jacee

Nice derail bc. But my comment wasn't intended as anti-US as it's true of Canada too. As my signature suggests. No difference when it comes to government pandering to and being controlled by the 1%. No need for a p'ng contest.

Dp

I just want to underline what Moonlight is saying here for those who share Pliny's delusion that 'welfare' covers "essentials". It doesn't. Not as most of us understand "essentials", not even close. Think about yourself as a single male getting $585/mo to pay all of your "essentials". The way banks calculate it, we shouldn't pay more than 40% of income on shelter - $234/mo. Look in your local paper and see where you can live for that. Likely nowhere. Find the cheapest and take a drive by, (go in, pretend you are looking for your kid). Would you want your dog to live there? It's a crackhouse, right? If it's a student house, they won't rent to you. Realistically, you don't get a minimally decent room (share kitchen, bathroom) for under $400, and that's lucky. So you have $185 left for phone, tv, food, transportation ... getting the picture? You can't afford. Entertainment, maybe 1 or 2 bus fares a month (doctor, etc). Some months you can't afford a phone, no cabe tv, no internet ... and you eat spam (only the first half of the month), pasta or potatoes and canned vegs. So you sit in your room, watching your blurry over-the-air tv, looking forward to nothing but your next pasta-and-peas meal. Oh btw ... you have grade 3 literacy skills, can't do any job requiring reading/writing. (Dad was abusive, Mom ran from him and then from rent every two months, so you just never got into school very much and never had to with a new school every few months. This is a very typical story.) These are the men who are chronic welfare recipients. They are unemployable. They don't live a joyful life of leisure. Still think you want their life? They are about 20% of welfare recipients. Those who are alcoholics don't eat much. Those who smoke pick up butts on the street and re-roll them most of the month.Even those who don't drink/smoke become energy-drained due to poor nutrition, another chronic cause of being unemployable. Chronic malnutrition may well look like 'laziness', but try eating only kraft dinner for a week and see how energetic you feel: Try working an 8 hr shift carrying drywall. Or slugging beef carcasses in a meat cooler, some of the casual jobs occasionally available to men on welfare. They can't do it. The other 80% of welfare recipients are single Mom's with pre-schoolers who spend, on average, 3 years on welfare - ie, until the kids are in school and they get help to find a min. wage job, or more likely 2 or 3 part-time ones, if you're lucky.Poor nutrition is chronic, and what kind of chance do kids have without energy for learning, or even playing? Just had to get that out there. There's waaaaay too much misinformed jealousy among the wealthy for the illiterate, unemployable 'poor'. Reminds me of one of Barbara Amiel's columns, written (years back) on a day when hubby (Conrad Black) was sick with the flu and whining and driving her nuts. , and she was whining that 'poor Connie ... he works so hard, and all those people on welfare just get a free living!' I wonder if 'Connie' has changed his perspective on the 'poor', now that he's met some. Seriously people, there is no easy life for the 'poor'. You don't want it, and you sure as heck have no reason to be jealous or resent them. You have all your faculties and likely won the genetic lottery. They lost, and most lost the childhood environment lottery too. It's not like kids can choose.

Ah yes ... "the promised land" ... "promised" ... and delivered ... to the wealthiEST 1%.

I like that a lot. It's about time we attached some accountability to corporate welfare! In the 80's and 90's the business communities and Conservatives attacked education with both barrels, in Canada based largely on a report by the Economic Council of Canada report that made a great big noise about a literacy study that seemed to show a slight increase in illiteracy in youth 16-24 compared to previous generations. Years later, the 'blip' was quietly acknowledged to be an error, since college and university students were specifically excluded from the literacy sample. (Duh) In Ontario, Mike Harris' attack on educational achievement included a faked up graph of some 'selectively' organized data showing Ontario at the bottom of a list of international achievement results: This was accomplished by simply deleting all of the countries/provinces scoring below Ontario, including the US, UK, france and other western countries. The pamphlet containing the faked up graph was produced with taxpayer dollars and delivered to a 'selected' group of Ontarians: Conservative supporters. Point being ... the demand for educational accountability was reasonable, was reasonable - it's public money - but the demand from the business/Conservative community was accompanied by some very dirty politics. Time to turn the tables on them and demand a public accounting of the results achieved from public money doled out to private corporations. I suspect no dirty politics are even needed: For example, I saw an account of accoun an oilsands company getting a $250m government startupt grant and posting 'profits' of (you guessed it) $250m at the end of that fiscal year. The money went from us directly into shareholders' pockets, including, no doubt, company executives and ... perhaps? ... some Tory operatives 'in the know' ? It couldn't have been creating any jobs if it's padding the pockets of shareholders. It's a scam. How many other similar scams are there out there? It's certainly time to take a hard look. Are corporate subsidies truly creating jobs, or just political slush funds? We need to know. It's our money. Ontario is a good place to start. Go Andrea!!!

It's growing, in spite of - or because of? - the police crackdown.

http://blogs.metrotimes.com/index.php/2011/09/msm-slow-to-pick-up-on-occupy-wall-street/comment-page-1/ There is more news now, still not MSM though. Pretty profound effect the protest is having it seems. Very strange behaviour by ALL MSM, who have now clearly revealed that they are controlled by Wall Street.

Israel is a Jewish state. It isn't an issue. It's just a roadblock. Peace will require giving up things on both sides, and two states that recognize each other as such. Why give away the power to define Israel? Israel defines itself and answers to no one for it.

