The Occupy movement has arrived, did it live up to the hype?
On Saturday, there were demonstrations in several Canadian cities including: Ottawa, Calgary, Vancouver, Montreal, Edmonton and Toronto.
Like the protests that inspired them in the United States, those protesting say they don’t have clear goals, that they have no demands that they just know the system isn’t working.
Just like in the United States, we know that is a load of BS.
These protests are the usual collection of left-wing groups, back by big labour, calling for the usual left-wing causes – with a caveat – some of them are now calling for revolution, a real and bloody revolution.
In the middle of the Toronto protests, there were people waving Mohawk Warrior flags: the same people who brought you the violent occupation at Caledonia.
In addition to those with a strange desire to overthrow the system there were others claiming to be part of the masses.
Take Toronto biology professor Linda Kohn: while she claims to be part of the 99%, Kohn is actually doing quite well for herself. According to the publicly available “sunshine list” put out by the province of Ontario, Kohn earned a salary of $160,000 last year.
She’s not alone in making more money that the average person and claiming that the man has the system rigged.
At protest after protest you could see union flags waving: public sector union flags.
One thing you can say about civil servants is that they are not poorly paid.
Several studies have shown that civil servants make about 25% more on average than people doing the same jobs in the private sector. And of course they have very generous pension plans that the rest of us can only dream of. But, they are part of the downtrodden now.
Not really, they are part of the problem.
Check out this list of demands from the Occupy Vancouver protest. This fellow wants a fair/progressive taxation. Perhaps he doesn’t realize this but we already have a very progressive tax system. It’s fairness is in dispute but not in the same way he would argue.
People at the bottom pay no tax, then 15% – at the top the tax rate is 29%. From zero to 29% and they think that people at the top should pay more? Most of the tax cuts in Canada over the last several years have been aimed at the bottom, not the top.
He says “Strengthen democracy regulate capitalism, private banks should not have more power than elected governments!”
What on earth makes him think that private banks have more power than elected governments.
Despite lobbying they have not been allowed to merge.
Banks and the entire capitalist system in this country is highly regulated by all three levels of government.
This man, like many of the protesters is simply ignorant of the facts. He doesn’t know.
I wonder if he votes.
In the recent Ontario election we saw less than 50% of eligible voters cast their ballots.
If these people wanted change they had their chance earlier this month in most of the provinces.
The outcome says they didn’t turn out in real numbers when they had the chance to bring about real change.
And that’s the Byline.
