A Canadian Perspective on the Politics of COVID-19
Guest Column by Grant A. Brown, DPhil (Oxon), LL.B.
Regardless of the ultimate success or failure of the freedom convoy - regardless of whether you hope for its success or its failure - the most important, enduring lesson we should learn from its coverage is this: Stop believing the lying, gaslighting left-wing politicians and legacy media. They are dishonest to the core, and stupidly, idiotically so.
At the emergency debate in Parliament on Monday night, the Liberal MP from Ottawa Centre spent 10 or 15 minutes blubbering and weeping about the fear and "trauma" being suffered by the residents near Parliament Hill. Virtually every Liberal and NDP member who spoke at the debate referred to the nazis, white supremacists, misogynists, vandals, and other brands of deplorable who filled the convoy. These allegations have been repeated endlessly in the legacy media for days. Yet alternative sources paint a very different picture: there was no horn-honking overnight, crime in the area had dropped precipitously, the protestors were diverse and festive and peaceful - overwhelmingly thoughtful and well-informed. What to make of these starkly contrasting narratives? They can't both be true, nor can they be the result of an honest mistake. One side or the other is lying and gaslighting.
In this age of mobile phones and interwebs, it is not difficult to find the uncensored truth if you want to and have time to. There are literally hundreds of hours of footage of the protest on various vlogs (e.g. Viva Frei), on facebook, instagram, on independent media (like Rebel News, True North, Post Millennial, etc.). Nobody has time to sift through all of this video, or research what might be a staged incident or false flag operation. But I spent many hours last night fast-forwarding through many more hours of video from the streets of Ottawa, and I saw nothing remotely resembling the Liberal / NDP / legacy media version of events. The only violence I saw was an incident of two big cops beating up a 78-year-old, 4-foot-10-inch man for failure to produce ID. It was a disgusting display of thuggery, which we have become accustomed to seeing - much, much worse than any alleged "intimidation" of the local residents by truckers (which is nowhere in evidence).
The Ottawa police announced yesterday that they are going to arrest anyone who provides fuel to the truckers. Last night, literally HUNDREDS of locals marched to Parliament Hill carrying jerry cans. This morning, I saw the video of it - footage I predict you won't find on the lying, gaslighting legacy media today.
The problem is much worse than simple bias. It isn't a normal case of amplifying the faults in those one disagrees with, while downplaying and ignoring the faults in one's allies. The leftist politicians and legacy media are engaged in a campaign of inverting the truth: taking what has long been true of left-wing populism, and attributing it to right-wing populism in the teeth of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. I feel obliged to specify what I mean by 'left-wing populism', given that it isn't even a category recognized by the legacy media. I mean everything from the anti-capitalist G7 and G20 protesters to the ubiquitous eco-warriors, from the Occupy Wall Street encampments to Idle No More blockaders, antifa rioters, Extinction Rebelion lunatics, Black Lives Matter monument destroyers, the gender-identity biology deniers, and the general speech-policing and cancel culture surrounding all of these. These are the groups that practice genuine racism and violence - and on a grand scale. Yet they get a pass.
Now it might be true that on the first day, a protester with a confederate flag showed up, and another with an upside down Canadian flag adorned with swastikas. (I say "might" because it is entirely plausible that this was a false flag incident, where leftists showed up to get photographed and discredit the movement. Incidentally, the latter flag does not symbolize white supremacy, as the legacy media claim; it signifies a country in distress that is slipping into health fascism. Hyperbole, perhaps, but not an offense warranting the summoning of a posse.) Maybe someone "danced" on the tomb of the unknown soldier, and another draped a flag over the Terry Fox monument. But even these incidents redound to the credit of the truckers. The miscreants were rapidly hustled away and have not returned; the monuments have been protected by trucker-guards ever since. That is the true face of the convoy. Why don't conservatives applaud this, instead of abjectly apologizing for the lone idiot who represents nobody but himself?
The problem with Canadian conservatives, in my opinion, is that they are too concerned to appear "respectable" to the chattering class. They still trust the legacy media and the legal system, which have been almost completely taken over by leftists in their "long march through the institutions." These respectable conservatives prize moderation so much that they denounce allies who they perceive - and often misperceive - to be employing hyperbole or sarcasm or "whataboutism." They are too "principled" to employ opinion-shaping tactics employed routinely by the left, such as censorship and shouting down. They recoil in horror at the slightest off-colour joke, action, or comment from anyone their political enemies suggest is in their camp. They are too apologetic for things they have nothing to apologize for. I call them the self-flagellating wing of the conservative party - the wing that the legacy media love to trot out to show how pathetic conservatives really are. The David Frums and Tim Powers of the conservative party.
Canadian conservatives are too gullible and principled for their own good. They don't recognize who their political enemies are, or how hostile those enemies are to anything conservative. As a result, they don't bother to actually investigate and refute the claims being made against them. They capitulate to guilt by association at the slightest accusation. They have been abused by the legacy media for so long, they have the psychology of an abused spouse - accepting blame for provoking the assaults inflicted by the abuser.
If conservatives ever hope to win an election again, they are going to have to learn how to fight back. Indeed, not just fight back, but play offense. They can't win by conceding so much ground to the liars and gaslighters in the leftist parties (including the media party). They have to embrace the range and diversity of views on the right, instead of censoring and defenestrating and in-fighting. If you are tired of losing, take a look at yourself. Pick a leader who will fight back, every day, against true political enemies. The left has never been as vulnerable as they have been over this trucker convoy. Their lies and gaslighting have never been so easy to expose. Once people realize the extent of it, they will be much more open to believing they have been manipulated on so many other issues that conservatives have taken a beating over.
And stop putting the pathetic self-flagellators out front to apologize for conservatives. It's embarrassing.