Lessons learned from the Canadian "Freedom Convoy"

 

American Mind has published a very interesting survey, by a participant and leader, of the results of the "Freedom Convoy" in Canada.  It's titled "For Whom the Horns Honk".  A lot of the "lessons learned" can be applied to practical politics in the USA as well, so it's worth reading carefully.

The streets of Canada’s capital are now clear, but the hostility between the regime and its people is growing rapidly, metastasizing, and will soon manifest into other conflicts. The next time Canadians challenge the state, however, they cannot do so as part of a disorganized grass-roots movement. They will have [to] use the lessons learned from this confrontation to prepare for the next.

. . .

What the Freedom Convoy achieved within its pre-established, constrained parameters will become clearer in time. We did not end the mandates nor the vaccine passports—our ostensible goals—though most restrictions were lifted resulting from our pressure. The Conservative Party of Canada removed its feckless leader, and our contentious presence became a domino-flick that resulted in a cascade of resignations within the Ottawa Police and elsewhere in the permanent bureaucracy.

The resignations may have felt like victories but were actually defeats, since the vacated positions are now being replaced with regime loyalists.

. . .

Even if the Freedom Convoy lost this fight, they have made the battle-lines clearer, and more people are understanding politics as a matter of distinguishing friends and foes. It’s becoming less about thoughts and more about feelings. Very few dissidents are in consensus over anything. The West is fracturing anew, and everyone has their own ideas, ideals, and concepts to describe a good future. Most have gone down their unique rabbit hole. But what they share is the feeling of oppression by tyranny. This is especially true for the working class, who are the first to experience the material consequences of a failing country. Indeed, most demonstrators did not necessarily know what they stood for in positive terms, but they knew what they were fighting against.

The demonstration may have failed its putative goals, and only strengthened the establishment. But it also stripped off the cosmetics of democratic decorum that mask the Canadian oligarchy, exposing it as a marionette to globalized and corporate interests. The convoy made the deep state exoteric.

. . .

Somehow, most organizers and demonstrators held two incompatible premises at the same time. They took for granted that the Canadian government had been acting illegally over the past two years, even harming its citizenry for their own gain; and also believed guilelessly that the government would not lie, seize donations, freeze personal finances, use brutal force, or commit any other illegal action regarding the convoy. Every time the government demonstrated its willingness not to “play fair,” there was widespread emotional breakdown among the organizers.

. . .

... the Canadian regime will continue eroding liberties: guns, privacy, money—anything that can be controlled will be controlled, and the shift of power will always migrate towards the lever-pullers at the center ... A nation cannot survive internal fracturing. Therefore, it is difficult to envision a future without either complete submission to the state or violent confrontations between dissidents and the government. It will largely depend on the spiritedness of the people, and what they are willing to sacrifice to live freely.

There's much more at the link, including an analysis of what went right, and what went wrong, with the protests themselves.  Very interesting and useful reading.

The author sees the Canadian government becoming more authoritarian and less responsive to the "will of the people" in dealing with future such clashes.  One can't disagree.  We're seeing the same thing in this country, as illustrated last year in the Department of Homeland Security's assessment of "extremist" threats (bold, underlined text is my emphasis):

A March 2021 unclassified threat assessment prepared by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), Department of Justice, and DHS, noted that domestic violent extremists “who are motivated by a range of ideologies and galvanized by recent political and societal events in the United States pose an elevated threat to the Homeland in 2021.” The assessment pointed to newer “sociopolitical developments such as narratives of fraud in the recent general election, the emboldening impact of the violent breach of the U.S. Capitol, conditions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and conspiracy theories promoting violence” that “will almost certainly spur some [domestic violent extremists] [sic] to try to engage in violence this year.”

Again, more at the link.

Note that I'm one of many who unequivocally and emphatically hold that there was, indeed, fraud in the 2020 general election.  The evidence is overwhelming.  What's more, the "breach of the U.S. Capitol" was not violent;  it was peaceful, apart from the overreaction of certain elements of the security forces.  There's video evidence that the Capitol police held doors open for the demonstrators and ushered them inside, for heaven's sake!  How can that be classified as "violent"?  To call it that is to manufacture an excuse for an establishment crackdown on anti-establishment elements, pure and simple.

Nevertheless, we can expect such official pronouncements to become more and more insistent that dissent, in any and every form, is somehow a threat to national peace, security and stability, and that dissenters should face "punishment" for daring to speak (if not act) up.  The First Amendment to the US constitution is supposed to guarantee the rights of such dissenters, but I expect that will be honored more in the breach than in the observance going forward.  The same applies to the rest of the Bill of Rights, to the fullest extent that the authorities believe they can get away with it.

It'll be up to American citizens who take their citizenship seriously to ensure they don't succeed.  To do so, we can learn useful lessons from the Freedom Convoy in Canada.

Peter