Ask Prof Wolff: Finding Common Ground with Canadian Truckers
Vložit
- čas přidán 9. 09. 2024
- A Patron of Economic Update asks: "I would appreciate hearing your thoughts about how this Canadian Truckers movement aligns with the international workers' movements, if, in fact, you believe it does."
This is Professor Richard Wolff's video response.
Submit your own question to be considered for a video response by Prof. Wolff on Patreon: / community .
Ask Prof Wolff is a @democracyatwrk production. We are committed to providing these videos to you free of ads. Please consider supporting us on Patreon.com/economicupdate. Become a part of the growing Patreon community and gain access to exclusive patron-only content, along with the ability to ask Prof. Wolff questions like this one! Your support also helps keep this content free to the public. Spreading Prof. Wolff's message is more important than ever. Help us continue to make this possible.
_________________________________________________________________________
Check out the NEW 2021 Hardcover edition of “Understanding Marxism,” with a new, lengthy introduction by Richard Wolff! Visit: www.lulu.com/e...
“Marxism always was the critical shadow of capitalism. Their interactions changed them both. Now Marxism is once again stepping into the light as capitalism shakes from its own excesses and confronts decline.”
Check out all of d@w’s books: "The Sickness is the System," "Understanding Socialism," by Richard D. Wolff, and “Stuck Nation” by Bob Hennelly at www.lulu.com/sp...
_________________________________________________________________________
Follow Wolff ONLINE:
Web: www.rdwolff.com
Patreon: / economicupdate
Twitter: / profwolff
/ democracyatwrk
Facebook: / economicupdate
/ richarddwolff
/ democracyatwrk
Subscribe to the EU podcast: economicupdate....
Shop our worker CO-OP made MERCH: democracy-at-w...
A Note From Prof. Wolff:
Let me be clear. I am vaccinated (3 times) as is my entire family. I advocate all to get vaccinated because of the science and the balance of risks in vaccination vs non-vaccination.
The vast majority of Canadian truck drivers are vaccinated. Most are NOT in the convoy, but they are watching closely. Most probably support protests against government laws, regulations and mandates that have hurt truckers' livelihoods for decades. Most don’t support Nazis, or other right wing extremists. They just want to regain decent livelihoods and job conditions - which the right wing ignores.
Right wingers are attempting to co-opt this protest because it’s directed against the government. They win if the Left reflexively supports the government’s mandates.
What the Left should do is support the protests while opposing the right wing for its attempt to exploit protesters’ legitimate grievances. We can applaud the truckers and offer real solutions.
Among possible goals for the Left to endorse are these: demand that truckers be allowed to choose between regular testing or vaccination, to be quarantined when testing positive, to provide additional medical facilities for Covid patients so non-Covid health care isn’t compromised. The truckers could be leaders in the national fight for more medical care facilities for all Canadians: a way to build and broaden a coalition around them. Demand that if and when government mandates or testing or quarantines damage workers’ incomes, those workers should be compensated by a corporate tax on “Covid-windfall profits”, as was levied on companies that profited from past wars.
Sorry, but even if I supported the cause, I wouldn't support the truck blockade, because the truckers have been honking their loud truck horns 24 hours per day in residential areas. I HATE loud noise near our homes, especially when we are trying to sleep.
If the truckers are working class, how can they keep their trucks and not be charged for theft from trucking companies? I bet most of them own their own trucks, i.e. they are PETIT BOURGEOISIE, not working class.
The truckers are trying to put something into our bodies without our will: COVID-19.
COVID-19 vaccines reduce the spread of COVID-19. Every worker has the right to a safe workplace. Thus ensuring a safe workplace requires laws to vaccinate everyone who visits a workplace (including truckers delivering goods, and including schools, supermarkets and restaurants). Mask laws and physical distancing laws and lockdowns of affected communities are also necessary part of making every workplace safe.
If anti-vaccine people are "justified", do you also believe that people who are against smoking bans are also justified? How about people who keep others awake with loud music? How about people who talk loudly in a library where people go to study? How about people who want to put addictive but harmful chemicals in food so they get more profits? How about people who treat their employees like crap to maximise profits? It's all freedom, isn't it?
If you're anti-mandate, you're anti-vax. Sorry, but you are. It's frankly childish to be opposed to something that benefits the common good just because the government mandates it.
Sorry, Prof. Wolff, but I'm not buying your analysis of this situation. You end your video where you should have started, pointing out what the truckers' real problems are: stolen wages, falling real wages over the last thirty years, deregulation by a government in the hands of the trucking industry, etc. THESE are the real, material issues that truckers face, and yet this small minority of unvaccinated truckers rise up in protest of what? Not simply vaccine mandates, but pretty much any public health measures that will keep the public safe from COVID because they don't believe in any of it. I don't need to remind you that it is the poor and working class who have suffered the most as a result of this pandemic. You're saying we should, in solidarity, support these truckers when they are showing zero solidarity with other workers. I think the compromise you suggested is a non-starter, not only because there would be zero public support for funding COVID sick leave for unvaccinated truckers (I mean, for Christ's sake, nearly 80% of Canadians are vaccinated; unlike Americans, many Canadians still care about the common good so it's hard for me to imagine that many are sympathetic to these truckers' demands), but also because those very truckers would probably tell you to take your compromise and shove it because they clearly don't think - when it comes to public health - that they have any social obligations. Most importantly, however, your compromise has the effect of legitimating a very dangerous and libertarian attitude toward public health that is the antithesis of worker solidarity and throws 100 years of public health science out the window. I've heard the argument that these truckers are petite bourgeois or that their ranks are filled with right wing extremists. I honestly don't know if either are accurate, but it's immaterial to why I don't support the Freedom Convoy. I withhold my support because a) their demands have nothing to do with the fundamental, material problems truckers face and, b) by seeking to eliminate public health measures that protect working people (and not simply vaccine mandates, mind you), these very demands undermine working class solidarity. If, as you suggest, the Left should be willing to dialogue with these truckers, these concerns should be the start and focus of any conversation.
Hello Prof. Wolff, I am a long time patreon supporter and also live here in canada, and visited these rallies. While I agree that truckers should be considered working class, I dont agree that this is a working class movement. Thier grievances are no more than our temporary mask and vaccine mandates. There are zero labour demands aside from getting back to work, or opening up businesses to full capacity. They are not making any kind of demands in terms of working class gains or better working conditions (higher wages, better benefits, etc). Thier main concern is freedom, and many if you talk to them will go further and start insisting on 'economic freedom', which we all know just means the free market.. Most of the supporters at these rallies are PPC supporters (peoples party of canada), the alt right libertarian party of Canada. Many of these people will also go on record saying they are anti-union, its hard to believe this is a movement in favor of the working class.
So you are saying workers organizing together can only be considered a worker's movement unless they meet your criteria. Instead of "visiting" the rallies you could involve yourself in the movement to organize for your favored positions.
I also think these people would be the first to tell you to "get back to work" in the event of a successful general strike.
@@anon2132 I brought up the idea with a couple people, then I was lectured about the dangers of collectivism and how Justin Trudeau is a communist.... these people are soo misguided..
@@jagged_jim4169Organizing is hard work and often frustrating as hell, no doubt about it. If you go into it with the idea of "those people" or these people" you're already fucked. One of the first things you need to do is look within yourself to ascertain how you are judging people. Once you're aware of your own preconditions and prejudices you're in a far better place to begin reaching common ground with others. It's one of the keys in building a successful movement. Stoking division is the tool of the powerful few against the many.
@@anon2132 if a group of workers organize themselves to go and see a football match do you consider it to be a workers movement? No.
If the group of workers is not advocating for workers rights or workers labor conditions then no, it's not a workers movement, even if there is workers within the "movement".
Oops. Looks like you need to look into Max Bernier (Canada’s Reagan). This convoy is PPC, Wexit, and not “working truckers protesting for worker rights”.
You have the right idea about our Conservatives and Liberals gutting the federal transfers for healthcare being the main trigger to “mandates”. Except these “protesters” are absolutely not about fixing that.
I respect the Professor too much to ignore his opinion but I do note, like you I think, that Healthcare here is a provincial responsibility so the federal parties have never had the ability to end any of the mandates. I've also heard from people on the ground that it has become predominantly a maga protest. I have to think about the Professors words though and I think he is correct about the advantages of supporting certain (maybe not maga or outright fascists) movements that we may not immediately think we can support. At least I have to consider it as uncomfortable as I admit it makes me.
They are not "truckers". There are a handful of people with big rigs among the vast majority who are simply far-right, anti-science protesters. Their demands included every non-conservative political leader resigning. 90% of truckers are vaccinated and the federation of Canadian transportation associations rejects these protests. Acting like we should find common ground with these people is equivalent to saying we should find common ground with Qanon.
I think the US media has portrayed the convoy protest as working class too much. The organizers are Strike Busters who have been caught on film driving their trucks through picket lines. There's a large group of Canada's equivalent to the US Sovereign Citizen called Freedom on the Land who were recruiting among the crowds, they are a far right group and have been labelled as an extremist threat for a decade. The mandates they were protesting are US Border Crossing Mandates... enforced by the US Border Guards. The funding is mostly foreign, and what seems to have come domestically involves large donations of 25k plus. Also, judging by how the US media has been portraying the whole, there's definitely American interests at play here.
I agree that the restrictions imposed in Canada were to prevent a flooding of the ICU, that there should be 4 to 8 times more bed and the personnel to operate it all. The conservative politicians have been gutting our health care system for 40 years in the hopes of privatizing it all like the US. As for the methods used to clear them, this is all standard fair for a State, the police have been incredibly cooperative and has let the convoy protest for multiple weeks now. This treatment isn't shown to indigenous protests at pipelines and mines.
exactly ... it's a neofascist movement. It's supported by the media because the media is capitalist.
