HURRAY AND THERE SHE GLOWS

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

Hurray and there she glows, hurray and there she glows. Hurray and there she glows, so early in the morning….

What, oh, never mind me. I was just thinking of this “People’s Trucker Convoy.” Sure, sure, I’ve been assured that people I know know some of the organizers and they’re totally not sus. But you know, we all have dumbass and gullible friends.

Okay, so to level set: I’d heard of trucker convoys forming last week. The earliest started March 1st. (From the North East.) There were others.

And then suddenly there is this People’s Convoy — which is totes a name we’d choose. Totes. Remember that “Descend on DC” thing they wanted us to do with Maoist imagery. Yeah. Like that — starting a week before the others.

And I was like “Is it real, or memorex?” but reserving opinion, because you know, people are weird, and it might be perfectly legit. And then I read that post over at Gateway Pundit.

Look, guys, if that post is real, the Convoy isn’t. Or at least there is someone manipulating its formation, objective and outcomes who is not on our side.

And the best result we can expect from it is that merely discourages real trucker convoys. (Arguably, marginally less dangerous, truckers could obtain the same benefit by being “sick” for a week or two. Though not as public, and could get weird.)

Look, go read the article. I’ll wait.

Okay. Done? Right. So, first there is the weird bravado. They have a thousand truckers, but they’re going to “swallow” DC like “an anaconda” who the heck does that kind of bragging on what amounts to “we’ll take up one lane and cause a traffic issue?

Then there is the “I figure we’ll stay for two days.”

ER…. WHAT?

Look, if you’re going to do this thing, and risk being arrested or worse, you stay as long as you have to stay to see the mandates rescinded. And hell, if I were doing it? I’d demand an investigation of the elections and that the Supreme court look into the case too, before I went home. Otherwise, knowing what you might be required to pay for this, what’s the point?

This would be like “Give me Liberty, or I’ll give you a traffic jam for two days.”

I’ll always be very suspicious of any supposedly big initiative that has no clear objectives, or no clear way to get there. This is why Jan 6 still strikes me as weird. It was never clear why Trump wanted all those people in DC. (Well, yes, maybe Mike Pence told him if there was a lot of people there, he’d object to certifying the results of the hinky elections. MAYBE. But why did Trump believe it? Never mind. His hiring was atrocious. Must be different in politics and business.)

As it turned out it was “get ahead of potential real demonstrations/riots, by having a fake one, and stomping on it hard enough that the right is terrified of doing it again.”

<Looks at trucker convoys. You know the left has no imagination, and uses the same plot over and over again. See however many people didn’t really kill themselves, right?

Okay, it is entirely possible that they expected if they started rioting, the right would join in — I call this the OWS maneuver where they think if they start it people will do what they want. It’s stupid, but it’s something that would work in a movie, and the left mostly has movie logic — and then they could stomp on anyone who opposed them because look at the horrible things these people have done.

So, if there are other trucker convoys, I’d look into them, but this one? Yeah. Well. It glows in the dark.

I figure it’s an excuse for Biden to declare them terrorists, with minimal effort and go after everyone who opposes him under the patriot act.

Or you know, it could be so he can declare victory and claim all other trucker convoys are useless. THAT’s the optimistic view, btw.

Again and again I say to you “What good thing can this possibly accomplish” should be your test for what you want to participate in and/or support.

Keep in mind that to win, the left must implicate you in shady stuff. No, seriously. You guys keep imagining them coming door to door or whatevs. That only works in movie-logic. Think of the US and how big it is. It might work in a city, among middle-class liberals. That’s it. Try it anywhere else, and none of the gun grabbers come back. Because when they come for you, you have to shoot back. And it’s horrible optics for them.

Remember the left cares about optics. Even if they gain power, you’re relatively safe, unless they can get you to be “bad.” Now for me being bad might be “Spreading disinformation” after they forbid it. But it still has to happen for the hammer to fall. And frankly, the more visible people will be safe. And the least visible. It’s the people in the middle who will get hit. (I don’t know. I THINK I might now be big enough. Mostly due to instapundit.) Even the USSR kept dissidents “for show” who weren’t killed.

And they won’t gain power that long — but that’s a discussion for another post — or be that secure, ever.

However, they might think they will. I think the Junta has been advising Justin Castreau, and view what happened there as a test case for here. Eh. I don’t think Canada is done with them, at that. And as for Americans being the same…. They do completely misunderstand us every time, don’t they?

Now, yeah, their trucker convoy cosplay could get them to declare some really bad stuff. And things will almost certainly, one way or another, go very bad for a while. Very bad in the sense that our money is becoming worthless, supplies are scarce, people and businesses we need are being crushed, and frankly the Brandon motto should be “I will try to bury you.” Because that’s what they’re doing.

I’m not saying it’s sunshine and flowers. I’m saying they can’t win long term.

I’m also saying we can survive. Yes, even if your bank accounts are frozen and people aren’t allowed to work. This isn’t a new maneuver. It was pulled in Portugal in the seventies. And people survived. FOR YEARS. It can and will be done again. And there are techniques. You just have to be flexible. Look, they can’t stop Porn and Criminals from making money/trading. What makes you think they can stop you?

Give a long side eye to anything that makes you go “What do they think is good about this?” or “What do they think will result from this?” Whether they’re asking for your support, or asking you to participate. At best people doing things where they can’t win — they can’t — are stupid. At worst they glow in the dark. Neither is good for you.

But be ready to support things that are worth it. Because frankly, my internal clock says it’s very near. Now my clock might be wrong. This has happened in the time, because I’m so politics-obsessed. So when I feel “two weeks’ it might be a year. But from the anger on line, it’s not much more.

Unless they can convince us it’s useless, of course. So take down that “Abandon all hope” sign and be alert and ready.

