Lessons from the "Convoy of Freedom": how to discredit the "wrong" protest in two weeks

[Omar del Sur]

Lessons from the "Convoy of Freedom": how to discredit the "wrong" protest in two weeks​

Canadian authorities and the global media have exposed unvaccinated truckers as a fiend in the eyes of the country's population. We'll tell you how they did it.

Уроки «Конвоя свободы»: как дискредитировать «неправильный» протест за две недели

Власти Канады и глобальные СМИ выставили непривитых дальнобойщиков исчадием ада в глазах населения страны. Мы расскажем, как им это удалось

russtrat.ru

MOSCOW, February 22, 2022, RUSSTRAT Institute.
The Freedom Convoy 2022, a protest by unvaccinated Canadian truckers, has become one of the most powerful protests on the planet, and without a doubt, the most powerful protest by an organized group of citizens against mandatory vaccination during the COVID-19 pandemic. He also showed the world an example of how a peaceful movement of disadvantaged people can be defamated by the government in a matter of days, subjected to obstruction in the media and turned into an analogue of a terrorist threat in the eyes of millions of fellow citizens.
The participants of the “Convoy of Freedom” themselves are partially to blame for this, they did not bother with either competent PR or elementary safety standards in order to protect themselves from provocateurs and inadequacies. In many ways, the movement of unvaccinated "truckers" was initially doomed to failure - if only because they represented a clear minority in the country, and their protest is socially alien to the measured life of Canadian inhabitants.
And yet the image of honest hard workers at the steering wheel, who dared to raise their voice against the unfair steps of the authorities, was distorted beyond recognition. People whose entire fault was the "politically incorrect" struggle for their own rights - unlike the recent Black Lives Matter pogroms - clearly did not deserve this.
The RUSSTRAT Institute analyzed the main methods of discrediting the “Convoy of Freedom”, which reduced it to the level, as the authorities put it, of “a criminal community of ultra-right rednecks, alien to national interests and any human morality, who, with foreign money, pursue narrowly selfish goals against the will of the Canadian people.”
It seems that these and similar methods of denigration can be applied to any other "wrong" groups of people who are rebelling against tough restrictive measures in different parts of the globe. It will be all the more useful to study the sad Canadian experience.
Without a piece of paper you are an insect
Let us briefly recall the background of the protests.
In the second half of January 2022, the four-month "grace period" released by the US and Canadian authorities for mandatory vaccination of drivers on cross-border routes ended. From January 15, unvaccinated truckers, regardless of their citizenship, were no longer allowed into Canada, and from January 22 - into the United States.
By this time, out of 160,000 long-distance truckers licensed for such transportation (three-quarters of them are Canadians) , according to various sources, no more than 10-15% remained unvaccinated. This percentage is in line with the Canadian ratio of vaccinated and unvaccinated: as of February 16, the first in the country is already almost 85%. It would seem that every tenth person is not so much, but in absolute terms this gave about 12 thousand people who lost their jobs at once. Counting with the Americans, it was about 26 thousand drivers of multi-ton trucks. This is already a force.
At least two circumstances sharply complicated the situation. Three days before the ban, the Canada Border Services Agency issued a false statement about withdrawing plans to vaccinate truckers - then hastily withdrew it. In addition, under Canadian law, almost all health care, and with it the anti-COVID measures, are at the mercy of the provinces and municipalities, so there is simply no single vaccination passport in the Maple Leaf Country . As a result, Canadian regions began to act in all sorts of ways: the province of Alberta, for example, announced back in the summer of 2021 that it was not going to introduce any mandates.
All this exacerbated the confusion at the checkpoints at the border. On January 22, outraged truckers organized their first convoy from Prince Rupert to Prince George in British Columbia. After that, similar raids took place every day in different parts of Canada, the most numerous of which was the entry into Regina (Saskatchewan) on January 24 - about 1,200 trucks participated in it.
Very quickly, the truckers switched to the tactics of scattered convoys, which made it difficult for the traffic police to respond. But their most notorious actions were two blockades. The first paralyzed the center of Ottawa since January 29: there, on Parliament Hill, several thousand protesters, far from all of whom were truckers, even set up a tent city. And on February 7, traffic was blocked on the Ambassador Bridge across the Detroit River, which carries about a quarter of the total cargo turnover between the United States and Canada. Less significant actions took place in Vancouver, Winnipeg, Quebec, Toronto and Edmonton.
The main demand of the protesting drivers - the abolition of mandatory vaccination for them personally - quickly grew into calls for the lifting of all other anti-COVID restrictions in the country and the resignation of their main guide, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The latter angered the truckers by calling them "a marginal minority with unacceptable views" and flatly refused to negotiate, hiding in a bunker.
In response to the actions of the truckers, the authorities of Ottawa and the province of Ontario declared a state of emergency, dozens of drivers were arrested and their trucks were pulled away. On February 14, Trudeau announced the country's first nationwide application of the Emergency Act of 1988, but refused to use the military to disperse demonstrators.
protest against protest
The very nature of the "long-range" protests dictated to the Canadian authorities how best to act. From the very beginning of the protests, statements by officials and press reports flashed phrases about a group of renegades who, neglecting the health of citizens, exacerbate the already tense situation with the supply chains of goods in both countries. Thus, a minority of protesters was separated from "the majority of our country's hardworking truck drivers", who "continue to turn the wheel for the good of society."
At the same time, convoy participants were accused of endangering public safety simply by virtue of the fact that their trucks were occupying the roadway. With the beginning of the blockade of highways and streets of cities, truckers, in addition, were predictably opposed to local residents, whose peace was disturbed.
The consistent tactic of separating the country's citizens has led to numerous " counter-protests " in Canada . Members of local communities through which truckers passed began to take to the streets themselves and even block their way (which, generally speaking, is much less legal than the movement of a string of trucks).
In addition, participants in the convoys were widely accused of "occupying" cities - although the term "occupation" in English is not as negative as in Russian, and means only the "capture" of some place, and in some cases (Occupy Wall Street) even has a positive connotation. Then the terminology became harsher: the protesters were accused of taking Canadian cities "hostages" (hostages).

