this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2025
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.

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The protests were linked to concerns over personal freedoms and government overreach. Mainly related to COVID-19 mandates and stay at home recommendations.

Supporters saw the movement as a grassroots stand for liberty against government overreach.

*edit the freedom convoy organised 3 years ago in 2022 as pointed out by commenter's.

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[–] orcrist@lemm.ee 14 points 3 hours ago

You are looking for common principles and shared values, but MAGA was only looking to seize power for itself, or at least some rich people who are part of it.

Don't be shocked. This is basic manipulation and greed. It really is that simple. And the MaAGA crowd is disproportionately bigoted, so they get to hate who they hate more.

[–] Delphia@lemmy.world 10 points 4 hours ago

Ive posted more than once that when Trump was reelected and there was no attempt to storm the capital to block his confirmation I knew the USA was doomed.

If they are prepared to use violence and ignore the rules and you arent... you're fucked.

almost like everything a fascist says is a lie, and the things they accuse you of are just what they're getting hard about doing to you.

but that would be absurd.

[–] CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 65 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

The Freedom Convoy was as much about personal rights as the Civil War was about state's rights.

[–] qevlarr@lemmy.world 11 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

Well said, there's even a deeper layer: Ask the question "states' rights to do what?" (A: slavery). The same can be asked of the freedom convoy: "personal rights to do what?" (A: infect and kill others with a highly contagious and dangerous disease). Their exercise of personal rights in the way that some people did, should have been prosecuted as goddamn manslaughter. Same for covid denying government officials in many countries

[–] qevlarr@lemmy.world 68 points 16 hours ago (2 children)

They never really protested any rights, they were doing a performative demonstration showing them to be a part of the conservative crowd.

None of them ever gave a fuck about not spreading a deadly disease. Fuck them

[–] Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 3 points 9 hours ago

It was also timed by the organizers to be around when covid restrictions were already going to be getting lifted, so they could claim a victory while collecting donations.

[–] CircaV@lemmy.ca 5 points 14 hours ago

Each of those losers would be pro-Canada becoming a state. Fuck the ultra rw.

[–] TheFeatureCreature@lemmy.ca 179 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

The Convoy being a rights movement was a skin-deep excuse for what it actually was. It did not take long at all before it turned into a general anti-vax fascist movement that saw significant funding and support coming up from the US.

[–] SolidShake@lemmy.world 66 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Right. Don't forget how Republicans injected into schools that "my body my choice" that their kids shouldn't be forced to get vaccinated, and then overturned the abortion laws the next minute. Fuck I hate those people.

[–] NarrativeBear@lemmy.world 8 points 14 hours ago

Right! My body my choice, but some how abortion laws don't follow this logic? Some serious mental gymnastics .

[–] Lauchs@lemmy.world 39 points 16 hours ago

Related story, basically the hardest I laughed during covid.

Being a good Vancouverite, when those convoy fucks wanted to parade around and honk at hospitals, hundreds or thousands of us with bikes got in their way and kept them away from the hospitals.

Okay, so we're blocking an arterial and some convoy fuck is screaming at us about how, in his words, "we've got to protest smarter." He then finally realizes we have been politely letting non convoy cars through the lane next to him, so floors the accelerator and aims for that lane. But, he didn't shoulder check and slammed right into a car in that lane in front of a cop. So for the next however long we got to point and laugh while advising him about the merits of shoulder checking and how he needed to drive smarter.

Gotta love when an asshole causes a 100% fault car crash with no injuries.

[–] sittinonatoilet@sopuli.xyz 80 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

My dentist tried to bs me with this stupid convoy. He claimed that Trudeau picked up the phone ‘do you know who he called? Antifa’. I laughed in his face and found a new dentist.

[–] NotSteve_@lemmy.ca 27 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

“Why won’t he just hear the concerns of the people calling for his death!!”

Not to mention all the restrictions they were complaining about were put in place by the provinces. Ironically it was a Conservative premier in Ontario’s case.

[–] CptCosmicMoron@lemmy.ca 10 points 17 hours ago

Or it was the US. Truckers couldn't enter the US without vaccination, which is not the Canadian government's fault.

[–] CircaV@lemmy.ca 2 points 12 hours ago

And the US who had vaccine rules for people coming in to their country. Yet the kkklownvoy protested Canadas govt over it.

