Auto industry reconsiders production systems after border protests


Luke Sharrett

Paul A. Eisenstein
Thu, February 17, 2022

Days after a Canadian border blockade was broken up, the auto industry is facing a serious dilemma.

Over the past three decades, manufacturers have adopted “lean” manufacturing. Largely lifted from the Toyota production system, the complex strategy relies heavily on things like automation and other labor-saving steps. But the centerpiece is a system known as “just-in-time,” or “JIT,” production, which has sharply reduced the amount of inventory maintained at automotive factories. That approach, it turns out, is extremely vulnerable to disruptions that can quickly bring factories to a halt.

While no other industry has become more dependent on JIT production, it has also become a way of life for everything from agriculture to aerospace to consumer electronics, and it catches some of the blame for the supply chain disruptions and inflation that the industry has been battling the last two years.

“Today’s generation of automotive leaders learned from the Toyota production system, focusing on getting cash out of inventory,” Joe Hinrichs, who retired as Ford Motor Co.’s global head of automotive operations in 2020, said.

“Now, with everything that’s happened, including Covid, the semiconductor shortage, geopolitical risks and other events,” he said, there is growing concern that lean manufacturing — JIT production, in particular — no longer works

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Early innovators

When Japanese automakers first broke into the American market in a big way in the early 1980s, they had some major advantages over their Detroit competitors because they used JIT production. Their vehicles tended to be more fuel-efficient and proved to deliver far better quality, according to David Cole, director emeritus of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

JIT WAS PART OF THE TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM EDWARDS DEMING INVENTED IN THE SIXTIES IN THE US

But leading brands, like Toyota, also could produce a vehicle for thousands of dollars less than U.S. rivals. And it wasn’t just because Japanese labor was cheaper or that they used robots — as they proved when they began opening up assembly lines in the States.

Factories like the one Honda set up in Marysville, Ohio, which was the first Japanese-owned assembly plant there, had virtually no warehouse space. Parts generally arrived from suppliers an hour or less before they were needed on the line. In some cases, those parts were lined up in exactly the same sequence they’d be needed.

That means plants can be smaller and less expensive to build and maintain. And the industry, as a whole, has billions of dollars less capital tied up in inventory. Meanwhile, if a defect is discovered, there are fewer bad parts to replace or repair, explained Willy Shih, a professor of manufacturing at Harvard Business School.

“You catch problems sooner, before you have a trainload of bad parts to deal with,” he said in a telephone interview.

Until recently, JIT and lean manufacturing appeared to be the most effective way to produce goods since Henry Ford switched on the first moving assembly line in 1913, according to Hinrichs.

Sure, there were occasional glitches. Most commonly, bad storms could disrupt the flow of trucks steadily rolling up to assembly plant loading docks. A fire at a supplier plant could create havoc — as happened in 2018 when Ford was left without the magnesium crossbars needed for its F-150 pickups. Following the 2011 tsunami that devastated northern Japan, the industry discovered it relied on a single supplier from that region to provide black pigment needed for car paint.

But the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks.

Growing problems

Recently more of these unpredictable “Black Swan” events have occurred, Cole noted. With climate change becoming more apparent, the supply chain has repeatedly been disrupted by blizzards, hurricanes and tornadoes.

Then came Covid-19. The pandemic led to a three-month shutdown of North American automotive manufacturing in spring 2020. Even when automakers and suppliers were allowed to start back up, they faced setbacks. Even now, illness-related manpower shortages continue to be a headache. The pandemic, meanwhile, led to an ongoing shortage of critical semiconductor chips that, just in recent weeks, has forced production cuts by Toyota, Ford, GM and others.

According to Detroit consulting firm AlixPartners, automakers lost $210 billion in 2021 revenues due just to semiconductor-related shortages, which will continue to hurt balance sheets this year.

Add the impact of Trump-ordered trade wars — and the possibility of global economic chaos if Russia moves to invade Ukraine. And geopolitical problems aren’t necessarily only found on the other side of the globe, as this month’s border blockade demonstrated.

“Everybody is having problems,” Cole said, warning that JIT production “may have to be rethought.”

Quiet fears

Several senior industry leaders, including Ford CEO Jim Farley, have warned that the automotive manufacturing system is facing some serious challenges. Most, however, declined to discuss the topic on the record, citing “competitive” concerns.

The one automaker that directly responded to questions was Toyota, which last week said it has cut its global production forecast for the current quarter by nearly 500,000 vehicles due to semiconductor shortages. Toyota is still analyzing the impact of the Canadian trucker blockade that briefly impacted two U.S. plants and three more in Ontario, the latter factories rolling out some of the company’s most popular models, the Toyota RAV4 and Lexus RX.

“Due to a number of supply chain, severe weather and COVID related challenges, Toyota continues to face shortages affecting production at our North American plants,” the automaker said in a statement this week.

Separately, Toyota spokesman Ed Hellwig added in an email: “In the spirit of kaizen, (the Japanese concept of continuous improvement), we continually examine our production processes to find efficiencies. Maintaining a resilient and efficient supply chain is a critical part of those processes.”

But even with the growing number of problems hitting the auto industry, there may not be any feasible alternatives to JIT methods.

“Is JIT going away? I don’t think so,” Dan Hearsch, managing director in the automotive and industrial practice at AlixPartners, said. “It is going to change.”

Experts like Hearsch and Shih, the Harvard Business School professor, agreed that several big changes may include keeping more inventory at auto plants in the future and bringing parts production back in-house. Hearsch added that the industry is even exploring 3D-printing technologies that could be programmed to supply whatever part might be needed without requiring expensive tooling.

