![]() ![]() ![]() Yeah, them chicken coops (weigh stations) was full of bears (police) and choppers filled the skies. There's armored cars and Interstate tanks and jeeps and rigs of every size. It features a conversation between them as they drive from California to New Jersey, spoken in the truckers' inscrutable vernacular: McCall - a character originally invented and performed by advertising executive Bill Fries for a bread company's ad campaign - the song tells a tale of truck drivers protesting government regulations on a struggling industry. That the 1976 song "Convoy" was created by a fictional musician is perhaps the least interesting thing about it. Those protests movements, which included not only blockades but sniping attacks on truckers who refused to stop driving, spawned a pop cultural craze for the mystique of the open road and the coded lingo of CB-radio talk. In 19 American truckers engaged in widespread blockade, strike and picketing in protests at rising petrol prices. ![]() But they can cause considerable disruption. Trucks and truckers have never displayed that kind of comprehensive power to paralyze society. The Triple Alliance was what made a general strike such an awesome prospect. And thanks to the indispensable role of coal in electricity generation, that veto power continued to operate in many societies down to the 1980s. Through the early 20th century coal supplied 80 percent of the energy needs of many industrial societies. In the age of coal, the power of the Triple Alliance - the coalition of miner workers, railway workers and dock workers - lay in their ability to comprehensively paralyze energy and logistical systems. Whereas the protests in Ottawa pose a political challenge to the government of Trudeau and his COVID policy, the blockade of the Ambassador bridge between Detroit and Windsor did substantial economic damage and is more reminiscent of classic labour protest. ![]()
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