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appalachiablue

(41,053 posts)
Sat Feb 12, 2022, 08:05 PM Feb 2022

Global 'Freedom Movement' - A Carnival Of Crank & Conspiracy - and Very Dangerous: Democracy Threat



- Thousands of convoy protestors marched through Canberra, Australia to Parliament House.
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- The Guardian, 2.12.22. Ed. - I spent a year undercover in QAnon. Don’t let the ridiculousness distract from the threat. -

The far right “trucker convoy” that has paralysed Ottawa might be singularly shocking, but what disturbs the most is it’s not unique. “Freedom” protests similar in form & simultaneously nebulous in broadly anti-vax/anti-mandate political goals have materialised in Britain, France & New Zealand. A convoy claiming to originate from across Europe is making its way towards Brussels. An ongoing gathering that locals alternately describe as “Spring Break for QAnon” or “Camp Covid” is encamped outside Australian Parliament House in Canberra. Across these countries, protestors appear as a wild herd of “sovcit”, anti-vaxxer, QAnonner & more nefarious fellow travellers, alongside some more ordinary people.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether social media content about these events has been gathered by extremism monitors, or comedians. Participants unwilling to be injected with a free vaccine safely used on hundreds of millions of people further advise each other that drinking one’s own wee is curative & somehow “camel urine deals with cancer”. Monitors observe attendees costumed as paramedics, pilots & deceased Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. Someone really wears a tinfoil hat. In New Zealand, the monitors themselves hijacked the Telegram and Zello channels the protestors use to organise.

They’ve sown chaos and crammed the convoy’s Spotify playlist with songs like Redneck Piece of White Trash, Why Don’t You Get a Job and Dumb Fuck.

In Canada, protestors have used their vehicles to blockade entire Ottawa neighbourhoods, erecting jumping castles & even saunas. Participants stiffly stage ceremonies to anoint one another faux powers of police. Amid the carnival of crank it all reads like character-based black comedy.. but this investment in a parallel reality is not satire. It’s not performance. It’s complete. It’s terrifying. Wherever this “freedom movement” manifests, a similar cast of characters emerges. Light-in-the-eyes zealots holler conspiracy theories. Grifters solicit to camera like a roll of tabloid clickbait. Burly, closed-mouth types appear to be handling secretive logistics. Around them are impassioned, often inarticulate- & poorly-costumed- clowns.

Don’t let the ridiculousness distract from the threat.

I spent a year undercover in the broadly QAnon mvmt. researching a book; I understand well why democratic citizens may struggle to take seriously the crossed streams of alien lizard aficionados, drink-your-own-wee health enthusiasts & those people who believe democrats eat children’s faces. Even while besieged in his capital & struggling to contain the protests, Canadian PM Trudeau hasn’t yet called in the army...What’s now happening in Ottowa is both driven by the cultural narratives of the American right & simultaneously serving a propaganda function as a proxy battlefront for it. The “trucker protest” has been sustained by American money pouring into it by the millions...

- More,
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/12/the-global-freedom-movement-is-a-carnival-of-crank-and-conspiracy-and-very-dangerous
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- BBC: Australia's former parliament building in the capital Canberra was briefly set alight on Thursday by protesters during a demonstration for Aboriginal sovereignty, police said. Dec. 30, 2021,
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-59824914

- Grid: The hacked account and suspicious donations behind the Canadian trucker protests. The jumble of misinformation, online fundraising groups and amplification from right-wing political figures suggests there’s more to these protests than meets the eye. Feb. 8, '22,
https://www.grid.news/story/misinformation/2022/02/08/the-hacked-account-and-suspicious-donations-behind-the-canadian-trucker-protests/
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Global 'Freedom Movement' - A Carnival Of Crank & Conspiracy - and Very Dangerous: Democracy Threat (Original Post) appalachiablue Feb 2022 OP
Seems like ymetca Feb 2022 #1
"The Man understands his money flow being disrupted" czarjak Feb 2022 #2
This message was self-deleted by its author stopdiggin Feb 2022 #3
and the backlash to this excess will arrive stopdiggin Feb 2022 #4
From the article, a good term for these guys wnylib Feb 2022 #5

ymetca

(1,182 posts)
1. Seems like
Sat Feb 12, 2022, 08:34 PM
Feb 2022

more social media cat herding for profit in chaos. It appears we are still in the adolescent phase of global direct messaging systems, with some well-healed players attempting to skew the results in their favor, followed by a bunch of wannabe unabashed self-promoters attempting to cash in.

The only problem with attempting to create a new messiah is that by the time you get a sufficiently sized mob on board with the agenda the only thing they want to do is kill and eat the king.

Response to appalachiablue (Original post)

stopdiggin

(11,092 posts)
4. and the backlash to this excess will arrive
Sat Feb 12, 2022, 10:33 PM
Feb 2022

The excessive (and irresponsible) promotion of 'freedom' - will be countered by an embrace of authoritarianism.

(and some of the boobs will, initially, think they're on the same side - and lend vociferous support)

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