patrick.net

This last decade of history is crucial to understand the dissent-eliminating framework that has been constructed and implemented in the West. This framework has culminated, thus far, with the stunning multi-pronged attacks on Canadian truckers by the Trudeau government. But it has been a long time in the making, and it is inevitable that it will find still-more extreme expressions.

It is, after all, based in the central recognition that there is mass, widespread anger and even hatred toward the neoliberal ruling class throughout the West. Trump, Brexit and the rise of far-right parties in places where their empowerment was previously unthinkable — including Germany and France — is unmistakable proof of that. Rather than sacrifice some of the benefits of inequality that have generated much of that rage or placate or appease it with symbolic concessions, Western neoliberal elites have instead opted for force, a system that crushes all forms of dissent as soon as they emerge in anything resembling an effective, meaningful or potent form.

So many of the controversies over the last decade, often analyzed in isolation, have been devoted to this goal. The pervasive surveillance systems constructed by the West — revealed during the Snowden reporting but only partially reined in at best since then — are crucial tools, as surveillance powers always are, for monitoring and thus stifling dissent. We have now arrived at the point where the U.S. Government and its security state is officially and explicitly clear that it regards the greatest national security threat not as a foreign power such as China or Russia, and not as non-state actors such as Al Qaeda or ISIS, but rather “domestic extremists.” For years, this has been the unyielding message of the DHS, FBI, CIA, NSA and DOJ: our primary enemies are not foreign but are our fellow citizens who have embraced ideologies we regard as extremist.

This new escalation of repression depends upon a narrative framework. Those who harbor dissenting ideologies — and particularly those who do not embrace that dissent passively but instead take action to advocate, promote and spread it — are not merely dissenters. The term "dissent,” in Western democracies, connotes legitimacy, so that label must be denied them. They are instead domestic extremists, domestic terrorists, seditionists, traitors, insurrections. Applying terms of criminality renders justifiable any subsequent acts of repression: we are trained to accept that core liberties are forfeited upon the commission of crimes.

What is most notable, though, is that this alleged criminality is not adjudicated through judicial proceedings — with all the accompanying protections of judges, juries, rules of evidence and requirements of due process — but simply by decree. When financial services companies “choked” WikiLeaks back in 2010, they justified it by pointing to the government's claim that the group was engaged in crimes and therefore in violation of the rules of the platforms ("‘MasterCard rules prohibit customers from directly or indirectly engaging in or facilitating any action that is illegal,’ spokesman Chris Monteiro said" when explaining its shutting of WikiLeaks’ account). The same was done to 1/6 protesters who have been punished in countless ways prior to conviction. And now Canadian truckers have been magically transformed into criminals without the inconvenience of a trial; “‘we now have evidence from law enforcement that the previously peaceful demonstration has become an occupation, with police reports of violence and other unlawful activity,' GoFundMe said” when explaining why it shut down fund-raising accounts.

Canada’s House of Commons on Monday voted 185 – 151 in favor of granting Prime Minister Justin Trudeau the right to enact the Emergencies Act in response to the protests against COVID vaccine mandates that have been taking place in Ottawa since Jan. 29. The Senate has three days to approve the measure, or it will be dissolved.

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney over the weekend said he would file a legal challenge to the use of the measure, calling it “unnecessary,” “disproportionate” and claiming it “violated natural justice.”

https://notthebee.com/article/poll-shows-a-majority-of-democrats-have-no-problem-with-trudeau-s-actions-against-freedom-convoy-including-freezing-bank-accounts-of-those-donating?source=patrick.net

Canadian protesters brutally beaten and detained by NWO globalist puppet Trudeau:

https://twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1496930144728010755?source=patrick.net

I'd be cautious about trusting polls..

So now Trudeau is a hero?

richwicks says

I'd be cautious about trusting polls..

True, they were very wrong about the election in 2016.

But in this case, I suspect they're right.

