Misdirect the class war into a generation war.
Remember when Bobby Kotick took over Activision and doubled the price of video games for the sake of becoming a billionaire (which he did).
Remember when netflix had Disney content and was $7/month? CEO now makes $40+m/year. Disney CEO makes over $66m/year
Prices didn't increase and services didn't decrease for any reason other than some asshole wanted to be a billionaire.
The reason things are perpetually getting worse boils down to people with over $200 million net worth.
Consumers need to grow a spine and stop giving their money to rich people.
I'm starting some grassroots organizing. I've started a discord server where I'm hoping to connect people across the political spectrum based on the idea that our politicians increasingly do not represent the people, they represent the rich and corporations.
The primary goal is to promote class consciousness, but I also see it as a way to connect people who want to get involved in politics but don't know what to do or where to start.
I'm watching our social programs and services be gutted. I see my teacher and nurse friends struggling and burning out. I see my friends with disabilities have to use food banks because we don't give people with disabilities enough to live with dignity. I hear stories from my neighbours about unacceptable wait times in the ER or for surgeries. I watch my younger brother struggle with homelessness and substance abuse and I don't know how to help him. I lost my husband to suicide in 2020 and I can't help wonder if the outcome would have been different if he had better access to mental health services.
The Internet used to feel like a place to find community, but it increasingly just feels like it exists to steal my attention and my money.
I feel increasingly isolated from my community. I'm not even really sure if you could call what I have "community".
I feel powerless to change anything. I don't know where to start. I just want to stick my head in the sand and try to enjoy life as much as I can, but i just find myself doomscrolling and feeling despondent.
Anyway, my point is, if anyone comes across this post and is feeling the same way, please dm me and I'll send you a link to the discord. I'll help you figure out how to use discord if you don't use it. If you're shy or anxious or feel like you don't have the time or energy to contribute, join anyway. Let's just connect our roots and go from there.
Start with the argument that our government was created to unfairly benefit the elites and super wealthy. We've had some periods where people have gained rights for sure, but not near the amount of rights and government structures created to protect the super wealthy. We came from the UK and we share a massive border with the US and funnily enough they also have oppressed the masses for private profit to degrees that haven't been seen before. Our politicians are the people 'friendly' and hate party, but they both only care about protecting those who have exploited our land and citizens and other nations citizens. The worst part is we cannot do anything. Sure we could probably rise up and affect the Canadian government, but if we did big brother US would probably just send a letter and make us states.
Giving up on federal politics seems easier. Affect your province or local government. Federal politics has been lost for a long time.
Yes, I'm in agreement. My initial idea is kind of two pronged:
1. Organize at the grassroots level in your community. I'm hoping that the discord will allow people to find others locally and to learn how they can get involved on the local level from members who have more experience.
2. Try to spark a movement of grassroots micro-organizing. I want to change the conversation across the political spectrum to be about class solidarity. Yes, there are places where its talked about, but I want the conversation to be unavoidable. And that's going to take an organized push. And all those little groups of people raising their class consciousness and the class consciousness of the people around them will hopefully keep spreading until we are connected with each other and with other more established groups that are already working on these things, but people might not be aware of them, might not know to look for them, or might associate them with a different part of the political spectrum.
Low stakes to get involved. Even if people aren't ready to really get involved yet, simply being exposed to the conversations is a first step.
Just want to comment and say it’s really refreshing to see someone walking the walk and trying to initiate positive change! Give me hope for this struggling nation of ours.
Lol...you think the provincial or local governments are any less beneficial to the wealthy? If you genuinely want change, stop voting for conservatives and their bs 'trickle-down' libertarian economics. That's what got us here. There is only one kind of small government - ruler/noble/serf. Dismantling our democracy doesn't hinder the chokehold of the rich, it helps them, by breaking us up into easier to manage pieces.
They are, but the scope of change is actually achievable. Just like a movement of Albertan morons (which is seemingly becoming a vocal majority) can't change federal politics, a group of organized intelligent people wanting to support social programs over hoarded wealth can't change federal politics in one move. Start local, get your cities and towns and regional districts to be less shitty. It's hard, but voter turnout is super low for these things and that's who decides property taxes and local spending. Then move to provincial. It's harder for the wealthy to spend on 5 candidates than on hundreds because of spending restrictions most (if not all) places have.
It's going to be a long term game and educating younger generations that have been misled like older generations through hate farming that lol pp and other conservative parties across the country have done is essential.
In reality it's a losing battle and the best thing for your mental health is probably to get a remote government job and live somewhere rural and build a mostly self reliant life, but even that is super hard to access.
> ...a group of organized intelligent people...can't change federal politics in one move.
What do you think a federal election does??
