Killing off their own audience
Fox News is selling the anti-vax truckers in Ottawa as freedom fighters. Of course it is.
Fox News’ effort to discourage its viewers from vaccinating themselves against COVID-19 has gone international. The network’s stars have in recent weeks fixated on our neighbor to the north, regaling their audiences with fawning coverage of Canadian truckers protesting their country’s COVID-19 vaccine requirements – and encouraging the development of similar activism in the U.S.
It still seems like a very weird flag to fly. Join us, we’re the ones in favor of deadly pandemics! If we’d had our way there would be no polio vax, no measles vax, no smallpox vax, and your kids or your friends or you could get a deadly disease at any time!
Since January 29, a group of truckers and their allies has effectively crippled downtown Ottawa by using vehicles to block traffic, leading the city’s mayor to declare a state of emergency. Similar protests have occurred in cities across the country, and on Monday truckers blocked a major international crossing.
That’s the one between Detroit and Windsor. I saw some news coverage of it last night, with the bridge packed solid with trucks.
This so-called “Freedom Convoy” originally assembled to oppose a newly implemented rule requiring them to either be vaccinated or quarantine after returning from trips across the U.S. border, but organizers now say they will continue their demonstrations until the national and provincial governments “end all mandates.”
Again, though, it’s a stupid idea of “freedom.” Getting vaccinated is not slavery or servitude or imprisonment, and not getting one isn’t a form of freedom. Claiming it is is like claiming that stop signs and red lights are barriers to freedom. The freedom to walk into traffic isn’t a freedom worth having.
Fox hosts are extremely excited about the protests, even as they quietly labor under the network’s own stringent vaccine requirements. The network devoted 7 hours and 59 minutes to the story from the first mention of the convoy we found on January 18 through noon on February 9. Prime-time stars Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity are among the convoy’s biggest fans at the network, giving it 51 minutes and 47 minutes, respectively. And Fox’s coverage is escalating, with more than 3 hours of trucker coverage coming on Monday and Tuesday this week combined.
Why? I guess because “sticking it to the libs” has become the new freedom, and the libs are foolish enough to think public health measures are preferable to no public health measures. Or, more crudely, it’s just childish “whatever they do we do the opposite because we hates’em.”
I wonder if Fox people lie awake at night fuming at the fact that the right and the left agree on more things than they disagree on. Fox doesn’t want to demolish interstate highways, or hospitals, or schools, or airports, or the military, or the police, or fire departments. Fox people must know just as well as anyone else that a public sector is necessary for a comfortable productive life, so…?
So they pretend they don’t, because that’s their brand. It’s stupid.
Fox’s propagandists have cheered on the truckers as “freedom fighters,” “civil rights hero[es],” and “the face of individualism and rebellion,” while denouncing the purported “totalitarianism” of the Canadian government.
Like Stalin and Hitler, right? No. Of course not. They know that, and yet they say it. It’s not the tyranny of vaccination mandates we need to worry about, it’s the tyranny of stupidity for ratings.
This focus on Canadian anti-vaccine mandate protests comes amid a spike in U.S. deaths from COVID-19 due to the spread of the omicron variant. Those deaths are largely occurring among the unvaccinated, fueled in part by anti-vaccine coverage from right-wing outlets like Fox.
In other words they’re encouraging people to do what will kill them. For the ratings.
The antivaxxer brigade don’t quite see it in those terms. They would never claim the ‘freedom’ to drive through red lights, on whatever side of the road and at whatever speed they choose because their own car might get wrecked in the process, and they could get injured or even killed.! Fair crack of the whip.!
But at the same time, they are striking a blow for the sort of rugged frontier individualism that made America or wherever GREAT. At the end of the day, it is their own self-image and self-esteem that is most important. And if their country, team or whatever they barrack for is GREAT, then they must inevitably, and as night follows day, become GREAT along with it.
Ironically then, armed with that delusion, these rugged individualists are basically conformists; sheep in wolves’ clothing.
We’ve had a ‘freedom convoy’ travel up the South Island and on to Wellington (our capital) this week. Protestors camped on Parliament grounds and nearby areas, using vehicles to block streets. While most were well behaved a small number have clearly been spoiling for confrontation. For three days police played it very cool and calm. They’ve prevented protestors from getting close to Parliament buildings and have just stood there passively. Yesterday they handed out trespass notices and withdrew from that activity when elements of the crowd became bolshy. Today the police turned out in force. No riot gear, just announced that if tents were not removed and the site vacated, people would be arrested. Every few minutes they took two steps forward. Anyone who engaged in conflict was arrested. Once Parliament grounds are cleared any remaining vehicles will be towed so the city centre and business can reopen. Tense, but well managed so far.
