By Stephen Kunk►
Last week, a so-called "Freedom Convoy" rolled into Ottawa, the capital city of Canada. The convoy consists of embittered uber-conservatives who want to protest vaccine mandates pertaining to long-haul truckers. Their chosen methodology of protest involves parking their rigs in the main throughways of Canada's capital, thereby causing gridlock and drawing attention to their cause. Their abiding goal was and is to have an audience with Justin Trudeau, who is no less than their Dark Lord of Mordor, and get him to end the mandate.
Thousands of people assembled in protest over the previous weekend, but no meeting has come of it to date. Some of the protesters did, however, manage to desecrate a war memorial and wreck up a soup kitchen for the homeless. And when Confederate flags and swastikas showed up among the protesters, everyone was too caught up in protesting vaccines to call out the racists and direct them elsewhere. Obviously, the protesters have their priorities, and, evidently, a vaccine in a pandemic is a greater evil than white supremacy.
Six days have passed, and a significant percentage of the "Freedom Convoy" remains in Ottawa, still clogging the downtown core. Their ever-blaring horns and generally boorish comportment have incensed local businesses and residents, who have found it difficult to go about their daily routines. The noise is disorienting, and not just from the trucks. The hayseeds who have hunkered down in protest are perpetually primed to rave on about "freedom," one of two f-words they throw around with brio. When asked by reporters how long they plan to stay, these sons of the soil consistently reply with the phrase "as long as it takes," the word "it" being a sort of floating signifier for their "goal," which likely changes in correlation with mood swings of the group, or at least those of their alpha dog.
And while the consensus among most Canadians is likely that these people have (a) made their point and (b) are entirely rebarbative, this convoy apparently has the means to continue their protest indefinitely. But where would an assemblage of low proles get the funding to effectively camp out on public throughways for an entire work week and beyond? The answer lies in a GoFundMe page that has, to date, raised almost $10 million for the "cause."
But our initial question has hardly been answered. How can a bunch of grossly misinformed high-school graduate anti-vaxxers spare even small percentages of their meager earnings to fund a convoy of cotton-eyed joes? That, too, remains unanswerable. The mainstream media (which this commentator doesn't distrust) claim that much of the funding is coming from foreign parties. And if that is indeed the case, we can safely assume that much of the donated money is coming from deeper pockets higher up on the paleoconservative food-chain. Donald Trump Jr. has spoken in favor of the convoy; so too has Elon Musk. And while it's not inconceivable these personages have contributed money to the convoy, this commentator has his doubts that a Trump or a Musk would want anything more than a little piece of the spotlight here, as per past precedent. Rather, I would suggest an alternative funding force.
Major funding for this Freedom Convoy, I hypothesize, is coming from Peter Thiel. The German-born Thiel is one of the lesser luminaries among the planet's billionaires, but he possesses an unabashed mean-streak that puts the comparably cool Bezos, Branson, and Musk to shame. Moreover, the man maintains an almost autistic obsession with "freedom," one that resonates with that of the crackers currently protesting in Ottawa. Indeed, Thiel has said on record that he "no longer believe[s] freedom and democracy are compatible." This is very much in goose-step with the beliefs of the convoy. But beyond the freedom-at-all-costs ideology, Thiel also aligns with the cornpone convoy in methodology. He, too, is familiar with wars of attrition. He famously provided $10 million dollars to help Hulk Hogan prevail in a lawsuit against Gawker, seemingly in response to that news outlet having run articles on Thiel's sexual orientation. I submit that Thiel or his subsidiary channels might be supporting the convoy in a similar capacity. Just as the convoy's protesters are intent to draw from their vast riches of free time in hope that their opposition caves, Thiel is intent to contribute vast amounts of his money until an adversary has no choice but to give up. Thiel just might be contributing to this particular cause in the name of "freedom," an abstraction he loves so dearly that he's willing to give up democracy in order to realize it.
Now, I want to make it clear that what I am stating here is an hypothesis. I am not claiming, in conspiracy theory fashion, that Peter Thiel is without doubt funding the Freedom Convoy. God knows there is enough misinformation floating around on the internet—in fact, it's largely what drove the convoy to Ottawa in the first place—and I don't wish to add to it. But my hypothesis is, nonetheless, worth considering. Follow the money, and I'm willing to bet hundreds that some of those millions put behind the Freedom Convoy will ultimately be traceable to Peter Thiel.
Photo Credit: Dan Taylor / Heisenberg Media, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
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