreign nations and record profits to Wall Street and “defense” contractors makes our empire of chaos possible. Support the troops!
The military build up has been very expensive for Putin.
One doesn’t do something so expensive for nothing, without following through on it.
Oh, Canada, the American Founders asserted that rights and freedoms are natural and God-given, which means they are universal, which includes Canada, eh?
Rights and freedoms of individuals existed before government was conceived.
Canadians are not asking for rights and freedoms that are theirs by nature and God.
Canadians are not asking.
If Russian soldiers have no qualms about killing thousands of Ukrainian civilians, then NATO should have no qualms about bombing thousands of Russian soldiers.
Fascism is definitely and absolutely opposed to the doctrines of liberalism, both in the political and economic sphere.
– Benito Mussolini, 1935, “Fascism: Doctrine and Institutions,” Rome: ‘Ardita’ Publishers, p. 32.
Enter Jen Sey, Executive Vice President & President, Levi’s Brand at Levi Strauss & Company.
https://www.levistrauss.com/who-we-are/leadership/jen-sey/
Bari Weiss posted to her blog an article by a liberal Democrat, former Elizabeth Warren supporter, who quit her executive position at Levi because of their fascism. Mussolini was right: Fascism opposes liberalism especially free speech. Bravo Jen Sey.
Yesterday I Was Levi’s Brand President. I Quit So I Could Be Free
I turned down $1 million severance in exchange for my voice.
But the calls kept coming. From legal. From HR. From a board member. And finally, from my boss, the CEO of the company. I explained why I felt so strongly about the issue, citing data on the safety of schools and the harms caused by virtual learning. While they didn’t try to muzzle me outright, I was told repeatedly to “think about what I was saying.” Meantime, colleagues posted nonstop about the need to oust Trump in the November election. I also shared my support for Elizabeth Warren in the Democratic primary and my great sadness about the racially instigated murders of Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd. No one at the company objected to any of that. Then, in October 2020, when it was clear public schools were not going to open that fall, I proposed to the company leadership that we weigh in on the topic of school closures in our city, San Francisco. We often take a stand on political issues that impact our employees; we’ve spoken out on gay rights, voting rights, gun safety, and more.
The response this time was different. “We don’t weigh in on hyper-local issues like this,” I was told. “There’s also a lot of potential negatives if we speak up strongly, starting with the numerous execs who have kids in private schools in the city.”
In the last month, the CEO told me that it was “untenable” for me to stay. I was offered a $1 million severance package, but I knew I’d have to sign a nondisclosure agreement about why I’d been pushed out. The money would be very nice. But I just can’t do it. Sorry, Levi’s.
https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/yesterday-i-was-levis-brand-president
That is one of the most powerful statements that I have heard. Jen Say was right to turn down the $1M, something we all should be willing to do once our children’s bellies are satisfied. Thanks.
The contours and parameters of “free speech” should not be defined by which political party is currently in control. In the United States, an open highway or road is NOT a “public forum” for the exercise of speech/protest. Protesting truckers do not belong there, -but neither do BLM, pro-George Floyd, or “anti-white supremacy” marchers. “Time, place, manner” limitations apply to everyone.
And as far as I am concerned, donations to ANY of these causes should be allowed-it is the ultimate manner or purpose for which the funds are USED or reported that could instigate investigation or cause a problem…
Perhaps the truckers could have united in using those full-body plastic advertising thin-skins on the sides of their trucks as more conducive toward message-spreading?
Trudeau’s Liberal party won 32.6 percent of the vote in September 2021, but it picked up 160 of the 338 federal districts. I am not an expert on Canada’s political system, but I assume the disparity is related to assigning the majority of seats to the party with a plurality of votes. Giacomo Acerbo’s electoral law of November 1923 assured the Fascists a majority in the Italian parliament in 1924, and until 1945 was considered less than cricket. Since then, various democratic states have adopted similar measures to create working majorities, but the result has been to encourage politicians with relatively little popular support to be able to govern with weak coalition parnters. For example, Angela Merkel was in power for sixteen years, but had only 35.2 percent of the vote in her first year, never managed more than 42 percent, and coul not reach 30 percent in 2021.
A link for Trudeau, whom Klaus Schwab, organizer of Davos, has bragged is one of his ‘community,’ which some consider problematic.
https://www.elections.ca/enr/help/national_e.htm
Totalitarianism was a term coined by Mussolini. Usually, when people use the term “fascist,” they mean “Nazi.” Friedrich and Brzezinski defined the term in the late 1940s in a way that grouped the Soviet with the Nazi and Fascist regimes. In their system, all basic institutions are under state control — not just media and government. Corporate systems substitute an ‘economic’ for a ‘party’ structure in an effort to create a system in which politicians are elected by specific economic sectors of society– industrial workers, professionals, artists, and so on. Hitler managed to come close, as did Stalin, but Mussolini had to deal with the Vatican, the King (to whom the army and navy were loyal), powerful businessmen, and his own party, which was less than monolithic.
My apologies. The system I described applies to most EU countries, not to Canada, which follows the UK system of ‘first-past-the-post,’ which explains why a party with fewer votes wins more seats if it has a plurality in more ‘ridings.’ A link which I should have read before posting — for anyone who is interested. In essence, Trudeau’s party had a plurality or majority in 160 electoral districts, which gave them 160 of 338 seats in Canada’s House of Commons.
https://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=res&dir=ces&document=part1&lang=e
I intended the remarks about totalitarianism, Fascism, and Nazism as reminders that it is useful for everyone to agree on terms before undertaking a discussion. If not, we just talk past one another, trapped in our linguistic bubbles, floating on our favored narrative. . . .