In fact, just a few minutes ago a large scuffle broke out and Police issued some staff with tasers. At the end of the day it’s a few hundred people, some of whom are protesting non-covid related government policies, but most of them just don’t seem to think they should either (a) get vaxed, wear masks etc, and (b) be told what to do.
Notably, not a single MP has gone out to even look at them. All of the parties in Parliament seem have decided to ignore them.
All of the parties in Parliament seem have decided to ignore them.
Good old NZ, the quiet achiever of the Pacific.
Across the ditch, while the government “condemns” such actions, their own members are among the most vocal supporters of the “If we wanna get sick, let us get sick” brigade. One is even witholding his vote on government legislation until they pay heed to his footstomping and end vaccinations.
We have also had the spectacle of the crazies attacking Old Parlaiment House (Our museum of democracy) and attempting to enter by setting fire to the front door.
However, unable to see the thugs out their front windows, ASIO has decided our biggest security threat is teens “reading stuff on the internet”.
To be fair, some of these people DO claim such things, at least where their own personal “freedom” is concerned. The rules don’t apply to them, because freedom.
Idiot narcissists, the lot of them.
Hmm, I wonder what would happen if the government suddenly started to promote food. Would these heroic freedom fighters stop eating?
There’s certainly no logic involved in this “movement,” and it appears to be more of a populist stance against the government than anything based on understanding of how pandemics and vaccines work. There are people who honestly believe that they have a higher risk of myocarditis from the vaccine than without, even though that very minor risk is higher from actually being sick from Covid-19 than from the vaccine. In both cases, the imflammation may be an immune response rather than directly caused by either the vaccine or the virus.
Fox loves to stir up the anti-government response and it is convenient that Canada does have a more authoriatarian government than the US. They catch on to the fact that their audience largely thinks that Canada is ruled by commies as it is, now with the mandate at the border, it’s even more apparent.
I was wondering how these truckers were supporting themselves if they aren’t driving, and then it turns out that American conservatives are funding them.
And they conveniently gloss over the trifecta of genocide, dispossession, and slavery that made it all possible in North America/Turtle Island. By banning CRT, they strive to erase that history altogether.
One of the very strange things about the Ottawa protest is the number of people who declare that they are not, personally, antivaxers (indeed, some even proudly say that they themselves are fully immunized), just that they are opposed to “forced” vaccination, and therefore support the “Freedom Fighters”. And then these oh-so-reasonable ones go on to agree that the pandemic restrictions have gone on too long, and it’s time to get back to normal life. Certainly there are very few people who have been enjoying the restrictions and want to see them continue because they are so much fun, but worth noting that Canada’s cumulative COVID death rate is about 1/3 that of the US (of course there are other factors that contribute to that).
Meantime, there are still way too many trucks downtown, running their engines continuously (but at least there is a court injunction to stop the constant horn-honking). And like in NZ, the federal government is not interested in talking to the protestors, though the opposition is now suggesting that they should. The protest spokespersons are now distancing themselves from those who want to overthrow the government, but they are still saying that they won’t leave until their demands are met (what those are is kind of unclear, but somewhere between having all mask and vax restrictions immediately removed to having a “roadmap” for returning to normal). Meanwhile, the provincial government has been rolling out reduced restrictions, but many businesses in downtown Ottawa have not been able to benefit from this due to the truck blockade. And so far, no one has been able to come up with any good solutions about how to end the protest.
Seanna, if they want to return to ‘normal’, they would do better to get the damn vaccinations, wear the damn masks, and follow the restrictions. I don’t think I have to tell everyone here that this ‘freedom’ shit is prolonging the pandemic unnecessarily.
It seems like they would rather shut down the economy than do anything sensible to end this pandemic and eliminate the need for sanctions, masks, and vaccinations. They don’t want to deal with the consequences of their “civil disobedience.”
Ricky Shroder agrees with them.
https://nypost.com/2022/02/11/ricky-schroder-calls-on-us-truckers-to-shut-down-washington-dc/