We've Been Tricked!

[bigdude]

We've been tricked into working too hard

Anybody who has lived in Europe knows how delicious European life can be.”

So wrote New York Times columnist David Brooks last week.

He got that part right. Not only do the Europeans have great food, wine, clothes and architecture, but they've managed to avoid the slavish obedience to the marketplace that has left North Americans chained to their work stations, feeling obliged to work ever harder in order to consume ever more trinkets.

The corporate world has certainly been successful in indoctrinating North Americans in the mentality of full-blown capitalism, convincing us to accept its harsh divide between rich and poor.

But Europeans have traditionally been smarter. They've taken control of the marketplace and subordinated it to the needs of the population, creating a more egalitarian society with benefits for all.

Their political culture reflects this. They pay higher taxes but in return receive more social benefits: generous pensions, subsidized tuition, national child-care programs, extensive unemployment insurance, five-week holidays and lots of other stuff that we rarely hear about over here.

People who have travelled, lived, or know something about Europe I'm sure can really relate to this article. What a bunch of poop our mainstream media, our business community, and right wing organizations have fed North Americans for such a long time now.

It must be Mulroney's old adage at play once again: Throw enough shit against the wall and some of it will stick. This is the only reason we have fallen for such tripe, as I cannot think of any other logical reason.

[err]

We've been tricked into working too hard

Not just that, they haven't figured out what us North Americans have.... that to be successful, your neighbour has to see a Hummer or SUV in your driveway.... Maybe they should watch more American tv to see that they should be feeling like losers instead of enjoying themselves so much.....

[cybercoma]

This is the problem with your party and the unions that support it. Hard work never killed anyone and people should be rewarded for working hard. Instead you expect everyone to have a gun put to their head as the government takes their money. After paying for all the extravagance that comes along with working for the government, they redistribute the money in a manner they see fit. Instead of you deciding what to do with the money you worked hard to earn, the government tells you what is going to be done with it. How does a bunch of money squandering assholes in Ottawa know where my money is most effectively going to help me? They don't...nor do they care.

Now I'm not going to stretch things and say the Liberals or Conservatives would be any better, but this communist/socialist dogma makes me want to gouge my eyes out.

[August1991]

If you could, what century would you choose?

Queen Elizabeth and a nice cottage in the country? Queen Victoria and one of those London houses? Or King George and a mansion? You can choose in your dreams, but that's not what you would probably get in fact. If you choose a past century, I'd suggest sleeping on a street instead. That's where your ancestors probably slept.

I think that it's great that people can buy plane tickets, meet, sleep together, marry, and move here or there. But if people think it's magically better there, than here, I suspect they may be wrong. Maybe. Compare comparables. Live in the place, do a job, and perhaps most important, live with a person where, what, who you think matters.

There are unhappy Europeans, and unhappy Canadians. By and large, IMHO, people can better figure out what they want in North America. I have met more unhappy Europeans than unhappy Canadians (or Americans). But I believe most in the freedom to figure out what to do.