Our situation is different up here in Canada. For one everybody gets health care even if they have to wait an unreasonable length of time to get it, and our financial institutions have fared pretty well thanks to regulations that some might deem "socialist". Canada was also steadily ringing up surpluses and paying down its debt for many years until recently. It's not the same situation up here at all...yet.
The Conference Board of Canada says the income gap here is growing faster than in the United States and poverty levels are rising. In 1998 the top 100 CEO's in Canada earned 104 times what the average worker did, in 2009 it was 155 times. What are they doing to earn that money? Beat down labour costs (meaning what we earn) and taking away our pensions while increasing theirs and indexing them.
As well what happens in the United States effects the entire world as we've seen, and given our extremely integrated economies we are more vulnerable than anyone else. We also have a right wing federal government solidly on the side of big business as seen recently with all the back to work legislation enacted under the guise of "good for the economy". Harper has been moving Canada closer to the Republican vision steadily since coming to power, and now that he has a majority that process is speeding up dramatically. The Conservatives anti-labour bias, their ridiculous omni-bus anti-crime bill that virtually no experts think will do what they intend, killing the gun registry and destroying all records in the aburdly laughable interest of "public safety". The list goes on, and it's not pretty.
Although we are slightly better off right now than the United States it won't always be that way especially with our current government. So protests in Canada are just as relevant as they are in the US.
Occupy Wall Street? Nutbars.
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Re: Occupy Wall Street? Nutbars.
My point friend Nark was that each of them didn't start off as an armed revolution, but later grew into one.Shiny, my point is that each one of your examples of revolution was in fact, an armed one.
Indeed it is a great thing, but its also supposed to serve a purpose. If the numbers warrant it, it is supposed to be an avenue for change as well. History however has shown that this avenue for change rarely works. Don't get me wrong, I'm not an advocate of armed insurection as I believe that its an indication of a full collapse of reason and rule of law which is generally bad for everyone. Given the numbers of people we're seeing involved in the protests, we have enough for it to grow into protest's ugly brother. Maybe the powers that be should be trying to make change before it does. If one really looks at what the protesters are wanting right now, its not a lot in the big scheme of things.The greatest thing about this country is the ability to assemble and speak your mind. Do it peacefully and respectfully and I don't have a problem.
We can't stop here! This is BAT country!