Remember the old Blues Brothers number: Everybody wants somebody to love. I was thinking of that last week as people were wreaking havoc on hapless commuters and train travellers across Canada. I am always curious about the joiners, looking for their fleeting 15 minutes of fame.
When others are looking at the police seemingly standing around contemplating the time wasted on this duty at these blockades, I look at the joiners. And that is what they are: they are joiners.
At one site on a rail line, there was one stupid kid standing around waiting to be arrested and he had a bandana over the lower part of his face. He must have thought the bandana made him look like some kind of desperado. All it did was look silly. The kid did not act as an aboriginal might. He had no such connection. He was just a joiner.
Joiners go to the action. They were in their glory last year when they joined a couple million people in celebrating the basketball win by the Toronto Raptors. Even I was impressed by the size of that turnout. I watched it on television.
Joiners used to get religion, join some holy rollers group and stay out of trouble. Lately they have found that going where there is trouble is more interesting. They saw how these more obnoxious groups like Black Lives Matters and Canada’s native peoples can screw over trains and automobiles, block bridges and traffic and even get even with police. This is much more fun than smoking a joint with other losers. Especially when cannabis is not even illegal any more.
I always found that there was a considerable number of joiners ready to sign on for an election campaign. If you signed up a bunch of young ladies first, the young guys were sure to follow. They were never much for the heavy lifting in the campaign but they sure looked good for crowd scenes to impress the media.
What politicians such as Doug Ford do not understand is that these joiners will buy your BS as long as you buy the beer but then they wander off. You have to work hard at keeping them feeling important.
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Copyright 2020 © Peter Lowry
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