Yes. It has been a major problem. I see American Leftists sharing news on Twitter about this protest and supporting it. They share things from Rebel Media which is basically Canada's Breitbart.
This is a fascist movement and attempted insurrection lol.
The mandates are awful, are in support of the phony pandemic ruse, the purpose of which is a) transfer of trillions of $ to the rich, b) tighten social controls by police states everywhere... HOWEVER... the pseudo-protest (these truckers are owner-ops, so petit bourgeois, not proletarian) is just as phony and is being used to dupe and co-opt genuine grass-roots discontented and disorganized workers in service of the SAME fascist elements. This is a two pronged attack on the working class. Pure theater (and not very good theater at that), from top to bottom.
Very well put C1V1 You are exactly right on. When they started swearing each other in as police officers that was a throw back to that US Sovereign group. Our government probably got wind of that. And I just saw that nurses in New Zealand were protesting for more pay and more nurses as they work through another wave of covid. Let's be honest here, was any country prepared for this???? Not one. Although we were warned of this type of pandemic could strike, no one actually prepared for it. I also think that if the Conservatives get more power there will be a two tiered health care system, one for the rich and a screw for the poor. This could be part of this undermining of the doctors and scientists going on right now within this right wing faction. And you are so right about the way this has been handled, the police would have responded much differently if the people were any other color but white. I makes me sick. The police chief, Soly ?, that just resigned, had been hired to stop the racism within the police force, he didn't do a very good job.
It is unfortunate that indigenous protests don't get the same numbers and positive press but that in no way takes away from the fact that these truckers are a proletariat class fighting for our freedom to eat. Most Americans and Canadians don't grow their own food so restricting transportation of large numbers of things would only result in inflation in the short term while later down the line mass starvation which would likely lead to government overreach. Right and left are concepts designed for the divide and conquer of the masses by getting them too focused on political differences to recognize what's actually needed to actually keep society afloat and everyone healthy.
As a Canadian subscriber, I am honestly horrified by this take. It is a BAD take. You support a neo-fascist, anti-democratic, movement which the labour union to which truckers belong strongly opposes. Is it because you think it useful to undermine the union movement? Is it because you think that a small minority of right-wingers should be able to overturn the results of a democratic election (held last year - they are calling for the government to step down)?. The vast majority of Canadians -- and Canadian truckers -- support vaccinations (90% of Canadian truckers are fully vaccinated). The only people who are profiteering off this "movement" are those receiving the money from largely US 'donations' -- ALL coming from the hard right.
I personally can never support a movement that carries 'Trump 2024' and confederate flags through the streets of Canadian cities. How can you?
The main effect (by design) of this "strike" is to undermine the truckers' union -- which well over 90% of truckers support, and destabilize the Liberal government (in favour of their friends on the right of the Conservative party - they have been OPEN about this). Whence such strong opposition to the union movement? Whence such support of a right-wing government over a democratically elected centre-left government? (yeah, I'd rather have a socialist NDP government, but it was not in the cards last year.) Why do you support undermining the trucker's union and using US money to cripple the Canadian economy, closing factories, and making life unbearable for innocent residents of Ottawa neighbourhoods?
So PLEASE explain why you oppose unions, why you oppose democracy, why you support the "strikers'" attacks on dark-skinned on the streets of Ottawa, their attacks on homes and businesses that fly rainbow flags, and their harassment of people just trying to live their lives in their own neighbourhoods.
I know LGBT and non-white people in Ottawa and they have be demeaned and harassed by these MAGAts. They have been intimidating children and service workers because they want to force THEM to stop wearing masks and protecting their health and that of their families. Wherever you’re getting you information about this situation, it’s not correct , unbiased or seeing the whole picture.
Then you will never have the revolution you want. If the feds have a few of their agents hold up right wing paraphanalia at any protest, whether pro worker, economically leftist or whatever, many on the left wont support it reflexively, and the feds have used this for decades to undermine any pro worker movement.
He's saying go in and convert them. You personally shouldn't try, because you're clearly too ignorant and closed-minded to be any good at it, but socialists with some sense should.
@Literature Survey Remarkable. Every word of what you just said is wrong. Devastatingly so.
Prof Wolff. I live in Ottawa. It is a failure of the media that anyone thinks this is a working class movement. With the slightest analysis, it's easy to find the organizers' right-wing racist histories. The convoy is peppered with US Confederate flags and other hate symbols. The movement is quite hostile towards unions and the working class. It was not fighting mandates; it was asking to topple the democratically elected government. Downtown Ottawa residents were terrorized by a bunch of drunken, racists, thugs, who enjoyed the kid glove treatment from police, unlike legitimate protests, for example, indigenous people trying to protect their land from corporations, who were quickly met with military style state violence.
How do you explain the weapons being smuggled into Canada by US supporters of the convoy?
How do we know they won't fill their trucks with Weapons and People ready to take down our US Capitol these are the same people who did Trumps biddings, and now today Ukraine is at WAR with PUTIN while TRUMP Cheers him on. Should I say that again, "TRUMP is CHEERING PUTIN along while Trucker Carlson is spreading nonsense about Russia being non harmful to us or the Ukraine's.
And there are 5 big Nuclear Reactors in the Ukraine, what happens if one gets accidently hit? This is DIRE NEWS for all of Europe and were playing stupid tiddledywinks at home with Stupid Truckers that could possibly want to get Trump back in office after all he is PUTIN"s Buddy. SCAREY SCAREY SCAREY
Here in Hawaii a telescope project on Mauna Kea was stopped by Hawaiians blocking the road. I’m not for stopping the telescope construction but I appreciate that people organized against it and were successful. I also believe that there are more pressing problems that affect most of us in Hawaii and I would have liked a movement shutting down the roads to protest for affordable housing and livable wages. Protesting against the highest rate of homelessness in the country and for clean drinking water. The protest on the mountain has actually made solidarity a more remote possibility because it has entrenched many native Hawaiians in the fantasy that they will get their land back.
Outsiders see Hawaii as a parasite on America, good only for tourism and military installations but those of us who live here know that Hawaii could be very productive and self sustaining if investments were made towards that goal. The goals of the elites don’t align with that because they are making bank on the colonial structure we have here. I see the protests of the yellow vests and now the Canadian truckers as a structure that the working class has to embrace but maybe we are just too divided and hopeless to demand something better. It seems like pie in the sky thinking that we could start winning because the banks win every stinking time.
Capitalists running governments. The capitalists say that big government is bad, and that smaller is better. But by smaller they mean, that the capitalists should run the government for the exclusive benefit of the 1% of United States (US) citizens. That is how US capitalists have achieved that 9 of the 10 richest men in the world are US citizens. The problem for the 99% of us is that the US government is run by 1% of US citizens. Therefore, the solution to our problem is to make America great for everyone by having her governed by 100% of her citizens! Make America governed by all of her people for a change!
I’d like to politely disagree. The trucker movement is not a working class movement, it’s an astroturf movement like the tea party. For comparison, the truckers in Ottawa are protesting against vaccine mandates and asking Justin Trudeau to resign. By comparison a public worker strike in Puerto Rico are asking about and making demands for wages, pensions and benefits. The Canadian truckers have made no talk on unions, pensions, workplace democracy or more
Both are protesting the excessive power that a small group of people has over a much larger group of people.
@@RussCR5187 There is a kernel of truth to that. Though it's important to differentiate between worker movements and movements that wear the trappings of a workers movement. Movements like the truckers or the Tea party make nebulous demands for "freedom" while genuine working movements make concrete demands.
@@georgekostaras Thanks for your response. Now that I think about it I'm disappointed that the protest has been characterized as the working class making demands. I'd like it to be seen as a somewhat broader cross-section of ordinary citizens demonstrating against a slow but steady advancement of authoritarian rule imposed by a cabal of sociopathic oligarchs who, with their big-money influence, have already taken over our governments. I'd like to see pandemic mandates as being the place where we draw the line and say NO to digital surveillance, frivolous "emergency conditions" that allow the suspension of civil rights, and other such measures. If we don't draw the line somewhere I believe we'll soon find ourselves in a totalitarian hell.
@@RussCR5187
Anyone supporting the freedumb to spread COVID is seriously brainwashed by individualist ideology. Health is a COLLECTIVE issue. That is why socialist China has largely defeated COVID and after prioritising human lives above business as usual, now has a booming economy.
@@RussCR5187 the thing is there are a ton of working class protests right now. There's the concrete workers in Seattle, the Starbucks Workers, in Mexico GM employees elected a whole new union from the grassroots, in Canada there's the Wet'su'weten people who are fighting against pipelines, there's so much going on with so many legitimate grievances.
I am a union worker who support unions and the fight for workers rights and improved working conditions. However the truckers are not demonstrating because of working conditions, they are demonstrating against vaccine mandates for crossing borders which has been imposed both by the US and Canada. There were demonstrators who drew swastika on Canadian flags, this is racism for sure and Mr. Wolff I think you know about antisemitism. Recently 11 demonstrators were arrested for carrying fire arms. These people are not demonstrating for better working conditions, and i have heard upstanding truckers say this. So Mr. Wolff I think you are misinformed about the reason for the demonstration. It's similar to Jan.6th in Washington DC
You are absolutely right Rodney. Thank you, these demonstrators are not our best and brightest, I am somewhat embarrassed when I see them on the news and now they've got Jesus on their side. Tell me how you can possibly combine the racist flags and Jesus??? Crazy!!
