Power to the dog-walkers! Power to the Ram Ranch!

The situation in Ottawa continues to get weirder. The Ram Ranch Resistance* managed a series of counter-protests this weekend, after cops continued to allow the FluTrucksKlan to set up a soundstage and a hot tub and throw a street party, all while carrying jerry cans of gas to refuel in defiance of the injunction. You can't even make this shit up.

Do you know how hard it is to get Ottawa residents to do a protest? They're that pissed.

The thing is, fascists are really cowardly and in my experience, will back away from any kind of opposition. Even if it's 25 neighbourhood moms and dog-walkers.

And, in fact, it was 25 neighbourhood moms and dog-walkers who did what three levels of government, police, and military failed to do. They blockaded an intersection, and in what has been dubbed the Battle of Billings Bridge, forced incoming truckers to surrender their flags, jerry cans, and signs, and turn around and go the fuck back.

Please enjoy this short clip of the lead trucker having to scrape a sticker off his stupid truck.

Now, it is still very far from over, especially as Mayor Jim Watson is still attempting to negotiate with the terrorists. This pampering of far-right extremists is likely to embolden them, as is the PPC serving them a free pancake breakfast for some reason. But we've learned some important lessons here.

• State actors will move against the far-right only when it affects Bay St. (e.g., clearing the bridges) but not Main St. (regular people and economies). Otherwise, their interests are aligned.
• Defunding the police will have no negative impact on ordinary people.
• Community defence can be done by a small number of unarmed civilians.
• Fascists will increasingly use tactics like this to pressure governments, but there are hard limits on what they are able to do.

For those keeping track, the heroes in the battle to liberate Ottawa so far are:

• 21-year-old public servant Zexi Li, who filed the injunction against the occupiers
• Catherine McKenney, councillor for Ward 14 Somerset, who seems to be the only politician trying to do anything about this
• A handful of journalists who've done decent reporting on this when our national media failed
• A much larger group of people on Twitter who got information out
• The Algonquin Nation of Ottawa for calling out occupiers who appropriated Indigenous ceremony on their unceded territory
• The RamRanchResistance, who collected valuable intel on the occupiers' Zello chat and also subjected them to Ram Ranch
• Grant MacDonald, for writing a banger of a song
• The citizens of downtown who rose up and actually turned some of these bastards back

(I may have missed some; feel free to let me know of any omissions in the comments.)

I think the copycat protests in Paris and New Zealand have driven home the danger here. There is a lot that's theoretically funny about this situation if it is not happening in your city, but the 4chan-esque absurdity is part of the strategy. The occupiers have, in many ways, been successful. The police and military are largely on standby for an official coup if need be, and cannot be contained by any level of government. Doug Ford and Theresa Tam have acquiesced to the terrorists' demands and have signalled the rollback of public health measures and the full eugenicist, pro-covid agenda. The occupiers have demonstrated that you can absolutely paralyze a nation with a tiny minority of people who do not represent public opinion in any way, so long as you have the right equipment and steady funding.

We need to be prepared for similar, sustained, and repeated attacks. Brace yourselves. Shit is fucked up and terrifying and there's no end in sight.

* Do I need to explain or can I trust you to Google it for yourself? Don't Google it at work please.