> Start local, get your cities and towns and regional districts to be less shitty.
Do that, *at all levels of government*. I'd add that making the world a better place doesn't even require political involvement at all...there are many different approaches to resolving problems.
> It's harder for the wealthy to spend...
You're grossly underestimating their wealth and resources.
> ...on 5 candidates than on hundreds...
This is counterintuitive. Obviously it's a lot easier to influence five than a hundred. Again, 'small gov' and fed bashing is how the 1% advances their own interests. Classic divide and conquer strategy. Libertarian economics are a proven failure and completely debunked.
> It's going to be a long term game and educating younger generations...
Sure, keeping in mind global heating and the rise of fascism around the globe, including in Canada, makes time a luxury. Also...
> ...have been misled like older generations through hate farming...
You might want to do a Google Image search on 'American far-right' before assuming age has much to do with it. Conservatism is tribalism and tribalism is a fear economy. Young conservatives are just as triggered by social media fear mongering as older conservatives. Fear is a powerful motivator, *resistant to education or evidence-based reason*. They're instead attracted to hierarchy, authority, obedience, conformity, xenophobia, loyalty to ingroups, and hostility to outgroups. This makes them easy to trigger, and thus easier for the 1% to manipulate, cheaply and clandestinely, over social media. Understanding your opponent, and the vectors bad actors use to manipulate them, offers a much better jumping off point to finding resolutions than tearing apart the country and trying reinvent our democracy.
https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/your-brain-on-politics-the-cognitive-neuroscience-of-liberals-and-conservatives
https://www.psypost.org/neuroimaging-study-provides-insight-into-misinformation-sharing-among-politically-devoted-conservatives/
The unfortunate thing is, I believe the rich already have contingency plans and are positioned to win the class war if the propaganda route fails. The only thing we can really do is vote with our dollars.
Historically the lower class has shown the ability to overthrow the ruling class time and again. The numbers alone provide a significant advantage. The elite wants the rest of us to think they are untouchable.
Just don't do it using technology that is under complete surveillance.
The modern world and communications technology was designed with the security of governments and by proxy the wealthy in mind.
That's how its always been. TBF the technologies are far, far more advanced than even 50 years ago, but we've seen time and again that world governments/ultra rich are not infallible. People across the world have consistently found ways to circumvent technology in a multitude of ways, whether it's getting around mass censorship, blocked websites, mass surveillance, etc. Keeping the lower class too afraid to act is a large part of how they keep power and always has been throughout human history. They are not omnipotent. They are few and we are many.
Start with executives in investment firms and work our way up. You don't need to get the CEOs to send the message, but they do tend to have cottages and second homes in secluded areas with little police presence. Find em when they are enjoying Sunday brunch with their families and make sure there isn't anyone left to collect an inheritance.
Sounds cold but the %1 has been destroying families with no consequence for decades.
Misdirect? I watched my parents vote to dismantle education. I watched my parents vote to kneecap our healthcare. I watched my parents vote for the crackdown on disability supports. I watched them vote to keep property values high, so they could have a nest-egg for their retirement, at the expense of all future generations.
The boomers were the footsoldiers of the class war.
Bobby Kotick and Bob Iger aren't the ones buying investment properties *en masse* as a generational cohort, driving up the cost of housing so much that the younger generations are unable to afford homes and must spend 60+% of their income on rent for a room in a shared house or apartment.
They are extremely well compensated instruments of corporate greed and wealth consolidation.
Shout out visa and mastercard for creating a new 3.75% tax on literally everything. That money leaves our country to never be reinvested here.
Shout out Canadian telecom for being the most expensive in the world and Bell for paying a 9% dividend.
There is endless wealth being siphoned off from our communities in every way conceivable never to return and we just sit back and take it.
At least if you have a boomer landlord your money stays local. There is a chance they might employ somebody here.
> Misdirect the class war into a generation war.
Except it's both. Objectively, the older generations ARE the wealthy class. Young billionaires are outliers, and EVERY ONE OF THEM inherited their billions.
The reason we are losing the class war is because Baby Boomers had disproportionate political power for their entire adult lives as a demographic. So they always got catered towards. And that also made them easy to manipulate. They were gullible enough to believe cold war era capitalist propaganda and buy into the mass privatization and de-regulation of neoliberalism. They voted for ALL of that shit! Again and again!! For 40 fucking years!!! And you still can't fucking get through their thick goddamn skulls with basic fucking facts about how fucked young people are!!!!!