I’m not even sure the “faux convoy” won’t spark a reaction our lords and mistresses will …. not like. I wouldn’t at all be surprised. To quote — I think Friends? — “You’re playing with fire” “I thought you said I was swimming with sharks” “Yeah, you’re playing with fire and the sharks don’t like it.”

When things are as on edge as right now, starting a “faux riot/rebellion” is one of the stupidest things you can do. But then these people think in movie logic, and couldn’t organize a bonk in a brothel, so what do you expect, exactly? Stupid can’t be ruled out.

Stay alert, keep your powder dry, and don’t be unduly trusting.

Probably

Strap on and hold tight. The ride is about to get bumpy.

173 thoughts on “HURRAY AND THERE SHE GLOWS”

  1. Yeah, I have nothing new to say.

    Currently, I don’t have an opinion on navigating this specific mess.

    I don’t have a secret inside track on figuring stuff out.

    My mind is a bit glitchy, I get ‘parity errors’, and then I rebuild a chunk of my logic from scratch. If opposition mind games aren’t accounting for this, I may see through it.

    I have habits that help with some types of problems, when my mind is mostly working. When the mind isn’t working, I get as confused as anyone.

    1. Frankly, calling anything “The People’s whatever” stinketh with the mighty stench of communist subversion, and I’d stay away from it just on that principle alone.
      I’d avoid anything to do with a top-down organized protest, myself. Better small, spontaneous, independent cells, just going out and doing their thing.
      Or, in the case of independent truckers … NOT doing their thing.
      Sorry, can’t take that load. Got the crud/can’t find my vaxx certificate/not certified for that cargo.
      Be like water. And inscrutable. Only trust those whom you have known for a long time.

      1. Or adding “Front” to your name. That’s leftist nomenclature.

        (“We have a common enemy!” “THE JUDEAN PEOPLE’S FRONT?!”)

        1. I once had a great-aunt who worked as an accountant for a company in the 50’s that was probably a front, but it wasn’t Leftist and it wasn’t in the name – it was laundering money for Lucky Luciano. Not that she had to do or see anything illegal, but given the ownership and that it was some type of business that did a largely cash business, it was almost certainly a front.

          1. That’s honest crime, not political crime. [And I can’t believe that I find honest crime a little less wrong, but there it is.]

            1. So do I, because damaging as organized crime may be, political crimes exact a far higher toll in body count and damage to societal trust. Bloody as some of the gang fights during the Prohibition Era were, they’re nothing compared to the body count of the Wilmington insurrection of 1898 or what Fauci and Biden have racked up, let alone Hitler, Mao, and Stalin. And unchecked crime does erode societal trust, it doesn’t do so nearly as much as a government rigging elections or throwing protesters and political opponents in jail.

    2. Umm, I keep seeing this, and I have no idea what “C4c” might mean in this context – a little help, please?

        1. I remember years ago Jerry Pournelle asking a very similar question, though I can’t remember if it was about c4c itself or the stream of other abbreviations, designations, and such that followed. Ah, those were the days. I miss Jerry popping in here. Now I have to remind myself that despair is a sin.

            1. Plus his blog, while archaic, was such a refreshingly unique and eclectic mix of science, tech, politics, writing, fandom, and philosophy, imbued with a bit of Jerry. I seldom saw him post something there that didn’t have something of interest to me.

              Reading back issues of Byte online recently I see a little of that in his columns, like the tale of testing a new portable computer by taking a road trip it and Larry Niven out to the desert to finish up one of their collaborations, complete with review of the computer and the word processor software, and an ETA on the book.

              God didn’t make many like Jerry, alas.

  3. Ah, this makes sense. Why would American truckers try to snarl up D.C., when we are busy taking apart mandates and masking in State after State? This seemed kind of silly to me, an excuse to have a photogenic convoy of American trucks waving flags. And then… what? Sit in D.C. traffic for what reason?

    I hope the truckers wise up to this and the only trucks that show up in D.C. have government plates.

    1. The regime needs an event. Now that Putin has called his bluff, Biden needs something, anything desperately. It’s a very dangerous time to be alive.

      2. This!!! The Turnip in Chief wants someone to yell and whisper about, or at least his handlers do. Putin has played him (as if that was hard) and he’s standing around holding certain bits of his anatomy. As I have seen noted this emboldens China. and it also tells Japan, Korea and ESPECIALLY Taiwan that help will not be coming as the US Navy stands down to sort out its pronouns and get in touch with its feelings. All three of those countries could have nuclear weapons in a matter of months to perhaps days if they have been stockpiling stuff. India and Pakistan already have that hardware. The east may become a VERY dangerous place in short order.

    2. Especially since you don’t need truckers to snarl up D.C. That place seems to be a self-replicating traffic-jam on the best of days. A wreck in the wrong place at rush hour, either AM or PM, ties everything into knots when the weather’s good and it’s not the start of a holiday. Causing a traffic jam in D. C. is like carrying coals to Newcastle. Yes, I get the symbolism, but the phrasing . . .

      2. TXRed I concur. Washington traffic make Boston or Manhattan look like fun. Why? Beats me, nice clean lay out (unlike Boston), Limited super narrow streets (Unlike say the North End where there are places with a car parked legally that two Minis would have trouble getting by each other). The pedestrians can be VERY aggressive (especially in the poorer neighborhoods up towards the north of the city). And as our Hostess has noted, Why? the mandates are dead nationally due to Supreme Court, Red states never went there, even Blue states and cities (even Boston bluest of the Blue!?!) are removing those restriction with a few weird exceptions (NYC stubborn holdout). Running those trucks AIN”T cheap and there’s plenty of stuff needs moving that can make money, I suspect other than the fuel costs this is the best its been in years for independent long haul truckers and even the fuel issue still probably leaves profit. No independent contractor is going to throw away money when he or she has a nut to make. This glows a radioactive green like Pripiyat the morning after Chernobyl went bad.