Automakers are also looking at ways to design vehicles more flexibly. If the preferred semiconductor isn’t available, for example, they could switch to a different chip and just tweak the vehicle’s software, according to Hearsch.

In the meantime, Hinrichs thinks automakers and other industries will have to figure out how to shore it up, or the production disruptions we’ve seen in recent months could become increasingly common.

What’s clear, the experts agreed, is that the auto industry has run into a series of problems that raise critical concerns about lean production in general and the JIT production system specifically. But they are far from ready to write it off.

JIT “is the best system ever,” Hinrichs said, even if it’s not perfect. But he said there’s no question that the industry has been given a clear warning that the system needs some fixes. Otherwise, he said the production disruptions we’ve been seeing — and the shortages they cause on dealer lots — will “become more frequent.”

POSTMODERN FUEDALISM

Former Kazakh dictator controlled £6bn empire from Britain

Matt Oliver
Wed, February 16, 2022

Nursultan Nazarbayev and Prince Philip

The former dictator of Kazakhstan controlled a multibillion-dollar business empire via a British company, The Telegraph can reveal.

In revelations that will increase pressure on the Government to clamp down on the flow of money from kleptocracies into London, an investigation in collaboration with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism uncovered new details about the hidden wealth of Nursultan Nazarbayev.

Foundations linked to the notorious autocrat, who was in office until 2019, controlled $7.8bn (£5.8bn) in assets via Jusan Technologies. The empire was restructured last year and is now controlled via the United States.

However, news that a UK entity was at the centre of the financial interests of a key ally of Vladimir Putin will increase scrutiny on the Government’s pledge to tackle London’s role as a safe haven for money from questionable sources.

Amid concern about a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine, ministers have faced criticism for allowing Russians with links to the Kremlin and a string of Kazakh elites to accumulate wealth in London - dubbed "Londongrad" for its large number of oligarchs - with little scrutiny over recent years.

Records filed on Companies House show that in 2020 Jusan had only one employee. Nevertheless it sat at the heart of a sprawling international business, spanning shopping centres, financial services, a telecoms network and even a pasta factory.

One of its subsidiaries, a Kazakh bank, received a multi-billion dollar state bailout and went on to hand a dividend to Jusan.

Kazakh former President Nazarbayev Russia's President Putin

 - Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images

The company’s shareholders included members of the Kazakh elite and businesses connected to the ruling family of the United Arab Emirates.

Dame Margaret Hodge, the Labour MP, claimed in Parliament that Mr Nazarbayev had used charitable foundations to "secretly control" a string of assets, which were part-owned through Jusan Technologies.

She said the UK had turned a blind eye to suspect wealth and claimed a string of Kazakh elites had become wealthy through crony capitalism under the Nazarbayev regime.

Dame Margaret told MPs: “Britain has opened our borders, our property market, our financial structures to the Kazakh ruling class, enabling them to launder their illicit wealth and to spend it.

“Worse, we don’t even enforce our existing laws against any of this wrongdoing.”

John Penrose, the Conservative MP, said: “We’ve got to be at the leading edge of anti-corruption and anti-fraud measures, which means the economic crime bill should be an immediate, urgent priority. We will not threaten our prosperity by introducing these standards, in fact we threaten it if we do not.”

During his 29 years in office Nazarbayev won elections with more than 90pc of the vote, accrued enormous wealth for his family and fostered a cult of personality– the country’s capital city was renamed after him.

He is believed to have continued to wield influence in Kazakhstan until last month’s mass protests, which were met with a police crackdown and resulted in at least 225 deaths and may have resulted in shifts in power. Nazarbayev has denied reports of having fled the country.



The Nazarbayev foundations controlled Jusan through an Kazakh entity called Pioneer Capital.

Pioneer in turn was owned by three Kazakh educational foundations over which the former dictator has presided, including the Nazarbayev Fund, regulatory filings show.

Boies Schiller Flexner, a US law firm that represents the Nazarbayev Fund, said ownership of Jusan was handed to a US non-profit organisation as a charitable donation before the end of 2021.

The new owner is Jysan Holdings LCC, a company which in turn is owned by NU Generation Foundation, a non-profit group.

Aslan Sarinzhipov, the chief executive of the Nazarbayev Fund and Nazarbayev’s education and science minister between 2013 and 2016, is the president of NU Generation Foundation.

Boies Schiller said the people and entities involved with the new structure are independent of Nazarbayev and the purpose of the venture is to fund Kazakhstan’s Nazarbayev University and other educational projects.

Even before the change in ownership, Nazarbayev did not personally benefit from Jusan. Although he chairs the fund bearing his name, its charter forbids him from using its assets for his personal benefit, Boies Schiller said.

Jusan’s most recent accounts, filed in October 2021, showed $7.8bn in gross assets, which included more than $3bn in cash. The assets were owned through banking, telecoms and retail businesses, mainly in Kazakhstan.

Several of Nazarbayev’s associates have connections to this booming business empire. They include Yerbol Orynbayev, who served as deputy prime minister and assistant to the president under Nazarbayev until 2015, was a director of Jusan Technologies and owned a 4.6pc stake.

The immense wealth amassed by Nazarbayev’s foundations, first reported last month by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, has benefitted from Kazakh state funds.

Companies such as Jusan Technologies are able to operate in the UK partly because of the assistance of lawyers and accountants who work and advise, perfectly legally, behind the scenes.

Boies Schiller said the UK had been chosen as the holding company’s base because of its highly respected legal regime.

Jusan was registered in March 2020 by the US law firm Cohen & Gresser and its most recent filed accounts were signed off in August 2021 by Rakesh Shaunak, the chairman and managing partner of MHA MacIntyre Hudson, a UK auditor.