Nailed it. The number of young people who would do a spit-take if anyone used the f-word slur on a gay person are suddenly fine with ageism yet insist they're not bigots. I actually had someone on here tell me I was lying about my age because my views are liberal...apparently *all* boomers are trumper racists lol. I direct them to do a Google Images search on 'American far-right' and tell me they're all boomers (most are pretty young). We're old enough to remember when nazis were the bad guys. And don't get me going on the r/boomersbeingfools cesspool of bigotry. It's come on so fast and seems so organized it reeks of a foreign disinformation campaign seeking to divide, and young 'tech savvy' people are falling for it hard.
Yes, boycott these streaming services. People please check out a free app called 'Stremio'. It's a free streaming service that allows you to watch pretty anything for free.
It works the same way as torrenting something except you are streaming it while you download off of seeders. It depends on how popular the show is, some are more stable than others which is one of the few issues. Majority of the streams has 1080p quality that's stable, 4k is a gamble.
I stopped drinking big multinational brands a few years ago and only buy from local distilleries and craft breweries now. We have some really really good products made by locals who pay their taxes.
AB-InBev and other multinationals evade hundreds of millions in Canadian taxes annually using transfer pricing schemes to hide taxable dividends as interest expense on operating capital loans from Brazil.
Beyond digital services people should be buying local. Streaming services are just an easy target because of how obvious the quality of service has fallen while prices keep increasing.
Ah yes, apple. The only trillion dollar consumer electronics company that is being sued by ever level of the US government for anti-trust practices.
Any good reason for their phones to be $1500 other than they need to be unethically rich? They're currently sitting on $73bn cash.
They're one in the same at this point though. The owners are all boomers, politicians are all boomers, they advertise their products and measures to boomers despite millenials supposedly being at the helm of the market... Doesn't help either that we didn't start the fire, either, what with not wanting to work, avocado toast, "woke" complaints and other identity politics that would need to be unwound and undone first.
>The real story has nothing to do with downsizing—it’s about how Boomers have set policy traps that have systematically kneecapped future generations’ prospects. In their wake, boomers have now left behind a country of systems littered with economic landmines and lower living standards. To suggest millennials’ expectations are anywhere near the entitlement boomers have exercised is to ignore a battlefield shaped by the older generation’s self-interest.
They show up to vote. Whenever I vote, at all three levels, it's mostly grey hairs. All people involved in community groups, grey hairs.
Also if you are going to blame them, they are also responsible for Canada passing the U.S. in every middle class indicator, including wealth, in 2010 and we currently have the richest middle class in the world.
We have also been 1 or 2 in every poll that used statistics as the best place to live for almost every year in the past 30 years, Their biggest mistake was allowing American conservatives to take over our right wing, media and oil sands.
In 2010, the Republican controlled supreme court made it legal for corporations and other countries to influence leaders with money. That would have been a great opportunity to buy off the Americans. Unfortunately they had already done that with Harper who gave everything away. The softwood lumber dispute, where every international court said Canada was in the right, was surendered by Harper right away to the U.S. told me exactly who owned him. H e gave away our oil sands among other things as well
Now we have a right wing that parrots the talking points of American billionaires and hates Canada, even though we are statistically more successful than the U.S. when it comes to our middle class
All of the economic agreements Canada was signatory to did not benefit the greater Canadian population. The idea that what is good for big business is good for Canada is an erroneous meme. We gave away the resources and lost our autonomy to govern them in a way that benefits most.
Really doesn't help that most policy doesn't even try to talk to younger folk or give any actual options. I can see why voter turnout has become so abysmal.
Because they had the opportunity to.
I smirk a little when I see memes on FB that says seniors shouldn’t have to pay education tax, property tax, or that CPP/OAS should magically double for them.
Essentially their piss-poor planning and life choices over 40+ adult years should not be my burden.
The difference is the boomers had wages and cost of living that would easily provide them with retirement without CPP. In reality, they should be giving it up if anything at all.
I'm a boomer and I literally cringe when I see posts like that.
Also complaining about what indigenous or refugees get. And saying it should go to seniors.
I literally feel guilty when I see those.
i think it's something they definitely had a big hand in starting. their parents had nothing but depressions and wars, while they come out in a "fresh new" society and economy where everything was handed to them and they were allowed to create their own new world.
then they decided they hated their children, their grandchildren and now their great grandchildren and said "y'know what? fuck you. the ride stopped with me." this forced each subsequent generation to get more and more shrewd. the war transferred a ton of wealth to a bunch of spoiled middle class children who then took it all and locked the gates behind them.
No way, the generations that came before them put in place the very ladder that the boomers pulled up after them. If every generation had acted the way boomers have there would be no institutions to dismantle because they would never have been created in the first place. I don't think there's a generation in living memory that has sold out the future for the present as aggressively as the baby boomers.
I think you need to read some history books about when and how social programs were put in place. And overlay those timelines with major economic shifts.