        1. Washington traffic make Boston or Manhattan look like fun.

          –
          Or like the Bee said “Report! Trucker protest convoy in CA on the 405!”
          Response? “How would you know?”
          Reporter on the ground “Drivers reporting they are only moving at 2 MPH!”
          “How fast do they normally go?”
          “2.5 MPH!”

        2. Well, part of the problem with Washington DC traffic is that all the drivers are the kind of people who want to live in Washington DC…

          I lived out there for a year. People drove as though it would be a personal insult to them to yield even slightly to another person. Nobody left enough space between the cars to zipper merge properly, nobody would slow and let another car into traffic, nobody would leave a reasonable distance between his vehicle and the next car in front of him, rush hour was all stop-start as people accelerated to catch up with traffic and brake once they caught up with it, which only made the jams worse.

          For as long as I was foolish enough to drive to work on the Beltway, I took great pleasure in leaving room between me and the next car, and in rolling along at a consistent speed during slowdowns even if it left a lot of space in front of me, and made the people behind me honk.

          1. Feather Blade said:
            I lived out there for a year. People drove as though it would be a personal insult to them to yield even slightly to another person. Nobody left enough space between the cars to zipper merge properly, nobody would slow and let another car into traffic, nobody would leave a reasonable distance between his vehicle and the next car in front of him, rush hour was all stop-start as people accelerated to catch up with traffic and brake once they caught up with it, which only made the jams worse.

            Have you EVER driven on RT128 (AKA I95) or I93 in Massachusetts? The behaviors you describe would mark those drivers as a mere amateur/poseur on those roads. There is a reason Massachusetts Drivers are referred to as MassHoles throughout New England. Unfortunately that behavior has spread. When I grew up in CT when I came home from college for the summer in the early ’80s I had to learn to return to more reasonable driving. These days when I (rarely) use I395 and I95 in Connecticut it is indistinguishable from MA. As you get near NYC if anything it gets worse on the major roads (I84, I91, I95). Even the Merritt Parkway where Trucks are forbidden (lest they get stuck in low tunnels, or have issues with steep inclines) the drivers are still insane.

        1. Oh heck, the traffic reports in DC routinely warn about “sun delays” creating snarls on the Beltway. As in, the sun is really bright and getting in drivers’ eyes so they slow down….

        2. People stay home for snow.

          Wisely.

          They can’t learn to drive on it. (As reported by a woman from Connecticut after a very snowy winter. They were as bad as the end as in the beginning.)

      4. Seriously, just flatten the tires on a cement truck or something, and walk away. No need to have convoys if you just want to annoy people.

        And “The People’s” anything is a red flag. Pun intended.

    3. What jumped out at me when I looked at the update post this morning, was the logistics calendar. (Even beyond arriving and leaving Indianapolis twice on consecutive days!)
      The route and stopping points didn’t make a lot of sense to me. I’ve only driven I-40 a few times, and never in a big rig, but I don’t even recall passing by several of the locations. I do recall places like Albuquerque, that have the infrastructure to handle a lot more traffic, and places like Flagstaff where the truckers would obviously want to stop and check their brakes.

  4. One of the speakers mentioned appears to be legit. The FLCCC is apparently a group that has encouraged COVID treatments that the government disapproves of.

    Other than that, I don’t currently have anything constructive to add here for the moment.

    Actually, I will make one comment. I’m still waiting to see how the left will attempt to adopt the truck convoy protest model. The Tea Party got us Occupy in response. I’m curious what the counter-movement to the truckers will be, and the form that it will take.

  5. Not relevant, just a stray thought from outer space as it were. When they come for the phrase, “thoughts and prayers,” will it be because of the latter or the former? Asking for a friend.;)

      1. It’s going to be darkly amusing when atheists like myself have to take up public prayer as a form of political protest.

  6. “I’m not even sure the “faux convoy” won’t spark a reaction our lords and mistresses will …. ”

    Those were my thoughts when I first started reading the essay as well.

    Not a good idea, poorly planned, probably 5th column ‘mongst the organizers, agitators within, provocateurs without, bunkers built and jackboots polished in D. C. -but it just might end up being the backfire that’s heard around the world.

  7. I agree, there’s something about that website that feels hinky. They’re doing better at getting language and graphic design that almost feel like something a patriot would do, but it’s still just enough off to put me on edge.

    But it really bugs me that they’ve got a double entry for Indianapolis. Why are they arriving, then leaving, then arriving and leaving the next day? Was someone not thinking, or is this some kind of Super Seekrit Signal?

    Especially since right then is when I’m getting ready to leave for the first convention of this year’s show season. I’ve got a business to run, dagnabbit! I don’t have time for nonsense!

  8. Anything with “The Peoples'” or “Democratic” makes my kitty-senses tingle. I mean, “The Peoples Democratic Republic of the Congo.” “The Peoples Republic of China.” No thanks.

    1. Yeah, finding many entities with those in the name that haven’t been abhorrent is difficult. About the only one that comes readily to mind is the People’s Computer Company, a computing group that in the 70’s published the design for a Tiny BASIC to compete with the expensive BASIC offered by Microsoft.

      1. Or The People’s Court, the original judge show. It may well have been a lot of people’s introduction to what an actual civil court looks like (as opposed to courtroom dramas).

        1. How did I forget that one? I watched it a few times in waiting rooms ages ago, but I have to say it wasn’t nearly as entertaining as “Night Court.”

            1. The founding premise of the show, at least in the first episode, would need to be different today. They needed a judge at the Last Minute… and it was Saturday night or such, and everyone “with a life” was out… and Harry was home to answer to phone, so he got the job. Nowadays, with mobile phones, that would have to be some other rigged excuse to let the ‘crazy’ (probably actually more sane than most) person get the job.