Exactly right. I agree with you. I am dismayed at virtually everything that Dr. Wolfe said here. It seems he hasn’t followed this situation and he should go back again and if he understood it, he would really do a 180 on his comments.
@@ritacampbell3833 I saw those same images of swastikas on upside down Canadian flags and my first thought was that it was meant as a critique of the government, as in they were saying that government had become fascist by instituting mandates. This is the opposite of a celebration of Nazism. I'm not trying to be contrary here, as a non-Canadian I don't have a dog in this fight, I'm just sharing what I honestly think they were sloppily attempting to convey.
Ever heard of Crisis actors???.You never know who planted the Swastikas..If its not the Swastika boogeyman,its the Antifa bogeyman that we're being played on both sides so people won't revolt...Perfect "smoke and mirrors" tactics to take your attention away.
@@Eros13adios are all the organizers crisis actors, too? Because practically all of them are card carrying white nationalists with ties to domestic and international far right political parties and organizations.
You didn't know that most of the "Canadian truckers" are not truckers at all, that the REAL Canadian truckers are one of the highest vaccinated groups in the country, with very few of them having any problems with vaccine mandates?
The original truckers protest here has actually spun out to other grievances similar to the Occupy Wall Street movement. In reality people are just angry at a failing system because Capitalist govt's are owned by corporations.
Love your work prof but Off base about this imho.
The protests have an aesthetic of a working class movement but it’s just a shroud to make it appear to have a sense of legitimate victimhood.
I have a lot to say but perhaps the most striking situation I saw was this:
In Australia “freedom” trucker protestors (it was/is a copycat of the trucker convoy in Canada) were protesting at the same time a nurses were on strike around the country because the neoliberal privatising cost cutting NSW govt has gutted health care spending.
All the while in Canberra, the “ freedom” protestors are actively protesting for everything that makes it harder for nurses/healthcare workers. There is no coherent ideology and I would posit that the demographic is not working class but a mix of all classes). They are privileged labour aristocrats holding up signs for revolution and solidarity while showing no solidarity with ANY citizens by just getting vaccinated and doing the right thing, especially those on the front lines (nurses, healthcare workers etc) and those who are most vulnerable. In terms of revolution, what would they achieve once their demands are met? Relaxing of mandates.. which are temporary measures anyway, then what. They would fracture back into their individual lives because there is no guiding ideology, organisation or real, legitimate struggle. It is a glorified tantrum which was astroturfed and exacerbated by far right and capitalist interests.
The protests against the Covid measures and the Vax mandate here and Austria (and neighboring Germany) are organized and lead by open Fascists, QAnon people and other far right groups and individuals that hate nothing more than leftists, unions, social programs (well, except for immigrants, Jews, Muslims and lgbtq people).
But they started running around with huge signs with "Revolution" on it (the first one I saw looked like it had been stolen from a blm protest) and screaming "Solidarity".
This is the opposite of a Workers movement. The workers in it are at best getting distracted from real problems and lead to believe in a judeo-bolshevik-masonic conspiracy, which is what most of them believe is the reason for the governments Covid response.
It seems to me that this trucker protest in Canada is no different. But I don't know that.
For sure I'm disappointed in how off base the prof was about this.
@@maxmeggeneder8935 yeah its really strange
Professor Wolff, I've been a long time subscriber, reader, fan and patron. I'm also a lifetime Ottawan. Your analysis in this situation is strictly anti-materialist, and you don't know what you're talking about. Left wing and Marxist groups in Ottawa have been organizing since the start of this occupation to push them out of the city. This is very disappointing.
It seems to me that this disruptive protest has been permitted to happen un-impeded in stark contrast to recent indigenous protests. without acknowledging this context, the analysis is lacking.
I've heard the CBC pushing this idea of yours. The trucker protest was "permitted to happen unimpeded" precisely because Trudeau dithered over enforcing the law regarding the First Nations protests, particularly the railway shutdowns and road blockades. The highly organized right wing are not stupid. Their current actions, and the legal advice they received before taking them, have been entirely informed by the federal and provincial governments' response to Indigenous protests of recent years and the precedents set by these. They have obviously concluded that they can gain a political win whatever the approach taken by the government, whether their highly provocative actions are met by a muted, kid-glove response, or by teargas and dogs.
...I'm hoping this is about finding common ground with the other 95-99% of Canadian Truckers who have absolutely nothing to do with the protest.
Seriously. Telling that RW didn't like this comment.
wolff said this towards the end of the video.
Dear Prof Wolfe, I have a lot of respect for you, but this video is way off, perhaps ur worst ever. You are arguing that truckers have the right to make other people sick and risk lives unnecessarily. This is not a question about ICU spaces or workers rights, it's about social responsibility in a social contract that makes up the rule of law in our nation. There have been absolutely no labor demands made, it's not about that. This movement is an illegal occupation. I live in the city of Ottawa, these people are not fighting a good fight. Some of them are wandering our city demanding that people take their masks off, intimidating lgbtq residents and transit users. You are completely misreading what is happening here.
Did you miss the part where he says testing should be an alternative? There is literally NO REASON why testing for Covid or testing for antibodies should not be an option except for vaccine manufacturers PROFIT MOTIVES. Especially considering that vaccines DO NOT STOP THE SPREAD.
@@solearesoul ???? Offering an alternative to allow people to infect others and risk lives is not an option. There's absolutely no justification for it.
@@philipberthiaume2314 you don’t make any sense. You’re not “following the science”. First of all, if you have high antibodies, whether it’s from vaccination OR natural immunity, you’re not spreading it. Natural immunity is even stronger than vaccinated immunity. Secondly, if you take a negative test- YOURE NOT INFECTED AND THEREFORE NOT SPREADING ANYTHING. And third, vaccinated people are spreading it too! In fact many of them don’t think that they can, and therefore are more careless, because the media hasn’t been honest.
It really comes down to how high your antibodies are. They wane over time, be it from vaccination or natural immunity. Therefore antibody tests and/or Covid tests are a way better option than just vaccination alone.
I just sent a few links to scientific studies, one even from the CDC, showing that vaccinated and unvaccinated people still spread Covid the same, and that natural immunity is more robust and longer lasting than vaccine immunity. But it looks like CZcams hid them. Everything I’m saying is based on science. It seems like a lot of people who are saying the kind of things you are, aren’t really up to date on the latest science. Just because it hasn’t been announced from a government podium doesn’t mean it doesn’t count.
I rarely disagree with you Professor Wolff. The vast majority of truckers and Canadian workers oppose the so called Freedom Convoy, even though a slim majority of Canadians agree that the governments at all levels have failed us through the pandemic. Though not as badly as the US government has failed.
Those of us who've been at least occasionally engaged in anti-fascist work here recognize the names of the convoy organizers. This is more of an uprising among socially conservative evangelicals who think Trudeau is the anti-Christ (another toxic American import) and criminal lumpen elements associated with rightwing "sovereign citizens", rightwing accelerationist gangsters. There are surely some honest and earnest workers in the mass and I think Left formations should be in the streets with pamphlets and information about the truth about this dysfunctional system, but make no mistake. We Canadians aren't all smiles, apologies, and maple syrup. Per capita, Canada's far right is far more organized and effective than the mainstream media realizes.
As something of a Marxist, I've got to say I don't find myself cheering on these events. As the late Canadian Marxist Leo Panitch might have said, we have to look at the balance of forces. The right is winning. We need some white Marxists to be willing to become martyrs in the name of redirecting working class anger, but right now, the streets belong to the right wing.
Such an anti-revolutionary position. Marx would be spinning in his grave.
@@JapanAlex01 yeah the correct position is to lionize reactionary business owners who have had every opportunity to advance the position of wage workers in the logistics sector and never seized them. Excellent material analysis there.
@@actualwafflesenjoyer “we should focus our efforts on helping the petite bourgeoisie enact reactionary policies” isn’t the winning argument you think it is.
Finding common ground with the Marchers on Rome.
Bombaccism
Mussolini's march on Rome, certainly.
I get that you're tired of waiting to see your beliefs inspire wide action, but saying we should throw our lot in with openly anti communist, bigotedly conspiratorial followers of the self appointed Queen of Canada is a massive slap in the face.
@@actualwafflesenjoyer Not true... Lenin didn't throw his lot in ....
@@actualwafflesenjoyer Please explain how protesting masks and vaccines helps the working class
@@actualwafflesenjoyer None of them have made any demands of Capital aside from not wanting to wear masks and not wanting to get vaccines. You’re under the impression any revolt helps the working class. I can assure you that’s not remotely the case.
@@actualwafflesenjoyer this isn't a working class protest lol
@@actualwafflesenjoyer is this the first time you've taken interest in the political economy of Canada? You keep commenting on remarks from actual Canadian leftists, saying that we're sneering at these noble proletarians as if some of us haven't been fighting with the same people over control of the streets. The fascists, (not truckers), are in control of the territory around the capital city. And useful American idiots who probably couldn't have found Ottawa on a map of Canada a month ago are suddenly experts on what's happening on the ground. The vast, overwhelming number of Canadian truckers are out there doing their bit. These people aren't making demands for better wages or working conditions. Sorry...I know who my class enemies are, and they start with fascists.
It is not the "truckers" who are protesting. It is mostly the owners of trucking companies. Just because the media doesn't know any better, or wants to be misleading, doesn't mean that intelligent people should follow them blindly.
I would say that most "truckers" in Canada are Teamsters members. 90% of the Canadian "truckers" are triple vaccinated.
The truckers were forced to be owner/operators because Labor Unions got destroyed. Corporations not having trucker employees reduces their costs and risks, and now places that on the worker/operator. You are not too bright...🙈
@@solid1378 Anyone supporting the freedumb to spread COVID is seriously brainwashed by individualist ideology.
i think it's roughly just under 17% who are teamsters.