I would bet a great number of people on "the left" think it's fucking cuckoo bananas to be teaching about LGBTQ bullshit in school, at any grade. Sex education for me is "this is the mechanism of how human beings produce children" - and that was it. That's what it should be.

Our viewers may recall Brigette joined us as one of the organizers behind the Truckers’ Freedom Convoy to Ottawa. While she has been more active behind the scenes, Brigette has been fighting for our rights in Canada since before the cross-border mandate came into effect. She returns to the show today from an undisclosed location.

On the personal impact the Emergency Measures Act had…

This has been the most challenging time of my life. I have an opposing view to my government. I stood up to tell them about it because they weren’t listening. They can’t say they were. I talked to Roman Baber, I talked to Randy Hillier. I was active in trying to make this work prior, I even had a complaint with CBSA on the way they treated us. The message is more severe than that. I think it’s if you don’t agree with us, if you want to stand up and have a voice, we’ll crush you, we will crush you financially. And the reason I say that is because I had to do a lot of changing financial stuff. I had a friend go pay my mortgage. I was worried about my husband’s diabetic medication, if he was going to get it or not because we had to now move money from personal accounts to pay stuff we had already put money aside for.

On how this could have all been avoided…

These mandates are still in place. You still can’t go across the border; you still can’t come back without taking the two weeks off. Your problem hasn’t gone away and it hasn’t gotten any smaller either. We’re federal workers. And if we can’t be exempt, then why can some police officers be exempt? Why can some federal workers be exempt? But we’re not exempt. We’re the ones that for eight months had no food, no showers, no toilets. And if you were really concerned about the supply chain, you would have kept us segregated from all other people and you didn’t. Truck stops were still used by regular civilians. Had they segregated us from society at the beginning, I would have understood what they’re doing better now. It’s now, you either comply with what I tell you, or there are consequences and that is his favorite line. And I just look at that and go, ‘I’m not your kid. You’re not going to bend me over and spank me’.

On your message to Canadians and the government…

First off, I guess I want to leave a message to our government. All you had to do was sit at a table and talk with us. That’s all I asked of you. I didn’t ask you to destroy the government and go to a vote. I didn’t ask for that. I asked you to drop mandates. I asked you to give me the life I’ve had for 50 years of my life before you decided to mess with it. And to all the working Canadians, I just want you to know. I may not have won when I went to Ottawa, I did my best. You have your opinion, that’s what I went to fight for, so you can have your opinion. You have the opportunity to still stand up.

Among the many myths about Canada that have been shattered is the old chestnut that, unlike the U.S., with its cutthroat Darwinian ethos, Canada is a largely egalitarian and compassionate society—the kind of place where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s “sunny ways” rule. The Freedom Convoy and the government’s heavy-handed response (“Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Tyranny,” Review & Outlook, Feb. 23), invoking the Emergencies Act to subdue peaceful civil disobedience, has cast into sharp relief class divisions bubbling under the superficially egalitarian surface of the Canadian self-image.

The class dimension becomes evident from the demeaning and charged language used by politicians and journalists in referring to the protesters. Despised by members of the Canadian elite who are often blissfully unaware of their own privilege, the protesters were considered blue-collar outcasts from the hinterland, presumptively racist and small-minded.

The class disdain comes from elites who ostensibly have an ideology from the left. In theory, they should show solidarity with the working class. In the U.K., for instance, former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has opposed vaccine mandates, as they hurt and discriminate against the working class the most.

By contrast, Canada’s Jagmeet Singh, leader of the left-wing New Democratic Party, egged on Mr. Trudeau’s emergency even before it was declared. Canadian labor unions, some of which initially opposed vaccine mandates, quickly fell in line and even marched in counterprotest. The hypocrisy and detachment from reality of Canada’s left-wing establishment stand fully exposed.

Rupa Subramanya

Ottawa

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Appeared in the March 3, 2022, print edition as 'The Class Rage Behind Trudeau’s Emergency.'