Politics

[SouthSardiswx]

Well they sure cleared out Ottawa in hurry l suspect the roving convoys will continue through out the country.

[Rubus_Leucodermis]

Well they sure cleared out Ottawa in hurry l suspect the roving convoys with continue through out the country.

Just as glad to see less rather than more violence being used and hope the trend continues. Been on the receiving end of too much aggressive policing at demos myself. Granted, this was in the USA but good to see Canada doing better and hopefully this will set some sort of precedent for police conduct in the future.

[Typeing3]

Well they sure cleared out Ottawa in hurry l suspect the roving convoys will continue through out the country.

Yep. There were some pretty questionable police actions but not surprising given their track record of responding to protests in the past.

Screenshot_2022-02-19-17-26-02(1).png

Screenshot_2022-02-19-15-26-54(1).png

Screenshot_2022-02-19-14-33-24(1).png

Screenshot_2022-02-18-17-51-15(1).png

Screenshot_2022-02-18-21-54-26(1).png

Screenshot_2022-02-19-14-43-31(1).png

[Typeing3]

Yep. There were some pretty questionable police actions but not surprising given their track record of responding to protests in the past.

Screenshot_2022-02-19-17-26-02(1).png
Screenshot_2022-02-19-15-26-54(1).png
Screenshot_2022-02-19-14-33-24(1).png
Screenshot_2022-02-18-17-51-15(1).png
Screenshot_2022-02-18-21-54-26(1).png
Screenshot_2022-02-19-14-43-31(1).png

1/4 continued. https://mobile.twitter.com/dockaurG/sta ... 7754316803

https://mobile.twitter.com/TheRalphReto ... 1091769350

https://mobile.twitter.com/stillgray/st ... 0770790402

https://mobile.twitter.com/stillgray/st ... 6196407296

https://mobile.twitter.com/buperac/stat ... 2599144451

[Typeing3]

1/4 continued.

2/4 continued.
https://youtu.be/v7x4UVFmdwA

https://youtu.be/7ptelaYIW44

https://youtu.be/THfu0iW7iPU

https://youtu.be/XRZ_PWJDkC0

https://youtu.be/eBQbkCd80zU

[Typeing3]

2/4 continued.

3/4 continued.
https://youtu.be/EWAE9wXNIFE

https://youtu.be/yFk3gcWFpaY

https://youtu.be/ofEJ0pD-Iw0

https://youtu.be/Q23QnyAFCXM

https://youtu.be/yjuvyPAP4Wg

[Typeing3]

3/4 continued.

4/4 continued.
https://youtu.be/tIwawZwzxYg

https://youtu.be/dlWfhFvciWE

https://youtu.be/Vj0I3bQGaFk

https://youtu.be/vOCuFKwlB_Y

This last one is a short compilation.
https://youtu.be/elXuFD9RIGM

[Rubus_Leucodermis]

...from the country formerly known as Canada

This just screams “This can’t be happening to us! We’re white and politically on the right! This is only supposed to happen to poors and lefties and browns.”

Because, in fact, it has happened to poors and lefties and browns... many times.

Some examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_e ... _in_Canada

The only thing that really sticks out about this one is how long the authorities let it last, and how many warnings they gave before the cops eventually moved in. Given the size of the protest, and how it didn’t voluntarily disperse, the level of violence that has happened has actually been surprisingly small.

[Typeing3]

Consistency. It's equally as wrong when authorities violently crack down on any vastly peaceful groups, regardless of political affiliation, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, religion, etc. It's even more worrying and disgraceful when the government implements unprecedented measures aimed at expanding their power and incorporates aspects of authoritarianism to crack down on people in more ways than just the use of physical violence (ex. freezing bank accounts).

[Rubus_Leucodermis]

The main lack of consistency has been the extraordinary leniency on the part of the authorities… until fairly recently.

There seems to have been a hidden assumption that those on the political right would never cause a seriously disruptive protest, which the authorities stuck with even when facts on the ground started disproving the assumption.

By the time it sank in to the authorities just how wrong they were, the protest had become so embedded that it was going to be very difficult to break it up without a state of emergency. So here we are.

I have actually helped plan and stage disruptive protests. We expected to be broken up. We planned for it. And the protests were history inside of six hours. Because they got broken up, and after far less total disruption had been caused than was the case in Ottawa and on the Ambassador Bridge.

These protesters were, in other words and by all measures, acting privileged and entitled (and, for the first 2.5 weeks or so, they were proven correct).

I have actually listened to what the protesters were saying. The consensus seemed to be that it was their right to do what they were doing. No, not really. They were blocking traffic, parking illegally, camping illegally. Protest is legal but deliberately blocking traffic is not legal, even if you’re doing it as a protest tactic.

It behooves those who choose illegal tactics to reflect upon whether the benefits of using them exceeds their costs. And by “costs” I mean both the personal cost to the protesters and the cost to others of the disruptive protest (illegal things are often illegal for a reason). If you’re not willing to accept the likely costs, choose less costly tactics. This is all Civil Disobedience 101 sort of stuff.

[Typeing3]

Source: https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/t ... permanent/

February 20th, 2022
Trudeau Government Moves to Make Expanded Surveillance Powers over Financial Transactions ‘Permanent’

As all eyes were trained on the aggressive police sweep of the Ottawa trucker convoy this week, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau’s administration was quietly moving to implement a sweeping expansion of surveillance power at the federal level.

The Trudeau government’s financial war against the truckers has been covered at length. But one underreported aspect of this broader assault on Canadian civil liberties is the effort to bring crowdfunding and payment service providers — two of the most prominent routes for financial transactions on the Internet — under the permanent control of a centralized government authority.

