We live in an age where con men -- and women -- rule the roost. The Ottawa Occupation was a con job par excellence. Patrick Gossage writes:
There is little doubt we have found out that the ideological leadership for the Ottawa Freedom Convoy was well-organized and funded and bent on challenging the government’s legitimacy to enact vaccine regulations that controlled their lives.
Their deluded stated purpose was to force the removal of all the COVID-19 restrictions applied by a tyrannical government led by the hated Justin Trudeau – even though most of them were instituted by the provinces.
The other irony of the Ottawa occupation, as it developed into a completely equipped village installed in front of the Parliament buildings, is that the majority of the demonstrators there in it were pretty ordinary, mostly young people and families, deluded into believing they were part of a larger patriotic freedom movement.
In the late 1960s, when I was training to be a teacher, most of us read a book by Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner titled Teaching As a Subversive Activity. The authors maintained that good teachers should help their students develop what they called "crap detectors." They wrote:
We believe that the schools must serve as the principal medium for developing in youth the attitudes and skills of social, political, and cultural criticism.
Educators, they believed, should develop critical thinking skills in their students.
Beginning in the 1980s, conservatives sought to "reform" education. They changed curricula, insisting that students should be taught to do not to think. Lessons consisted of tasks that were broken into steps. Good students learned how to do the steps in the proper order. Thus, education became a matter of doing things according to a formula.
A good education, of course, should teach students how to do and how to think. Unfortunately, the Ottawa Occupation illustrates what happens when people have not been taught how to think. They become easy prey for con men, who have roamed the planet since the dawn of time.
Image: NOWCastsa
10 comments:
A very interesting piece, Owen, and one that reflects the concerns I have had in recent times over how students are currently being educated. In our day, I think it is safe to assume that one of our core missions as teachers was to get our students to not only read literature, but also to think about, analyze and assess the materials, all part of developing essential critical thinking skills. Certainly, there were always those who disdained what we offered, but the bulk of them, I hope, had at the very least a grudging respect for the importance of thinking clearly and deeply.
The other conclusion I have drawn during this protracted pandemic is that many of the covidiots did not go very far in school, their profound ignorance on display at every turn.
I am horrified, Lorne, at how broad and deep their ignorance is.
"The other conclusion I have drawn during this protracted pandemic is that many of the covidiots did not go very far in school, their profound ignorance on display at every turn".
Couldn't have said it better. Let this fella have a go.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvLKS0Rv89s
I found this bland opinion piece to be mostly word-salad borrowed from elsewhere.
Until I read this nonsense buried in the middle (muddle)
"This disproportionate use of emergency powers will continue to haunt the Trudeau government."
I saw a kid-gloves-slow-motion takedown of the white supremist thugs in Ottawa over the weekend.
"disproportionate"
What in heaven's name is this jerk talking about?
There is no doubt that there is an abundance of crap to draw from in recent times Owen
Thanks for the clip, zoombats. A con-man knows his marks.
It's all around us, Rural.
The use of force was appropriate, PoV. I agree that it was not disproportionate.
Owen, you're right to characterize the occupation of Ottawa and the border blockades as con jobs. And these con jobs are being stoked and spread on social media.
As David Shipley, a cybersecurity expert and chief executive officer of Beauceron Security, points out, “We wouldn’t have an Ottawa occupation without those social media algorithms that fed people junk information and reward anger. And we wouldn’t be where are now if politicians had not used vaccines as a political wedge issue."
Companies like Facebook have gained huge profits by spreading disinformation and sowing the political discord that led among others to Brexit and the attack in the US Capitol. These companies are in urgent need of regulation before they destroy democracy itself.
Cap
I agree. Cap. The owners of these companies are the new robber barons. And what they rob us of is our democracy.
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