Big Wheels.

The Freedom Convoy hits the road.

The top three items of last Saturday’s News Items were about the “occupation” of Ottawa, Canada by truckers protesting vaccination mandates. Last Sunday’s “special edition” of News Items was entirely devoted to the “occupation” and some reactions to it. It was a big story then. It’s gotten bigger.

Ottawa-like “occupations” have sprouted up across Canada and around the world. The New York Times website this morning has a handy map of the “occupations” in Canada. They’ve taken place in cities and border locations stretching from Quebec City, Quebec to Calgary, Alberta; a distance of 2400 miles.

They’ve also taken place in New Zealand, Australia, the United States and France. Here’s a report from Paris in yesterday’s Times:

Thousands of vehicles carrying demonstrators from around France were converging on Paris on Friday in a movement inspired by Canada’s trucker-led protests, despite warnings by French authorities that they would break up attempts to block the capital.

Starting in Lille, Strasbourg, Nice and other cities, convoys of cars, trucks, camping vans and other vehicles slowly made their way to Paris, bearing protesters who honked, waved French flags and held up signs protesting the government’s vaccine pass and other grievances like rising gas prices.

The Paris police issued a ban against the so-called “Convoi de la Liberté,” a direct translation of Canada’s “Freedom Convoy,” threatening to fine offenders and tow blocking vehicles. On Friday, over 7,000 police officers were deployed to tollbooths and other key sites in and around the city with bulldozers and water cannons to break up potential blockades.

Clearly, these “demonstrations” or “occupations” are no longer about having to show a vaccine pass to get across the Ambassador Bridge that connects Windsor, Ontario to Detroit Michigan, or any other border crossing, for that matter. They’ve morphed into what the “demonstrators” or “protestors” imagine is a populist uprising, in Canada and around the world.

The mantra of these uprisings is straight from the movie ‘Network’: We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore. The protesters’ view of their “occupations” seems cinematic as well. They’ve cast themselves as the salt of the earth — decent folks — rising up against a condescending and power-hungry elite that takes care of its own and cuts everyone else loose. This time, the occupiers promise to “see it through.” It’s not clear what that means.

Here in the United States, right-wingers are brimming with excitement over the prospect of big rig “Freedom Convoys” motoring across America, destined for a showdown in Washington, DC, maybe on the very day of President Biden’s State of the Union address (March 1st). They see it as a win all around.