@@SimonAshworthWood
Has you brain been rotted by covid fear so easily. If you are a hypochondriac then barricade yourself in your home and stfu. Honestly getting tired of your spam on this video because you have gone full hysterical.
Not true. Canadian Healthcare system has been stretched to the limit and every accomodation has been made. If you're unwilling to participate in society and follow the rules you shouldn't expect preferential treatment. Truckers have no merit in their complaints and that whole protest was fueled by the American right wing media and money.
👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍
When did leftists become such rule followers?? I thought leftist were misfits and constantly question authority?
@@Joda30088 You were misinformed.
@@JohnT.4321 Or things changed
I love your work, Prof Wolff. I understand your perspective, and agree 110% that working class solidarity across the right-left spectrum is a prerequisite to fundamentally changing our economic system. HOWEVER, the main thrust of these protests has little (if anything) to do with working class solidarity; rather than making any coherent demands for the benefit of the working class, this movement seems to be driven entirely by white neo-fascist/anti-science/libertarian forces, as some other commenters point out. I'm sure most of these protesters would love any benefits that a successful working class movement would provide, but my sense is that such a fight is *at best* a tertiary concern for these truckers. A tiny sliver of the population is both thoughtful and intellectually honest enough to take your nuanced position on vaccine mandates...I think that "destroy the government", "science is just an ideology", and "freedom" (meaning freedom to impose neo-fascism on society, and to destroy "left-wing" freedoms) best characterize the mindset/motivations of the protesters. While it's 100% true that *in theory* we have plenty of common ground with the truckers, I think it'd be nearly impossible to convince these particular people to give serious consideration to fighting together for our mutual interests.
Rightwing means campaigning to perpetuate capitalism, a system that exploits and impoverishes us working class people. Leftwing means leaning toward socialism.
Solidarity across left/right lines sounds like compromising with capitalism, instead of changing it into socialism. Why do that? Why not get working class people to join leftwing movements instead, and do actual LEFTWING solidarity (e.g. strike to gain worker’s rights, like the right to a safe workplace, paid sick leave, etc.)?
after over 40 years of conversations with Drivers as an equal,
I find that there is small chance of finding a coherent though
among most drivers, and this bunch is little different from
people at the Mexican Border who simply desire a place to live,
and food for their family.....
The World Economy is falling apart as the wealthy
drive the prices up....
Border crossing seems to be endowed with complications since
borders were drawn.....
I seem to have seen my share of those obstacles.....
I am sure Prof Wolff will have some choice profound words on these events. Your a good man Professor I have learned alot from you. Peace
Dear Prof Wolff, thank you for sharing all your beneficial insights. I hope this message finds you well and you are taking good care of yourself ;)
That was a case of pontificating.
Truckers could make protests while on feet, gathering together.
Using trucks is an assault of public safety.
Prof. Wolff I like to listen your analysis, but here you lost me.
I totally agree. I had to strain to find anything reasonable, not overly idealistic and childish and deluded in his commentary this time.
I nearby unsubscribed. The only worthy thing he said was that these truckers went after the wrong target! In my eyes that was the one thing that he said that saved him.
All the rest seemed misinformed, delusional, overly idealistic, and misguided. He came really, really close to losing me! This is the only time I have ever felt this way about him. I nearly thought he had lost his mind.
@@ritacampbell3833 I nearly unsubscribed too. This was the poorest presentation the Professor has made. Upon listening to the video, I thought the Professor Wolff was having a massive brain fart at first. Then I realized it was far worse. The Karen Convoy is also known as the Flu Truck Klan.
It's obvious to me that the Good Professor isn't aware of the Canadian political scene. Or aware of how many of the Facebook groups the convoy used to organise were created. There are many reasons why the NDP and the Greens won't go near this protest. Canadians on the Left haven't voiced support, because this isn't an organised movement with a clearly stated objective. It has no leaders, nor a coherent platform. It seems that the Prof hasn't twigged to this.
The CPC and the PPC latched on, tho'. The former are hard-core capitalists, the latter flirts with the alt-right.
The convoy's demands originally called for dissolution of Parliament, with the GG assigning their people to run things until a new election.
I listened, but found the Prof's rationale off the mark, I'm afraid. Makes me wonder how off the mark he can be on topics I'm less up on than he. . .
I still consider the Prof to be a good source, but he's now an 22-karat one, down from 24. Still gold standard, but not the top level.
He's all "fiat" and always has been and he needs money. Talk is cheap.
@Bill McDonald. What are NDP, CPC, PPC, and GG?
@@davidw6936 The NDP: New Democratic Party. Progressive/Left
The CPC: Conservative Party of Canada.
Canada's analogue of the Republicans
The PPC: People's Party of Canada.
Further right than the CPC; openly flirts with alt-right figures and organisations.
The GG: Governor General of Canada.
The Queen's representative. The Queen is the titular head of Canada, and as her representative, the GG has all the powers vested in the Crown. They cannot dissolve Parliament unless asked to by the Prime Minister.
The trucker blockade is an uprising of the Petit Bourgeoisie, as such things nearly always are. They have the capital, time, and freedom to do much as they will. These people own trucks and likely have employees to work in their place, making them capital, as they sit there.
Uber drivers, commonly known as petite-bourgeois 'owner operators'.
Is there nothing we have in common with the truckers?
@@RussCR5187 As much as serfs had with their feudal lords, I suppose.
@@ProleDaddy Are you saying that these truckers are today's equivalent of the feudal lords --- i.e., the ones who controlled the fates of their serfs?
@@RussCR5187 Not owner/operators with a single unit. Those who employ others, in general, yes.
The Canadian truckers are being directed by some pretty right wing people.
He mentioned that. Socialists need to change that.
@@kelly980 yeah, before the Nazi take over, there was a going back and forth between the Nazis and the Communists. The liberal (democratic) government in German was pretty much tapped out and didn't have anything to offer. Growing up around that kind of right wing type, I don't know how one would capture them. They are pretty locked into on mind set. Hillary, the DNC and corporation that fund them f---ed when the didn't go with Bernie.
I strongly disagree with the sentiment that one should go into genuine right wing protests. When people accept fucking swastikas at their rallies there is nothing to win for any leftist. Though working conditions always need to be improved, you will gain close to nothing if you try to engage with this protests. We do have similiar people in Germany and all that they care about is their own personal freedom to do as they like and to rally against the antisemitic myth of a communist/leftist conspiracy to take over the world or to fight the so called "Corona fascism" while proclaiming themselves to be in the same position as jews back in nazi Germany.
You have to, one way or an other, or you simply surrender portion of workers to Fascists. That how Nazi come to power in Germany. Better alternative would be to use this protest, to declare general strike and use trackers paralyze of economy to enact economic demands. At the end, The only power workers have is to strike, is to paralyze economy.
No. There are a lot of different issues in this which should not be thrown together.
No, I do not respect or support the truckers and the "freedom (sic) convoy".
1- Some trucks that are NOT included in this may be carrying much needed medical supplies. Some of which may be perishable. Stuck behind these jokers.
2- Many professionals, medical and otherwise, may well be stuck behind these trucks.
3- It's obviously not about their income. They can afford to take off for a week or more, pay for fuel for the trucks (not cheap), hire bands and bouncy castles. They're not hurting for money.
4- This was not necessary. There are a limited number of truckers qualified or willing to cross the border. All they had to do was not take the assignment. IF enough truckers turned down the assignments, it would have the desired effect. They could have accepted domestic assignments. The effect would have been the same, without the potential and real negative effects. Nothing (or far less) would have been moving. Instead they are throwing a tantrum.
5- Truckers who are not on board with this and who do need the money are being prevented from completing their runs.
6- I support truckers in general. I have done videos in support of truckers. These jokers account for a minute fraction of the number of truckers.
Thank you for your comments. I agree with what you said. I feel deeply offended by what this so called “freedom convoy” has been doing.
I have had and I still have less than zero sympathy or agreement with them. I have found them to be arrogant, criminal, confused, shallow, and altogether disingenuous.
You are right to bring out the fact that they caused real harm - and to a civilized and strong democratic country - Canada - that has done no harm to us.
In no way, in no way shape or form do I support any part of that far right wing force for chaos, suffering, insanity, violence, ignorance, and fascist oppression.
They seem to be lost, confused, ignorant, and/or bad actors. I support any and all governments in putting down their criminal activities and toxic tantrums.
The Canadian government has been exemplary in their patience, respect, and tolerance, but they are also firmly in their rights to restore safety, function, and order to their society.
That Canada has managed to do so with minimum injuries and arrests is nothing short of amazing. I am so sorry for the harm suffered by so many innocent people - over just a few thousand miscreants, with no justifiable reason for causing such harm, at such a time as this, where our challenges in almost all cases, are already so big.
🦍☀️we got your back professor Wolff
I am sorry, but to find common ground with Canadian truckers is similar to finding common ground with Fascists.
Hi Professor Wolf. I would love to hear your opinion on a light rail system in this country to remove gigantic trucks from the highways completely. They tear up the roads enormously and they are a huge danger - not to mention bullies - many times. I was run off highway 97 by a giant truck one day. What a nightmare that was. The present truckers could be hired as well paid gov’t. workers to run the new light rail system and the steel from the trucks would contribute to materials to build with. I have to go for a long trip down the 97 in a couple of months and I am dreading it.
Dear Amore,
Prof. Wolff answers specific questions from Patrons of our Economic Update Patreon community each week. Even donations at the $3/month level give you access to this perk, so if you’d like your questions answered, feel free to join and submit via Patreon.
