@blatham,
blatham wrote:
As I think I've noted earlier, what we're seeing with the truck convoy protests has precedents in Canada.
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And as I've also noted earlier, many of the organizers of the current truck convoy were organizers for the earlier one who have connections with American right wing organizations (details in the wikipedia page on Freedom Convoy 2022). Let's add some more relevant points:
- Alberta holds the vast majority of oil reserves and is by far the greatest levels of oil extraction.
- Alberta oil producers also have significant corporate connections with American oil interests (eg The ultra-right U.S. Koch brothers, little-known to Canadians, are major players in Alberta's oil patch, where they control at least 1.1 million acres.
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- As we know from reporting and from statements by the Ottawa police chief, the majority of funding for this convoy is originating in the US.
- Alberta has been for some years the Canadian province most likely to elect right wing governments of the "libertarian" sort. With few exceptions, that's who has held power there. If you were to troll the Canadian population looking for Trump fans, Alberta is where your nets would get the richest haul.
- For those following American right wing media and agitprop, you'll have noticed that they have been running hot and heavy with favorable coverage of the convoy in Canada.
- Further, it is not at all difficult to see how the convoy is using American "libertarian" tropes in their stunt - profligate use of flags and, through signage and speech, the attempt to suggest that "freedom" is their domain only. Running concurrent with all this is a promoted notion that these protesters represent the real Canadian citizen consensus.
- Last, let's note the similarities between what we're seeing now and what we saw during the Tea Party.
So let's consider that what might be going on here has less to do with Canada than with the US. Right wing voices down south are pumping up duplicating the Canadian truck protest in America. If that happens, the media will of course cover it just as they've done with the Canadian example AND with the Tea Party. There's conflict and great visuals, so exactly what news media commonly cannot resist.
Early in the Tea Party phenomenon, I heard Dick Armey, then head of the Koch's main propaganda operation, speaking about the Tea Party and he pushed the word "grassroots" into his sentences so often that it was comical. Right wing media is doing exactly that again. But this time, because they are pointing to Canada as role model and exemplar, that makes it even easier to suggest that American oil interests (and the political groups and arrangements which support it) are not in play. It's all just about citizens everywhere increasingly angry at their oppressive governments.
My strong impression is that the Truckdrivers, and the many flag & sign waving spectators, shown on the TV news reports, were, in fact Canadians, acting voluntarily. You appear to be unwilling to accept that evident fact.
You appear to be suggesting these Canadians can't think for themselves (and their self interests), and are acting only at the direction of evil American members of the same old dark conspiracy you cite so endlessly, again and again and again ………
Until about a year ago we held a large stake in a Canadian company, headquartered in Calgary, providing engineering services to (all Canadian) Alberta oil producers. I travelled there (and to their office in Vancouver) regularly to coordinate mutual operations & business development efforts.
They were a pleasant and very capable group, a good deal more conservative in their outlooks than most of us. However in several flights over the extraction areas North of Calgary I was truly astounded by the many abandoned black "lakes" containing sludge & residues from the liquefaction/extraction process for the tar sands . U.S. environmental law would never permit anything like that. The U.S. has enormous reserves of gas and liquid petroleum, and I suspect western Canada does as well, all of which can easily replace the tar sands sources. More up front effort and investment would be required to locate & develop them, compared to the near surface deposits in Alberta, but the long term costs & environmental effects would be far less. Tar sands production continues to be very profitable only because Canadian laws and Canadian governments ignore the relatively far greater environmental consequences, compared with directional drilling for oil & gas. The extraction companies in Alberta are all Canadian owned and operated, though U.S. (and Chinese) investors likely have stakes in them. Most of the petroleum so produced has been consumed in Canada, though the U.S. is currently the chief market for exports. The Canadian producers have long been planning a pipeline to Pacific ports to provide access to Markets in China, though there is political opposition to it in BC. This too is a Canadian affair.
I believe you are trying far too hard to blame all this on Americans, and the "vast, pervasive far right" conspiracies" you assume exist only here. Canadian people, like others everywhere, make their own choices, and it is clear that many of them make choices you don't like. That includes the truckers, their supporters and the many developers & producers of tar sand petroleum in Alberta.