 

[Omar del Sur]

All this time, the truckers did nothing illegal. They did not attack the police, did not rob shops, did not burn down buildings and did not overthrow monuments from pedestals, as BLM "activists" did a year ago to official applause. Moreover, their right to be in the center of Ottawa was confirmed in court (albeit with a ban on honking).
Not surprisingly, the natural background of hostility that locals always feel for trucks that flood their neighborhoods, especially if they beep loudly and occupy parking spaces, could not give the necessary heat of counter-protests. And then the real demonization began.
On the day the protest began in Ottawa on January 29, a double media strike was dealt to the protesters. In the first of them, a technique that has been tested for decades was used. Photos and videos of unidentified thugs who held banners “Down with Trudeau” and ... flags of the Third Reich with a swastika began to spread across social networks at the speed of a steppe fire . "Yes, they are fascists!" squealed the liberal press, not bothering to find out who concocted all this.
The attempts to label trucks as "far-right" were obvious from the start, as many of them quite sincerely profess anti-Waxer conspiracy theories that expose "cultural Marxists" and "world government." However, hardly anyone expected such a rude execution of a provocation. And yet it worked.
It must be said that the liberal media, having once saddled this skate, do not get off it. The New York Times rode it furthest. This liberal propaganda mouthpiece managed to track down a 93-year-old German who emigrated to Canada 70 years ago to ask him: “Is this really fascism? Well, isn't it true?!"
“These protests awakened in me the post-traumatic stress disorder that I suffered from because of the service to Hitler! he said. "I can't sleep now."
But the old man is also against vaccination passports, as the author of the article in the NYT remarked, as if by the way, killing the second hare. Impressive level of journalism...
"Racists", "Russian actors", "queers"!
The second blow to the protesters came out more subtle. On the day the protests began in downtown Ottawa, someone pinned an inverted country flag (which is punishable in itself) on the monument to Terry Fox, probably the most revered Canadian in the last hundred years. In 1980, this young man, who lost his leg to a sarcoma, held a "Marathon of Hope" to raise funds for cancer research. In 143 days, Fox covered 5,373 kilometers on a prosthesis. A year later, he died at the age of 21, and this was perceived by all of Canada as a national tragedy.
Of course, such an act with a flag and a statue of Fox could not go unnoticed. Mass accusations of desecration of the shrine followed. Trucker excuses in the spirit of "If Terry were alive, he would join us" and "People, it's not the flags that are being turned over under your nose, but the monuments themselves!" (a transparent allusion to BLM) were not taken into account - even after the protesters themselves cleaned the monument to a shine. In addition, one of the participants in the action in Ottawa for some reason climbed with beer in their hands to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which was regarded as a slap in the face to the whole society.
Disgusting performance? Maybe. But the protesters did nothing to prevent such excesses. Although in another case, the carriers were still able to drive out a provocateur with a Confederate flag from their ranks.
Another accusation against truckers is clear only to the inhabitants of North America. The protesters were accused of "appropriating" Native American drumming and peace pipe smoking practices . They were also caught racist - but no, they did not insult black people, because they themselves were kind of black. It’s just that truckers dared to go to the rally and were not immediately arrested, and if they were black, they would have been behind bars for a long time, some critics said. Why not racism? In addition, one anonymous driver allegedly called a black reporter a “traitor with slave blood” - what more evidence is needed here ?!
All this is not a joke. Just as the accusation of truckers in ties with ... Moscow is not lightweight. In early February, a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) TV presenter dubbed the drivers "Russian actors." Say, the Kremlin is taking revenge on Canada for supporting Ukraine! A few days later, the channel in a new way voiced its conspiracy theory: who, they say, benefits from chaos in Canada? "Highley Like" - Putin!
Such nonsense was interspersed with more traditional arguments on the topic "Because of these protests of yours, ambulances have nowhere to park," and created a repulsive image of an unbridled redneck boor who defied public order. The media preferred not to talk about the fact that he behaved quite law-abidingly at the same time.
Trucker haters got away with even such insults, for which their opponents would be dragged to court for obscurantism. So, the #ramranch hashtag has been the main example of trolling against truckers in social networks for several days now. This is a reference to the song "18 Naked Gay Cowboys". “Yes, they are all fagots!” - as if the leftists say about truckers, breaking all the patterns.
On the part of the authorities and the police, even minor dirty tricks were used. They forbade city dwellers to salute convoys under pain of a $10,000 fine. They confiscated fuel from drivers for heating, and when the canisters had to be returned in court, they diluted it with water. They did n't even let the protesters clean up after themselves.
But in order to finally finish off the protest, a blow to his organization was required - and he, of course, followed.
fire on headquarters
First, it was decided to deal with the financial side of the issue. On January 25, the American fundraising platform GoFundMe partially blocked, and on February 4 finally froze, donations for food and fuel for the convoy in the amount of 10 million Canadian dollars (slightly less than 8 million US dollars). They were gathered in record time by 120,000 sympathizers on both sides of the border.
The platform attributed its decision to "violence and other illegal actions" on the part of the protesters. In reality, GoFundMe was simply horrified by the allegations of "foreign financing of extremism" that were raised by the Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security.
An interesting fact: initially, it was supposed to collect 200 thousand Canadian dollars for truckers - this should have been enough for them. As a result, the total amount of donations exceeded this goal by 50 times!