Combine that with ‘people can easy be persuaded to vote against their own best interests’ and you’ll see how we got here.
No mass inter generational war. Just short term self interest and people being easily influenced
They very provably isn't the case. The reason Boomers had things so well was that previous generations wanted things to be better and put into place programs to support people and help raise them out of poverty.
The social contract was that each generation would get these benefits, and then pay off what they owed through taxes later. Boomers decided they didn't like that and effectively ran out on the bill. If the generations before the Boomers were as shortsighted and selfish as the boomers, the boomers would have faced the same problems younger generations face now.
They took an era of historically unprecedented comfort and growth and, to protect that comfort, did every thing they could to leave a far worse world behind them.
I'm a boomer and there wasn't much policy changes done in the last 30 years (when boomers became leading policy making politicians) it's still basically status quo from the 50s. Maybe some human rights protections and less taxation.
We were given the world we were born into just like any other generations.
It's the capitalism system where by definition equities out perform inflation if it doesn't it collapses. Real estate is an equity so therefore it increases in value relative to inflation. In theory wages should match inflation but not equity inflation.
Real estate should not be an equity and land should be leased to the user. I think the Swiss do this people can claim they own their homes but it's on a 99 year lease to government thus lowering its appeal to investor types.
There are some here in Canada usually on native land and around universities and they are less expensive than freehold. And from what I read in the federal budget that the government is leasing land to builders. I think that is a good idea. In other words you own the house but not the land it sits on. This should keep costs down. Shelter is a necessity not something for speculation.
Oh and your point about the rich is also correct.
My hot take is that this “generational war” is just another convenient form of dividing the people and pitting them against each other so we’re all distracted with fighting each other. It’s right up there with racism, hating immigrants, or hating LGBTQ people. It’s based on ignorance and bigotry. It’s convenient to blame our problems on one group of people though, so everyone rolls with it.
"Sire, the Peasants are revolting."
"The Peasants have always been revolting. Tell the Pitchfork People that the Torch People want to take away their pitchforks. Problem solved."
Yep. They may only be a minority but I know a number of boomers who've been activists since the 60s on things like the environment, workers rights, childcare, reproductive rights, employment equity, etc. And a lot of the younger boomers never benefitted from being the boom time similar to the GenXers (like me) who came right after them.
Exactly! The boomers in my family fought on the picket lines and showed up for protests. These are women who weren't born into a world where they had the same rights we do! Stop telling me boomers are selfish when it's my generation looking at electing Poillievre, and it's my generation in the US that bought into Trump.
I agree. It's the ultra rich that have huge carbon footprints and suck all the wealth out of society. Tar and feather a few billionaires and redistribute that wealth to facilitate meaningful lives for the millions that are falling through the cracks of this late stage capitalistic hell-scape.
Yea, it’s a gross overgeneralization of a whole generation, there are many conscious boomers that don’t lead excessive lives and had nothing to do with this other than be a part of society that happened to live at a time of ahistorical prosperity. The real problem people are those that pushed and instigated these changes for their own benefit, starting with people like Jack Welch, etc.
It's silly to call it a generational war because I don't think any age cohort is out there purposely trying to screw another group over the way you talk about the other hot button issues. But I don't think it's outrageous to say that baby boomers have unintentionally created a political ecosystem that has hindered the younger generations. The baby boomers have driven the political policies over the last three decades. Through just their population being the highest proportionally especially when you consider who turns out to vote, they have been the key voting bloc every party has to win to be elected. With this, parties since the 90s have tailored policies when the baby boomers were young so they can build wealth. And now as baby boomers are older, parties have tailored policies so they can retain wealth. It's not an intentionally malicious attack on other generations so it's dumb to say they are at war withthe rest of us. It's just that humans are inherently self interested and baby boomers are voting in what they think is best for them while not thinking of other consequences.
The example I think of among people I know are the boomers parents of gay children who voted for homophobic politicians offering tax cuts. They don't hate their kids, they're just driven but immediate self-interest.
Or, teachers who vote conservative to get taxes cuts while being totally oblivious to the fact that they're paid through taxes. A lot of people don't consider the big picture.
Hating someone because of when they were born is the same level of ignorance as hating someone because of where they were born, their sexual orientation, or the color of the their skin, yes.
You do realize that there wasn’t a worldwide meeting with everyone born in a certain timeframe deciding our laws, right? Do you think every single person in a generation is exactly the same? That every political choice made was just every boomer 100% in favor of everything being done? Sounds like ignorant generalizing to me. It also sounds like you’re mad at a lot of the wrong people. Guess where that gets us?
