Trudeau flees as first 1,000 Trucks Arrive in Ottawa

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I agree that it's not something with a binary solution, given that this cause is broader than the organizers behind this specific set of actions.

I'm not calling for them to be removed or silenced, only expressing that it's not a cause I'd make myself adjacent to.

I'm not adjacent to it in any active way - not out protesting, not waving a flag, not writing letters or going anywhere near the region. I didn't donate any money. The only thing I did related to this topic was about a year ago. I wrote to my local (Liberal) MP with two specific questions pertaining to disability services during the pandemic. To this day I have not received a response. All I'm really doing is reading about it here, and discussing it with my daughter, my beau, and my exbf who is in Eastern Ontario. My daughter is staunchly against the truckers and that's fine. We debate back and forth and have some rigorous discussions about our views.

I love this comic, it saves me thousands of words of explaining why the left always fails:

If I apply an American lens to this, since I am less versed in Canadian politics:

The question is, is this about worker's rights or is it about science and public health?

Different priorities are colliding in the pandemic, and right now public health out weighs everything else for most people on the left. Not caring about public health is seen as selfish, and selfish is bad under left wing ideology.

My problem is in wondering if all the measures under protest actually fit the science and protect public health. That is worth looking at, but it gets lost under the strong association vaccine refusal has with right wing politics. There isn't much sympathy on the left for vaccine refusal.

I don't understand what is happening in the last image, sorry.

Well, playing "devil's advocate" (openly, this time): What are the benefits of "vaccines" regarding "science and public health" (as opposed to individual health), taking into account:

Source: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099%2821%2900768-4/fulltext

It's a leftist proclaiming their support for the working class, and then recoiling in disgust upon encountering an actual member of the working class, with a heavy implication that the disgust comes from disapproval of working class culture.

Thanks. I thought that might be it, but I wasn't sure. I'm often confused by comics. We all have our blind spots.

It shouldn't be about left vs right. It's what course of action does the most harm, or most good to the most amount of people. Of course it much harder to think through the issues beforehand. It's easy to take sides. And take cookie cutter positions. Jut blindly follow party lines. Making politics a sport. Where you root for your favorite team.

Bottom line, if the draconian government polices that are affecting the individual citizen, are proven to cause more damage on amass level than it is supposedly enacted to protect, if that can be effectively quantized, and conclusively demonstrated, beyond a shadow of a doubt, than any moral authority the government has is lost.

Well maybe a outsiders point of view might offer a thought, because the issues in the USA are quite similar but
Actual public opinion has been quelled , and shamed , as anti- vaxxers , when they are not anti anything but freedom of choice of their own health.
You no longer have a actual right or left in politics here but it has become quite obvious in this Covid issue that there
Is not a 2 party system anymore . But has become one government against the people ie. the working class people
So many people here are fleeing their employment , and larger Companies are having trouble getting people to work and even the school district has teachers fleeing their jobs . And the Overt ogliarchs do not want to take responsibility for what they have caused, nor wish to resolve it . In this pandemic the wealthy right and left appearing government people are and have been making money hand over fist , Until the average joe, working class has interrupted the entire economy . And the obvious result is removing the freedom of choice of Mr Joe Workperson
But this is just one persons opinion.

Memes are concepts.zip, properly done they can compress a lot of ideas into a very easy to ingest format, and the humor helps the medicine go down. I could give you a detailed history of the pivot of leftists away from the working class due to cultural issues, but the comic gets it across much more efficiently.

2 observations.

For me, working class means a guy who works night shift in an Amazon fulfillment center and his wife is a cleaning lady. Such people don't have time to participate in this sort of protest and they are also the people who suffered the most from COVID-19 pre-vaccine. I don't think that group of people have a lot of vaccine hesitancy. Sometimes they had trouble getting vaccinated owing to time and transportation constraints. I wouldn’t consider an independent contractor who repairs septic tanks as working class simply because he wears a hard hat on the job. I also have the impression that class lines are somewhat blurred in Canada compared to the US although I have no facts too back that up. It seemed when I was young that Canadians were less likely than Americans to go to college than Americans however I don't think that's true any longer.

For reasons that are complicated it seems there is more potential for aboriginal vs. white conflict in Canada than in the US but that shouldn't be taken to mean that American policies in that regard have been more enlightened historically. More likely they've been more effectively isolated in ways that minimize how much contact they have with whites.

Ahh, yes, those weren't real working class people, got it.

Lockdown restrictions here have caused restaurant owners lots of headaches. Non essential stores were forced to close or only offer curbside pickup during the first couple lockdowns while Walmarts and Costcos could sell everything because they sold food and this made them essential. Workers had to apply for federal funding called CERB to pay their monthly bills and some found themselves having to pay it back based on what appeared to be random sets of rules on who qualified. People who couldn't work from home would also find themselves not qualifying for CERB and possibly not get paid if they had to stay at home if their children couldn't go to school. So people took the vaccines thinking this would end only to see... more restrictions when omicron hit. People are definitely fed up and feeling pinched as real estate prices have gone way up and same with rentals. Inflation has also hit the highest level in 30 years.

Despite the media claiming that inflation is worldwide, you can see how the government helped to contribute to the problem at the same time. I was against the length of time we put people on CERB when it went beyond the 8 weeks. Still am. Unfortunately, some needed it based on their own circumstances. I am sure the amount of money wasted on procuring more vaccines than needed didn't help either.

^

I worked full time and paid hefty income tax for close to 30 years, while also owning houses and paying property taxes to the provinces. I ended up on long-term disability because of a stroke and I get CPP Disability payments. Despite me paying into the system for 30 years and being a good-little homeowner with a mortgage, I don't get a penny of CERB money or Covid stimulus because I'm on CPP. Nor do I get any mortgage relief or other supports, even despite the fact I'm a single parent of a disabled adult who is also denied CERB.

In contrast my daughter's friend in her early 20's had just started a part-time job with minimum wage while living with her parents. She worked there for about a month before Covid began, and even though she only worked about 8 hours a week, she lost her job in the first lockdown, qualified for CERB, and received over $20,000 in tax-free payments by the end of 2020. It was enough to pay for her eventual wedding and put a downpayment on her house. She hasn't needed to work since that one month part-time job. Her parents each got about $20,000 as well even though one is a TTC mechanic who makes a fortune and didn't lose his job.

Go figure.