Here’s the link: www.patreon.com/economicupdate
Small donations are the lifeblood of our organization and keep our shows going. Thank you for your support and engagement!
your idea is accurate, the grifter who runs this channel is a pathetic racist bitch-idiot. We could absolutely have a light-rail electric rail system for freight, and we could have wind-power and sugar-battery power ships for international waters. We choose oil like a dinner-item on a menu, but clean energy is actually more viable and affords us more sovereignty because look at the EU trying to pick a fight with Russia while still reliant on Russian gas, the fucking clowns, it's hilarious.
@@czarlguitarl what is a sugar-battery?
Let me make this clear this is NOT a workers movement. It's a petit-bourgeois led rabble. We must be careful when trying to think that just because a movement seems "popular" that somehow it's revolutionary. Let me remind you that the Nazi's and the Italian fascists were both seemingly "popular working class" movement but on closer inspection it was an alliance between the reactionary working class and elements of the bourgeoisie. This trucker movement sends a horrendous message that is not what the left should support. The left should provide an alternative and communicate better to the workers. Under no circumstance should leftists get in bed with alt-right, conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxer types. In fact polls show that the majority of Canadians don't even like the trucker protest. That alone should make you ponder if you should side with them. What about the nurses who are on strike why aren't they given any attention by the left? They are far more deserving of attention and support than these truckers who many of them aren't proper truckers but owner drivers.
So you're okay with Trudeau embracing all out Authoritarianism? Great! That's good to know!
So disappointing. Over time I have agreed with 99.9% of what Prof Wolff says. In this instance he is conflating legitimate protest with dark right funded inchoate anger with good political action.
You have chosen to side with the capitalist class, and wasted an opportunity to increase class consciousness. YOU'RE 'so disappointing'.
@@JapanAlex01 the capitalist class is the one that has spearheaded this sham protest.
It's a close call, for sure. I see Prof. Wolff's point, but it's hard to get behind such a nakedly right-wing movement. I wouldn't support government attempts to shut them down, though, because those tactics would be deployed ten times as harshly against left-wing attempts to use similar methods of protest.
I´m dissapointed in him and his judgement. We should look to Cuba or Vietnam, not to far right grifters, for how to engage with Covid.
@@lawsonj39 Canada’s police already have and use powers to arrest road blockaders and remove vehicles blocking roads. They have done it numerous times to indigenous activists. The fact the police have been so reluctant to remove this blockade makes it all look suspect.
First, let me say I agree that vaccine mandates that hand more power to a bourgeois state that will do nothing good with it are not the solution, and I generally agree with the proposals you make instead.
However, I think you make several mistakes.
First, it appears that many of the participants are not working class, even if we say (and I agree) that individual trucking owner-operators are working class; instead, analysis of many of the social media profiles of those involved (the ones that aren't faked) show they're straight up small business owners. Most owner-operators can't afford to just stop hauling for two weeks. Also, the GiveSendGo database leak shows that the financial supporters of the convoy are mostly from the US, and most of the money is coming from suburbs with majority white demographics and higher than median income.
Second, even if the majority of the convoy actually are truckers, their demands are not FOR workers; in fact, "open everything up!" is an explicitly capitalist demand; further, I'd say their implicit suggestion that there even is a halcyon past, and that we can get back to it by returning to the prepandemic status quo is also proto-fascist. Remember, they're not making any of the demands you outline, and they're not joining with the already-existing leftist groups who are; why not?
Third, even if they WERE working class, AND they WERE making pro-working class demands, there is every indication that their demands would not be intersectional, and would merely serve the interests of the overwhelmingly white demographic participating.
I largely agree with what you wrote. However, the Marxist definition of working class ("proletariat") is a more useful one for transforming the system into a socialist one, and it is: people who own no capital and thus must work for an owner of capital in order to survive.
People who own capital are either petit bourgeois or bourgeois. People who own capital but not a lot, so they must still work in order to survive are petit bourgeois. Therefore, truck owner-drivers are petit bourgeois.
The petit bourgeois have little interest in ending capitalism and replacing it with socialism, i.e. sharing out wealth and power, because they are doing ok in capitalism. However, the working class (the majority of people) is exploited and thus have an economic interest in ending capitalism, in taking control of capital to end their exploitation, i.e. replacing capitalism with socialism.
@@SimonAshworthWood this narrow definition of proletariat entirely ignores 150 years of development in Marxist thought, evolution in material conditions, and ever-increasing complexity in relationships to capital. Someone who nominally owns their means of production (a truck or carpenter's tools, for example), and almost never exploits the labor of others, but MUST continue to sell their own labor or starve is absolutely a worker. We must absolutely break through the false consciousness the system seeks to engender in these people to succeed in any revolution.
On the other hand, a landlord (which class relies on the ownership of capital and the exploitation of the labor value of others) is not a worker, even if they utterly rely on the income from their property ownership to survive (for example, if they are disabled to the point they can do no work).
Roughly 10% of truckers are NOT vaccinated. The majority are. You can still work within Canada trucking without a vaccine. If you truck to the US and want to return back to Canada you need to have been vaccinated.
Richard Wolff has always been a real one. ✊
The fact of their change to independent Contractor vs Employees seems to have been lost in the melee?
Always good to hear your informed perspective, Professor. I must admit, I am quite confused by your stance on this and have some questions. You mentioned being in support of leftist participation in any struggle involving working class people, lest the right exert their influence over the protesters without opposition. I see sense in this, because it is of course important to appeal to as many working people and promote working class unity. However, I feel that the nature of the Canadian trucker's protest is fundamentally opposed to leftist ideas to begin with. Aren't these protesters objecting to medical precautions intended to safeguard the working class from Covid-19? Workers who have more to lose from catching covid than the wealthy, who can afford much better treatment and not have to fear losing income from being ill? That's not even to mention our immunocompromised comrades. I do agree that mandates present some problems and concerns, but while it is an issue worth talking about, it seems to me that it isn't really a class issue specifically. A fully vaccinated proletariat sounds like an ideal and important goal to fight for in my opinion, and the main reason why mandates have become the norm at all is due to a rise in anti-intellectualism and conspiracy that turns a not insignificant amount of people away from informed, voluntary vaccination. You mentioned alternatives such as testing and isolation, which sound reasonable, but I fear these measures also validate medical anti-intellectualism as a by-product. To me, it seems the only way to appeal to these protesters successfully as a leftist would mean having to adopt opinions that I consider somewhat in conflict with leftism, positions that flirt with anti-vax rhetoric, and which may ultimately result in a more at-risk proletariat having to return to work regardless of their vaccination status for the sake of the almighty economy.
If we are to try and appeal to these protesters (the portion of them who are not irreparably far-right, that is), should we not do so in a way that doesn't inadvertently promote a subtle anti-vax position? Wouldn't it be better to try and reason with them, and explain that their anxiety under the current flawed system is valid, but crucially misdirected? I don't know, I feel like not doing so may damage the credibility of the left somewhat.
I hope my concerns here make sense, I am not an expert on any of these topics, and I still lack the nuance and vocabulary to understand many political issues. I may be totally wrong about all of this, and am willing to support anything that helps promote leftist ideas. I just feel like something is fundamentally at odds with my values here.
Anyway, I appreciate your videos, Professor. In solidarity ✊
The majority of the truckers agree with requiring the vax, why should a small minority be appealed to?
Guess what? We have "vax mandates" to thank for Polio being gone, measels being almost nonexistent, Rubella is the same deal, etc. This is a very poor opinion on Prof. Wolff's part.
Those vaccines were thoroughly tested. These have not, and have proven to be very questionable on the safety front.
And we have urbanization and overshoot to thank for all of these epidemics existing in the first place. We can't be at an arms race with the Earth forever. Either we consciously shift to a degrowth economy now, or we are forced to degrow by changing climatic and agro-ecological condition in, Idk 1-5 years?
Indeed it is. I feel as if Dr. Wolfe was taken over by interplanetary aliens, as he is usually deep, insightful, knowledgable, but this talk he gave was 90% rubbish based on surface knowledge, misunderstandings and goofy conclusions, and a completely mistaken grasp of the situation. I like to think he’s better than this.
@@gekkobear1650 I agree, but I'm not holding my breath.
This is one of the most based vids you’ve made in a while prof 💯💯💯
If anti-vaccine people are "justified", do you also believe that people who are against smoking bans are also justified? How about people who keep others awake with loud music? How about people who talk loudly in a library where people go to study? How about people who want to put addictive but harmful chemicals in food so they get more profits? How about people who treat their employees like crap to maximise profits? It's all freedom, isn't it?
This rhetoric is divisive. The vaccines only protect those who get them from having severe COVID. It does not prevent the transmission of the disease. This is why COVID persists despite high vaxx rates, and why governments are still resorting to masks and lockdowns.
Prof are they legitimate working class protestors or agent provocateurs for ckandestine Right Wing Americans?
Can't they be both?
@@Raydaruckuz they are all covid death cultists, who value freedumb over saving lives from the pandemic.
@@SimonAshworthWood lol anyone who doesn't want to die get the shot.
Okay fair enough, but where do you draw the line on protesting? If Sen. Rand Paul's suggestion happened, and the Canadian protest spread to the US (it still might), we could all be without food and prescription medications. Would that be going too far to make a point? What if all healthcare professionals protested and there were no healthcare services availabe for anyone, would that be okay with you? What if consumers protested against truckers and put them out of work? Recently, the Inland Northwest mountain passes were closed because of record snowfall preventing commerical transit. It took about 2-3 days for shelves to empty. The point is that we're never far from being without essential goods and services to survive.
Please, tell me what happened if USA workers decide to go on general strike? To shot down economy is the only power workers have. So, basically you told workers to disarm.
