https://taibbi.substack.com/p/...aus-ceausescu-moment

By Matt Taibbi

Justin Trudeau's Ceauşescu Moment
Denouncing truckers for "unacceptable views," Canada's Prime Minister skipped town rather than face evidence of his own unpopularity. Is neoliberalism finally cracking?

On the morning of the 21st of December, 1989, Romanian General Secretary Nicolae Ceaușescu was in a foul mood. The Berlin Wall had fallen, and Mikhail Gorbachev and George H.W. Bush had recently announced the end of the Cold War, making the end of Ceaușescu’s rule inevitable, though he couldn’t see this yet. Worse, his security leaders had just failed to violently put down protests in the city of Timisoara, a fact that enraged his wife Elena.

“You should have fired on them, and had they fallen, you should have taken them and shoved them into a cellar,” she said. “Weren’t you told that?”

Long one of the world’s most vicious dictators, Ceaușescu’s most recent plan for winning over the heartland was forcing half the country’s villagers to destroy their own homes — with pick-axes and hammers, if they couldn’t afford a bulldozer — and packing them into project apartments in new “agro-industrial towns,” for a “better future.” Despite this, and his long history of murder, terror, and spying, Ceaușescu to the end did not grasp that his unpopularity had an organic character. He was convinced ethnically Hungarian “terrorists” were behind the latest trouble.

After reaching the balcony of Bucharest’s Central Committee building to give a speech that December day, he’s genuinely surprised when the crowd turns on him. When he tells them to be quiet, he’s befuddled by their refusal, saying, “What, you can’t hear?” Elena jumps in and yells, “Silence!”, to which Ceaușescu, hilariously, replies, “Shut up!” The crowd listens to neither of them.

Paul Kenyon’s Children of the Night describes the morbid black comedy that ensued. The Ceaușescus and a motley gang of undead apparatchiks that included the “morbidly obese Prime Minister, Emil Bobu” later tried to load into a single helicopter — Bobu “waddled, walrus-like, to the rear” Kenyon writes — but there were too many of them, and the copter barely got off the ground. “Where to?” asked the pilot, and nobody knew, because there was no plan, since none of them had ever considered the possibility of this happening.

The sky was full of stuff, including other helicopters, which were dropping leaflets on the crowd giving what Kenyon described as a Marie Antoinette-like order to ignore “imperialist conspiracies” and return home “to a Christmas feast.” Four days later, a firing squad put the Ceaușescus against a wall and gave them their final, solid lead Christmas presents.

Ceaușescu’s balcony will forever be a symbol of elite cluelessness. Even in the face of the gravest danger, a certain kind of ruler will never be able to see the last salvo coming, if doing so requires any self-examination. The neoliberal political establishment in most of the Western world, the subject of repeat populist revolts of rising intensity in recent years, seems to suffer from the same disability.

There may be no real-world comparison between a blood-soaked monster like Ceaușescu and a bumbling ball-scratcher like Joe Biden, or an honorarium-gobbling technocrat like Hillary Clinton, or a Handsome Dan investment banker like Emmanuel Macron, or an effete pseudo-intellectual like Justin Trudeau. Still, the ongoing inability of these leaders to see the math of populist uprisings absolutely recalls that infamous scene in Bucharest. From Brexit to the election of Donald Trump to, now, the descent of thousands of Canadian truckers upon the capital city of Ottawa to confront Trudeau, a consistent theme has been the refusal to admit — not even to us, but to themselves — the numerical truth of what they’re dealing with.

Trudeau is becoming the ultimate example. Truckers last month began protesting a January 22nd rule that required the production of vaccine passports before crossing the U.S.-Canadian border. Canadian truckers are reportedly 90% vaccinated, above the country’s 78% total, a key detail that’s been brazenly ignored by media in both countries determined to depict these more as “anti-vax” than “anti-mandate” protests (which seem to be about many things at once, but that’s another story). When an angry convoy descended upon the capital, Trudeau dismissed them in a soliloquy that can only be described as inspired political arson:

The small fringe minority of people who are on their way to Ottawa, who are holding unacceptable views that they are expressing, do not represent the views of Canadians…who know that following the science and stepping up to protect each other is the best way to ensure our rights, our freedoms, our values as a country.

