There's a lyric from this song that I'll paraphrase, "If you know there's somethin' wrong, why don't you write it?" Of course, it's "right," not "write," but I won't let that dissuade me in any way from posting about something that is SOOO wrong in our world!
Driving home from another great visit with "The Fam," my best buddies over here, Heather, Mike and their kids, Reilly, Roman, Iryna and Kelly, and I was blathering about politics which Mike and I often do when he's driving me home after a visit. I was talking about people in Canada who are legitimately angry, but whose desultory protests tend not to change anything due largely to their misdirection. We were speaking about the trucker convoy in Canada and I said to Mike that people are pissed off because things used to be so much better! Not just before the pandemic, but in the 60's, 70's and 80's. How can we get things back to the way they were then when people who worked their whole lives owned their homes and had enough money to retire. Now, with the exception of the shitty and the lucky, we just work our whole lives. No home, no retirement, we have to work till we drop dead on the job. What the frig happened? We KNOW there's somethin' wrong, but how can we RIGHT it? Mike asked me essentially that and far be it from me to refuse a blog post request!
What is wrong in Canada and how can we right it? A weighty query to be sure! My immediate answer was that we need to target our protests properly. In order to do this, we need to know our enemies. They are few, but they are powerful. They are the large corporations and the super rich who almost unanimously believe that screwing the public is the best way to squeeze as much money out of us as they can. Well, they're just wrong about that, but we'll come to that later. So how do you target them? It couldn't be simpler, you stop buying their shit. So why, if it's as easy as this, hasn't it happened? Well, it's NOT as easy as this. The concept is, but the details are not. There is a distinct laziness in the equation that is going to be difficult to change. I am not referring to Canadians who want to go to Walmart and do all their shopping in one go, rather than shop around in the markets and small grocery stores to support small business instead. While it would be nice for Canadians to do this, there are too many reasons why they don't, and those reasons are legitimate, and I dare say manufactured by the Walmartians of the world. Let's not blame the victims here.
The laziness to which I refer is one of littler known existence. Watch this vid. I've posted about Dan Price before in one of my many economically focused posts in which I howl about the mistaken business mythology of our times. It may have sounded naïve to you if you read it at the time, and I expected that. I think I included a story about my Chinese girlfriend in Vancouver who was younger than I was then, yet just laughed at my childish gullibility when I talked about honest business. Folks, tell all the people you know that if they want their businesses to succeed, throw out all the crap that has infiltrated business training in business schools for decades, even centuries, honesty is the key. As I write this, Harvard Business School is using Dan Price as an example of how to succeed HONESTLY in business. YES! It IS possible!
When people picture the perfect businessperson, there are a few adjectives we tend not to conjure up in our mental images. Rarely kind, generous, female, liberal, forward thinking, gregarious, hip, artistic, but also rarely lazy. Even the staunchest of anti-Trumpists, like me, would have to admit that, although it was certainly bank loans and Daddy loans that made him rich, NOT hard work, he wasn't lazy. The rich, crotchety, conservatives sitting in the pillowy, red, cowhide chairs of the highly exclusive country club lounge swapping stock portfolio news with the boys' club while smoking cigars and pipes and sipping sherry get partial erections exaggerating the INGENUITY, RISK and HARD WORK that went into their successes. We, the envious proles, have been socialized effectively into buying this portion of their blustering even if we are beyond doubt that their individual and/or collective words of honour are literally (NOT figuratively) worth their weights in gold. We have also been convinced that it is fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders, not personal choice, that mandates every CEO decision. You know what, I think they are either ignorant, or they're lying. And, given the respect in which I hold the word of the average rich person, knowing generally how they all come by those riches, I believe the majority of them are consciously slinging the endless bullshit, while only a few are just too STUPID to be scatalogically self-aware. However, all of them are too CAUTIOUS and LAZY to do business the right way.
Watch that video again. Go to the 2:13 point in it. Dan Price says that the biggest failure in his project has not been size of business (employees) - that's doubled, or earnings - those have tripled, it has been the changing of business thinking. "The System" values having the highest return with the lowest risk and the lowest amount of work. "The System" is another name for that "something" that we know is wrong in Canada. It is our enemy. And not only are they getting richer and richer while we are going the opposite direction while financing their rocket ship rides to other pecuniary planets, those lazy, chickenshit assholes could get even richer if they'd share just a little bit of the wealth.