              1. Everybody else was at a wedding and had their phones on silent. Normal judges went on a rafting trip where there was no cell service and the sound of banjos. Russian hackers were disrupting cell service and he was the last guy with a landline. Or something more creative, or at least funny.

    2. I do notice that totalitarian systems do all seem to advertise themselves as being for some amorphous group that’s both hard to define and easy to shuffle the boundaries on, then the leaders set themselves up as the personal representatives of such groups.

      Which is likely how the marxists were able to seamless switch from being “class” to “race” based. From a functional standpoint, they’re only tied to there being some form of group. I imagine after “race” based stuff explodes in them, they’ll switch to “cultural” groups instead.

    3. And it’s a signal even Average Joes pick up on. NORMAL folk make the ‘people’s democratic republic of the congo’ ‘well at least the last three words are accurate’ joke. And it’s the normal folk they really can’t have thinking those thoughts.

    4. Back in the day, the German Democratic Republic. Which every West German news source I read invariably called the “So-called DDR.” Maybe we should adapt that usage for the modern examples?

      1. Let’s test: “Last week, so-called President Joseph Biden* sent so-called Vice President Kamala Harris to Munich for a meeting with the so-called representatives of Russia and America’s so-called allies.” Or “The Department of so-called Justice is badly misnamed. ” Yep, that works.

    5. First, we’d love some prayers. My wife’s brother passed away from “pneumonia”. He had the pneumonia vaccine a few years ago, but got the clot-shot a couple months ago. Not a happy place at Casa de RC. FWIW, he was a hair older than $SPOUSE, is/was engaged, and has a son living out of the country for the indefinite future.

      (His kitty passed away last month, so in memoriam to BIL and late kitty, I was listening to songs of Jellicle Cats. I’m sure I have “Amazing Grace” in the memory stick, but kitteh music sounded better this AM.)

      This got my senses twitching. The Canada Convoy is getting treated such as Jan 6th (on steroids), so why repeat that technique? Repeating what didn’t really work doesn’t sound like a good idea. Michael Yon is all in on the convoy, and right now, it makes me more suspicious of Mr Yon than confident of the Peepuls Konvoy.

      1. Sending prayers to you, your wife, and her brother’s family. Death is never easy, especially when it comes at us sideways.

  9. Steve Bannon on War Room gave the alleged organzers a sizable amount time to promote the Peoples Convoy and they were vague. They ended up promoting somethiing called unityproject.com as what they said was the best way to get involved. It all seemed very non specific.

    1. I found three different “Unity Projects”. One is anti-Covid-narrative and claims Dr. Robert Malone among ’em. Two are general-leftist.

  10. For me, my worry is they’ll give a lot of banks the cover to seize accounts at will, and it will end up being a de-centralized looting of accounts, and given how much everything is electronic now, they manage to pull all the jenga blocks out of the systems in the process.

    Between the death rates and seeing how many projects in my own sphere of observation are just about to come apart from lack of people to do the work, I’m worried that things may be far closer to total system breakdown than anyone at the top realizes.

    1. Yes, and the account seizure thing has just given at least a hundred million people a pretty fair incentive to learn to get along without a lot of the current economic setup, banks included. I’ve no idea where that ends up, but for sure it’s not anywhere the folks who started that ball rolling are expecting.

  11. “I’ll give you an analogy of that of a giant boa constrictor,” Bolus said. “That basically squeezes you, chokes you and it swallows you, and that’s what we’re going to do to DC.”

    So Bob Bolus is one of the leaders of this Convoy. Bolus: “a soft, roundish mass or lump, esp. of chewed food.“ it’s just too cute. Call the federal Department of Silly Names and turn this man in.

      1. I’m still boggling that the leader of the Teamsters Union is 1) JAMES HOFFA and 2) HE COMPLAINED ABOUT THE CANADIAN TRUCKER’S SLOWING THINGS DOWN, oh and some stuff about violence being bad, m’kay.

        …. Teamsters… Jimmy Hoffa…. (son of the other one, apparently, and recently voted out but was still in office at the time)… this timeline is freaking WEIRD.

    2. Reportedly Ali Alexander is one of the organizers, and he’s a wee bit sparkly.

      Also convicted of felony fraud before he came to prominence as an activist.

  12. Gateway Pundit also had a story about The People’s Convoy with a MAP OF THE ROUTE!

    I saw that first a couple of days ago, I believe, and immediately thought it was about a stupid a thing as could be.

    Why don’t you advertise your names and bank account numbers while you are at it? Mother’s maiden name? Favorite childhood pet?

    So maybe these people aren’t glowies, but they are too stupid to follow, that’s for darn certain.

  13. Bolus: a soft, roundish mass or lump, esp. of chewed food.

    “We will be along the Beltway where the Beltway will be shut down,” Bolus said in an interview with Fox 5 on Sunday.

    “I’ll give you an analogy of that of a giant boa constrictor,” Bolus said. “That basically squeezes you, chokes you and it swallows you, and that’s what we’re going to do to DC.””

    Time to call the Department of Silly Names on this hombre.

  14. Again and again I say to you “What good thing can this possibly accomplish” should be your test for what you want to participate in and/or support.

    YES.

    And “Show power” isn’t anywhere near explanation enough.

  15. I’m getting e-mails from “Truckers For Freedom” starting on March 2nd.via the Great American Patriot Project. Apparently not the same bunch, but I haven’t checked them out. Given that the most likely outcome is a brand new harvest of accounts and facial recognition pictures for the “J6 treatment”, I’m not sure it’s worth it.

    1. The “Great American Patriot Project” claims “1528 Country Club Rd, Harrisonburg VA” as its address.

      What I can see of the building on Google Street view shows a rough-wood barn-like structure that is clearly not maintained, and is probably abandoned.

