Right-Wing Truckers May Disrupt Events Here

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has issued a bulletin warning that right-wing trucker convoys may begin to disrupt major activities and events here in the U.S., including Sunday's Super Bowl in Los Angeles. The right-wing trucker disruption in Canada by a small minority over the past few weeks is threatening to spread to like-minded thugs in the U.S., urged on by reckless political fascists like Cancun Ted Cruz and the Malignant Loser. According to CNN's report:

"'The convoy will potentially begin in California as early as mid-February and arrive in Washington, DC, as late as mid-March, potentially impacting the Super Bowl LVI scheduled for 13 February and the State of the Union Address scheduled for 1 March,' the bulletin said.

'While there are currently no indications of planned violence, if hundreds of trucks converge in a major metropolitan city, the potential exists to severely disrupt transportation, federal government operations, commercial facilities, and emergency services through gridlock and potential counterprotests.'"

Don't think they won't try it here, like a January 6 on 16 wheels. DHS and law enforcement need to have countermeasures ready to confront them if that happens.

Internationally, the well-coordinated right-wing trucker demonstrations may be looking at more difficulties if they choose to try to shut Paris down, as their lawless counterparts in Canada are doing in Ottawa and elsewhere. From the Associated Press:

"Paris police on Thursday banned road blockades threatened by groups organizing online against COVID-19 restrictions, in part inspired by protesters in Canada.

Citing 'risks of trouble to public order,' the Paris police department banned protests aimed at 'blocking the capital' from Friday through Monday. Police will put measures in place to protect roads and detain violators.

Blocking traffic can lead to two years in prison, 4,500 euros (more than $5,000) in fines and a suspended driver’s license, the police department said in a statement."

The right-wing trucker community worldwide has been actively planning for disruptions using on- line forums, as they use anti-vaxx sentiment as a unifying but bogus cause, with the takedown of elected governments a prime objective. The French component has urged their followers to converge on Paris tomorrow evening, and to move on the European Union capital of Brussels next Monday. New Zealand is also facing disruption from their right-wing truckers. We all need to be ready for them, and to make sure their sabotage backfires.

(photo: Right-wing truckers blocking roads in Ottawa. AFP via Getty Images)

Trucker Thuggery: The Costs To America

Destructive convoys of right-wing truckers, ostensibly protesting vaccine mandates for cross-border trucking, are blocking main roads in Canada, and between the U.S. and Canada, in particular the Ambassador Bridge which connects Detroit with Windsor, Ontario. The thugs have resorted to tactics like letting the air out their tires to further delay their removal, and to disrupt traffic between the two trading partners, and according to a report in the Washington Post, it comes with a price to American businesses:

"Each day, $300 million worth of car and truck parts, agricultural products, steel and other raw materials flows across the bridge, according to Flavio Volpe, president of the Auto Parts Manufacturers Association in Toronto.

U.S. manufacturers rely on daily or near-daily shipments to and from their Canadian partners. Just one or two more days of interrupted deliveries could lead to temporary layoffs or plant closures, Volpe said.

'We work in 24-48 hour contingencies. Everybody is thinking about what that means for tomorrow’s production,' he said. 'A few dozen people are getting in the way of the American economy.'"  (our emphasis)

Already suffering from a shortage of foreign-made computer chips, the U.S. auto industry -- and their hundreds of suppliers -- can't afford another break in the supply chain, one that's caused by a relative few misinformed and radicalized wingers bent on bringing down the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Canada. More on the impacts from the WaPo:

"For almost 30 years, North American trade agreements have melded vehicle makers in the U.S. and Canada into a seamless operation. Incomplete vehicles routinely cross the northern border several times before assembly is completed.

As U.S. plants run short of Canadian components, they will react by cutting their own orders to suppliers elsewhere, meaning layoffs could ripple across the industry, Volpe added.

All major car makers – GM, Ford, Toyota and Honda – have plants in Ontario."  (our emphasis)

The worldwide anti-vaxx movement symbolized by the truckers' stunt appears to be a means to mobilize various conspiracists on the far-right, and the violent into hardcore militant actions. It's receiving encouragement from the usual fascistic operators in the U.S., including the Malignant Loser, Marjorie Traitor Greene, Cancun Ted Cruz and others of their ilk. Prime Minister Trudeau needs to clear the roads of these extremists, as we may have to do shortly in this country.

BONUS:  The thugs are, again, outliers --

François Laporte, the president of Teamsters Canada, which represents over 55,000 drivers, including 15,000 long-haul truckers, said the protests do not represent the industry in which 90% of drivers are vaccinated.

The Freedom Convoy “and the despicable display of hate led by the political Right and shamefully encouraged by elected conservative politicians does not reflect the values of Teamsters Canada, nor the vast majority of our members,” Laporte said in a statement.

(photo: Right-wing protesters in Ottawa last month, with Confederate and other racist flags displayed. Patrick Doyle/Reuters)

Trucker Thuggery

 

The trucker convoys that have paralyzed business and daily life in Canada and on the border with the U.S. continued today ostensibly over vaccine mandates for cross-border truck traffic. Beginning last month as a convoy to Ottawa to protest the mandates, the stunt has grown into an international right-wing cause célèbre that some want to use to bring down the Canadian government. From NPR:

"The so-called 'Freedom Convoy' began last month as a caravan of truck drivers who planned to drive to Ottawa to voice their opposition to a government mandate that required them to be vaccinated against COVID-19 to cross the U.S.-Canadian border.

That's despite the fact that the Canadian Trucking Alliance says the 'vast majority' of the country's trucking industry is vaccinated.

But the narrow focus of the protest quickly grew as more people joined the demonstration to voice their own grievances against Canada's government.

Some protesters say they're staying until all public health mandates are lifted, while others have called for the dissolution of the current government, as NPR's Emma Jacobs reported." 

In addition, signs for QAnon, right-wing militias and Confederate and Nazi flags have also appeared among the protesters, Jacobs said." (our emphasis)

Remember that the vaccines are intended to keep these thuggish covidiots from serious respiratory distress and death. But, you know, freedumb! There have been some arrests and confiscation of fuel that the truck thugs were stockpiling. Perhaps a dozen or more heavy tow trucks dragging them into an impoundment area until they pay fines for blocking traffic and commerce would be in order.  Or, turn the vaccinated truckers that are caught up in this mess loose on the thugs.

Watch for similar protests in the U.S., with the backing of the usual fascists, as a weapon of sedition to harass state and Federal officials, and to disrupt the economy that's starting to pick up real steam, since that would be bad for their right-wing cause. 

(photo: Trucks blocking the Ambassador Bridge between Canada and the U.S. ABC News)