Trucking association distances itself from Beltway protest

{mosads}”The association has learned from its 40-year history of fighting for the rights of its members that the most effective way to have influence is to conduct long-term campaigns and encourage an open dialogue between truckers and their representatives in Congress,” the OOIDA said.

“As part of its advocacy and grassroots efforts, OOIDA, as a non-partisan organization, has consistently maintained a focus on issues that directly impact truckers and their small businesses,” the trucking association continued.  “The individuals leading this particular effort have no direct affiliation with trucking and appear to be using truckers in order to gain media attention and air other political grievances. We do not support assembling in an unlawful, unpermitted manner, committing crimes, making threats on our lawmakers, or behaving in such a way to cast safe, professional truck drivers in a negative light.”

The “Truckers for the Constitution” group used rhetoric that echoed the early appeals of the Tea Party in advertisements of the proposed Beltway protest.

The flyer the truck drivers were distributing for their planned protest named President Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry and Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) as “domestic enemies.”

“Share this document,” the flyer says. “Copy it, re-post it, encourage everyone else to do the same.

“We are Americans who run the United States of America — it’s not run by a bunch of Global Banking Cartels,” the flyer continues. “This is our house; our country; our government, and each of us needs to take ownership of how we succeed in this event.  If we want to save our country, we will do so. If we don’t, it will be because you as an individual wanted someone else to save it for you — this is why we are in this mess — because we trusted our government and the politicians who’ve promised they would serve the people.”  

The trucker who was behind the planned Beltway protest, Georgia-based driver Earl Conlon, told The Washington Post Tuesday that the group was just trying to “stir the feather of the mainstream media.

“Nothing gets the attention like the mainstream media, like some sort of disastrous threat,” Conlon told the paper. “I knew it was going to ruffle some feathers.”

Conlon added that while some drivers may show up in Washington this weekend, his group did not want to inconvenience people that live in the capital region and use the Beltway for their regular commutes.

“First of all we know it would not be right to go to D.C. to lock down the city by the Beltloop,” he said. “That wouldn’t be fair to the people there.”