The Rich Get Richer

Listening to random people on CBC Radio One express their support or opposition to the Occupy Wall Street movement has exposed, for me, what is fundamentally wrong with our capitalistic society and why we seem doomed to continue to stampede down this self destructive path of unsustainable consumption.

To hear someone say that while they support the movement, they feel it has gone on long enough and the tent cities should be dismantled, shows that some people do not fully understand what the protest is about. The troubled economy is the direct result of unethical and totally illogical banking and investment practices that got us into this mess but yet some of these practices continue to this day, despite the huge publicly funded bailout, in the name of free enterprise. How is anything going to change if we do not have the gumption or stamina to stand up for what is right and just?

In the meantime, the government that Canada has so recently given a majority mandate has already reneged on many of its election promises. Our Minister of Defence took a military search and rescue helicopter out of service to pick him up from his vacation at $32,000/hour while at the same time his government forced Air Canada and Canada Post workers back to work with legislation that undermined their bargaining power and justified it in the name of the troubled economy.

We need our politicians to be accountable for the promises they make and if they are going to fly the free enterprise flag, that flag must wave equally for the rich and the poor.

“Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate” - Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970)