Mmm I'm not with you on this one Prof. Not because we are workers it means that we are right all the time... These are emergency measures. The truckers have the wrong target, I do agree with that point.
Professor Wolff, these people are NOT WORKING CLASS people. They are mostly petty bourgeois right wingers, the same kinds of people who have traditionally formed the base of support for fascism. Their demands are NOT WORKING CLASS demands, i.e., better healthcare, higher wages, union drives etc. All you have to do is listen to them and look at them to see them for what they are: pro-virus, xenophobic, racist, little capitalists who are against anything and everything that would improve the lives of the working class and the poor. They have a demented view of the world and their place in it. They should NOT be supported. You should ask yourself why American right wing money is funding them.
You hit the target. 🎯
Perfectly put, thank you
Bravo! You said it all beautifully, and eloquently. You speak the truth. Thank you!
Says who?
...except I've heard that the protesting truckers are really not the workers. They're the employers that are there protesting.
And on another note, I support something or not based on the cause itself, not based on whether I support some contingent who supports the cause.
Lol, think this through: why would capitalists be out there, disguised as truckers, protesting mandates? 😂
@@JapanAlex01 not disguised but financing. Half of the convoy donations come from the U.S. including MAGAs and tech billionaires
@@JapanAlex01 The theory was to turn the industry more conservative. Apparently, they've pulled the same type of thing in the past. But the Canadian commentator who made the report, was not fully clear on the benefit either because it doesn't make much sense.
Anyway, you must live a shitty life being such an arrogant snob instead of pausing to consider--have fun with that, glad I'm not you.
“Truckers”. Please. As a Canadian yes we have a working class tired of having no voice and waking to a system designed to serve the 1%. This is a petit bourgeoisie led, Christo-fascist and oiligarchs funded theatre piece.
👏👏 well said
Richard Wolff what a dissapointing take bro
THANK YOU
Uber drivers, commonly known as petite-bourgeois 'owner operators'.
Almost the entire post WWII working class, sells its labor atop a foundation of 'ownership.' The working class works in a mecha-suit they 'own,' which represents a parcelized piece of the industrial polity they themselves built in the early 20th C.
Electricians own their own toolkits. Are they petite-bourgeois?
Conveniently, the synthetic left wants to define the working class as those utterly dependent on INSTITUTIONS capable of realizing their cultural agenda via social engineering.
I bet the individual owner-operator truckers: 1) owe tons of money each month to the creditor who loaned them the money for purchase, and 2) work hard by driving their trucks. So how are they that different from the working class as you have defined it?
I am so offended that you would mischaracterize things this way. However, wait a minute, you’re saying the truckers got the wrong target, yes indeed. Now you are talking.
Now I can get behind what you’re saying. I did not in fact hear one single “protester” on any station, whether against the disruption or cheering on their effort - not a one of reporting agencies from all over the world - not one single “protester” was articulate in any remote way of what they were attempting to do and why.
They all seemed like feckless airheads, immature and confused children, knowingly or unknowingly causing real harm and hurt to millions of innocent people, over their own conceit, selfishness, and arrogance.
I doubted you for a few minutes there, I do not see any part of this trucker thing as legitimate. The only thing that saved you in my view is that you rightly, pointedly said that the truckers are going after the wrong target.
And, then You explained what you meant, and I do agree with that, altogether. And now all the rest of what you suggested seems a little less unreasonable and improbable.
All the same, this pandemic has been a very real, fatal, challenging, and terrifying public health emergency. It’s hard for us all. It’s ok to ask questions many times, but the anti vaxxers, etc., have mainly been asking the wrong questions out of basically just ignorance, which may or may not be their fault in every case.
But in something like this, I am less convinced it is the responsibility of governments to hold people’s hands, baby sit, and go to lengths to make the situation extra palatable for everyone. We ought to be mature, aware, and responsible enough to understand the risks and to do all that is possible, including making some sacrifices regardless of whether everyone who should be - is, or not, to see for ourselves that the problems are real and the governments are attempting to help us, so we could do a lot worse than to cooperate and help them to help us.
It does seem unfortunate that many people object to being asked to help - not because they know more as they seem to tell themselves, but because they don’t know enough.
And their not knowingness endangers the rest of us. So excuse me for not cheering the know nothings in their parade of not knowingness, where they act as though reality isn’t real, and any inconveniences that we all must bear are harder on their shoulders than anyone else’s, so they get to demand the dubious right to be violent, to make life harder in every way for the rest of us, to harm innocent people, and to burden everyone else, and to commit other useless violations of everyone else’s rights.
So I do find it hard to sympathize with the so called truckers. Yes, they are going after the wrong targets, in the wrong way, at the wrong time, and they’re doing a lot of useless harm when we all need cooperation and all the help we can get. They’re on the outside of that.
They’re fighting the wrong enemy, and therein lies all the difference. They’re doing it with some effectiveness, but they’re pushing when they should be pulling. They are harming when they should be helping. They are a force for chaos, for ignorance, for the violation of others rights, for senseless anarchy and antisocial harm, and they offer nothing but dissolution, and suffering.
They are acting like victims when they are the victimizers and the criminals and violators. They seem to be angry at the wrong things, in the wrong way, at the wrong time. It is one thing to fight, outside the lines, for a worthy cause, but this just wasn’t it.
Wow that's an awful lot of opinions. How come you know you are so "right" about all of that? why not just listen to them and try to understand where they might be coming from? Yes they appear to be conservative voting truckers, but hey that are still workers and human beings with a right to have freedom of choice about their health.
I'm a lefty but have supported all the freedom protests round the world. why? because the frickin left is so self righteous on this issue of freedom from mandates. As a lefty I have been ostracised by my friends on this issue because I won't go along with their "you're with us or against us" attitude. Its weird and I really do not understand what has happened to genuine leftism, which is inclusive rather than "us against them".
The government mandates??? Since when did safety regulations that protect workers lives in the workplace become oppressive and should be opposed. Also this was not a strike. They were supported by their employers or funded by right wingers. Read some Togliatti and Dimtrov regarding fascism FFS.
The Canadian Government tried to dissuade truckers from becoming independent contractors years ago but the companies lured them in by telling them that this was a way of not having to pay CPP and UIC contributions.The government isn't always wrong about everything.
is it hallowe'en? what's with the gorbachev costume?
Tovarish Wolff, you are supporting Marcia su Roma.
They should be treated as death cultists, not workers. These aren't grievances about economics, they're anti-science. This would be the same as supporting an anti-evolution protest because some workers joined. I very much doubt that this movements can be co-opted by leftists, but they certainly can be co-opted/already have been, organized and co-opted by fascists. Finding common ground with fascists is a horrible idea.
Their grievances are not anti-science. This is the kind of condescending rhetoric that only hurts the left.
"anti-science" shut up nerd, nobody cares about your disdain for the working class. Mandates are inherently political.
@@areaunderthecurve9918 The world's top medical experts have found that COVID vaccines reduce the severity of COVID in the individual and reduce transmission of COVID to other people.
Those truckers are intimidating other people (e.g. keeping people awake all night by honking their truck horns 24/7) to gain the freedumb to infect other people with COVID.
@@N33TF33T The only distain for the working class is coming from the anti-vaccine movement. They're endangering the lives of other workers, and thus have no place in a leftist movement.
Yes! Yes! Yes! I am so sad and disgusted at Dr. Wolfe for his mistaken and misguided comments in this case.
Dear Prof Wolff. I’m wondering if more people with a platform such as yourself could try to redirect this idea from regular people that government mandates are what is thwarting there freedom and pointing the finger at the big Pharma who refuse to give up their patent protections. Until this happens we will continue to suffer variants which result in mandates, masks and lockdowns from countries who can’t get their people vaccinated. Big Pharma love variants.
Something tells me that these truckers are the same type of “workers” who support right-to-work laws and who would act as scabs given the chance. This protest is not about worker rights. It’s a bunch of independent contractors who are upset they have to get a shot or have a q-tip go up their nose. It’s crap.
If this was about labor and enhancing the lives of workers this protest would look MUCH different. Pro-labor advocates and radicals do not draw praise and support from the far-right.
@@drewb8474 Fred Hampton disagrees with you. Look him up...😏
@@solid1378 I’d love to learn. Is there something specific I should look up?
@@drewb8474 Google "Fred Hampton" and the collaboration he did with people who vehemently disagreed with him, but found common cause against a common enemy. Fred Hampton, a Black Leftist, is quite famous in American History.
@@solid1378 sounds like Hampton collaborated with right wing groups with the goal of enhancing public good and mutual aid in their communities. These “freedom truckers” are not promoting public good in anyway. Nor are they doing anything to support the community they are protesting in. This protest is centered around individualism and denouncing public health measures.
why don't they start a co-op?
Most people in the US and Canada are unfamiliar with workers cooperatives, to the point where most don't know it's an option. I'd be surprised if any of them had heard of the practice if asked as the only semi-large one in the US is Ocean Spray and even then, most know them for their cranberry products and not their employment model.
Lol
Thank you Prof. Wolff you and Ajamu Baraka give me inspiration.
they're reactionary far-right shitheels, there was never any chance when leftist ideals aligned with the convoy. I know you don't live in Ottawa so you don't know what you're talking about, but thousands of people rolled into the city to act hostile towards local Ottawans. They created 100+ db seas of noise that lasted for days, stole from homeless shelters, tried to burn down the apartments of locals who confronted them, jammed local emergency lines, called in bomb threats to the local hospitals, the list goes on. Fuck you for suggesting I align myself with them
It's insane how much backlash this nuanced message of finding common ground gets. People have gotten zombified into groupthink up to a point where even the leaders of movements get into trouble if they go against the grain.