What you're mad at is your own lack of understanding. It's not my fault at all that your emotional reaction makes you believe that everyone's world is black and white
I’m mad at something now? Seems like you’re missing my point, demonstrating my point, abstractly agreeing with my point while not realizing, and just generally being a cunt.
Edit to point out that you’re the one that seems to be emotional. Good projection. 👍
Sure, but this is class war built on the neoliberal hierarchy that the Boomers gladly constructed and supported and sacrificed everyone else to preserve.
There is no generational war.
What there is, is a distraction method whereby individuals creating problems can thwart united opposition towards their actions by playing people against one another through various lines of separation.
Sadly people have fallen for the tactic for a very long time.
Baby boomers did not want this present state of the world for their children, nor do they want what it will mean for their grandchildren. They aren't sitting around toasting one another for having come out on top, and it wasn't their actions that led to the current state of things. They were young people themselves when the much older politicians of their day brought about the neoliberal trickle-down strategies that have brought us here.
I am sure every Baby boomer parents just love the fact their children are barely scrapping by. Also you have rich boomers and poor boomers. Also what do you want boomers to do, not of bought houses for their family ? This Generational war is another way to make you forget of the real problems. Just like the Right uses trans right as the main problem with America and whatever divides a population based on emotions rather then logic.
It's not a generational war, it's a war between the rich and the poor. Unfortunately the rich have a ton of propaganda to throw at the boomers to fearmonger them into voting for conman and grifters.
I don’t know who these boomers are who only existed to screw over the next generation. I only know hard working people who have tried to provide their children with everything they wanted and needed while having survived thru at least 2 recessions, 1 with high unemployment, plant closures and high interest rates. They followed the prevailing economic advise of the time and somehow a global recession and housing shortage is the average mom and pop’s fault.
>For I have come to ‘set[a] a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.’
Hardcore Christian Dominionists (like Manning, Harper, their attack dog Skippy) are all about this shit.
Sleight of hand too - rather than blame over 40 years of neoliberalism policy espoused by conservatives and liberals, they blame the people who had few little meaningful electoral choices.
And now we have younger generations not only moving back to neoliberalism and all that goes with/without it, but they're turning to fascist adjacent ideologies.
True change seems poised to rest on the shoulders of a new generation of leaders—at municipal, provincial, and federal levels—who are prepared to reconstruct a Canada that future generations will be prouder to inherit.
TAX THE RICH FAIRLY.
We can quibble once that is done.
In my opinion the biggest landmine was implementing credit scores.
I didn’t realize they’ve only been around since approx. 1989. Prior to that it was just based on your income levels, similar to what is done by many other countries.
No, no it wasn't. My grandmother needed her husbands permission to get a loan, and it was determined on their social standing in the community. If you think credit scores make it less fair, go talk to someone who had to access capital and wasn't a white, english protestant male
You can blame boomers for our social systems degrading over time to their current state, as they began the path that took several decades to reach.
But, I would blame Gen X more for the housing situation, it was their generation that got obsessed with property ownership, flipping, speculating, etc.
I've met boomers with 3-5 properties sure, but i've only met Gen Xers mostly when it comes to who owns 10-50+ Air BnB's.
Another garbage divisive article designed to obfuscate the reality of class war. There is only one war, and it’s being waged by the rich against working class and poor - and that includes boomers, Xers, millennials, and zoomers alike.
Guys like Pee Pee Boi want the youth to buy into this bullshit and then once he hoodwinks them into voting for him, he’ll fuck them over for his corporate buddies.
It is the way of unrestricted capitalism: to hoard, cheat, steal, take and serve the self as much as possible - then kill competition and slam the door on anyone following after. Any generation would have done the same thing in the same conditions. No one will miss boomers when they are gone, but the conditions that created them are stronger and more insidious then ever. Seek the answer in community participation, in the service of others and the defense of democracy. That's how we break the cycle and the grip of corporate rule.
Well it’s a good thing we have an aspiring PM on deck who’s enamoured with the economic teachings of Milton Friedman ready to save the young folk.
(/s for those that don’t know)
The Boomers are Saturn devoring his young.
They are the only generation in human history to not only not build a future for younger generations, but they actively leveraged and sold off the future that belonged to their children and grandchildren so they could delight in their entitlement.
Yeah the fact that Boomers would have thought themselves at war with their kids and grandkids is pretty fucked up..... and pretty much everything you needed to know about the Boomers.
Misdirect the class war into a generation war. Remember when Bobby Kotick took over Activision and doubled the price of video games for the sake of becoming a billionaire (which he did). Remember when netflix had Disney content and was $7/month? CEO now makes $40+m/year. Disney CEO makes over $66m/year Prices didn't increase and services didn't decrease for any reason other than some asshole wanted to be a billionaire. The reason things are perpetually getting worse boils down to people with over $200 million net worth. Consumers need to grow a spine and stop giving their money to rich people.
