BAD ACTORS ARE SEEKING TO SIDESWIPE CONVOY’S MESSAGE
Shortly after General (Ret’d) Rick Hillier became Chief of Defence Staff in 2005, he made a push for an increase to the Public Affairs Officer branch. His reasoning was if no one knew all the good the CAF was doing then all those efforts were wasted. The Canadian public could not be expected to care for an organization which it could not relate to.
As for the ‘Freedom Convoy’ of people headed towards Ottawa to air their grievances, there have been numerous interpretations of what they want to accomplish. Bringing it to a personal level, I would like to focus on one person’s view of what the Convoy means to her.
In no particular order, she can be described as a 40 something, mother of three young children, Native descent, hands on business owner married to a tradesman. They own a modest home and they have been trying to keep afloat these past two years with constant interruptions to their employment, business, and children’s lives. They have also chosen not to be vaccinated but over Christmas, the family came down with Omicron with the mother being the sickest for a week but with a full recovery.
The Convoy excited this lady because she is fed up with the government intrusions that have governed her family’s lives for the last two years. She, like the thousands of other regular, ordinary Canadians lining the highways waiting to cheer on this Convoy, just want some hope that their lives will get back to normal.
Parked in front of this hopeful message are roadblocks attempting to sideswipe any good which may come from this grassroots movement. Starting at the top, our Prime Minister opined a very bigoted view of the truckers and their supporters. Perhaps the son should look back through his father’s memoirs and look afresh at the meaning of the statement, “There’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation”. The PM’s job is to represent all Canadians, especially those with minority views. Unless this group was promising outright insurrection, they are allowed to protest as much as any other group in this country without our PM slandering them.
Unfortunately, the Convoy’s public relations is in danger of slipping into a skid. There is a social media war being waged trying to connect the Convoy and its organizers with violence, white supremacy, racism, etc. This is being picked up by the MSM and amplified. Another wedge issue has been the size of the Convoy itself as estimates are flying from tiny to enormous. Opponents want to minimize while supporters are over-exaggerating. What is needed are reporters who are prepared to act like reporters who are neither cheerleaders nor detractors but impartial observers.
Compounding the confusion, deliberate and unintentional, is the lack of a concerted, overall voice who represents the Convoy and their goals. They have a FaceBook Group that was up, down, then back up. It is up over 700,000 members and is replete with numerous testimonials, videos, and such but short on specifics and prone to intolerant posts subject to censure and/or fuel for detractors.
One of the organizers of the GoFundMe page for the Convoy, Tamara Lich, has put herself forward as a point of contact for media interviews. It appears she is overwhelmed and out of her depth. Interview requests are starting to pour in but concrete information has been sporadic. Consequently, reporters are randomly contacting whoever they can get ahold of and some of the responses have been hostile. If the movement doesn’t get a handle on their messaging, the powers to be will make up their own messaging out of the vacuum.
Particularly disturbing is the outright disinformation being maliciously disseminated against the Convoy. For example, searching for Tamara’s background information first returns her bio as listed as a Secretary with the Maverick Party based in Alberta. Next comes a bevy of websites titled with ‘Tamara Lich Racist, Go Fund Me Fraud‘. No substance is in the website’s narratives and in fact the paragraphs look like bot creations or badly translated nonsensical phrases such as:
Hello, all of the friends, so Tamara Lich emerged because the guardian angel of all of the Truck Drivers protesting in Canada “Freedom Convoy 2022.” So, in between all this one of many board of administrators of Maverick Party Tamara Lich arrived within the assist of the convoy of the drivers. The director started a fundraising web page for the drivers on Go Fund Me to help all of the drivers who’re struggling after the central authorities of the nation imposed a mandate throughout the pandemic. Apart from all this Tamara Lich was alleged for being a racist.
https://umorr.com/truck-convoy-is-tamara-lich-racist-go-fund-me-fraud-allegations/
Look up B.J. Dichter, the other listed GoFundMe organizer for the Convoy and the top hit returned is another robotic ‘news’ site with the heading including ‘Fraud and Racist Allegations‘. Again, the so called attached ‘article’ is full of nonsense like the following:
Opportunity Convey is a continuous dissent in Canada by Truckers gainst a new government COVID-19 immunization order forced on the shipping area. A Group of guards of trucks is set to show up in Ontario as a feature of their exhibit.
https://sleekgist.com/who-is-bj-dichter-aka-benjamin-dichter-fraud-and-racist-allegations-tg-time/
Powerful forces are being arrayed against a Canadian grassroots movement. Between the naiveté and inexperience of the participants and the general indifference and outright hostility of their enemies, this protest is set to spin out. The trucker’s main foe is not snow covered highways and black ice. Their bête noire is whoever gains the most from their failure.
Blair is a personification of a ‘Jack of All Trades and Master of None’. He has held several careers and has all the T-shirts. Time to add the title Blogger to the list.