The Kidnapping Of The Capital

 

Some call it the freedom convoy. Others call it an occupation. I call it a kidnapping.

What has happened and continues to happen in Ottawa is deeply disturbing. Not only is a minority (no matter how loudly their horns blare, that's what the truckers and their collaborators are) seeking to impose its will on the majority, it is doing so in a way that defies law and essentially kidnaps our nation's capital.

Freedom is the last thing this criminal activity is about.

And it is past time to stop pretending such aberrant behaviour is acceptable in a democracy. Yes, the right to protest is one of our cherished freedoms, but it has gone well beyond that. People are suffering through relentless horn blasts, harassments, and threats to individuals and businesses, not to mention the obstacles they represent to emergency-service vehicles. 

And sadly, the hatred they are generating is spreading, glommed on to by the uneducated and the credulous, i.e. those who graduated from the university of the internet.

Consider this sad display targeting and threatening people inside a public health building in Belleville:

H/t Johnny Fondue

It is extraordinarily demoralizing for health-care workers, especially as they anticipate incursions into Toronto today (Saturday).

How did we get here? That’s what Dr. Naheed Dosani has been asking himself.

It wasn’t so long ago that he and other health care workers were cheered from front porches every evening, celebrated as heroes for their work on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, nearly two years in, as a protest against vaccine mandates is scheduled to roll into Toronto, they’re being told by hospital officials it might not be a good idea to wear their scrubs in public for fear they may be targets of abuse.

“How did we get to a place where a health worker has to fear for their safety just while they’re going to work?” asked Dosani, a palliative care physician.

 As the so-called “Freedom Convoy” arrives in Toronto Saturday and, with it, the threat of harassment or assault for health care workers — particularly those working in the cluster of hospitals near Queen’s Park — Dosani and other doctors interviewed by the Star said they are exhausted, frustrated and demoralized by those set to disrupt the city this weekend.

“I know the vast majority of Canadians stand united with health workers, but this small minority is a very vocal minority, and they can be very hateful,” Dosani said. “The hate that is being incited against health workers at this point by this small minority is having an impact on all of our psyches, it’s causing significant distress, and it’s traumatizing us health workers who have already seen so much trauma throughout the pandemic.”

Perhaps the best assessment is offered by an infectious disease specialist with the University Health Network in Toronto, Dr. Abu Sharkawy, who says,

the protest is indicative of a larger societal creep, fed by right-wing populists, that has created a movement of people who feel “emboldened and entitled to abuse, threaten and recklessly exercise whatever prejudice is within their hearts.”

Responding to advice that those working in healthcare should not wear clothing that indicate their profession, Sharkawy, who has been the recipient of death-threats, asks,

“How is it acceptable that we have to hide?” he said. “We’re being told you shouldn’t wear scrubs, you shouldn’t wear anything that can readily identify you as a health care provider? I mean, this is historic in terms of the level of depravity that this movement has reached, that in Canada in 2022 we have to be afraid to be a visible symbol of something that is unconditionally a good thing.”

The country has been turned upside down by a collection of miscreants. It is now time to remedy the situation. 

 

Yet Another Perspective

 

H/t Caryma Sa'd

My friend Steve sent me the following, his thoughts on the trucker protest, a protest he, like countless others, is fed up with. With his permission, I am posting it here:

1. 90% of Canadian truck drivers are vaccinated. Most vaccination mandates are decided provincially or locally. Even if the federal government were to drop the vaccine mandate for truckers, Canadian truckers entering the States are still required to be vaccinated.

2. The convoy was NOT sanctioned or organized by the Canadian Truckers Association. 

3. Two of the three principal organizers have never been truckers and have stated publicly they want to “overthrow” the Canadian government, and that doesn’t mean an election.

4. Most of the truckers I see on television are middle aged white guys. Many of the truckers I see on the road are south Asian.

5. The group has attracted the racist, lunatic fringe, and the antivaxxers from across the country who make up perhaps 5% of the population.

6. The convoy organizers have lost control of the group when their participants desecrate the War Memorial or Terry Fox statue and when front and centre on Wellington St., the truck reads “Fuck Trudeau”. Back in the day, we had 40,000 teachers protesting in TO and Hamilton abs had nothing like that.

8. Heightened security is costing Ottawa $800,000 per day.

9. Over and over, I hear the truckers involved spout the same lines, “My rights”. “My freedom”. Well. Take a look at China. They’ve closed down cities of 13 mil when they have a few dozen cases! No one goes to work. Basic groceries are delivered to your door. Maybe these truckers should experience that type of freedom?

I’m not getting burnt out on vaccines, mandates or mask wearing, I’m getting fed up with the antivaxxers.

A Real Trucker's Perspective

 It would seem that real truckers do their jobs, unlike the poseurs still in Ottawa.

Putting Things Into Perspective

We have heard so many words these past few days, noble utterances coming from ignoble sources. I believe the following sets things into an interesting perspective.

The Rabble Cries For Truth

Problem is, only their 'truth' is acceptable.

H/t Johnny Fondue

Big Wheels Keep On Turning

 

H/t Michael de Adder

Indicted By Their Words

 

H/t Theo Moudakis

I find myself singularly uninterested in the so-called freedom convoy making its way to Ottawa. Peopled by many rabid-anti-vaxxers and those filled with a messianic zeal in the belief that they are 'standing up for freedom and democracy', they are in fact arguing for the opposite, a short-circuiting of  democracy, demanding the government's immediate resignation.

They are truly deluded and contemptible.

The true measure of these benighted people can be taken in the kind of hate-filled screeds they send off to politicians, medical personnel and journalists. It is the latter that Bob Hepburn writes about, saying it is time to call out nasty, hate-filled anti-vaxers.

Here are some of the milder excerpts of missives he has received:

“If I see you on the street I would Smash your face in YOU FU*KING IGNORANT COMMIE,” wrote a person identifying themselves as Sonny.

“You are a hate-monger and a sad excuse for a journalist. What you are doing is un-Canadian. You are a piece of sh* t,” wrote Rob, who works as a multimedia specialist.

“You are a menace to society. You have obviously lost your mind and need mental help if you think unvaccinated people are a threat to society. You are deranged,” wrote Nicole from Alberta.

“This is what causes racism. You have no business knowing what goes in my body. You piece of human waste,” wrote John.

“God bless your soul if you still even have one,” wrote Diane.

“You are an arrogant moron,” wrote Dave.

“Stop spewing hate and writing sh*t articles. Grow a pair and write something useful. Gerbil looking ass,” wrote Brad. 

Not surprisingly, these cowards refused Hepburn's request to publish their names, places where they live, or companies they work at if the email was sent from a business. Such hate-mongers shun the sanitizing light of day.

Hepburn ends his piece with this:

It’s time to call them out — and it’s time that others who are unvaccinated get to know the type of anti-vaxxers who believe they speak on their behalf.

And well we should. Their very words indict them.