The Cancel Mob Comes for the Truckers. Can We the People Overcome?

Babylon Bee Satirical Mock-Up of a Fictional GoFundMe Page

Until now, GoFundMe.com has been known as a fundraising platform, earmarked for small donors to help with large causes, like collecting money for a relative with cancer.

Last week, GoFundMe joined the Liberal Cancel Mob. Under pressure from Ottawa’s ruling class — no longer friends of the working class but elitists eager to protect their power — they tried to rob Freedom Convoy truckers in Canada of the funds collected for them. In one of the most brazen thefts in Internet history, the platform announced it was freezing the $10 million ($8 million Canadian) funds the truckers had attracted, and would distribute the money to charities of its choosing. Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson thanked them, slamming protestors for “holding our city hostage for a week now,” sure GFM’s move would “restrict their ability to remain in Ottawa.”

But then a funny thing happened. GFM’s base of donors expressed outrage. So did tech billionaire Elon Musk. “Professional thieves,” he said, noting the company’s hypocrisy. In 2020, GFM welcomed fundraising for Antifa and BLM activists, Communist agitators who ravaged Seattle’s downtown with violence, destruction and mayhem. But two years later, as 50,000 truckers descended on Ottawa in a peaceful protest to end COVID mandates, greeted by cheering, smiling Canadians across the country, GoFundMe tried to steal their money. “Patriotic Texans donated to Canadian truckers’ worthy cause, using GoFundMe,” said Texas AG Ken Paxton. “This BLM-backing company went woke, froze the funds, & failed to deliver Texans’ money.” So GFM back down, a little, and not graciously. “Due to donor feedback,” GFM said, “we are simplifying the process.” All donors will be automatically refunded, no need to send in a request. How about restoring the money to the truckers?

In the face of threats by Ottawa police to arrest them for aiding and abetting the protest, Canadians are bringing the truckers food, fuel, water, encouragement and love. Meanwhile, Freedom Convoy Organizers in Canada directed donors to a Christian site, GiveSendGo. The site says it is being overwhelmed by two issues: 1/thousands logging in and 2/ cyber bot attacks. The latter shocks me even as it proves what they are up against. How evil that those who would silence us want to destroy our avenues for expression, financial as well as speech. At least there is an alternate to GFM. The new Freedom Convoy 2022 campaign has already raised $4.5 million.

Not to be outdone by GoFundMe, the virtue-signalling Facebook has removed the page of American truckers planning a similar convoy to DC, yammering something about QAnon. So organizers went on Tucker Carlson Tonight to get out the word. “This crosses all genders, all races, all sexual orientations, all occupations,” said Brian Brase. “Truckers might be standing up, but it’s not about the truckers. It’s about America.” He said they are not QAnon people — a euphemism, along with racist, for anyone the Far Left doesn’t like. Bet they’ll place their page elsewhere.

No question the media own the loudest megaphone. Johns Hopkins University recently issued a study finding that lockdowns have “little to no” effect on mortality rates, reducing them by .2% on average. Pointing to unintended consequences — rising unemployment, reduced schooling, an increase in domestic violence incidents and surging drug overdoses — they concluded, “Lockdowns should be rejected out of hand as a pandemic policy.” A Fox News analysis found that CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS and NBC ignored the study completely. Ditto the New York Times, Washington Post, Associated Press, Reuters, USA Today, Axios and Politico. If you live exclusively in their echo chamber world, you wouldn’t know about the Johns Hopkins study — or about the truckers in Canada for that matter. These media lords censor by omission.

There’s also no question the Far Left has honed tools of censorship, backed by their corporate allies and government goons ready to crackdown on dissent. But it is also true that the rest of us have developed a counter culture of alternate news outlets and Social Media sites with which to fight back. Journalist Lara Logan announced just the other day that she is quitting twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, accusing them of allowing pedophiles to post while censoring posts of truckers, doctors, naturalists or the vaccine injured. She told her supporters to follow her on Gettr or Locals.

Lara Logan @laralogan

I am leaving Twitter, Facebook, Instagram etc. I cannot in good conscience contribute to platforms who glorify & enrich themselves at the expense of children who they knowingly exploit. Discovering recently that animals are sexually abused/exploited along w children was a shock.

There are some other encouraging signs that our collective voices are being heard.

Thursday, twitter suspended the account of The Chalkboard Review, which has called for in-person schooling and has compiled a tool kit for parents to fight Critical Race Theory. This, of course, was at the encouragement of the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers’ union, which argues that parents have no place criticizing their curricula. Friday, after pushback, the account was restored.

And in California last week, a little boy stood up to a teacher who yelled at him for wearing a mask bearing the Thin Blue Line flag. The teacher hollered at 13-year-old Lucas Lillar that his mask represented the new Confederate Flag. Lucas, whose father is a police officer, said he wore it “to keep him safe.” After an uproar, including from many of Lucas’ schoolmates and parents, the substitute teacher was fired.

Recently, I was reading Righteous Indignation, the memoir of Andrew Breitbart, founder of the news service that bears his name. Sadly, he died ten years ago, at the age of 43, of a heart attack. How we could use his energy and savvy now.

Breitbart was the one who coined the term “Democrat/Media Complex,” who preached that you can only win in politics if you control culture, (“Politics is downstream from culture,” was one of his sayings) and who deconstructed Saul Alinsky’s tactical school of Marxism activism — all relevant to our fight today.

But in the book, which chronicles his journey from liberal to conservative, Andrew Breitbart also demonstrated that victory comes from standing up for what you believe.

Maybe the ruling class are tightening the grip because they are losing in the public square, as more and more Americans agree that it is time to resume normal life, to come out from behind our partisan hostility and embrace each other once again as Americans. Maybe, despite the horror of having our funds stolen by GoFundMe, our scientific studies buried by Big Media, our Internet outlets cancelled by Big Tech, maybe we are winning. As Breitbart wrote:

“Walk toward the fire. Don’t worry about being called a racist, a homophobe, a sociopath, a violent hetero-normative xenophobe with fascistic impulses. They say all those things about you because they’re keeping you inside the Complex, forcing you to respond to their playbook. They want to stop you in your tracks. But if you keep going, if you tell them you can stop their verbal bullets and keep walking, you’ll send messages to people who are rooting for you, who agree with you. That’s how you build an invincible movement willing to play by its own rules.”

Thank you Andrew Breitbart. You would have loved the truckers.