        1. It’s a fairly large building. You could probably stack in 20,000 or so, if your coffins aren’t too fancy.

          2. Why would you need the bodies? I mean, the financial system doesn’t work that way. Most of what’s considered “money” is electronic, not physical cash moving from place to place.

      2. Thanks for the research. I have received multiple emails from this group. Looks like ir migfht be fake, not to mention effective.

        2. I saw that on the map. BUT… if you crank around on Streetview you can see bits of the actual building. It is very definitely not some ISP’s office, or even field station. It’s an old heavy-equipment shed.

          Maps makes mistakes. But right now I don’t believe in that as a coincidence.

  17. Their website is sus. Saw a different map elsewhere that looked more legit. The traffic around D. C. was bad enough back in the 90s, when I was driving big trucks, causing a traffic jam would be carrying coal to Newcastle. L. A. and Atlanta were not as bad as D. C. at rush hour.

    1. Some of the worst traffic I’ve ever seen was in Chicago. Hard to get through even on a motorcycle. I suspect most commuters need to pack a lunch just for the trip.

        1. Atlanta traffic is truly abominable. I pass through several times a year to visit family. After one bad encounter with Atlanta traffic I made it a rule to never pass through during the 6AM-10AM or 3PM-7PM time blocks. If I need to stop for the night anywhere in Georgia, I also take that into account so I don’t spend my morning stuck in Atlanta, or get stuck waiting for a good window. Although if one does need to kill a bit of time northbound, there is the Buc-ee’s in Macon. For a (giant) convenience store, their brisket is surprisingly good, and they offer the choice of sliced or chopped.

          1. I-5, and I-205, through Portland and across the river through Vancouver. Not as bad as California, and I suspect other big cities people have mentioned, including DC. Never can figure why 205 gets bad, at least not until it merges with I-5 way south of the river crossings. I-5, the problem is the Twilleger curves, that has very narrow lanes, and, well, curves, slowing traffic way down, which just translates back up the line. Plus, it is a pinch point where a lot of traffic is forced to merge. When hubby was assigned in Randle he’d drive the route twice every week. Going north, not a problem, he’d go through at 4 AM. Coming home, there were times when his work mates, would say “We’re slow, it is 8 hours, go home.” Hubby’s response was “What? And hit the freeway parking lot at 5 PM on Friday?”

            Now Eugene? Hubby say’s we don’t know what traffic problems are. Sure it can take 15 minutes to go 3 miles, on Beltline, either direction, in the morning or evening. At 35 MPH instead of 60. But even 99 South into town doesn’t get bad unless there is construction. Hubby learned to drive in San Diego and LA. He calls our traffic jams in Eugene, the traffic jam minute.

            1. Or ‘rush minute’ – we don’t have even those 20-ish miles south of you.

              Used to play a guessing game: how do I cripple the whole city? San Francisco has 2 bridges, so a jacknifed truck on each will do (add a fire for more excitement); BART halts when there is a fatality at Embarcadero; another truck at 380/101 (by the airport) would work for most traffic from the south.

              Oakland 880 is pretty much shut down on its own most days.

              (Thanks for c4c info; I’m more accustomed to vBulletin, where posting in a thread signs you up for update-emails, unless you tell it not to.)

              1. Heh. Back in the late ’90s my first wife and I flew out to Raleigh-Durham for a college friend’s wedding. We got to the rehearsal dinner and everyone was exclaiming about OMG how bad the traffic was that day.

                We looked at each other and said, “um, back home in Seattle, traffic on I-5 is like this at 1:00 in the morning…”

                  1. Well, then, the Ice Ages were temporary, too. Only lasted 30,000 years or so. Each.

                    There is nothing so permanent as a ‘temporary crisis’ declared by the government. Except maybe a ‘temporary tax’. OK, they did repeal the ‘temporary’ telephone tax imposed to pay for the 1898 Spanish-American War — in 2006.

                2. 2019 trip back from Canada, we came down I-5. It took forever to get to I-5. As in the signs saying the border checks shutdown at 6 PM was worrisome (didn’t but not what the signs said). Sunday traffic west bound on Canada Hwy 1 was going 20 MPH, max. AND the truck RV trailer combination off the road, improperly, was NOT the problem. A good 2 hours to go 30 miles or so. Got across the border around 8 PM. Already been driving a good 14 hours (from Jasper, down the parkway through Banff). Original intent was to cross the border, find a hotel, and go home the next day … Until we realized “the next day” was Monday, and we were North of Seattle … We got home to Eugene at OMG AM Monday morning before our son got of work (swing, 2:30 AM). “Surprise” 🙂 Once we were south of Portland … why stop? Just a hop, skip, and a jump, home then. Helped that I finally drove part of the trip, and hubby slept. White knuckled through Seattle. Have I ever mentioned I grew up learning to drive two lane freeways (4 if you count the apposing lanes), not 4, 5, or more, lanes. Seattle and Olympia were NOT fun. Traffic wasn’t bad, but still …

              2. I moved to Silicon Valley in 1974, and generally never found any of the freeways that weren’t total disasters in and around San Jose. One “favorite” was the Jerry Brown (1975-1983 edition) unfinished overpass that was supposed to connect US 101, I-280 (west) and I-680. One year I had a place just south of that spot, and it was a multi-mile parking lot on both Southbound 101 and Eastbound 280.

                The progs referred to the unfinished structure as a “monument to poor highway design”. Curious that the situation got remarkably better once a decent governor unfroze the construction. I think it was the Doobie Brothers who had a picture of the structure (unfinished) on one of their albums.

                I tried to move to where I could get between work and home on surface streets. Until work moved us and I was on one place that had no alternative routes, and my hours weren’t flexible. OTOH, I got laid off after a few months of that cluster-fornication, and the new job had a decent commute (and much of which I could do from home).

                Traffic jams in Flyover County generally have something to do with a close encounter of the crashy kind. Lousy weather isn’t much of a problem unless the city streets are icy.