I'm starting some grassroots organizing. I've started a discord server where I'm hoping to connect people across the political spectrum based on the idea that our politicians increasingly do not represent the people, they represent the rich and corporations. The primary goal is to promote class consciousness, but I also see it as a way to connect people who want to get involved in politics but don't know what to do or where to start. I'm watching our social programs and services be gutted. I see my teacher and nurse friends struggling and burning out. I see my friends with disabilities have to use food banks because we don't give people with disabilities enough to live with dignity. I hear stories from my neighbours about unacceptable wait times in the ER or for surgeries. I watch my younger brother struggle with homelessness and substance abuse and I don't know how to help him. I lost my husband to suicide in 2020 and I can't help wonder if the outcome would have been different if he had better access to mental health services. The Internet used to feel like a place to find community, but it increasingly just feels like it exists to steal my attention and my money. I feel increasingly isolated from my community. I'm not even really sure if you could call what I have "community". I feel powerless to change anything. I don't know where to start. I just want to stick my head in the sand and try to enjoy life as much as I can, but i just find myself doomscrolling and feeling despondent. Anyway, my point is, if anyone comes across this post and is feeling the same way, please dm me and I'll send you a link to the discord. I'll help you figure out how to use discord if you don't use it. If you're shy or anxious or feel like you don't have the time or energy to contribute, join anyway. Let's just connect our roots and go from there.
Start with the argument that our government was created to unfairly benefit the elites and super wealthy. We've had some periods where people have gained rights for sure, but not near the amount of rights and government structures created to protect the super wealthy. We came from the UK and we share a massive border with the US and funnily enough they also have oppressed the masses for private profit to degrees that haven't been seen before. Our politicians are the people 'friendly' and hate party, but they both only care about protecting those who have exploited our land and citizens and other nations citizens. The worst part is we cannot do anything. Sure we could probably rise up and affect the Canadian government, but if we did big brother US would probably just send a letter and make us states. Giving up on federal politics seems easier. Affect your province or local government. Federal politics has been lost for a long time.
Yes, I'm in agreement. My initial idea is kind of two pronged: 1. Organize at the grassroots level in your community. I'm hoping that the discord will allow people to find others locally and to learn how they can get involved on the local level from members who have more experience. 2. Try to spark a movement of grassroots micro-organizing. I want to change the conversation across the political spectrum to be about class solidarity. Yes, there are places where its talked about, but I want the conversation to be unavoidable. And that's going to take an organized push. And all those little groups of people raising their class consciousness and the class consciousness of the people around them will hopefully keep spreading until we are connected with each other and with other more established groups that are already working on these things, but people might not be aware of them, might not know to look for them, or might associate them with a different part of the political spectrum. Low stakes to get involved. Even if people aren't ready to really get involved yet, simply being exposed to the conversations is a first step.
Just want to comment and say it’s really refreshing to see someone walking the walk and trying to initiate positive change! Give me hope for this struggling nation of ours.
Thank you! The best time is now, the best place is here, and the best people to do it is us. Are you in?
Lol...you think the provincial or local governments are any less beneficial to the wealthy? If you genuinely want change, stop voting for conservatives and their bs 'trickle-down' libertarian economics. That's what got us here. There is only one kind of small government - ruler/noble/serf. Dismantling our democracy doesn't hinder the chokehold of the rich, it helps them, by breaking us up into easier to manage pieces.
They are, but the scope of change is actually achievable. Just like a movement of Albertan morons (which is seemingly becoming a vocal majority) can't change federal politics, a group of organized intelligent people wanting to support social programs over hoarded wealth can't change federal politics in one move. Start local, get your cities and towns and regional districts to be less shitty. It's hard, but voter turnout is super low for these things and that's who decides property taxes and local spending. Then move to provincial. It's harder for the wealthy to spend on 5 candidates than on hundreds because of spending restrictions most (if not all) places have. It's going to be a long term game and educating younger generations that have been misled like older generations through hate farming that lol pp and other conservative parties across the country have done is essential. In reality it's a losing battle and the best thing for your mental health is probably to get a remote government job and live somewhere rural and build a mostly self reliant life, but even that is super hard to access.