Jonathan: It was predictable. Fox has been beating the drums in support of the Canadian trucker protests. So this is your dutiful follow up. This is not a “free speech” issue. Had the protesters simply carried signs at the border the Canadian government probably would not have cracked down. This was a BLOCKADE of the US-Canadian border. If this was done by another country it would be an act of war. The two countries were losing over $300 million in trade every day. The protests were ostensibly in response to Canada’s vaccine mandate for all truckers–despite the fact that 90% of Canadian truckers are already vaccinated. Ironically. the US also has a vaccine mandate for US truckers crossing the border. The “Freedom Convoy” is actually part of far-right movements in the US and Canada that joined forces to act against both US and Canadian Covid mandates. It is part of the larger coordinated efforts to bring down democratic institutions. Protesters at the border were carrying Confederate and Nazi flags. In Ottawa protesters carried “Trump 2024” signs. 63% of the funds supporting the protesters came from the US.
You are big in citing polls to support your position (e.g., polls regarding Biden’s choice for the SC) so what do polls in Canada say about the blockade? The far-right movement is much smaller than here. Canadians are overwhelming opposed to the trucker protests. They support the very restrictive Covid restrictions, e.g., mask mandates and vaccine passports, etc.. Eight-four percent of Canadians are fully vaccinated. Seventy percent support vaccine mandates for all adults. You don’t cite these polls because they don’t support your claim this was a crackdown on “free speech by the Canadian government.
Thank you Dennis.
The agency gets even more specific: “There is widespread online proliferation of false or misleading narratives regarding unsubstantiated widespread election fraud and COVID-19. Grievances associated with these themes inspired violent extremist attacks during 2021.”
Aha, there it is. Those right-wing extremists are at it again. And pay close attention to the phrasing “inspired violent extremist attacks.” That is a direct path to “incited violent extremist attacks” and to material support for terrorism. That is how they will criminalize speech they dislike.
Currently, this only applies to foreign terror organizations. But at this pace it won’t be long until they extend that to domestic groups.
https://thefederalist.com/2022/02/14/bidens-department-of-homeland-security-announces-it-will-investigate-thought-crimes/?
The Biden administration has been saying for some time now that they view domestic extremists as a principal threat. By this they mean people they call white supremacists. The anti-racist dogmas they believe consider anyone who advocates a colourblind approach for society is covertly promoting white supremacy. Now, they are adding that those who question the integrity of the 2020 election or challenge prevailing government policy about Covid-19 are purveyors of misinformation and potentially inspirers of violence. With these views being openly expressed by the government it seems a virtual certainty that the state security apparatus is now covertly investigating Americans who articulate ideas contrary to the Biden administration’s.
With these views being openly expressed by the government it seems a virtual certainty that the state security apparatus is now covertly investigating Americans who articulate ideas contrary to the Biden administration’s.
Rest assured Daniel, it they are telling you whose rights they intend on abusing, they are merely going on the public record to cover for the abuse they’ve already been doing.
POWER CORRUPTS “We have all the freedom, that the government lets us have.” George Carlin
“You can have all the free speech we will let you have.”
The establishment denounces Canadian truckers for “trying to blockade our economy, our democracy.”
So here we have this wicked and destructive contradiction: Fascist politicians shut down entire economies. suspended civil liberties, and destroy lives. Covid mandates ran amok. But, somehow, now it’s wrong to blockade an economy, if your goal is to remove those Covid mandates.
“[R]eason no longer has a place in our national discourse.” (JT)
Tragically, that is spot on.
One of the hallmarks of reason is consistency. On this (and countless other issues) that consistency is no longer a cultural value. Instead, our cultural leaders expect you to accept something *because* it is absurd. (Paraphrasing Tertullian.)
“Most recently, the TD Bank joined in blocking support from thousands of citizens.”
That type of action will accelerate the use of crypto-currency.
It will also encourage the boycott of TittyBank.
Watching Fascism taking hold.
While BLM GOT money for backing riots and murder!
And it was on our now Vice President page. She advertised it for BLM
How do people decide what they give a crap about and what they do not?
This is just an extension of the authoritarian bent of modern progressives who justify almost any atrocity under the guise of fighting attacks on democracy or fascism.
I remember now disgraced anchor Chris Cuomo making light of Antifa violence because it was ANTI fascist and thus wasn’t as bad.
The really sick part is how easily the sheep become viscous against the goats, once prodded by the shepherds.
A counter demonstrator at the Ambassador Bridge was carrying a sign reading “Gas the unvaccinated”. There same people warn us every day about authoritarianism.
ti317: I glanced at a few liberal and left sites over the weekend and was astounded to see the rampant paranoia among the left. Not that it’s new, but still. One leftist site in particular boasted about how they are taking over the Democratic party and will put an end to Republican fascism. Apparently there are no longer “conservatives,” just fascists. The language is getting out of hand, and the media is the one lowering the bar.
When all they need to do is look in the mirror to see the REAL fascists.
“There is no principled basis for cutting off the ability of citizens to support other citizens in a campaign of civil disobedience.”
Since when does “principle” stop tyrannical totalitarian elites who seek to Build Back Better a New World Order totally under their control?
I recall the democratic governments of Rhodesia, South Africa, and several european nations inside the Iron Curtain, being undermined by “outside influences”.
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=Klaus+Schwab+admits+he%27s+in+charge+of+the+Canadain+govt&ia=web
Well said. Thank you