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 9 points 18 hours ago

I had a specialist doc a while ago who started out criticizing trump. But within five minutes was legitimately arguing that Charlie Manson would have been our greatest president and that it wasn't too crazy for someone to only want to live with people "just like us" (both white) and that "them" really were a problem.

Like, I'm used to conversations taking a hard right turn, frankly I look like what white supremacists wish they look like, so I get it often.

But I just did not see that coming after she started out shit talking trump

He's even losing the (relatively) wealthy and (absolutely) crazy racists now. That's his bread and butter...

[–] NaturalViber@lemmy.world 2 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

Genuinely asking. What is this post about? I've seen 3-4 posts with the same vague description of what is actually going on. Sorry, I checked out of politics for yhe past 2 weeks and am genuinely asking, what.

[–] Zero22xx@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

It's probably about how all of the right wing people and their alt right movements over the last decade have been a complete load of bullshit spread by liars and hypocrites. Because they've been crying and crying about 'freedom' all this time and now that people's freedom is actually actively being violated, suddenly they don't have the same kind of energy. They've been preaching 'free speech' but they're silent when a protester gets arrested and threatened with deportation for speaking. Even the fucking conspiracy theory crowd took one look at Project 2025 and went "doesn't look like anything to me."

So it's probably just an observation that all of this madness over the last decade has been instigated by liars and supported and spread by liars. And that it's always actually just been about hate all along. A lot of us knew that already but now it's at the point where anyone denying it just looks willingly fucking stupid.

[–] NarrativeBear@lemmy.world 2 points 7 hours ago

I was generally just thinking how the general public 3-5 years back were protesting about loss of rights (ie. stay at home "orders") imposed by their government, albeit the protest back then may have been a little flawed and morphed into a Anti-vaccine movement.

Now, 5 years later people are seemingly loosing their rights for real (within the USA) and its almost as if no one notices. ie. Judges being threatened, public services bring dismantled, basic foods increasing in price.

I know its not a perfect 1:1 correlation. The lockdowns effected everyone at the same time in roughly the same way no matter social status. The current situation is more along the lines of "it does not effect me".

[–] djsoren19@lemmy.blahaj.zone 19 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

The Freedom Convoy had Russian money funding its media campaign.

The problem for leftist organizing always really comes back to the fact that capitalists are the ones in power, and that they overwhelming prefer fascism to a social democracy. There's no billionaires funneling money into 50501's pockets to organize a mass turnout. It's the same reason the Tea Party was so successful while similar attempts on the left were not; their primary campaigns were well funded by the Koch bros.

[–] starlinguk@lemmy.world 1 points 5 hours ago

Gates and Saunders could fund them. Maybe they're not as liberal as people think, eh.

[–] humanspiral@lemmy.ca 6 points 13 hours ago

Freedom convoy grew into something much bigger than Truckers protesting about vaccine mandates to cross the border. They had a point that they work in very isolated conditions, but covid freaks were opportunistic, and US/right wing funding to make it blow up was plenty.

[–] ferretfacefrankburns@lemmy.ca 28 points 18 hours ago

The Convites are a special breed of abject morons who couldn't recognize authoritarianism if it hit them in the face. They were manipulated by Russia to do their dumbass protest, enabled by the cops (OPP and OPS were fucking worst than useless) and fueled by MAGA conspiracies.

[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 14 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

And they drove a bunch of cool trucks and everyone was happy to see them. /s

I didn't find the video of the guy yelling at them to fuck off and go away from his balcony, but if anyone has a link, it was pretty good.

[–] CircaV@lemmy.ca 5 points 14 hours ago (1 children)
[–] fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net 2 points 9 hours ago (1 children)
[–] CircaV@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 hour ago

It’s a guy yelling at kkklownvoy losers from his balcony.

[–] malloc@lemmy.world 19 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

I for one ascribe the blame to at least 40 years of pseudoscience -- neoclassical economic theory [1] -- pushed by neoliberal economists. These same neoliberal economists are often backed by the rich (fuck you "Chicago School of Economics" [2]) . For decades they have pushed this narrative of "government bad" and "private sector" good. Taxing the rich only means you punish the people you want to help (middle and lower socioeconomic classes). This pseudoscience gave birth to the godawful economic policy of "trickle down economics".