In a February 14 news conference, Canadian finance minister Chrystia Freeland said that the government was using the Emergencies Act to broaden “the scope of Canada’s anti-money-laundering and terrorist financing rules so that they cover crowdfunding platforms and the payment service providers they use.” That broadened power requires all forms of digital transactions, including cryptocurrencies, to be reported to the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Center of Canada. (I.e., “Fintrac”). “As of today, all crowdfunding platforms and the payment service providers they use must register with Fintrac, and they must report large and suspicious transactions to Fintrac,” Freeland said. She justified the move as a way to “mitigate the risk” of “illicit funds” and “increase the quality and quantity of intelligence received by Fintrac and make more information available to support investigations by law enforcement.” Trudeau, standing behind Freeland at the press conference, nodded his head in agreement.

Freeland said the trucker convoy, which had assembled to protest coronavirus restrictions, had “highlighted the fact” that digital assets and funding mechanisms “weren’t captured” by the Canadian government’s pre-existing surveillance powers. As a result, she said, “the government will also bring forward legislation to provide these authorities to FinTrac on a permanent basis.”

Freeland reiterated that point in a subsequent press conference this past Friday. “We reviewed very, very carefully the tools at the disposal of the federal government, and we used all the tools that we had prior to the invocation of the Emergencies Act, and we determined that we needed some additional tools,” she said. “Now some of those tools, we will be putting forward measures to put those tools permanently in place. The authorities of FinTrac, I believe, do need to be expanded to cover crowdsourcing platforms and their payment providers.”

We already know what the Canadian government would do with that permanent power. They’re showing us as we speak. As Kevin Williamson wrote earlier this week, Trudeau has promptly weaponized his expanded Emergencies Act powers to “invest himself with the unilateral power to freeze bank accounts and cancel insurance policies, without so much as a court order and with essentially no recourse for those he targets.” That punitive action against political dissidents expands beyond the truckers themselves: On Wednesday, Trudeau’s justice minister suggested that private citizens who donated large sums to the convoy “ought to be worried” about the possibility of a freeze on their bank accounts, too. At least one young woman has already been fired from her job in the Ontario provincial government for making a $100 donation.

All this, of course, flies in the face of Trudeau’s promise that the Emergencies Act powers would be temporary. When he announced his invocation of the order, he promised the Canadian people that his expanded authorities would “be time-limited, geographically targeted, as well as reasonable and proportionate to the threats they are meant to address.” Not a single part of that sentence has proved to be true.

[Typeing3]

Just to clarify, my earlier point of consistency was aimed at the implication that violent crackdowns is only wrong when it occurs to a movement that one is in support of. It's wrong period. That is, of course, as long as individuals/groups are not engaged in physical violence themselves.

I'll share this screenshot again since it seems of particular importance of late.


The other part of consistency regarding leniency is definitely fair point. I mostly agree actually. However that certainly in no way justifies the unprecedented implementation of the emergencies act and the extraordinary powers granted to the government that comes with it.

[Antares]

Consistency. It's equally as wrong when authorities violently crack down on any vastly peaceful groups, regardless of political affiliation, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, religion, etc. It's even more worrying and disgraceful when the government implements unprecedented measures aimed at expanding their power and incorporates aspects of authoritarianism to crack down on people in more ways than just the use of physical violence (ex. freezing bank accounts).

I was reading some WW2-era history and there are quite a few parallels to the present day.

This stuck out to me in particular:

Brüning administration
The Great Depression provided a political opportunity for Hitler. Germans were ambivalent about the parliamentary republic, which faced challenges from right- and left-wing extremists. The moderate political parties were increasingly unable to stem the tide of extremism, and the German referendum of 1929 helped to elevate Nazi ideology. The elections of September 1930 resulted in the break-up of a grand coalition and its replacement with a minority cabinet. Its leader, chancellor Heinrich Brüning of the Centre Party, governed through emergency decrees from President Paul von Hindenburg. Governance by decree became the new norm and paved the way for authoritarian forms of government. The Nazi Party rose from obscurity to win 18.3 per cent of the vote and 107 parliamentary seats in the 1930 election, becoming the second-largest party in parliament.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hit ... nistration

Sounds like Germany was on quite the slippery slope back then. I'm sure the general populace had no idea where things were headed.

[Typeing3]

I was reading some WW2-era history and there are quite a few parallels to the present day.

This stuck out to me in particular:


Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hit ... nistration

Sounds like Germany was on quite the slippery slope back then. I'm sure the general populace had no idea where things were headed.

That is actually something people should keep in mind, regardless of whether there may or may not be similarities or parellels. Expanded knowledge of history is always a good thing.

Typically, when individuals mention the Nazi party, Hitler or anything else in connection with either, they do not realize the number upon number of gradual steps that led to their rise and that ultimately resulted in the horrific events that occurred under their rule.

***Disclaimer: I am not suggesting we are headed down the same path. Just an interesting discussion.

[Antares]

That is actually something people should keep in mind, regardless of whether there may or may not be similarities or parellels. Expanded knowledge of history is always a good thing.

Typically, when individuals mention the Nazi party, Hitler or anything else in connection with either, they do not realize the number upon number of gradual steps that led to their rise and that ultimately resulted in the horrific events that occurred under their rule.

***Disclaimer: I am not suggesting we are headed down the same path. Just an interesting discussion.

Yep and they were legally and democratically (more or less) elected. It's not like they just took power illegally.

Also, yes I am not insinuating anything other than what I stated. We shouldn't have to make disclaimers but some people might take it the wrong way.