But they KNOW this, most of them. This is why, as Dan Price says, zero big companies are following suit. So what can we, the REAL Canadian citizens do to fight them? Well, we need to raise a little hell, that's what. Not by clogging up freeways with rigs and protesting vaccine mandates. I love the spirit of the "freedom convoy" or whatever you want to call it. That spirit IS raising a little hell. But as I said, it's proper, and if I say so myself, long overdue rage, but it's misdirected. So how can we direct our rage properly? Do what I mentioned before and boycott large corporations who are cautious and lazy. Don't buy the shit they can sell us more cheaply because they outsourced manufacturing to countries with cheap or slave labour like China, rather than pay Canadian people living wages to produce that same shit locally. That would be a start.
What else could we do? Well the convoy drove to Ottawa where the seat of our commonwealth government resides. The words "common" and "wealth" scrunched together like that might give the impression that Canada, being a member of the British Commonwealth, would be interested in having businesses, and business philosophies, like those of Dan Price, thriving in our country making the common people more wealthy. Well, the common people certainly would be interested in that, but more profitable and honest business is clearly not a primary concern of our government and has not been for as long as I can remember. I would say that second only to doing what they're told by their owners and ours - the concentrated private and corporate wealth of our country (and others), the political leaders' primary concern is to manage the risks to their existence. For instance, since I was young and voter turn-out got lower and lower in Canada, the aggressiveness of immigration policies has been directly disproportionate. Don't kid yourself or be kidded, any post-Covid immigration policy the Canadian government institutes claiming it will be for economic recovery or some nice words that sound like it will help US, will be to help THEMSELVES, which is their primary objective after helping the rich. Immigrants vote. And who would be our "leaders" if none of us would vote?
I feel I need to insert a caveat here before I get to some cringy writing. Canada was better in the 60's 70's and 80's. Everyone knows that. Canada had fewer immigrants then too. Not everybody knows that, but it's true. I need to tell you that I don't blame immigrants for the decline of my country. In fact, I think that complaining about immigrants
is a way to deflect blame from those very few who are ultimately responsible for that decline. Two party Conservative vs. Liberal is another. Maple Leafs vs. The Canadians, Molson vs. Labatt's, divide and govern has been a tactic our "leaders" have used to their advantage and our detriment. Among others. What I am whinging about is the aggressive immigration used by Canadian governments as a self-preservation tactic. So don't call me racist or prejudiced or anything like that.
Take a look at the above vid. It's Rush playing at Laura Secord High School back in 1974. That's when I was 7. Go to one of the parts where they show the crowd. What is missing? It hit me like a sledge hammer as I watched. See any black, brown, Asian people in the crowd? Me neither. Snow is not the only reason Canada was called the "Great White North." Last election we are told there was about a 62.5% voter turn-out. I am positive they always add a good 10-20% on that number just to encourage Canadians to vote, but let's say that our politicians have told the truth one time and it's about voter turn-out in the last election. In 2016, the estimated percentage of the total population of people of colour in Canada was 22.3%. This is, of course, documented, legal citizens of Canada. It didn't include illegal immigrants, international students who weren't studying, and probably not even refugees. And there have been 6 years of aggressive immigration since 2016. Go to any major Canadian city and you can tell immediately that the Great White North ain't white any more. Outside the major cities, there is still a majority of white people, so let's hazard a guess that it's about 50-50 right now in Canada. I'm not saying white people don't vote or all immigrants do, (or that all immigrants are not white (give me a break here, I'm not being racist, honest!)) but, I reckon our government was chosen mostly by new Canadians and it could be because veteran Canadians are tired of getting our hopes dashed by whatever party wins, every four years. How long could long-time Canadians put up with that shit? Well, in the "Freedom Convoy," I believe we have our answer. For some.
Now if you've noticed the obvious hole in my assertion here, that only Canadian citizens can vote, you'll pardon my objection to that after finding out first-hand how easy it is for non-citizens to work in Canada without a work permit and how HARD it is for anyone to report them to authorities. I've posted before about how I was called a racist for reporting half of my students in Vancouver who never attended class in breach of their student visas, some who were definitely working in Canada. Also, proof of identity and address is checked at Canadian voting stations. You need a driver's license and a phone bill. NOT a passport or birth certificate. I can imagine the air being sucked out of the room by a collective gasp if a worker at any Canadian voting station asked, or worse demanded proof of Canadian citizenship from a visible minority! Furthermore, there is an active push for non-citizens to be allowed to vote in Canada. Many of the major cities are on board, so it's probably just a matter of time before they legally do what they're probably already doing.