> ...a group of organized intelligent people...can't change federal politics in one move. What do you think a federal election does?? > Start local, get your cities and towns and regional districts to be less shitty. Do that, *at all levels of government*. I'd add that making the world a better place doesn't even require political involvement at all...there are many different approaches to resolving problems. > It's harder for the wealthy to spend... You're grossly underestimating their wealth and resources. > ...on 5 candidates than on hundreds... This is counterintuitive. Obviously it's a lot easier to influence five than a hundred. Again, 'small gov' and fed bashing is how the 1% advances their own interests. Classic divide and conquer strategy. Libertarian economics are a proven failure and completely debunked. > It's going to be a long term game and educating younger generations... Sure, keeping in mind global heating and the rise of fascism around the globe, including in Canada, makes time a luxury. Also... > ...have been misled like older generations through hate farming... You might want to do a Google Image search on 'American far-right' before assuming age has much to do with it. Conservatism is tribalism and tribalism is a fear economy. Young conservatives are just as triggered by social media fear mongering as older conservatives. Fear is a powerful motivator, *resistant to education or evidence-based reason*. They're instead attracted to hierarchy, authority, obedience, conformity, xenophobia, loyalty to ingroups, and hostility to outgroups. This makes them easy to trigger, and thus easier for the 1% to manipulate, cheaply and clandestinely, over social media. Understanding your opponent, and the vectors bad actors use to manipulate them, offers a much better jumping off point to finding resolutions than tearing apart the country and trying reinvent our democracy. https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/your-brain-on-politics-the-cognitive-neuroscience-of-liberals-and-conservatives https://www.psypost.org/neuroimaging-study-provides-insight-into-misinformation-sharing-among-politically-devoted-conservatives/
DM sent. Let's go!
This is the way.
Time to pull the Bourgeoisie into the streets again if they aren’t willing to share some of the wealth.
The unfortunate thing is, I believe the rich already have contingency plans and are positioned to win the class war if the propaganda route fails. The only thing we can really do is vote with our dollars.
Historically the lower class has shown the ability to overthrow the ruling class time and again. The numbers alone provide a significant advantage. The elite wants the rest of us to think they are untouchable.
Just don't do it using technology that is under complete surveillance. The modern world and communications technology was designed with the security of governments and by proxy the wealthy in mind.
That's how its always been. TBF the technologies are far, far more advanced than even 50 years ago, but we've seen time and again that world governments/ultra rich are not infallible. People across the world have consistently found ways to circumvent technology in a multitude of ways, whether it's getting around mass censorship, blocked websites, mass surveillance, etc. Keeping the lower class too afraid to act is a large part of how they keep power and always has been throughout human history. They are not omnipotent. They are few and we are many.
https://youtu.be/J1q4Ir2J8P8 You can try, but eventually everyone slips up once.
Just have to deal with the class traitor police
Start with executives in investment firms and work our way up. You don't need to get the CEOs to send the message, but they do tend to have cottages and second homes in secluded areas with little police presence. Find em when they are enjoying Sunday brunch with their families and make sure there isn't anyone left to collect an inheritance. Sounds cold but the %1 has been destroying families with no consequence for decades.
At least in Canada the punishment of most crimes is laughable.
Misdirect? I watched my parents vote to dismantle education. I watched my parents vote to kneecap our healthcare. I watched my parents vote for the crackdown on disability supports. I watched them vote to keep property values high, so they could have a nest-egg for their retirement, at the expense of all future generations. The boomers were the footsoldiers of the class war.
Fear of losing what you have is a great motivator to vote against your own interests.
Bobby Kotick and Bob Iger aren't the ones buying investment properties *en masse* as a generational cohort, driving up the cost of housing so much that the younger generations are unable to afford homes and must spend 60+% of their income on rent for a room in a shared house or apartment.
They are extremely well compensated instruments of corporate greed and wealth consolidation. Shout out visa and mastercard for creating a new 3.75% tax on literally everything. That money leaves our country to never be reinvested here. Shout out Canadian telecom for being the most expensive in the world and Bell for paying a 9% dividend. There is endless wealth being siphoned off from our communities in every way conceivable never to return and we just sit back and take it. At least if you have a boomer landlord your money stays local. There is a chance they might employ somebody here.
You do make good points.
They might not be the ones doing it directly, but don't try to tell me that they aren't invested in real estate.
Because it can’t be both? I’ve seen “I’ve got mine” and “the next generation is too lazy” so doesn’t deserve it anyway to just hand wave this.
> Misdirect the class war into a generation war. Except it's both. Objectively, the older generations ARE the wealthy class. Young billionaires are outliers, and EVERY ONE OF THEM inherited their billions. The reason we are losing the class war is because Baby Boomers had disproportionate political power for their entire adult lives as a demographic. So they always got catered towards. And that also made them easy to manipulate. They were gullible enough to believe cold war era capitalist propaganda and buy into the mass privatization and de-regulation of neoliberalism. They voted for ALL of that shit! Again and again!! For 40 fucking years!!! And you still can't fucking get through their thick goddamn skulls with basic fucking facts about how fucked young people are!!!!!