MacIntyre Hudson was paid $462,000 by the company for the audit and other work during 2020.

Last month, the Financial Reporting Council, accounting watchdog, said it is investigating MacIntyre Hudson for its audits of another company in 2018 and 2019. MacIntyre Hudson has confirmed it is cooperating with the investigation.

AND WAR AND PESTILENCE

Ethiopia grapples with worst drought in 30 years

Nearly 7 million people in Ethiopia's drought-hit regions need urgent help after a third failed rainy season devastates pastoralist communities.

Pastoral communities in Ethiopia's Somali region fear for their future amid severe drought

Lumbering under a cloudless sky and a ruthless midday sun, herds of emaciated camels converge at one of the few wells bearing water in Adawe village in Ethiopia's southeastern Somali region.

The water quality is poor and saturated with salt yet the camels — and their owners — have no choice other than to drink it. 

Adawe normally has 26 wells but because it hasn't rained here since April 2021, all except three of them have dried up.

The Somali region is traditionally arid. Now though, three subsequent rainy seasons have failed.

Not only is water even harder to find than before, the drought has also desiccated the landscape, making the grasses, shrubs and browsing trees that camels and other animals normally feed on scarce.

With little for their livestock to eat and drink, the residents of Adawe are forced to watch their herds shrink, day-by-day.

Camels drink at one of the few watering points in Adawe that haven't dried up

Dying livestock

The roads here are dotted with the carcasses of cows, sheep and goats decaying in the heat.

Camel herder Abdi Serif said he has already lost 30 out of 150 camels — that's a fifth of his herd.

"They are affected by the drought, as well as the lack of pasture. Plus, when the camels don't have enough food, they run away, which makes them prone to being killed by hyenas," the 25-year-old said.

Abdi normally earns a living selling his camels at the market. In the past, one camel would bring him around 75,000 birr ($1,480, €1,300). But the prices have plunged to around one fifth of that and buyers are almost impossible to find.

"We used to rely on animals for our food. But now we don't have anything to eat because now it's the animals who depend on us," Abdi told DW.

Nearly 85% of people in Ethiopia's Somali region have a pastoral way of life

Shepherd Mahamoud Abdulaye says that a big problem is that pastoralists like him have no other way of making money in the arid region.

"In this area, there's no farming, it's a desert. There's no agriculture," he said.

He has slight hopes for his remaining flock, Mahamoud said as he lifted a lamb out of a small shelter. With its skin hanging off its bones, the lamb collapsed onto the ground, too weak to stand.

But his livestock aren't Mahamoud's main concern any more. Now, the father of six is praying for his family's survival.

Thousands of animals have died due to the drought

Familes on the brink

"The state of my children is extremely worrying. They are expecting us to help them but we can't do anything," he told DW, explaining that a pot of boiled wheat was the family's daily meal.

Weakened by months of hardship, his children regularly ask for milk: there is none, Mahamoud lamented.

The drought conditions in Ethiopia's lowland area, which includes the Somali and Oromia regions, have led to a 20% increase in cases of "severe acute malnutrition" in children, according to the UN's children's fund, UNICEF.

Overall, 6.8 million people in the drought-impacted area are expected to be in need of urgent humanitarian aid by mid-March 2022, UNICEF said in a statement.

In a hospital in Gode, a town in the Somali region, doctors told DW that they have seen a spike in the numbers of malnourished children admitted in the the past months.

Little funding

Among aid agencies, the sense of urgency is growing. But funds are lacking to respond to the crisis.

UNICEF has requested $31 million to help drought-affected areas in Ethiopia but has only received about one quarter so far. The response has been slowed down by other crises in the country, especially the Tigray conflict in the country's north.

The funds would provide cash payments to drought-affected families.

"In big villages and towns, food is available, the private sector is bringing food," Ethiopia's UNICEF representative Gianfranco Rotigliano told DW. "The problem is that they cannot buy it. If we give them a small amount of cash, they will purchase what they need and the children can eat."

Forced to leave home

Many families in the affected areas are left with no choice but to leave their villages.

Across the Somali region, thousands have moved north to be nearer to the regional capital, Jijiga, where the climate is less harsh. Pastoralists hope that there they can find food for their animals and save the remnants of their herds.

"The loss of livestock means there will be pastoralist drop-out, people fleeing, and they will be displaced, without any job opportunity," said Teyeb Sherif Nur, the region's natural resource management officer for the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Pastoralist Ardo Hassen, who left her village in search of grazing land for her animals,

 cooks in her new makeshift compound

Many of the displaced have settled in local communities, who sometimes provide shelter and food. The living conditions are tough, though, with little access to sanitation and other basic needs.  

Ardo Hassen traveled for days with four of her children and her remaining 70 animals, finally setting up a makeshift home near the town of Kebri Beyah, some 50 kilometers (31 miles) south of Jijiga.

Fifteen of her animals died during the journey. Although those which survived can now feed on small patches of dried-out grass, some are very sick.

"I don't know what will happen (…). I am very concerned. Until God gives us rain from the sky, we will be expecting government support," she said, as she washed a cooking pot, seated on the earthen floor of her improvised kitchen.

India: Is the ruling BJP's 'Hindutva' approach a civilizational principle?

The difference between Hinduism as a religion and Hindutva as a political ideology has been a topic of heated debate in India for years.



Since the BJP was re-elected to power in 2019, tensions between Hindus and Muslims have escalated

Election season is underway in five Indian states, and the big question is whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janta Party's (BJP's) core Hindu nationalist agenda will continue to be well-received by the over 180 million eligible voters.

The defining credo of the BJP since 1989 has been "Hindutva," a political ideology that promotes the "values" of the Hindu religion as being the cornerstone of Indian society and culture.

