Canada isn’t the only country suffering from anti-mandate COVID-19 protesters. The Associated Press reports on some interesting developments in New Zealand.
Earlier this week in New Zealand, protesters rolled up to Parliament grounds in a convoy of cars and trucks and set up camp. Police have taken a hands-off approach after initial attempts to remove them resulted in physical confrontations.
Parliament Speaker Trevor Mallard on Friday ordered his staff to turn on the lawn’s sprinklers to douse them and to play Barry Manilow tunes and the 1990s hit “Macarena” over loudspeakers to annoy them. Protesters responded by playing their own songs, including Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It.”
I’m not sure if the New Zealand constitution specifically bans “cruel and unusual punishment,” but these measures definitely come close to crossing some line. I remember back in 1989 when the Marines tortured Manuel Noriega.
The repressive military leader had holed himself up in the Vatican’s embassy in Panama City, after President George Bush Senior invaded Panama.
Noriega was facing a US indictment for drug-trafficking, as well as claims he had rigged the 1989 election. The embassy was surrounded by US troops, but he refused to give himself up.
The US army decided to use psychological warfare – by blasting a wall of sound non-stop outside. A fleet of Humvees mounted with loudspeakers rolled in, and rock music rolled out.
The troops’ playlist came care of the Southern Command Network, the US military radio in central America. It featured hits picked for their irony value, including I Fought The Law by The Clash, Panama by the stadium rock band Van Halen, U2’s All I Want Is You, and Bruce Cockburn’s If I Had A Rocket Launcher.
Guns’N’Roses and The Doors both played starring roles.
Now, I might quibble with that playlist a little bit, but it’s definitely more tolerable than Barry Manilow on a loop. New Zealand is ruthless.
On the other hand, it could be worse.
“In training, they forced me to listen to the Barney I Love You song for 45 minutes. I never want to go through that again,” one US operative told Newsweek.
I’m not sure that Noriega was actually broken by the blaring music. The Vatican complained to Poppy Bush and he cut off the music after only 72 hours. Noriega surrendered somewhat later. And the New Zealand protestors didn’t immediately capitulate either, but responded with Twister Sister.
I have human rights concerns here, but I’m more worried that we’re dealing with amateurs. Everyone should know that the way to crush all resistance is to subject people to David Hasselhoff’s Hooked on a Feeling.
Put that up a giant video screen on all Canadian-American entry points and the protests will be over by dusk.
HA!
Joking aside, it has not escaped my notice that the authorities aren’t using a fraction of the resources they’ve used in the recent past against indigenous communities protesting pipelines built on their own land, or the BLM movement here at home.
Where are the cops in riot gear, indiscriminately dousing the crowd—including children—with pepper spray, as they did in 2020, and at previous protests? Where is the RCMP with the live rounds, as they planned for the indigenous people?
Where are the LRADs, like they rolled out in Ferguson and Philly and DC? Where are the mass arrests we’ve seen so frequently in the past? Did the Joey Bolognas of the law enforcement world all resign or something?
So very very very strange. I wonder what’s different?
We have to be careful with snowflakes
I didn’t even last a minute….
Now, for inflicting that video on your audience…
“It’s a small world after all”
“You light up my life”
(what, no Baby Shark???)
It would require someone with more humor and perspective and tactical ability than I have, but there’s definitely lots of room for using satire and mockery as nonviolent tactics to embarrass and discourage and ridicule anti-vax protesters. These examples are a good start, as are golack’s suggestions.
The New Zealanders should have blasted Ram Ranch, a filthy song that’s being used by trolls to disrupt the Ottawa truckfuck convoy.
Excellent point!
Canada has been having quite a time lately – to the apparent surprise of Fox News and even the Canadian press, an Angus Reid poll today found that three-quarters of Canadians DO NOT SUPPORT the insurrectionists — now called #FluTruxKlan in a brilliant hashtag that someone invented. We were delighted yesterday when Trudeau announced the Emergency Act, particularly that the government is going after the money — the police have been giving hugs to these insurrectionists, but the accountants won’t be!