You cannot simply try and reason with and ally with workers or petit bourgeois of and in a far right group. These kinds of people are thoroughly radicalized by the far right faction of the bourgeoisie (which is funding it). It is a very dangerous trap. These people are alienating the masses of Canada and the U.S. Dealing with fascists requires professional background if the goal is deradicalization. This take and this advice is damaging to the left. It's frankly silly that you think what they are doing could even potentially be productive. It's a disgusting shit show, and you have rather embarrassingly failed to denounce it. Or maybe you are up to something insidious here, pandering to the right.
There is a moment of Leftists in America... that became extremely affraid after Trump..... they think pandering to the Right... might keep them safe..... Jimmy Dore, Max Blumenthal, Chris Hedges and now Prof Wolff, oh and DemocracyNow.... for examples.... you can't appease the people that are so eager to abuse you.....your appeasement looks like weakness to them.
They literally call people snowflakes and tree huggers as an insult.
@@ronnyron007 I honestly don't know whether it's fear, wishfulness, or cynicism. On the other hand, there are others on the left that tend to downplay the danger and influence of the Trumpy right, and I think that makes people think they are just a little confused and need redirecting. There is a spectrum there. Some conservatives can have their logic corrected, but fanatics are very different, and leftists should not be venturing out with fascists trying to collaborate just because they share objective interests. This is disasterous in practice.
It's becoming increasingly apparent that, not content with being a revisionist, he indulges in open opportunism. Really disappointing considering the size of his audience that this is the 'analysis' he chooses to spread
@@CripplingDuality Yeah honestly this is what I wanted to say basically.
I don’t see anything wrong with what Richard Wolff said. Nor is there anything wrong with what Chris Hedges said. You so-called “leftists” need to join these truckers & find common ground in helping them to demand things far more important that improves their lives like increased wages.
Those truckers will never take up the issues you wish they would. They are too far gone.
I’m sorry you don’t support the frontline workers in restaurants, stores, and car factories who can’t get to to their jobs because of this blockade.
I’m sorry you don’t support the vast majority of truckers who do not support this blockade.
Im sorry you don’t support the doctors and nurses and PSW’s and think it’s just fine to dump them with sick, selfish people.
I’ve been in a union all my life. We stand together. Sorry you don’t as well.
Thank you! Well said.
Exactly. I check out Teamsters Canada (50,000 union workers) and they don't support the convoy. Neither did any of the First Nation Canadian sites I checked out. That's good enough for me, I stand in solidarity with workers and indigenous folks, not a bunch led by neo-Nazis waving confederate traitor flags and getting the kid glove treatment from the cops.
My Spidey senses keep saying that the leadership of the truckers is pretty right wing. Also, what is it that they want?
They get together for a lot of different reasons and they are a reflection of the population. Some leftwing some rightwing. Politicians have been trying to smear opposition to their policies as rightwing extremist. Do people need to be socialists themselves to receive support in their struggles from socialist movements? Or does socialism fight for the rights of people even though those people might not be socialists themselves?
@@martiendejong8857 what do they want? What are they looking for?
@@eottoe2001 Maybe economic reasons. They may have been unable to work. Many people believe the government is corrupt and has a hidden agenda that they dont discuss with the population.
@@martiendejong8857 they have a lot of issues but aren't being clear about what they want. They aren't being paid well enough because of deregulation though they probably see deregulation as good. Not being paid well enough means younger people aren't becoming trucker so the work force is not being replace and they are aging out. They are being threatened with automation of self driving trucks. Their average age is 55. The companies hire them as independent contractors rather than paid employees. If they are delayed on the road, they loose driving cost. There are a lot of health issues. Time off is a problem, etc. However, they aren't making demands on any of this. Certainly their right wing aren't going do anything that will cost the 1 percent money.
On the secret agendas? There aren't any. It's neoliberalism (think Milton Friedman) and is about doing whatever it takes for corporation to increase the bottom-line and if that mean buying off politicians and political parties they will do it. If it means a lot of surveillance by private corporations, they will do that, too.
Let's sit down and see what you really want. Answer: they don't have a clue. They're waiting for FOX Entertainment TV to tell them. Probably, in the future, there will be better controls on who is allowed into the lucrative transport industry.
Pure speculation.
@@RussCR5187 Fox News supports those #COVIDdeathCult truckers. That tells us a lot about the truck blockade.
Ty
Shill for Richard Wolff
...what the fuck
Finally... somebody ( anybody ) of the left making this point. Thank you Prof. Wolff.
I can hardly wait for your next video on supporting the working class effort to get rid of Social Security. Every argument you have for supporting these idiots in Canada can be used for trashing Social Security.
👍👍👍👍
Please explain to me how these truckers are right wingers? They are protesting mandates and covid restrictions. That is neither a right or left issue.
Reporting is showing that the organizers of this truckers movement are "United We Roll" which is a right-wing group that has previously organized to break-up a picket line, planned anti-union protests, and harassed teamsters who were demanding better pay (rail workers). The truckers union did not support this group of protesters and they are extremely unpopular in Canada.
Love Prof. Wolff, but I don't see how workers are supposed to find common ground with a group that actively works against improving conditions for workers. Seems like this hurts future worker movements more than empowers them.
At first, the trucker protest struck me as a far right fringe movement because they were spinning all sorts of vaccine conspiracy theories and etc... but then I realized that people are channeling their angst through whatever they can, and this is just one manifestation of it.
Bravo, Professor! Thank you for taking such a courageous stand.
truckers would have gained more support had they not chose to block roads people need to use.
To paralyze economy is the only power workers have. If you strike, you allays effect a lot of people. Suppliers to business, one that sell the product, ones that use the product. By your standard, workers should disarm themself.
@@Mutineer9 nope they should get over their selfishness and get back to work. world doesnt revolve around them
No love for the RW working class in the comments. Ironically, there won't be any revolution without them. A unified working class is the
establishments worst nightmare, which is why they've gone to such lengths to divide us, and we can see that division right here
Amen. So easily divided, so easily conquered.
The right will have to move left. The whole ground has to shift left. Otherwise the right will do what it always does as capitulate and kowtow to capital and the owning class and we’re back to where we were. The right has to move left.
Being rightwing means trying to keep capitalism going. I.e. the rightwing support “the establishment”, if by that, you mean capitalism and the capitalist class.
We’ll make a revolution, or achieve reforms, not by joining rightwing people to do rightwing things, but by getting rightwingers and centrists to become leftwing, or by getting working class people to take action for the leftwing goals that most working class people already agree on, e.g. free healthcare, free college, free childcare, ending wars for corporate greed, etc..
Or perhaps you’d like us to support the KKK, join anti-immigrant actions, save confederate monuments, attack Chinese people, etc.? I sure won’t be doing that.
Glorified company driver who has no benifits for a few pennies more for a title called owner operator. This is the worst spot in the quadrant
Merci, professeur
I hear where you're coming from professor but in my experience with the convoy, you'd have as much luck reaching them as you would the Jan 6th people. They have less than zero class consciousness.
I live nearby one of the protests and am in touch with supporters and participants that I grew up with on social media, they're too far gone and have steeped too much in fascist ideology. I think we'd have more luck leading and trying to be as inclusive as possible than trying to meet the existing protest halfway.
They HAVE class consciousness. The issue is that they're class interests are NOT COMPATIBLE with the working class.
Cowardice and defeatism. You dismiss the working-class as “fascist” and “too far gone” because you don’t want to do the hard work of organizing them to socialism. And that is why the right is winning: they are the only ones listening to the grievances of the working-class.
@@jonathanrich1612 Don't frame reactionary movements as "worker movements" simply because there happen to be workers involved.
Look at their beliefs, is this movement interested in universal empancipation of workers regardless of race, gender, age, etc? No they aren't, they're addled with conspiracy theory brain worms and seek regression, some fly confederate flags, most are hyper nationalists, others attack minorities, etc. All tolerate other types of reaction but none tolerate the left or are advancing working class demands.
Will this movement successfully bolster worker power? No, it will be a flash in the pan and will receive no backlash just in the same way that any reactionary fight won't (see January 6th, etc) because it is simply already in line with the needs and wants of a certain subset of capital owners and their political lackies.
This movement represents bourgeoise infighting and they align with a faction of the bourgeoise. Trying to meet them halfway would require you to put in way more energy than you'd get out, there are more effective ways to rally the working class than going after the most reactionary subset of petty bourgeois and lumpenproletariat.
@@JohnSmith-mc2zz like other reply said, they have class consciousness but not for the working class.
@@EnnuinerDog your comments reveal a distinct strain of liberal elitism, coupled with bourgeois idealism and a profound ignorance of basic Marxist Theory. In Communist Manifesto, Marx & Engels argued that "communists have no interests separate and apart from the workers as a whole." Yet here, you are arguing that communists should only seek to organize workers if they conform to left-wing ideological principles. Well, that is a conundrum -- how are you supposed to win over the working-class if you only restrict your organizing efforts to people who already agree with you?
Second, you focus on the "beliefs" of the truckers, rather than their material interests. This is bourgeois idealism. What matters for communists is not the "belief" of the worker, but their material position in the class structure as an exploited class with revolutionary potential that can be brought out through organizing.
Finally, you dismiss the truckers as "petty bourgeoisie," ignoring that Marx said in the Critique of Gotha Program that the petty bourgeois constitutes a revolutionary class when they sink down to the ranks of the proletariat. And as Professor Wolff points out in this video, the truckers are "petty bourgeois" only in the sense that they are "owner-operates" the same way that uBer drivers are. In reality, they are workers.