The BJP's continuous reliance on an aggressive Hindutva plank has given it electoral success in the past. However, the BJP's political opponents say the party's ultra-nationalist rhetoric, based on Hindu nationalism, threatens to displace secularism as the foundation of India's constitution.

The politicization of the Hindu religion has also been combined by the BJP in recent years with more aggressive policies that India's Muslim community says treats them as second-class citizens.

Yogi Adityanath, a Hindu monk and chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state, has emerged as a poster child for the Hindu right-wing.

He recently described the election in the northern Indian state as an "80% versus 20%" contest, which roughly corresponds to Uttar Pradesh's Hindu and Muslim population proportion.
Hindu-Muslim tension in India

Since the BJP was again elected into power in 2019, tensions between Hindus and Muslims have escalated.

Watch video 02:34Uttar Pradesh candidate pushes anti-Muslim message

A citizenship law passed in 2019 called the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) fast-tracks citizenship of Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian immigrants from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh who arrived in India before 2015. However, critics say it excludes fast-tracking citizenship rights for Muslims.

In 2020, Muslim-majority neighborhoods in Delhi were the scene of violent riots that were set off by protests against the CAA. Mobs of mainly Hindu men targeted Muslim homes and businesses.

Two days of bloody violence left 53 dead, including both Hindus and Muslims, and more than 200 wounded.

More recently, a controversy over women wearing the Islamic headscarf "hijab" in schools and colleges has sparked tension and protest in southern India between Hindus and Muslims.

"The proliferation of anti-Muslim hate forms the architecture of Hindutva," rights activist Shabnam Hashmi told DW.

"Hate speech against Muslims in India has gained momentum, with several right-wing and Hindutva leaders calling for a Muslim 'genocide' with no response from the government," she said.

How intertwined are Hindutva and Hinduism?

Hindutva was first proposed as a political idea in 1928 in a pamphlet written by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar titled "Hindutva: Who is a Hindu?"

"Hinduism has many texts including the Vedas, the Puranas while Hindutva has one central political pamphlet," Congress lawmaker Shashi Tharoor wrote in a recent social media post.

The BJP says Hindutva is a vehicle for social development and governance.

UP Chief Minister Adityanath said at a recent BJP rally that "Hindutva and development are complementary to each other. Those who are opposing Hindutva are in fact opposing development and Indianness

Watch video 02:51 Controversy over hijab at India's educational institutions

Hindutva is 'not divisive'

However, Tom Vadakkan, a Christian member of the BJP from the southern Kerala state, said that there is room from pluralism in Hindutva, despite it being rooted in Hinduism as a religion.

"There should be no hair-splitting about Hinduism and Hindutva. They are conjoined, and a historical reality which is civilizational. We live in a pluralistic society and there is no attempt to impose the party's ideology on any denomination," he told DW.

"Hindutva does not mean divisive politics," he added.

Muslim BJP member Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, a minister of minority rights in Modi's government, presented a different point of view, contending that Hindutva is not associated with religion but is rather a guiding civilizational principle.

"It is because of Hindutva that we talk about unity in diversity," said Naqvi during a heated television debate over Hindutva in December 2021.

Shazia Ilmi, a BJP spokesperson, told DW that Hindutva was being misinterpreted by the media and denied that the BJP discriminates against Muslims, adding that social development under the political ideology provides benefits for all of India's ethnic groups.

A major new Pew Research Center survey of religion across India, based on nearly 30,000 face-to-face interviews of adults conducted in 17 languages between late 2019 and early 2020, found that Indians of all religious backgrounds overwhelmingly say they are very free to practice their faiths.

K J Alphons, a BJP lawmaker and a former minister, told DW that sectarian strife in India should not be blamed on Hindutva politics.

"We are a huge country with nearly 1.4 billion people. Many of these incidents involving Muslims or Christians are economic in nature and not religious. These are isolated incidents and to see a conspiracy in such isolated incidents is unfair," he said.

SEE LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for HINDUISM IS FASCISM 

Canada: Police arrest dozens in bid to shut down protest

Police in Ottawa moved to clear the so-called "freedom convoy" from downtown area streets. Over 100 protesters were placed under arrest and numerous vehicles were towed.


Security forces carried out a massive operation at Ottawa's city center for protestors and trucks

Ottawa police moved Friday to shut down the protests that have blocked off streets in the downtown area of the capital and inspired similar copycat actions elsewhere in the world, arresting more than 100 and towing numerous vehicles.

Ottawa's interim police chief Steve Bell said, "We will run this operation 24 hours a day until the residents and community have their entire city back."

The 3-week-old polarizing protests ostensibly coalesced around pandemic restrictions and COVID vaccine requirements but have transformed into a wider anti-government movement.

On Monday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked emergency powers to deal with the blockade.

What are police doing to stop the protests?

Prior to Friday's effort, police sought to disrupt the protests with threats of fines or arrests. They did so to thin the crowd and in part out of fear of escalation or violence in and around the protest encampments. Those who remain are therefore likely to be more hardened in their views.

To carry out the operation, police set up 100 checkpoints to starve the protest community of food and fuel. On Friday, hundreds of police descended on downtown in the frigid cold where snow had just fallen.

At least one driver had his window smashed and a few were pulled from vehicles and taken into custody. Others who resisted were thrown to the ground and arrested.

Even after Friday's efforts to try and remove the protesters, dozens of trucks remained. Three of the most prominent organizers were arrested, including two Thursday and one Friday.

Police have offered that it could take days to remove the protesters.
How have protesters reacted to their receding encampment?