A near-exact repeat of the “basket of deplorables” episode, Trudeau’s imperious description of “unacceptable” views instantly became a rallying cry, with people across the country lining the streets to cheer truckers while self-identifying as the “small fringe minority.” Everyone from high school kids to farmers and teachers and random marchers carrying jerrycans of fuel joined in as Trudeau’s own words were used to massively accelerate his troubles.

quote:

Originally posted by 2BobTanner:
Justin Trudeau's Ceauşescu Moment Denouncing truckers for "unacceptable views"

Out of all of his clueless crap, out of all the clear indications that Trudeau is a disgusting elitist who has no care at all for his countrymen, this is the remark which stands out the most for me. "Unacceptable views," as if Canadians who don't march in lockstep with this dictator are not allowed even to have their own opinions. Not only does he view them as powerless and unworthy of speaking to, Trudeau would deny them their humanity, deny them their right to think for themselves.

quote:

Ceauşescu

^^^^^^^^^^^^^
He met a most unpleasant end along with his spouse who was also a fraud.

Looks like TD Bank decided to get in on the action with their buddy Justin and friends over at GoFundMe.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/po...-for-trucker-protest

quote:

Originally posted by Graniteguy:
Looks like TD Bank decided to get in on the action with their buddy Justin and friends over at GoFundMe.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/po...-for-trucker-protest

Then proxies can be sent money that they deliver to the truckers in cash. Just like all the people that showed up with gas cans when the fuel was confiscated. Or the truckers can create new accounts that have no connection to "go fund me". This is not that hard to circumvent. They just need to hire some leftist elite money launderers....

No matter what you think of Bitcoin, this seems like a very good application for crypto currencies. Highly decentralized.

I was planning to open an account with TD Bank. So much for that idea.

Out of all of the West's wanna be dictators Macron and Trudeau seem to be the most willing to use violence against their own citizens.

The actions of Trudeau have failed to do much of anything.

quote:

Canada truckers protest: After a police raid, what next?

https://news.yahoo.com/canada-...-next-035934047.html

He's losing support outside of his own circle. Meanwhile the already in short supply truckers could very well shut down the country and cause him to lose even more support.

Odd that they were calling them hero's a year ago.

His poll numbers are even worse than Biden's.

quote:

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has alienated voters with his handling of the Freedom Convoy protests, a new poll shows.

Only 16% of respondents to the Maru Public Opinion poll said they would vote for Trudeau based on his actions over the past two weeks, when a protest by truck drivers against a Covid-19 vaccine mandate bubbled up into massive blockades, inspiring similar movements in several other countries. Just 29% said Trudeau had acted “like a prime minister should,” and 48% concluded that he was “not up to the job of being prime minister.”

Trudeau is fighting for something most in his own country don't support. His attempt to paint them as a "violent fridge group" has failed miserably.

quote:

“A new Angus Reid Institute poll has found that 54 per cent of Canadians now support an immediate end to all COVID restrictions in favour of treating the disease more like the flu,” the journal reported, noting that “the Trudeau government has resolutely refused to offer anything but minor relaxations to federal strictures.”

Despite Trudeau’s recent dismissal of the Freedom Convoy as “fringe,” protesters demanding freedom from heavy-handed COVID-19 restriction and vaccine mandates have become a major issue for the leader.

If the government (whichever one in whichever country) wanted to, they could shut it down in hours.

quote:

Originally posted by Bytes:
No matter what you think of Bitcoin, this seems like a very good application for crypto currencies. Highly decentralized.

quote:

Originally posted by BBMW:
If the government (whichever one in whichever country) wanted to, they could shut it down in hours.

You are correct about bitcoin BBMW, but it is highly unlikely to get the kind of cooperation among multiple nations simultaneously. It certainly wouldn't happen in a matter of hours. Forbes (as have many others) has written about it on more than one occasion. There is an interesting article on what it would take to put a freeze on crypto currencies here.