So to sum up: your comments are reactionary, divisive, sectarian, defeatist, and reek of bourgeois idealism and basic ignorance of communist principles.
Richard Wolf, I like your suggestions; however I have not seen any suggestions from the truckers as to the items that need to be addressed to make their lives easier; I realize truckers lives are not easy , but they need to express / publish a list of needs to be addressed. However the government also needs to extend their efforts to negotiate with the truckers.
As to the vaccination issues, I do not put much value, as I understand 92% of the population has been vaccinated; that issue can be easily addressed.😇
Incentivize being unvaccinated? Am I understanding this wrong?
We should not have to choice between a paycheck and our lives!!!
anti-Vaccines, anti-Mandates seem to align more with Capitalist Values and Ideals so... 🤷♀
millions and millions of truckers driving millions of trucks, emitting shit tons of CO2 everyday every night...Yooohooo Common Ground. Highways to Hell!
There`s one problem with your point of view. It`'s absolutely correct. Now what? What's the solution? Your highway to hell is paved with good intentions? What I see when I watch the raw footage of the truckers is that they are able to organize their daily needs in a way any workers' coop would.
Who do you think will create the change needed to get carbonneutral perhaps somewhere by 2050? Some talking heads in the ivory tower with their heads in airs and graces talking down on workers and threaten them with contempt?
Exactly that political arrogance produces an instant anti attitude amongst "ordinary people" the right and the proto fascist movements all over the world only have to pick up in the decades long tried and tested way.
As an professional construction engineer with 30 years of experience on construction sites in Europe and the US I have the same fruitless discussions with the German branchs of the F4F-kids and -even harder - the Scientist4F. So many projects are non-starters because of that academic trash talk. So much beautiful work keeps undone beause everything has to be made complicated in a way that every well qualified worker runs away with contempt.
The worm has to be tasteful to the fish. Not to the angler. So: where do YOU get into REAL WORLD ACTION to improve the cuurrent situation?
@@mairmatt I suggest Green solutions, e.g. more railways like China has built, and powering trucks and trains with green energy.
@@SimonAshworthWood - Oh, really. And how do YOU implement that? By fiddling around with breadles social studies or by getting a degree in engineering? The technical impotence of "The West" is hilarious.
@@mairmatt Hi and thanks for such a detailed response. To your question, I have no easy or universal answer. One has to divest, individually or collectively speaking - from industrial civilisation, mainstream economics and culture. While we cannot prevent climate change, global warming and the incoming collapse (slow motion) we have the choice and responsibility to reject the dominating ways of humanity. It's finished. Take care and adiós 🙋🏾♂️
@@SimonAshworthWood Hi. Have you been to China ?? From what I saw while travelling to six big cities, by fast trains - was a massive endless ugly construction project: that too slowing down. I also saw mountains of trash and pollution. What China seems is like how England was ine the late 19th century - just 50 times bigger. China is going down much like the rest ofw industrial civilisation
I like Wolff, but, I think he's wrong on the testing. Just get vaccinated. Testing and quarantining is a total waste of time and resources. I support the truckers tactics, but, not their cause.
I mostly agree with you, but even with vaccinations, testing and quarantines are needed to save lives. They are part of how China has defeated COVID-19.
China has the lowest COVID death rate of any country, and now they are safe from COVID, their economy is booming again.
Oh my, this would have to be the worst Prof Wolff take I've ever heard.
You've just basically made a "horseshoe theory" argument for collaborating with RW extremists, choosing to cast aside the underpinning ideology that inspired the demonstration/truck blockade for the convenience and camouflage of attendance numbers? Co-operating with RW extremists and fascists, what could possibly go wrong? : I
This turn is troubling for 2 reasons 1) That you think the left is so inept it ought hitch its wagon to fascists, authoritarians and RW extremists. 2) That you'd say it out loud.
I can only speculate as to why and what has inspired this take. It smacks of desperation, and the grim realisation that the left is truly irrelevant.
You may be right, but this is not a solution, or a fix for the left's fragmented disorganisation, it is its death knell.
I don’t see anything wrong with what Richard Wolff said. You so-called “leftists” in the comments need to join these truckers & find common ground in helping them to demand things far more important that improves their lives like increased wages.
@@DanielMazahreh I agree, you "do not see"
@@space.youtube Then please point out 1 thing Richard Wolff said that you think is wrong then.
@@DanielMazahreh lol, learn how to read.
@@space.youtube Again, please highlight 1 thing Richard Wolff is "wrong" about.
If the truckers are working class, how can they keep their trucks and not be charged for theft from trucking companies? I bet most of them own their own trucks, i.e. they are PETIT BOURGEOISIE, not working class.
If they own their own means of production that would make them communists
But don't tell them that, they'd have a heart attack.
Imagine if, like, they were actually just in debt & paying these off in monthly installments the way most people finance their cars & houses.
@@N33TF33T If they were in debt, they'd get vaccinated and continue working, not take a few weeks break keeping other people awake all night with truck horns, for the goal of gaining the freedumb to spread COVID to other people.
@@rcmrcm3370 false. People who own their own business that they work in are petit bourgeois, middle class, not working class.
I admire you Professor Wolff, but in this case, you are wrong, sorry
You betcha. I am with you on this! Dr. Wolfe is way, way, way, way off in the left field of LaLa Land on this one, drinking the poison Koolaid. It is very sad to see it. I hope he gets himself sorted out soon. I have enjoyed his wise comments for many years. He’s lost in the weeds, on this one.
@@ritacampbell3833 professor Wolff is in the right field on this video. He’s supporting a rightwing blockade.
nooooooooooooooooooooooo
Here is the question of basic freedom (of choice) and everythnig else is less important.
In the globally agreed upon United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we have the right to life, e.g. the right to not get infected by COVID-19.
This right trumps any “right” to avoid a lifesaving vaccine that reduces COVID-19 transmission and prevents COVID-19 cases from overburdening hospitals.
@@SimonAshworthWood Everybody should have the right not live as well.
The "lifesaving vaccine" doesn't exist.
this is actually the socialist propaganda we need, an actually legit position. you are absolutely right in what you're saying here, and thank you for doing this.
This is a nose dive for professor wolf. Too bad.
I strongly believe working conditions need to be improved. If money is so important in this economy, then why aren't we told at a young age to pursue money interests rather than educational interests? What's greater, the well being of the individual or the well being of a financial sector organization? It doesn't add up as to why the most critical thing pushed for is neglected in terms of the realities of the economic system.
Excellent analysis. Being pro-vaccine is not the same as imposing heavy sanctions to the worker who does not want mandatory vaccination.
Do you care about saving human life from COVID-19? If so, how do you propose we defeat COVID-19?
Professor Wolff, I completely respect your view and I thoroughly enjoy listening to you. I must take acceptation to your claim that this is a working class movement. This was organized by a group of individuals mainly out of Alberta and now Saskatchewan that are very well known in far right circles. They are trying to force fringe politics that come from provincial politics on the rest of Canadians. The woman, Lich, has tried to create a Wexit separatist political party that has not been able to gain any traction outside of Alberta and Saskatchewan. She simply doesn’t like the person Canadians have elected federally and has used foreign funds to organize a protest that mostly hurt workinclass people in Ottawa and the 90 percent of truckers who were vaccinated and wanted to get their load across the border. Another issue that isn’t being addressed by you is that mandates of masks, vaccine passports etc is a provincial jurisdiction. It’s not a federal jurisdiction. Trudeau doesn’t create these mandates the governments of the provinces do. The federal government does have the jurisdiction at our borders and did pass the mandate that truckers. be vaccinated, but 90 percent of truckers thought this was fine as they were vaccinated. In other words 90 percent of the workingclass truckers were ok with mandates. This was simply a very dangerous organized takeover by a small group of fringe political operatives who have never had their rights to free speech limited but they simply can’t get traction. The federal party which would be comparable with these fringe people is the PPC. They can’t win a seat. It was right for the Canadian government to use the Emergency Act on this group who just crossed the line. They were not representing the interests of the workinclass and this is very indicative by the fact that it was all people in workingclass groups who were harmed when small businesses in Ottawa couldn’t open and the workingclass couldn’t go to work, including the 90 percent of vaccinated truckers who had to drive 500 km out of their way to get through borders where these yahoos hadn’t taken over. The truckers who were there protesting mandates weren’t out there protesting their workingclass lives, they are members of the PPC, the fringe element in the conservatives, the Wexit people, the Christian fascists etc… they aren’t concerned with workinclass issues they just hate Trudeau and can’t stand it that they can’t win seats legitimately. This was not a workingclass protest, rather it was a protest organized by a group of individuals mainly from Alberta and Saskatchewan who just don’t like the government that the majority of Canadians elected and they sought to oust him. I didn’t vote for him either but he is legitimately in office under our electoral system. They are trying to push wacky provincial politics, and they got foreign funding to achieve this aim, on the rest of Canadians, but we just aren’t interested To suggest that this was a workingclass led movement would be the same as saying Marie Lapine of France is behind the yellow vest movement because she cares about the workingclass and also, Jordan Peterson is a leading intellectual that hails from Alberta. That speaks volumes about the kind of ideas that emerge from Alberta I think. Thank you.
I think your putting too much faith in the idea that most of the people in this convoy are reasonable. Whether thats true or not, its probably impossible to disentangle the reasonable elements from the bad within this protest. Especially since the origins of the protest is anything but pro-worker, and the bad actors and kooks are some much louder than those who are not.
I think your take on this comes from a more optimistic view of people than me, which i prefer over a more cynical one. With that said, i suppose If one were to err, I'd rather see a do that in favor of that view than the other, but I don't think I can agree with you on this one.
Based
I hope you can unite the people. But I can't see that happening. I have tried.