Police have worked to push the protesters toward parliament and clear streets of their presence along the way.

Protesters have also used shovels to build chest-high snow embankments there, forming an icy barricade.

On Friday afternoon, a steady stream of vehicles departed from Ottawa's Parliament Hill.

Those protesters remained linked arms and were energized in their encounters with police, but as dusk set in, the situation became more tense.

Kevin Homaund, a trucker from Montreal, told the AP news agency, "Freedom was never free," adding, "So what if they put the handcuffs on us and they put us in jail?''

Mark, a protester from Nova Scotia who would not give his last name, told Reuters news agency, "If they want to arrest me, I'll put my hands out, and they can twist-tie me up like everybody else here. We're going peaceful."

The protesters' umbrella group, which calls itself the "freedom convoy 2022," said, "We will continue to hold the line. We refuse to bow to abuses of power. The world is watching, Canada."

ar/fb (AFP, AP, Reuters)

In GOP embrace of truckers, some see racist double standard

By COREY WILLIAMS and SARA BURNETT

1 of 6

A person in a pickup truck and trailer blocking Wellington Street watches as a semi-trailer truck drives away, during an ongoing protest against COVID-19 measures that has grown into a broader anti-government protest, in Ottawa, Ontario, on Thursday, Feb. 17, 2022. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press via AP)

Former President Donald Trump, who repeatedly called Black Lives Matter protesters “thugs” and “anarchists,” said there’s “a lot of respect” for the overwhelmingly white truckers who blocked streets in the Canadian capital and shut down border crossings with the U.S. to oppose COVID-19 restrictions.

To Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, the truckers who parked bumper to bumper are “heroes” fighting for a righteous cause. Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity sent “solidarity, love and support” to the drivers, who also defied police orders to clear Ottawa’s streets and ignored a court order forbidding them from blaring their horns. GOP Sen. Rand Paul encouraged them to head south and “clog” streets in the U.S.

The embrace of the truckers by some of the nation’s most prominent conservative voices has drawn new accusations of hypocrisy and allegations that GOP leaders apply a racist double standard to large protests, including the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol involving a mostly white crowd of Trump supporters.

Earlier this month, the Republican National Committee called the Jan. 6 attack “legitimate political discourse.” But only months before the insurrection, Trump, Cruz and other conservatives excoriated protests against police brutality and racial injustice that were largely peaceful, with some instances of looting and unrest.

“This shows again that there is just an unequal right to express dissent in the United States,” said Karen Pita Loor, a professor at Boston University’s School of Law. She called conservatives’ support “two-faced,” saying that conservatives appear to support a white, conservative rights movement, but “when you have Black Lives Matter protesters on the street that are ‘thugs,’ they scare you.”

Conservatives counter that there’s a double standard on the other side — that liberals support the idea of protesting, until they disagree with the cause.

The Canadian protests known as the Freedom Convoy were declared a national emergency and an illegal occupation of the capital. For weeks, the drivers blocked streets to oppose vaccine mandates for truckers in Canada and other pandemic restrictions. They also blocked U.S. border crossings, inflicting economic damage on both countries.

Canadian police began arresting protesters late Thursday, when they picked up two key protest leaders. Officers returned Friday morning, going door to door along a line of trucks and other vehicles after sealing off much of the downtown area to outsiders. Some protesters were led away in handcuffs.

Conservatives say there is a clear distinction between the Canadian protests and instances of violence during protests over the killing of George Floyd by a white officer in Minneapolis, including buildings set on fire in that city and Portland, Oregon.

“All Americans have the right to peacefully protest. But there’s a stark contrast between civil disobedience — which has been a time-honored tradition in our country — and burning down buildings, looting businesses, and violently attacking actual peaceful protesters and innocent bystanders,” Paul said. The Republican from Kentucky was surrounded and confronted in 2020 by people protesting the death of Breonna Taylor, a Black woman fatally shot by police.

A Cruz spokesperson echoed those comments, saying that the senator “has been very clear” about the right to nonviolent protest. “What people don’t have the right to do is assault another person, loot and firebomb buildings — those actions are not exercising a constitutional right no matter the circumstance.”

Hannity said this week that the difference between the Black Lives Matter protests and the truckers is that the demonstrations in Canada have been peaceful.

At the Alberta border town of Coutts, across from Montana, where a blockade disrupted trade for more than two weeks, police arrested 13 people and seized guns and ammunition earlier this week. Four men also face a charge of conspiracy alleging that they plotted to kill Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers.

The support from conservatives in the U.S. goes beyond the words of politicians. Right-wing activists who oppose pandemic mandates and Canada’s liberal prime minster, Justin Trudeau, have also donated money to the demonstrations, hoping that the protests will help motivate American voters ahead of this year’s midterm elections.

Mario Morrow, a Black political consultant who has served both GOP and Democratic governors in Michigan, called Republicans’ support for the Canadian protests “hypocrisy at its highest level.”

The protests included a blockade of the Ambassador Bridge, which connects Detroit and Windsor, Canada, and carries 25% of all trade between the two countries. The demonstrations also forced the shutdown of a Canadian Ford plant last week. Shortages due to the blockade forced General Motors to cancel a shift last week at its midsize-SUV factory near Lansing, Michigan.

Police broke the blockade at the bridge — the border’s busiest and most important crossing — last weekend, arresting dozens of demonstrators.

“There is no way that the supporters, especially Republicans, can justify the funding support, the moral support and the political statements they are making by supporting these tactics,” Morrow said. He also said the protesters would not get the same support if they were “anything other than conservative white individuals.”

“They would have been locked up — day one,” he said.

Cruz last week praised the truckers for standing up against liberals who imposed mandates they “have no right to impose.” He said the protesters spoke not just for Canadians, but also for Americans.