 

[Omar del Sur]

A different fate befell the 8 million collected through a similar site, GiveSendGo. He was threatened not by parliamentarians, but by the Supreme Court of Ontario, but this did not bother the platform at all: they say, the arms are short! And then her website was hacked , and 92 thousand donors of the "Convoy of Freedom" were deanonymized .
In their message from the pages of the hacked site, the hackers (who could it be, I wonder?) also mentioned “extremists” - this is how they described the leaders of the protest. And at the same time they predicted a bloody massacre in the capitals of the United States and Canada: they say that real terrorists with weapons can move on trucks! Oh those antivaxers...
Accusations of extremism and almost preparing terrorist attacks are already very serious, sooner or later prison terms will follow for this. Who can be jailed first? The media names a number of figures from among the organizers of the convoy, on which they managed to hang all the dogs. According to the press, all of them are completely radicals of various persuasions.
Who is, for example, Tamara Leach, who raised money for truckers and spoke on their behalf at press conferences? Until recently, he was a functionary of the separatist party "Maverick" (The Maverick Party), advocating the separation of the western provinces from Canada. And her fellow fundraiser Benjamin Dichter? He, speaking in 2019 at the Congress of the People's Party of Canada, just imagine, dared to compare the attack of political Islam on the country with syphilis!
It also turned out that Ontario convoy coordinator Dave Steenburg was spreading “neo-Nazi” videos on TikTok, that his colleague Jason LaFace looked like a Nazi himself , and that Alberta protest coordinator Patrick “Pat” King was partially in Holocaust denial.
All this nightmarish compromising evidence was dumped on the Canadians in an instant. Although, for example, neither the main organizer of the convoy , Chris Barber (his name was the first in the lawsuit of an indignant Ottawa resident against truckers), nor Tom Marazzo , who was ready for arrest , was able to dig up nothing but their consistent anti-waxing.
What do Canadians want?
Alas, such crude propaganda techniques still affect public opinion. As it became clear on February 3, 68% of Canadians polled refused to associate themselves with truckers, and 57% considered their protest inappropriate. Five days later, only 22% of Ottawa residents supported the Freedom Escort, and as many as 87% of the city's residents considered its presence in the capital inappropriate.
According to a more recent survey , only 20% of Canadians are satisfied with the requirements and methods of drivers; another 24% agree only with their rhetoric, but not with their deeds, and 56% object to the goals and tactics of the movement as a whole. All this sociology can be wrong and even lie - the trouble is that truckers have no sociology at hand at all.
Thus, the Canadian authorities succeeded in the main thing - to take up arms against the “Convoy of Freedom” of the inhabitants of the country. Therefore, the words of Tom Marazzo "We will remain in Ottawa as long as the Canadian society wants it" mean that the protest can be curtailed at any time. Himself or "with the help" of the police is not so important.
All this shaft of discrediting truckers should not be surprised: after all, the Canadian state protects its interests as best it can. There are no questions about the duplicity of the Canadian and, more broadly, Western politicians, who have got the hang of dividing protests into “right” and “wrong”, and citizens into those who are worthy to go out into the streets and those who are unworthy.
But what, I wonder, will Justin Trudeau say when, after some time, mandatory vaccination against coronavirus will be considered “past stage” around the world?