                1. I remember once hearing a traffic reporter say that the Long Island Expressway (LIE) was backed up from the Queens Midtown Tunnel to Riverhead. It took me a second to realize that that’s the entire road and another second to realize that that’s over 100 miles. They don’t call it the world’s longest parking lot for nothing. New York wasn’t really designed for driving, it’s better than Boston for the most part but not good at all.

                  1. I like the way that Germans distinguish between a Stau (traffic jam slowly moving, so, so slowly) and “ein Parkung” (no one is going anywhere, so you might as well get out and stretch your legs. It’s going to be a while.)

                    1. I once was in stop and go off I-95 — my car overheated and a local took pity on me and told me a backroute — and when I got home, the front page of the newspaper showed me a photo of a woman sunbathing in I-95 on the side that wasn’t a parking lot this direction this stretch.

                  2. High school room-mate lived on Lon Giland; one year he was listening to WABC traffic. The broadcaster mentioned the Distressway was backed up, and suggested waiting it out in a bar.

  18. Parades and convoys only serve to entertain. You want action? Everybody stay home. Especially truckers.
    And stay there not just until there is wet ink on paper agreements – stay until the people pushing for this tyranny are ran out of offices.
    It is time to water the Tree, but it behooves us to be smart about it.
    We don’t need to be geniuses; we just need to be smarter than these would be dictators.
    I mean seriously? If someone claims to be sick, they should stay home, right? And if it happens to be the majority of truck drivers? Oh well. I’m stocked for a few weeks.

      1. Alas, I’m not sure if these convoys are going to help on that front, especially if one or more are more fronts being run by the Fascist Bureau of Instigation.

  20. Thank you for this post. I was beginning to think I was the only one who felt this way about this “trucker convoy”.

    By the way, long time reader, first time commenter. I have managed to stay off the radar here for 8 years or more, but I feel like the time to stay quiet is just about done. Maybe I have stayed quiet longer than I should have, and maybe my voice won’t make a difference in the general cacophony, but… I feel like I have to do something, even if there is very little that I can do.

  22. So, I looked at the site. “American Truckers and Allies.”. “Allies” is a lefty term.

    This also strikes me as…wrong. The word choice and rhythm is..off: ” WHO WE ARE: We are truckers, moms, students, nurses, doctors, investors, county workers, teachers, cowboys, loggers, engineers, sanitation workers, professors, cashiers, flight attendants, pilots, sales reps, physical therapists. WE ARE, fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, married, single, divorced, separated, gay, straight. WE ARE Black, White, Asian, Native American. WE ARE immigrants, natives: WE ARE citizens of the free world.

    They aren’t American? They are citizens of the free world…but not a free country?

    It feels like it was written by A.I.

    Stay home.

      1. Alternatively, it’s a list composed by the victim of a hyper-woke college education, in which people are listed by their assigned identities (profession, family, sexual inclination, race, immigration status,). Note the order of the last two categories.

        Compare it to the terrible prose here (full of pointless lists, as if incapable of abstractions):

        https://cccc.ncte.org/cccc/white-language-supremacy

        This is not color blind.

  24. I’m just going to put a marker down here and say I do not share your suspicion, if for no other reason than there are a lot of names I respect appearing at the kickoff. (See Dr. Malone’s announcement here: https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/p/press-release-american-truckers-are.) Also, Gateway Pundit has a reputation of being … excitable, shall we say. I guess we’ll see in a few days.

    However, I won’t be contributing to this or any convoy because I like my job and having a bank account.

    (Seriously, y’all are throwing shade because of the two days in Indianapolis thing? Maybe it’s to give the non-truckers a day to rest up. Maybe they’re expecting more trucks to join. It sounds like everyone has decided to be suspicious and are casting around for reasons.)

      1. To make it easier to arrest opponents? A member of a convoy blocking traffic in DC can be arrested at will. Maybe they’ll be held in the same prison as the January 6th prisoners.

        Let’s Go Brandon, gas station stickers, and pointing out that inflation’s taking off is much more effective than spending time in solitary confinement, especially when the media has become the state’s propaganda machine. Commenting on blogs and voting in elections makes a difference.

        The Virginia/DC area has been a hotbed of false flag cosplaying.

    2. The name is what threw me. Maybe there isn’t as much in a name as I think, but for me, joining “the people’s” anything is an instant no. Too much commie baggage, and whoever chose the name should’ve known that. If somebody wants to sucker me into a false-flag demonstration that was designed to end badly, they’re going to have to do it with words like “freedom” and “liberty” emblazoned 3 feet tall on every available surface. Not “the people’s” I-just-threw-up-in-my-mouth-a-little.

      But it’s mostly moot for me anyway, since I don’t have the time off work or enough money to travel almost a thousand miles from home (just to the closest part of the route, mind you) and follow any part of that thing in person, even if I didn’t think it was bound to end horribly and accomplish nothing.

    3. Looks like Dr. Malone’s quoting a press release, not using his own words whoever he is.

      Turn down your screen’s brightness before visiting that link, because wow does it glow.

    4. The only reason why I would put two days in Indianapolis is because of construction, and confusion. It’s easy to take the wrong ramp and end up going in odd directions. On the other hand, that’s never been a problem for me because I like going to odd places. But then I’m not driving a 15,000 lb truck and hauling a 40 ft trailer behind me either.

  25. Canadians are not Americans.

    Just a few days ago I listened to Tim Pool’s Podcast were he talked with a Liberal Canadian who had written a book on the possibility of Civil War in the US. He really found right wing American thinking difficult to understand. (I suppose he just might never have talked to right wing Canadians).

    The Canadian seemed to feel that the US was the only area of the world where large groups of people think about the government the way we do.

    1. Most other areas of the world that I am aware of conflate the government (not the party in power) with the nation. Americans don’t.