“I think it is powerful to watch,” he said.

___

Associated Press writers Jill Colvin and Padmananda Rama in Washington contributed to this report.

That 'freedom convoy' in Ottawa? It's inspired by an Old Testament account of divine massacre

Thomas Lecaque, Alternet
February 19, 2022

A protester walks in front of parked trucks as demonstrators continue to protest the vaccine mandates implemented by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on February 8, 2022 in Ottawa, Canada Dave Chan AFP

When a church announces what’s called a Jericho March (or a Jericho Walk), you might picture congregants praying, walking around a building, trumpets blasting and an odd gospel song here and there.

You might forget, however, what comes next.

From Joshua 6:20-21:

When the trumpets sounded, the army shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the men gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so everyone charged straight in, and they took the city. They devoted the city to the Lord and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.

Jericho Marches are organized by a group by the same name. They were created by a coalition of Christian nationalists in the US. They are co-led by a Catholic think-tank writer (Arina Grossu of the Family Research Council) and an evangelical businessman (Rob Weaver).

The Jericho Marches rose to prominence recently. Supporters have been marching around the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa for around 20 days. They are, for Americans, a gothic reminder of what had been brewing in the lead up to the J6 sacking and looting of the US Capitol.

The same toxic brew

Jericho March, the group, is one of the religious groups, movements and ideologies that were at play in the insurrection. The Uncivil Religion project has uncovered a bevy of beliefs. The Jericho Marches, however, were the principal symbol of J6 and the Christian nationalism at its heart, not only in DC but at state capitols around the country.

Christian nationalism is a religious idea that transcends borders. It attracts a lot of support from like-minded insurrectionists abroad.

Last year, when journalist Emma Green wrote “A Christian Insurrection” for The Atlantic, it was subtitled it, “Many of those who mobbed the Capitol on Wednesday claimed to be enacting God’s will.”

The CBC Investigates piece on the Ottawa convoy this week is titled, “For many inside the Freedom Convoy, faith fuels the resistance.”

The links are very clear between groupings. And now, organizing in small groups and marching around Parliament, is a new Jericho March.

Spiritual warfare

Filmed versions of Jericho Marches reveal a large group in the snow, bearing primarily Canadian flags and singing hymns, reciting the Lord’s Prayer, and then blowing shofars before they began marching.

The hymns and prayers were occasionally punctuated by people yelling “Freedom!” and trucks honking. One woman spoke in tongues before engaging in rhetoric I’ve seen in spiritual warfare sermons.

They prayed for healing from vaccines and for summoning the “Lord of Heaven’s armies.” As the National Review reported, the Jericho March goes every day, once around Parliament, and seven full laps on Thursdays, carrying horns and trumpets. And they hope eventually more will show up, to the tune of thousands and thousands.

Benita Pedersen, an organizer from Alberta, was interviewed by a sympathetic Christian YouTube channel about what they are doing.

Pedersen said she felt a “call on her heart” to do this. She had been given a steer horn by a local farmer. She knew she had to bring it to Ottawa and to do a Jericho March. She’s using that as a shofar.

She said that the “freedom movement” was “100 percent hand in hand with Jesus.” They go together beautifully, she said, and nonbelieving supporters should think about Jesus and about how it goes together.

Divine massacre

But, of course, this isn’t her first time.

She led an anti-vaxx rally outside of the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Edmonton in September, received 10 Public Health Act tickets for organizing various anti-public health rallies in northern Alberta last year and revived her Twitter account, dormant since 2016, specifically in order to promote anti-public health events she organized and ran.


The story of Jericho is nothing to worry about.

It’s only about divine massacre.

Walls come crumbling down

They know what they are doing. One participant on TikTok recounted the biblical story before backpedaling that this was “not about crumbling walls or infrastructure,” but about softening hearts.

Previous Jericho Marches were not as benign. A year ago, in Edmonton, a Jericho March against pandemic restrictions was condemned by the conservative premier and questioned by anti-hate groups for their intention to march with tiki torches. It was joined by hate groups.

One of the organizers asked “what happened when they marched around seven times on the last day? The walls came crumbling down. Spiritually speaking, we need those corrupt walls that have been built up by the politicians to come smashing and crumbling down.”

“The Great Reset”

Back to Ottawa: Christian nationalist symbols are visible in the mob that has been marching and occupying space around Parliament for about 20 days, though in smaller numbers than in American rallies. It’s part of the broader effort to bring global attention to the “convoy.”

CBC has reported on the prayer circles and speeches and signs in the crowd. Christine Mitchell has written about the Christian nationalist imagery of 2 Chronicles in the crowd. More worrisome, though, is how much international presence, interference and support there is.

Fox News, Ben Shapiro and Dan Bongino influence groups around the world that spread Facebook propaganda. All of these have directed attention to Canada and fundraised for the occupation of the city.

Franklin Graham, a J6 defender, posted a supporting Instagram video, tagged with “I’d like you to meet who Prime Minister @JustinPJTrudeau called the ‘fringe minority.’ Tell me what you think of this video.” It featured the Jericho March, among others, and it was set to “Amazing Grace,” which was sung loudly by the mob on January 6.

The Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, a noted QAnon-adjacent radical traditionalist Catholic, gave a talk that linked the convoy expressly to “a worldwide chorus that wants to oppose the establishment of the New World Order on the rubble of nation-states through the Great Reset desired by the World Economic Forum and by the United Nations under the name of ‘Agenda 2030.’” Viganò added:

"We know many heads of state have participated in Klaus Schwab's School for Young Leaders — the so-called Global Leaders for Tomorrow — beginning with Justin Trudeau and Emmanuel Macron, Jacinta Ardern and Boris Johnson and, before that, Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy and Tony Blair.”

