Krugman Nails The Canadian "Trucker" Blockade; Not Heroes, Vandals

Paul Krugman obliterates any idea that the Karens who participated in the anti-vax truck blockade were heroes and shows how they were vandals bent on a political mission.

In his February 14th article, When 'Freedom' Means the Right to Destroy, Paul Krugman points out that the protest, supposedly over vaccine requirements is bogus and vandalism.

He says, that...

"startling, although not actually surprising, has been the embrace of economic vandalism and intimidation by much of the U.S. right, especially by people who ranted against demonstrations in favor of racial justice. What we're getting here is an object lesson in what some people really mean when they talk about "law and order."

Let's talk about what has been happening in Canada and why I call it vandalism."

He goes on to point out that over 90% of Canadian truckers are vaccinated. He points out that there were very few actual big rig trucks in the blockade, mostly small pickup trucks and cars, with only 8000 protestors at the peak, and that the Teamsters union, which represents many truckers, denounced the blockade. He adds,

"this isn't a grass-roots trucker uprising. It's more like a slow-motion Jan. 6, a disruption caused by a relatively small number of activists, many of them right-wing extremists

He concludes that the disruption to commerce has cost at least several billion dollars and he says thats "comparable to insurance industry estimates of total losses associated with the Black Lives Matter protests" which "involved more than 15 million people." He continues,

"This comparison will no doubt surprise those who get their news from right-wing media, which portrayed B.L.M. as an orgy of arson and looting. I still receive mail from people who believe that much of New York City was reduced to smoking rubble. In fact, the demonstrations were remarkably nonviolent; vandalism happened in a few cases, but it was relatively rare, and the damage was small considering the huge size of the protests.

By contrast, causing economic damage was and is what the Canadian protests are all about, because blocking essential flows of goods, threatening people's livelihoods, is every bit as destructive as smashing a store window. And unlike, say, a strike aimed at a particular company, this damage fell indiscriminately on anyone who had the misfortune to rely on unobstructed trade."

Krugman observes that the BLM protests were about police killing people. But the real reason for the blockade was:

"What it's really about is an attempt to exploit pandemic weariness to boost the usual culture-war agenda.

"As you might expect, the U.S. right is loving it. People who portrayed peaceful protests against police killings as an existential threat are delighted by the spectacle of right-wing activists breaking the law and destroying wealth. Fox News has devoted many hours to fawning coverage of the blockades and occupations."

Krugman concludes,

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