We'll get right on that. Just tell us where to find these "shifty-eyed" classic Quebecers and we'll just give them a piece of our mind. Or ... is it just possible that they save their "shifty-eyed" looks for you?

Not to worry Oleg. Madonna taught girls to be girls again and take charge of business too. And Lady Gaga taught them it's ok to be whoever you are. The kids are alright. You, I'm not so sure.

Let's just recap ... http://m.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/stockwell-day-cites-alarming-rise-in-unreported-crime-to-justify-new-prisons/article1661054/?service=mobile Great comment on cbc site: Can't we just pretend to lock up nonexistent enemies invented by hallucinating politicians in invisble jails funded by imaginary money? That'll save a few billion dollars. http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2010/08/03/canada-economy-stockwell-day.html Makes as much sense as this omnicrime bill. The jails are not for criminals. They're for protesters, formerly called citizens exercising freedom of speech.

. "The government" is us. The so-called capitalists are the welfare bums. The people getting welfare are the ones the so-called capitalists refuse to employ because the so-called capitalists are too lazy and just sit around collecting 'welfare' The rich are so jealous of people on welfare they've decided to join them. Now what do you call that kind of state? Because that's what we've got. A bunch of no good thieving blackmailing so-called 'capitalist' scam artists sucking off the public teat. And we are all the public.

Are you really that dumb?

They should quit whining and get a real job instead of scamming the welfare system.

Let me know when the wealthiEST start to take some personal responsibility and pay their fair share and stop taking government handouts.

:lol:

Those with "privilege" have sweet jobs in daddy's company.It's not the 'privileged' who protest. Your grip on reality is questionable.

http://bls.gov/news.release/youth.nr0.htm Like I said, learn something before you spew ignorant stereotypes. Youth unemployment is at all time highs. Two protesters I recall reading about had degrees in business management and finance. These aren't young people who step into a job at daddy's company. They work for it, but jobs are very scarce for everyone right now, even summer jobs. Maybe they understand ("the workingman"?) working people because that's who they were raised by. Your prejudice against youth is noted. Midlife crisis? Jealousy? Guilt? Question your own motives, not theirs. Their motive is to get jobs and right now that requires changing the system that has imploded because it is not sustainable. Oops! Too late!

You cheer me up every day bc, because I know I'll never be as bitter and jaded as you.

I'm not rich, not poor and I worked 60-100 hr weeks, no overtime, no bonuses, no perks, no thanks, constant deadlines and not enough staff or time to do the work demanded. "The rich" need to get over thinking they're the only ones who work hard. It's pathetic. Just shows you know little about the real world, and have little respect for others.Those are not "the poor", but the children of the middle class. They are intelligent, educated (college/university graduates) but unable to find employment in today's 'downturn'. They're not sitting home playing video games but dedicating themselves to work for change, so they will have a future. They've got more guts and savvy than you know, and probably more than you, because you clearly haven't bothered reading to find out who they are.

Most of those things could be considerably alleviated if we provided nutritious food for all kids in schools during their developing years. Hunger and poor nutrition in children and adolescence are huge factors in learn ing problems, inattention, behaviour problems, failure, low self esteem, unemployment, substance abuse, crime, incarceration, poverty and homelessness .Inner city schools that implement school meal programs see astounding results almost immediately. Such programs are often sponsored by local businesses. We need it for all kids.

The far right's tendency to resort to insults seems to me to betray a lack of the social intelligence so critical to living in a diverse society. It's a fear of unusual circumstances and human differences I guess. The young protesters, however, show a wealth of social intelligence and the ability to conduct themselves well as a group and as individuals under difficult circumstances. Those are the kind of people employers want to be hiring, if they have any smarts at al l. Just like Wall Street, the far right conformists see no options but to keep on doing what they've been doing, hoping for a different outcome. The protesters are savvy enough to see that it's not working and to tackle the big issues that need to be addressed so we can all get out of this failure cycle. Kudos to them, and razzies to those who can't see the writing on the wall: You are the problem; they are the solution.

It's a mistake to think Harper is 'stupid' or 'misguided' in enacting this draconian "Omnibus Crime Bill" when he's being very systematic and goal directed. The pot laws are intended to distract us from the real intent of the legislation. The actions of the HarperThug cops at the G20 were a sign of things to come. The legislation encapsulates the hatred of the wealthy for the middle class and poor. The middle class has been gutted and is becoming the poor. The wealthy and their government puppets know very well that the "austerity" program set in motion at the G20 will result in increased crime and rioting against the wealthy. The legislation is much more sinister than "stupid". It's preparation to protect the wealthy from the 'impoverished masses' they have created by ruthlessly attacking the middle class and the poor. The income gap between the wealthiEST and the rest of us is and will continue to fuel the 'underground economy'. The legislation is an initial attempt to attack the underground economy which, in the absence of real economic growth in the middle income ranges, will become the mainstay of the poor and working classes (formerly the middle class). Welcome to the 19th century. The 'robber barons' are back and they are pi$$ed that 'ordinary people' thought they should have a good life. We're supposed to be miserable so the wealthy can feel good. In other words, in employment, health care, pensions, social safety net, housing, transportation, etc., the wealthy are jealous of the poor and middle classes and their greed and supremist view of their superiority is their only motive. The legislation is not 'stupid': It is classist greed and hatred codified into law.

The richEST hoard their money at the expense of economic recovery and growth. The middle class consumers have been decimated and aren't spending. The retiring baby boomers aren't spending. If the rich aren't spending, nobody is. Good luck with that.

Dp