We should worry

“The Great Reset” is an explicitly anti-public health conspiracy theory. Viganò has promoted it relentlessly. It is also used by anti-vaxx, anti-mask and other anti-mandate groups as their way of drumming up support internationally and bringing in more conspiracy theorists.

Viganò’s message focused on Christian nationalism from a Catholic perspective. It was also permeated with QAnon tropes:

“But, even more, dear Canadian brothers, it is necessary to understand that this dystopia serves to establish the dictatorship of the New World Order and totally erase every trace of Our Lord Jesus Christ from society, from history and from the traditions of peoples.”

The elements of spiritual warfare – repeatedly deployed by Christian nationalist groups before in service of Trump and elsewhere – on the borderline of where it crosses over into physical violence, the Jericho Marchs, the violent commentary supporting it, the prayer, the shofars, the echoes of J6 expressed from abroad and divorced from the actual Canadian context – these are a symptom of a broader problem.

Illiberalism is growing. The variant around Trump – conspiracy-laden, seditionist, Christian nationalism – is getting strong by the minute.

Last year, it was in Washington.

This year, Ottawa.

Next year? We should worry.

Mike Lindell says he'll use parachutes to deliver pillows to the Freedom Convoy after they got stuck at the US-Canada border


Bill Bostock
Thu, February 17, 2022,

Founder and CEO of My Pillow Mike Lindell at "Save America" rally in Cullman, Alabama.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images


Mike Lindell announced on Sunday he was sending 12,000 pillows to Canada's Freedom Convoy truckers.

He told Insider on Wednesday he was still awaiting a permit from Canadian customs to deliver them.

He told The Daily Beast he's now booked a helicopter to drop the pillows with tiny parachutes.

The MyPillow CEO and Trump acolyte Mike Lindell said he plans to drop pillows to truckers in the Canadian "Freedom Convoy" after his overland shipments were delayed.

The "Freedom Convoy" protests against vaccine mandates and COVID-19 restrictions started in Ottawa on January 28 and have since spread across the country, disrupting services and supply chains.

Lindell, who has backed the anti-vaccination movement, announced Sunday he was sending 12,000 pillows from his Minnesota factory to the "brave truckers" blocking roads near the US-Canada border and Ottawa.

But he told Insider's Cheryl Teh on Wednesday that the ground delivery was delayed as he awaited permission from Canadian authorities.

Lindell told The Daily Beast that he had since chartered a helicopter and planned to jettison the pillows over the truckers using "little parachutes" on Thursday.

"We need to get the MyPillows to the people!" he told the outlet.

"I just confirmed with them [helicopter company], and yes, this is the plan. We have the helicopter confirmed, but we are moving the time up to 11 a.m. [Thursday]."

Lindell told The Daily Beast he could not disclose the location of the pillow drop.

It is not clear whether Lindell would need authorization to deliver the pillows by air. The Canada Border Services Agency did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

The Freedom Convoy protests have stretched on for more than three weeks, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday invoked rarely-used emergency powers to try and end the standoff. The 1988 Emergencies Act allows the government to ban public gatherings and restrict travel.

Speaking on Monday, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said the government was also moving to freeze the bank accounts of the truckers and suspend their vehicle insurance.

Variations of the Freedom Convoy have spread from Canada to countries including Austria, New Zealand, and France.

WE LIVE NEXT DOOR TO CONSPIRACY NATION
Jordan Klepper Confronts Canadian ‘Freedom Convoy’ Truckers, Finds a Lot of Conspiracy Nuts

Marlow Stern
Thu, February 17, 2022,

Comedy Central

Last fall, both the U.S. and Canada lifted vaccination requirements for long-haul truckers in order to combat a series of supply-chain disruptions. Those restrictions were put back in place last month, and ever since, Canadian anti-vaxxers have formed a convoy in protest of COVID-19 vaccine mandates, shutting down roads and harming businesses.

The so-called “Freedom Convoy” has become a political flashpoint, given that many of the protesters have no ties to trucking, according to the Canadian Trucking Alliance. It’s been praised by culture war-obsessed right-wing troll-politicians in the U.S. like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), and much of the funding for the display has come from right-wing donors in America, with some of the biggest donations given by well-heeled Republican backers.

And so, it was the perfect place for The Daily Show’s Jordan Klepper to do his thing.

Klepper, of course, has garnered a reputation for confronting deranged right-wing Americans, from those storming the Capitol to try to overturn a democratic election on Jan. 6 to childish anti-vax protesters with a fetish for comparing the choice to get a vaccine in order to help prevent a deadly global pandemic that’s killed millions to Nazi Germany. The comedian’s latest “Finger on the Pulse” took him to Ottawa to try to get to the bottom of why these protesters have been making such a fuss.

“We don’t live in Germany… We don’t live in Nazi Germany. Those days are over,” one protester told Klepper. “Show me your papers don’t happen anymore. That’s a freedom that everyone should have.”

Holocaust Survivor Sidney Zoltak Has a Message for Anti-Vaxxers Exploiting His Trauma

“Is the Germany comparison a stretch here in Canada?” countered Klepper.

“No,” he replied.

During his segment, Klepper encountered a number of protesters in the convoy who also happen to be Trump supporters—and approached one wearing a QAnon hat.

“I see the ‘Q Army’ on your hat. Is Q the American thing trying to find JFK Jr.?” asked Klepper.

“Exactly… exactly,” the man replied.

Another conspiracy theorist-convoy protester who Klepper came across said, “It’s more than just the vaccine passport and stuff… The Agenda 2030 is a good start… It’s where the world’s headed toward one government. They want to sterilize us that only certain people can have kids.”

