RR Phantom
Location : Wasted Space Job/hobbies : Cayman Islands Actuary
| Subject: The TRUTH about the Freedom Convoy: we spoke to 100 protesters and didn't find a single insurrectionist, white supremacist or misogynist, but decent people who've had enough Fri Feb 11, 2022 4:40 pm | |
| For two weeks, the 18-wheelers, the semis, the tractors and the pick-up trucks streamed through the snow and ice into the center of Ottawa, the Canadian capital.
They came from across the country. Vaxxed, unvaxxed, white, black, Chinese, Sikh, Indian, alone or with their wives and kids.
They huddled around campfires. They set up pop-up kitchens and tents with block captains doling out coffee and blankets.
They honked (and honked and honked). They blasted 'We Are the World.' And everywhere you looked, someone was waving the Maple Leaf.
It dipped to 4 degrees. The mayor declared a state of emergency. And they didn't budge.
The truckers were scared of running out of gas—freezing to death in their little truck beds in the middle of the night. The city threatened to arrest anyone who brought it to them.
In response, hundreds of Ottawans did just that. The truckers stayed put.
They are a city inside a city whose inhabitants—there are an estimated 8,000 to 10,000—were outraged with a country that seemed to have forgotten they existed.
This past Sunday, as if to confirm that suspicion, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who has yet to meet with Freedom Convoy leaders, took a personal day.
On Monday, during an emergency debate at the House of Commons, he called them 'a few people shouting and waving swastikas.'
I live in downtown Ottawa, within view of Parliament Hill, and have spent the past 10 days or so bundled up and walking around the protests.
I have spoken to close to 100 protesters, truckers and other folks, and not one of them sounded like an insurrectionist, white supremacist, racist or misogynist.
They sound like Ivan, 46, who emigrated, with his wife, Tatiana, from Ukraine to build a new life in New Brunswick, in eastern Canada.
'We came to Canada to be free—not slaves,' he said. 'We lived under communism, and, in Canada, we're now fighting for our freedom.' (Like so many truckers, Ivan refused to share his last name.)
.https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10500037/RUPA-SUBRAMANYA-spoke-protesters-smeared-Canadas-Trudeau-didnt-single-racist.html
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