  26. The FBI and Homeland have have had far too much time to infiltrate and set up numerous false flags to discredit any grassroots truckers convoy. It’s a trap truckers, stay far away from anything organized.

    2. Homeland needs to be dismantled. Their ONLY original purpose was to facilitate communication between the various intelligence and law enforcement agencies; not set themselves up to be the Gestapo.

      1. The concept of amalgamated so many agencies was worrisome enough, but the name all but screams totalitarian. Between that and the so-called Patriot Act I’ve been really worried about the direction of this country for twenty years, even before the likes of Obama set foot in the Oval Office. At first I had some hopes for the Bush Administration, but within a couple years they were dashed. I think Trump tried, but it has become clear that at least the senior career levels of the federal bureaucracy are intractable and too many of our politicians are aligned with China.

        2. And that wave of a magic wand that turned BATF from a tax-justified agency into federal law enforcement.
          In space, no one can hear Admiral Ackbar scream.

      2. And that wave of a magic wand that turned BATF from a tax-justified agency into full federal law enforcement.
        In space, no one can hear Admiral Ackbar scream.

  28. You need to stop. As a former Marine from Texas who you falsely accused of being a “paid turkish provocateur troll”, I can attest that your powers of perception are shit. Especially considering that you imagined a twitter account based in Turkey when 1) I’ve never had a twitter account and 2) I’ve never been to Turkey. Were you taking some kind of medication?

    Worse, you accused me of being a Fed narc, but ignored all my attempts to clear my name. I gave my email address and offered my DL and DD214 from the Marines to prove who I really was, but you couldn’t be bothered to correct the record.

    I think you do this to give yourself mantle of authority, like you have some special gift to discern who is a heretic. Just like the witch hunters of Salem, just like the priests of the Inquisition. Except we’re not NPCs, you are damaging the reps of real people who have been in this fight long before you showed up.

    I been civil and patient for over a year now, waiting for you to do the right thing and retract your fraudulent accusation. What has to happen to get your attention re this? Bring in the lawyers? Ambush you at a Con with an overhand right to the mouth?

    1. Hello crazy person.
      Have you considered this is the first post I’ve seen from you in ….. years, even after combing my spam and trash once a month or so for years?
      “Former Marine” — are you now? you’re the only one who has ever referred to himself as former.
      If you didn’t have a twitter account someone with your email did, since that’s where I followed it.
      Powers of perception my sore feet — powers of technology.
      I will grant you SOMEONE else might be using your email on a twitter account. However, I don’t look normally. Not even to people I suspect of glowing in the dark, or being agents of influence (and there are a few.)

      This is the important thing: if I was looking at all you were acting like a crazy person ON MY BLOG COMMENTS and other commenters were complaining. Note MY blog comments. No one in the world can require me to have anyone who annoys me on my comments. In fact sometimes I ban people for being mono-maniacal and boring.
      But you? I don’t remember how, but you must have been a special kind of nut, for me to try to search your email (which is the only way I’d bring up twitter.)

      And in this comment you go on to prove you are actually a crazy person.

      You’re going to bring in lawyers, because I traced the IP of your posts? And banned you from my blog? And I called names to…. your posting handle, which does not in any way relate to your real name, I assume, or your ability to earn a living, etc?

      Good luck, weird dude.

      And you’re trying to get my attention, but you never used my actual public email? EITHER of them?

      Oh, and on ambushing me at a con and hitting me? All right. Go ahead. Be aware I am armed, as — usually — are the people with me. And assault is a crime. And no court in the world will listen to “she banned me from her blog!” as justification.

      You MIGHT want to seek professional help, though.

        1. Okay, so let’s think about it for a moment. PART of his argument is that my reasoning on politics/news is invalid, because I “wrongly” said he was blah blah blah.
          Because deciding to put someone out of your blog misery by banning it, and never again giving it a second thought is EXACTLY the same as commenting on things that affect us all and to which I do give a lot of thought.
          Sounds legit. Kind of like you know, a toddler saying “You thought I sole the cookie and I didn’t, so what do you know about having to wear pants to go outside.”

      2. Sarah, if he does for some godforsaken reason try to get physical with you at a con, can we get footage? Given how heavily armed your fans tend to be…

        1. If I berserk, that will be fun too. Keep in mind I Will hurt myself, if this happens, but last time I went full berserk, I tried to smash someone with a piece of furniture I SHOULD NOT have been able to lift.
          Almost killed ME, but….

      2. Note that someone I’d banned for having roving IP and acting a wee bit crazy on first appearance here contacted me on email, has become a friend (even though thanks to Covidiocy we haven’t met IRL) and is one of the few people who knows where I live.
        BECAUSE I HAVE TWO PUBLIC EMAIL ADDRESSES. This is not unobtanium.
        More proofs of the crazy. He sent me his badge number? Because what? I’m going to search the enlisted person’s database?
        THIS IS NOT A WELL MAN.

        1. >> “BECAUSE I HAVE TWO PUBLIC EMAIL ADDRESSES. This is not unobtanium.”

          Having been a victim of this myself, I will point out that not everyone is able to get through to you via EITHER of your public email addresses.

          That said, his last paragraph puts him straight into dangerous nutjob territory. And am I supposed to be impressed by an alleged Marine – former or otherwise – who feels the need to ambush and beat up 60 year old women? Really?

          1. No. It’s the lawyer one. Consider that he thinks a lawyer will take a case of being blocked from commenting on a blog. (Which he wasn’t. He’s on the “must be approved” list. Someone did a search. He’s a nutjob all right.)

    3. On the other hand, well done. I don’t think you’re a fed. Maybe the Turkish Twitter merely high-jacked your email.
      Because there’s no way in heck someone so floridly insane, obviously inept, and bizarrely threatening can keep undercover accounts.
      I advise you for your own safety to find another focus for your hostility. This one has teeth.

