I watched some live streams of the Canadian Freedom Truckers yesterday, and my impression was, “These people are very naive.”
Don’t get me wrong. I’m on their side. I support the Canadian truckers. I support anyone who wants to disrupt the current globohomo regimes across the West.
The Canadian truckers are naive because they think their peaceful protest will work. As if making the police arrest them and drag off their trucks and euthanize their pets will have any impact on Justin Castreau. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it won’t.
Justin started breaking windows and arresting truckers yesterday. The police will keep slowly and methodically detaining the protesters, because the Canucks pledged out loud and often that they won’t resist. Well, OK then. If you won’t resist, you’re gonna get arrested.
We must have a clear understanding of how change happens and when certain types of protests will and will not work. I found this list of peaceful protests and their success or failure. It’ll serve to illustrate some thoughts I’ve had since I attended the Rally on 1/6 and during the Canadian Freedom Trucker Convoy. None of this is new.
- Cherokee Indian Resistance to Forced Relocation (1838) – FAILED
- Gandhi’s Salt March (1930) – Sowed the seeds of success
- The White Rose Resistance (1942–1943) – FAILED
- The Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955–1956) – Succeeded and sowed the seeds of further success
- The Kent State Demonstrations (1970) – FAILED
- The Tree Sitters of Pureora (1978) – Success
- Tiananmen Square Protests (1989) – FAILED
- The Lust Lady Strike of San Francisco (1997) – Success
- The Singing Revolution (1986-1991) – Success
- Demonstration against Invading Iraq (2003) – FAILED
- The “Lactivists” at Applebee’s (2007) – Success
- The Wisconsin Teachers Strike (2011) – FAILED
I’ll also add that “Occupy Wall Street” mentioned at the start of the article has failed in my personal opinion. Wealth inequality increased dramatically since 2008. Young Americans are still graduating with mountains of student loan debt weighing them down.
If you read the details in the article above, you’ll see that the peaceful protests that failed were organized against States. States only have have one tool in their toolbox: force. Governments have the monopoly on the “legal” use of force, and at the end of the day, the State will force citizens to comply.
In fact, that’s exactly what citizens expect the State to do when it’s legitimate and representing the will of the people. We expect the police to arrest people breaking the law and we expect the courts to serve up justice via our various legal systems.
But, using force is also what the State will do when it’s illegitimate and does not represent the will of the people. That’s what the US Feds did during 1/6 when they killed one protester arrested others. That’s what the Chinese did in 1989 when they killed hundreds of their own citizens. That’s what Trudeau did yesterday when he started arresting truckers and trampling protesters with horses.
The peaceful protests that worked were either local issues or riding the wave of massive social change taking place. Some of them also had elites on their side, which I think is necessary for any peaceful protest to succeed against a State.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott and Civil Rights movement had national support from American elites and politicians. The movement also had international support. Gandhi had international support for Indian independence. The elites in many countries supported Gandhi and pressured the British. The Singing Revolution rode the wave of Western Democratic Nation’s pressure against Western Communist Nations. National Governments were sanctioning and pressuring Communist regimes.
Had there not be support from elites and other governments, those peaceful protesters would likely be shot or jailed. Where are elites standing up for the Canadian Freedom Truckers? Where are the national governments putting pressure on the US Feds to release the 1/6 political prisoners? Where are the Christian leaders who will stand up and say that things happening in the world today are immoral, evil, and wrong?
This is not a black pill. This is a reality pill. It seems to me that peaceful protests will only work under certain Goldilocks conditions, and I don’t see those conditions in the world today.
People can organize peaceful protests and tell the cops coming to arrest them that they won’t resist. And they’ll get arrested. Will those arrests change hearts and minds? Maybe. I don’t know. Not really. The 1/6 protesters are still in jail, right?
So, the question is how do you change a tyrannical regime? President Thomas Jefferson said it best.
“The British ministry have so long hired their gazetteers to repeat and model into every form lies about our being in anarchy, that the world has at length believed them, the English nation has believed them, the ministers themselves have come to believe them, & what is more wonderful, we have believed them ourselves. Yet where does this anarchy exist? Where did it ever exist, except in the single instance of Massachusets? And can history produce an instance of a rebellion so honourably conducted? I say nothing of it’s motives. they were founded in ignorance, not wickedness. God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, & always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive; if they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had 13 States independent 11 years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century & a half for each state. What country before ever existed a century & half without a rebellion? & what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. what signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.”
https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/jefferson/105.html
As far as protests go, I’d say that this kind of decentralized peaceful protest would be WAY more effective. Shut the trucks down for a week.
Hmph, Justin Trudeau, the jerk needs to change his name.
This golden oldiefrom the Supreme Dark Lord may be apropos today.