It's crass and uncomfortable to be talking about Canada like this, and using the word "white" so much, but the point I am getting at is not white supremicist, it is white-longsufferist. During the decline from the glory days in Canada when workers could afford better lives and the government gave at least a little crap about the citizens of Canada, to now when people working full time jobs can't pay the bills and are proven in study after study to be unrepresented by the people they voted for, white people (and it's a bit off topic but Natives too!) have always been there. I am writing this and feeling like a heel for the purpose of defending some, probably not all, but some of the people participating in the Freedom Convoy in Canada. You see, some observant onlookers have noticed a conspicuous absence of colour in the crowds blocking Ottawa streets these days. Origins of the convoy have been traced to white supremacy too. But I have no doubt that a lot of protesters are the people, the white people, who have suffered longest under the oppressive rule of the rich and the impotent governments that ignored our cries against them over the years. They might feel like latching onto this protest is the only thing they can do.
But is it? Is there anything else that Canadians can do to smarten up our leaders? Is there still a chance of getting Canadian politicians to do what they always say they do, what it is literally their jobs to do, but that which they never seem to do? That is, can we get them to work for us, instead of themselves and the rich? I think we can. You see our government, like so many, is the many being controlled by the few through implicit submission. In Noam Chomsky's book, "The Precipice" he writes that 250 years ago David Hume was shocked by this. Implicit submission is a choice. Yes, it is a choice that is less commonly the choice of the industrious than the idle, but I don't believe Canadians are idle or lazy. I think we are just efficiently distracted from the knowledge that the power remains in the hands of the governed. We're industrious, but kept too busy working our asses off to freedom fight - to name just one distraction.
This is another reason why the rich believe the $70,000 a year jobs that people like Dan Price give their employees can only hurt their businesses. But not only can these money-addled bozos make MORE money if they abandon their "greed-is-good" Gordon Gecko corporate strategies, look what else happened in that small model in Seattle. Employees started having kids. A LOT of them. Why? They could afford to. What are kids to the slimy, amoral captains of industry? Consumers! More consumers = more money. Why wouldn't you WANT that? Because selling more is harder work than selling FOR more. Price gauging is the lazy business person's way to success, while treating people fairly is for chumps. This would also explain your massive inflation. Don't listen to all the so-called experts talking about the central banks setting interest rates or the pandemic or worker shortages or any other things they will blame it on; inflation has had one and only one cause in its long history: the greed and laziness of the rich and powerful business owners. When was the last time you heard of them lowering prices?
So three things we can do to fight the power: 1. Stop having kids until we can afford them. 2. Stop buying from big, bad corporations. Go to Costco, not Walmart. 3. Don't vote (and tell a new Canadian not to vote) for people who won't work for you. I'm not saying forever, calm down. Political parties are very much like businesses. They like to believe they have all the power in our relationship, but their cockiness needs to be checked from time to time. Hit them in the wallets. Consider your vote as what it actually IS - money. If a politician gets no votes, he/she gets no money. They lose their jobs. So their parties will either change the policies of their candidates, or they'll find new candidates. Unfortunately, they STILL don't have to work for us if they can convince us that their candidates are going to work for us, but they are just lying. Even third party candidates might do this. We should know this by now. So we may have to provide our own candidates. Storm the capital. The truckers would give us rides!
One final thing, if you are wondering what kind of policy to look for in a candidate, here's what Canada needs: We need a candidate with the balls to mandate a 5 or 10 year price freeze across the board for every product in the country. Then raises across the board so workers can catch up to the companies. The rich have shown that they will not voluntarily do what Dan Price did, so we'll have to force them to get richer against their wills. Idjits. And, if I may, I'd like to propose a name for the bill. It'd HAVE to be called the "Price is Right" bill, no?
One of the many reasons things were better in the 50's and 60's in Canada was that the minimum wage pretty much kept up with inflation. Maybe to reward the regular people of the country for, you know, saving our way of life. Fight a world war, suffer through a depression, fight another world war, and THEN you get a little gratitude from government and business. But only two decades worth before they start taking it away. It disappeared slowly, which is why the 70's and 80's were still pretty good. But if minimum wage (in the US) had kept up with inflation, it would be over $20/hr. right now. In Canada it'd be $25 easily! That's MINIMUM wage. Perhaps the only greater political disservice ever perpetrated upon the people of those same countries has been the "temporary" income tax that is still, after over 100 years of temporariness, being collected. The candidate I vote for will get rid of that shit too. We need to demand stuff like this from the people who SAY they represent us.
If we can't find a candidate who can keep from being assassinated long enough to do these things, we'll have to do them ourselves. So, 4. Demand raises. 5. Don't buy anything if it goes up in price. 6. Stop paying your income tax. Pay your other taxes, but not income tax. They won't throw us all in prison, they need us to do all the work they get all the credit and money for!
At any rate, these are just a few ways we can raise a little hell in our country. Some hell that is MUCH more constructive than the "freedom convoy."
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