For more, listen to The Daily Show’s Jordan Klepper on The Last Laugh podcast.

Canadian trucker protests show how the loudest voices in the room distort democracy


Matthew Jordan, Associate Professor of Media Studies, Penn State

Sydney Forde, Doctoral Student in Mass Communications, Penn State
Wed, February 16, 2022, 

What happens when the voices of a few drown out the views of the many? Ed Jones/AFP via Getty Images

After Canadian truckers upset with vaccination mandates made their way to Ottawa, they parked their vehicles near Parliament and started making noise – lots of it – blasting their air horns day and night, disturbing the repose of citizens at home, work and in school.

The local reaction was swift. Hundreds of noise complaints prompted Ottawan police to issue tickets and declare a state of emergency.

The noise of air horns continued, undeterred. Some residents fled the city; on Feb. 7, 2022, fed-up Ottawans filed a class-action lawsuit calling for quiet.


A lawyer representing organizers of the convoy – an amalgamation of conservative activists, anti-government agitators and conspiracy theorists – claimed that blasting hundreds of 105-decibel horns was merely “part of the democratic process.”

However, Justice Hugh McLean ruled for the plaintiffs.

“Tooting a horn,” he declared, “is not an expression of any great thought I’m aware of.”

As scholars who study media and democracy, we believe the defendants are correct to argue that they should be able to protest and contribute to an ongoing debate. However, not all voices are pitched the same. Amplified by technology, it’s easy for a loud and relentless minority to dominate the soundscape and drown out all other points of view.
Controlling noise to keep the peace

States curbing noise in defense of citizens’ right to be left alone is nothing new.

In 44 B.C., Julius Caesar ruled that “no one shall drive a wagon along the streets of Rome or along those streets in the suburbs where there is continuous housing.” By the Middle Ages, most cities had a range of bells, chimes and sound signals that were used to communicate, and people who lived there understood when they should and should not be used. During the Industrial Revolution, all kinds of new noises produced by technology disrupted the peace, requiring new laws to curtail factories, steam engines and their whistles, clanging bells, and the roaring crowds that packed cities.

By the early 20th century, as automobiles started taking over the soundscapes, cities and states around the globe created new laws that balanced drivers’ need to use horns with residents’ need to be left alone in their homes.

The Industrial Revolution introduced an array of ear-splitting technologies.

 Cartoon from Chicago Times, November 17, 1929.

This isn’t the first time that protesters have defied ordinances limiting horn use to get their point across. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, cities like Paris and London started fining drivers who abused klaxon horn technology – the “AHOOGA” horn – within city limits. Taxi drivers protested by defiantly honking their horns.

Noise is always a social problem when people have to share space. Democratic deliberation, which involves speaking, listening and often quietly thinking, depends on such community norms.

Amplification technology distorts conversations, making it possible for a few voices to drown out the many.

Media megaphones

Connected by digital telecommunication technologies, today’s vast democracies are just as vulnerable to problems caused by a different sort of amplification in local public spaces: media amplification.

Fifty years ago, the convoy and its noise would have likely remained a local ordinance issue. Instead, the story has morphed into an international incident thanks to amplification by digital and traditional media networks.

Conservative media have been framing the truckers as a grassroots movement with overwhelming support – working-class heroes fighting the repressive state.

Fox News has devoted significant coverage to the protests, while right-wing media influencers like Ben Shapiro have latched onto the “silent minority versus the state” storyline, disseminating it to their huge followings.

Money can also amplify, and reporters have traced much of it back to international groups utilizing hacked Facebook pages. One Bangladeshi marketing firm specializing in computational propaganda easily exploited Facebook’s lax oversight – and the way its algorithm rewards divisive content – to pump up the volume on misinformation about the legality of mandates, provoking a sense of grievance that allowed it to raise millions in dark money.

The amplification has distorted the public health conversation and the reality of public opinion.

Over 80% of Canadians and 90% of Canadian truckers are vaccinated. Meanwhile, Canada’s biggest trucking alliance, the CTA, has denounced the noisy agitators: “CTA believes such actions — especially those that interfere with public safety — are not how disagreements with government policies should be expressed.”

Many truckers in Canada, including the nearly 1 in 5 who have South Asian heritage, do not feel heard. Sagroop Singh, the president of the Ontario Aggregate Trucking Association, where more than half of truckers are South Asian, stated, “We don’t even know who the organizers of this protest are. Nobody asked us if we agree with their demands.”

Many truckers think this incident has prioritized the divisive rhetoric of American and international far-right groups over their voices, diverting the conversation away from important issues for Canadian truckers, like road safety and higher wages.
Like speaking, listening is also a right

In a pluralistic democracy, it is important that all voices be heard.

But the truckers who occupied Ottawa and a growing number of sites along the border using noisy intimidation aren’t merely asking to be heard; they are drowning out dialogue and stoking fears of a violent insurrection.

Freedom of speech should not only be measured by an absence of limits on who can speak: Along with the right to be heard is what filmmaker Astra Taylor has called “the right to listen.” You can’t hear other voices in a pluralistic democracy if a disruptive minority, amplified by money and noise-making technology, has the dial on their amp turned up to 11.

When the loudest voice in the room is rewarded with disproportionate media attention, it negates the rights of others. Having a conversation about ways to lower the decibels isn’t a matter of censorship. It’s about balancing a shared soundscape so that a full range of voices can be heard.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Matthew Jordan, Penn State and Sydney Forde, Penn State.

Read more:

Our centuries-long quest for ‘a quiet place’

Have we become too paranoid about mass shootings?