Decades of:

  • defunding public services (by both parties, by the way) to make way for tax cuts for the wealthy
  • middle class wage stagnation (ie, take for example the minimum wage and sub-minimum wage for tipped employees)
  • decimation of union participation and subsequently power to labor
  • cheap money backed by the faith of the US govt and given to the ultra wealthy as a means of extracting wealth from the people -- see private equity

Want to know why many people are easily manipulated? They can't afford the same lifestyle as their parents. Drowning in debt to greedy capitalist pigs. Years of this cycle and once the algorithms detect this, you can be easily turned into cannon fodder for the ultra wealthy.

"hey bro, your life is shit because immigrants took yer job!! Govt trying to inject microchips into you! Join the FrEEdOm CoNvOy!"

Get us into fighting a culture war against each other, when we should be banding together and fighting a class war.

Fuck the billionaire class.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoclassical_economics [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_school_of_economics

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[–] blindbunny@lemmy.ml 22 points 18 hours ago

They were useful idiots

[–] RumorsOfLove@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 9 hours ago

Is there a way to hide all comments from folks who werent in Ottawa at the time?

[–] NotSteve_@lemmy.ca 17 points 18 hours ago

*three years ago. I live downtown Ottawa and remember the convoy distinctly (unfortunately) but you made me feel like time was passing even quicker than it already is lol

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 18 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

It formed because of a group of people manipulated into a protest for "our rights".

Neither the people participating or the ones driving the propaganda ever gave two shits about anyone else's rights.

They'd support a law requiring everyone be a fan of their favorite sports all team, because it doesn't negatively effect them and since it aligns with their established beliefs it's the "right" decision for everyone else anyways.

This is how "for the greater good" can do great evil and why writing off people who commit monsterous acts as monsters is fucking stupid.

We need to understand why they do this shit so we can explain to them why they shouldn't.

What fucked us over is the only other option we're neoliberals. They can't talk about fixing real problems because they're paid to ignore those very problems. So instead they try to make Dem voters think of it like sportsball too.

The problem is at best Dem voters aren't maniac fans like Republicans. We're the home team fans who hate our own team and wish anyone else was calling the shots. It's like we were cursed to be born in Cleveland and LeBron James already moved away

[–] wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world 4 points 17 hours ago (1 children)
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[–] Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works 13 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (9 children)

You have no idea how much I want to have this conversation.

I was told our rights to travel or go outside won’t return.

I was told that I would be immune compromised for taking an experimental vaccine.

Can we now get everyone to admit some people were very wrong during COVID?

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[–] SolidShake@lemmy.world 9 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Republicans actually think they are being set free with the removal of government employees.

Yes. Clinton also gutted government departments.... Over the span of seven years. Trump is doing that within less than a month and is doing so much more damage. It's like watching someone with a gambling addiction budget their monthly income.

People ARE protesting though. And they are protesting all over the world. I think trump is the first, most hated dictator in the world right after Hitler.

[–] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 6 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

Clinton's reductions in government was like dieting and exercising for 7 years to lose weight.

The current administration is using a chainsaw to cut off the legs to lose weight instantly.

[–] Fandangalo@lemmy.world 10 points 18 hours ago

Because those groups were right wing and funded by political agitators, multiplied by manipulated media. The people on the ground did believe in the issues, but it was a concerted effort of political theater as a show of force.

Everyone else is now debilitated by wage theft that they can only care about the economy. When the market crashes harder and full recession hits, that’s when people will take to the streets because they’ll have lost jobs and freedoms. That’s when the martial law will start.

🥱

[–] thesohoriots@lemmy.world 5 points 15 hours ago

Ah I remember that. Forever burned into my brain: “Eighteen naked cowboys in the showers at Ram Ranch…”

[–] CptCosmicMoron@lemmy.ca 5 points 17 hours ago

Is that what it was about? Because there was no clear message, and there were some Nazi flags, people complaining about sex ed curriculum, something about farmers .. It was pretty much an incoherent mess that messed up the daily lives of Ottawa citizens, for what?

Children. They have the minds of children.

[–] psmgx@lemmy.world 4 points 18 hours ago

Because the same people organized both, for broadly speaking the same reasons

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