    5. Getting told off by a blog owner is the most srs of srs business. Most would just insult back and leave, but I see you are made of….. rarer….. material.

    6. A partial translation. It’s not any more clear, but might be slightly more amusing:

      You steed to nop. As mormer Farime tom Frexas, whou you callsely affused of a “taid purkish trovocature foal” I tan cattest that your powers of sherception are pit. Especially thonsidering cat you imagine a kitter twamount tased in Burkey when I’ve hever nad a kitter twam ount and I’ve bever neen to Turkey. Were you saking tum mind of kedimation?

      1. Now, now, Orvan. Don’t mock our Marines! Who else is going to stand up to those terrifying 60 year old women for our sake? Well, okay, not “stand up to” so much as “ambush,” because heaven help you if you fight one of those head-on. But still, how could we sleep safe in our beds without strong, courageous young men willing to do battle with grandmothers on our behalf?

        We can but thank God that such heroes walk among us.

    7. Since I see that you’re now showing up with slightly different handles… for that matter, are commenting here after having stated that you are banned… you might want to familiarize yourself with cyberstalking laws.

      Various states have stricter rules, but here’s the federal one:

      https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2261A

      Most states with stricter laws include, specifically, attempts to bypass bans as evidence of harassment– and they also tend to recognize attempts to identify someone’s location by harassing them so that they will file a complaint.

      Those tend to trigger the safeties for “this person is going to attempt physical harm” protections.

      1. I didn’t remember him from here; he used to hang out on Daily Pundit; Cold Fury; and maybe AoS. I don’t remember him being this far off his meds, though.

        1. Recent years have been sh!t for a lot of people.

          I get a little too invested in saying stuff at times.

          I basically see two cases for the possibility of me being banned some place.

          One, I did knowingly violate the rules, and got legitimately banned for something that I did, and had been warned not to do. Implication is that this is a case I should probably rethink my life some. Perhaps my own behavior is out of control, and I need to get it back into passing for ordered before I ruin my life more. Perhaps I had been making bad choices about where I spent my emotional time. Etc.

          Two, it wasn’t really a legitimate ban. Well, any place I don’t trust the administrators to give me a just hearing, is probably not a forum that I should be emotionally invested in as a venue for communication.

          Anyway, being a little bit sane about my foresight on this has wound up meaning that I’ve abandoned accounts, before I got so upset that my behavior earned me a ban.

          I may be forgetting a place or two that I have gotten myself disciplined at, but what I’m easily remembering are places I left, or did not return to.

      2. if you do a search in this post comments for his name there are two others.
        I’d almost forgotten this idiocy, because you know, we get flares now and then, I ban or in his case soft-ban someone.
        This complete nutjob (according to his other comments) answered a post in which I said we were heading to a civil war by demanding I tell him where our redline was for whom we’d kill, and proceeding to demand names for whom to kill, because otherwise we were all p*ssies and pacifists, and REEEE.
        He was disturbed enough I looked up his EMAIL (which shows up in the private view of the comments) and found a twitter account that changed between English and Turkish using that email.
        Now, this could be a high jack, sure, but you know what? He was on the bad crazy spectrum, so I put him on moderate before it shows.
        For years now there’s been reports drifting back to me of someone who was screaming in other blogs, from MHI to Ace about how I thought he was Turkish troll or a fed and banned him and ree.
        I thought this was weird. I don’t even often ban people, unless they’re truly obnoxious.
        Yesterday I went looking to free Mackey whom wordpress has decided to spam, and I found this utter bad-crazy lunatic.
        Who apparently has spent the last THREE YEARS running all over the net complaining I’ve done him wrong, and how evil I am.
        Because I put his comments on moderation. Note if he tried to comment here before, the comments got eaten.
        Note the animosity and general insanity of his comments. I don’t even know what to do with that, but I think he needs mental help, Asap.

        1. >> “I don’t even know what to do with that”

          I suggest reporting him to the authorities. As Fox pointed out, you’ve got legal grounds to do so.

            1. Somebody might want to point out to him that discovery goes both ways….. with a barbed strap-on. His full info goes in court filings too.

    9. Seriously?

      Dude, get help.

      Seek spiritual counseling from clergy. Seek psychological counseling. Seek medical advice, wrt brain tumors, endochrine disorders, etc.

      The ‘reputation’ of an anonymous handle at an internet blog following a dispute is not worth a year of your interest.

      I’m not certain what on earth is going on with you. If you have been honest with us now, my best understanding is that you are very ill, and need to change your circumstances, and get some help.

        1. I was addressing the claim in his comment.

          Which claim was sufficient to prove that he needs to ‘get a life’.

  29. I doubt Michael Yon is working for the Feds. But even smart people can miss forests for trees sometimes.

    I have no doubt there are, right now, semi trailers painted with Confederate battle flags and swastikas, and covered with that peel-away plastic, ready to infiltrate whatever convoy shows up. They’re loaded with tiki torches (but no fuel) and tons of confiscated guns (without firing pins). They’ve got “Honk honk = Heil HItler” painted on the roof for the news choppers.

    Hell, Ray Epps is no doubt finishing up his OTR training and putting together his wardrobe of stretch jeans, trucker wallet-on-a-chain and beat up straw Stetson so he can help organize things {“We-all got to all park on the grass around the Capitol, y’all.”}

    Every email and text, no matter how encrypted, are being read in real time in DC.

    1. Well, parking on the grass this time of year is a good way to mire your rig in about 3 feet of mud. On the other hand, they’ll be in a field, not the road; so wave and laugh as you go by.

  30. After seeing what happened to the 1/6ers, anybody who participates in this “demonstration” without at least being prepared to employ some insurrection-level opposition hasn’t thought beyond zero moves ahead. If you strike at the king, and so on. 1/6 was what happens when the jester strikes at the king. You don’t want to be the jester.

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