Actually, it’s doubtful that they could “shut it down” in a “matter of hours”. They would have to have all the thousands of pass through accounts and freeze them all simultaneously. As a reminder, despite the cries that the “banks are in on it”, t th hey are in this for the money. And they make a ton of money from interest in pass through accounts. It’s not in a banks best interest to cooperate until the money has been moved from
Bitcoin to a pass through account, and off shore to a non friendly nation. While bitcoin is in a sense ones and zeros, it moves in and out of pass through as real money. With real interest. And that’s what the banks like about it.

quote:

Denouncing truckers for "unacceptable views," Canada's Prime Minister skipped town

there could be entire essays composed in the manner & style of previous eras where clueless power mad aristrocrat-caste tasted the full flavor of such phrases as "Give me Acceptable Views, or Give me better parking spots".

Just who is going to haul freight for the Halls of Power?

Lots of videos at the link. The Canadians are having fun and the movement is growing.


'Freedom Convoy' Spreads As New Canada-US Border Crossing Shuts Down

https://www.zerohedge.com/mark...-flock-demonstration

Update (1523ET): About 2,500 miles west of the Ambassador Bridge, in Surrey, British Columbia, and Blaine, Washington, another "Freedom Convoy" emerged Saturday as demonstrators against medical tyranny have managed to shutter "multiple border crossings," according to AP News.

Got an idea today. Let's all start a GoFundMe for Justin Trudeau to fund his sex change....to a man.

If they "shut it down" with force or violence, the parallels to Tiananmen square will be hard to ignore. AND if they do that the entire trucking industry could go on strike.

Right now this is an annoyance in Ottawa. It's not really stopping anything because much of Ottawa is government and if you stop them from working you actually improve things. Imagine blockading Washington DC the same way. Would it really matter? Office sitters can work anywhere as long as they have internet.

But turning the entire industry against you and causing a general strike is a death sentence for any politician. The leftists want to frame everything into oppressor/oppressed power dynamics. OK, now the truck drivers are playing their game against them and showing how much power they really really have. If they all strike, all commerce stops. And what can government do then? Order them to drive? Put a gun to their heads?

No they cannot do anything to make them drive. A basic precept of our system is that ALL labor is voluntary and you cannot compel anyone to work by force. And a strike is something leftists have always supported. Too bad they think that labor strikes are a tool for use by the elites against political opponents and not a tool to be used against the elites. Guess they are finding out that if you don't actually know how to DO anything, you are fully dependent on those who do.

Remember, representative republics are based on the consent of the governed. The Truckers have withdrawn their consent.

And what, exactly, is the cause of the crisis?
That people don't want to be forced to take your mandated injection, or lose the ability to engage in commerce and work??

Trudeau To Unleash Never-Before-Used 'Emergency Powers Act' To Counter Protests As US-Canada Bridge Reopens

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has learned that Prime Minister Trudeau "will inform the provinces he will invoke the Emergencies Act to give the government extra powers to deal with the protests across the country. But in a meeting with the Liberal caucus, the PM said there were no plans to deploy the military."

The move follows a meeting Sunday of the federal cabinet and its Incident Response Group (IRG).

Trudeau tweeted late Sunday that the IRG discussed "further actions the government can take to help end the blockades and occupations."

Earlier that day, Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair told CBC's Rosemary Barton Live that the federal government has discussed invoking special emergency powers to deal with ongoing protests in Ottawa.

Blair described the attitude around invoking the Emergencies Act as "appropriate caution" rather than "reticence."

As CBC concludes, the law gives the federal government carte blanche to cope with a crisis, including the ability to enact emergency powers that allow it to prohibit travel within a specified area or remove personal property, while imposing fines or jail time on people contravening new orders.

https://www.zerohedge.com/poli...anada-bridge-reopens

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

So, he's imposing martial law and suspending due process, all to quell a peaceful protest?

Leftist radicals will do leftist radical stuff. I REALLY hope the good people in Canada stand up to this crap.