Illuminating.

By Zamboni

The occupation of Ottawa continues, although there's some small progress: A judge has issued an injunction against horn-blaring (a win for the birds, the elderly, babies, and pretty much everybody else), and the Ottawa police have started dismantling the Trumpy truckers' makeshift fuel-supply operation.

But many questions remain about why the Ottawa cops' response has been so anemic compared with the actions of police in places like Toronto, Quebec City, and Nova Scotia. Now, it's been explained:

"The MAIN job of the cops is maintaining the social order...It’s straight, white, able-bodied cis men at the top, and everyone else — women, queer folks, Asians, Black people, disabled folks, and First Nations — below. Truckers aren’t trying to CHANGE the social order, they’re trying to preserve it.

"For the last 100 years, the monopoly that straight white men have held on power — social, political, and economic — has been slowly eroding as everyone else has fought for equal footing. And a lot of men hate this. What we’re seeing now is the backlash from those angry men...This is why the trucker movement, ostensibly about vaccines and restrictions, is targeting women, minorities, and queer folk. Straight white men are using the tools that groups in power have always used when that power is threatened: fear, intimidation, and violence. 

"This is partly why so many of the truckers hold such visceral hate for Trudeau — with his carefully stage-managed image as a feminist, many of these men see him as a traitor to their efforts of regaining their social status.

"And this is why the Ottawa police respond so differently to the truckers, laughing and joking with them, bringing them coffee and taking selfies. They know these angry men aren’t a threat to the social order, they’re fighting to restore it. We’re asking the cops to do their job, but the horrible truth is that they ARE doing it. We’re just not ready to be honest with ourselves about what that job actually is."

 

(IMAGE: Counter-protesters and their amusing signs. The two on the left make us cats PURR.)