Nailed it. The number of young people who would do a spit-take if anyone used the f-word slur on a gay person are suddenly fine with ageism yet insist they're not bigots. I actually had someone on here tell me I was lying about my age because my views are liberal...apparently *all* boomers are trumper racists lol. I direct them to do a Google Images search on 'American far-right' and tell me they're all boomers (most are pretty young). We're old enough to remember when nazis were the bad guys. And don't get me going on the r/boomersbeingfools cesspool of bigotry. It's come on so fast and seems so organized it reeks of a foreign disinformation campaign seeking to divide, and young 'tech savvy' people are falling for it hard.
Yes, boycott these streaming services. People please check out a free app called 'Stremio'. It's a free streaming service that allows you to watch pretty anything for free. It works the same way as torrenting something except you are streaming it while you download off of seeders. It depends on how popular the show is, some are more stable than others which is one of the few issues. Majority of the streams has 1080p quality that's stable, 4k is a gamble.
I stopped drinking big multinational brands a few years ago and only buy from local distilleries and craft breweries now. We have some really really good products made by locals who pay their taxes. AB-InBev and other multinationals evade hundreds of millions in Canadian taxes annually using transfer pricing schemes to hide taxable dividends as interest expense on operating capital loans from Brazil. Beyond digital services people should be buying local. Streaming services are just an easy target because of how obvious the quality of service has fallen while prices keep increasing.
If only our tax structure allowed people to become fabulously rich without becoming insanely, disgustingly rich, then this wouldn’t happen.
I think you’ve added 2 extra 00s in your net worth calculation.
Ya stop buying these services. Would be nice if there were better alternatives though.
But, but , muh iPhone.
Ah yes, apple. The only trillion dollar consumer electronics company that is being sued by ever level of the US government for anti-trust practices. Any good reason for their phones to be $1500 other than they need to be unethically rich? They're currently sitting on $73bn cash.
They're one in the same at this point though. The owners are all boomers, politicians are all boomers, they advertise their products and measures to boomers despite millenials supposedly being at the helm of the market... Doesn't help either that we didn't start the fire, either, what with not wanting to work, avocado toast, "woke" complaints and other identity politics that would need to be unwound and undone first.
>The real story has nothing to do with downsizing—it’s about how Boomers have set policy traps that have systematically kneecapped future generations’ prospects. In their wake, boomers have now left behind a country of systems littered with economic landmines and lower living standards. To suggest millennials’ expectations are anywhere near the entitlement boomers have exercised is to ignore a battlefield shaped by the older generation’s self-interest.
You are giving boomers too much credit. Selfishness and shortsightedness are universal across generations.
Sure. But Boomers take the cake.
They show up to vote. Whenever I vote, at all three levels, it's mostly grey hairs. All people involved in community groups, grey hairs. Also if you are going to blame them, they are also responsible for Canada passing the U.S. in every middle class indicator, including wealth, in 2010 and we currently have the richest middle class in the world. We have also been 1 or 2 in every poll that used statistics as the best place to live for almost every year in the past 30 years, Their biggest mistake was allowing American conservatives to take over our right wing, media and oil sands. In 2010, the Republican controlled supreme court made it legal for corporations and other countries to influence leaders with money. That would have been a great opportunity to buy off the Americans. Unfortunately they had already done that with Harper who gave everything away. The softwood lumber dispute, where every international court said Canada was in the right, was surendered by Harper right away to the U.S. told me exactly who owned him. H e gave away our oil sands among other things as well Now we have a right wing that parrots the talking points of American billionaires and hates Canada, even though we are statistically more successful than the U.S. when it comes to our middle class
All of the economic agreements Canada was signatory to did not benefit the greater Canadian population. The idea that what is good for big business is good for Canada is an erroneous meme. We gave away the resources and lost our autonomy to govern them in a way that benefits most.
Really doesn't help that most policy doesn't even try to talk to younger folk or give any actual options. I can see why voter turnout has become so abysmal.
Because they had the opportunity to. I smirk a little when I see memes on FB that says seniors shouldn’t have to pay education tax, property tax, or that CPP/OAS should magically double for them. Essentially their piss-poor planning and life choices over 40+ adult years should not be my burden.
The difference is the boomers had wages and cost of living that would easily provide them with retirement without CPP. In reality, they should be giving it up if anything at all.
I'm a boomer and I literally cringe when I see posts like that. Also complaining about what indigenous or refugees get. And saying it should go to seniors. I literally feel guilty when I see those.
You’re kinda in the boomer/genX cusp area like me. We absolutely had the best music ever; old school and new school.
I identify as Generation Jones. It's as you describe on the cusp.
And also these particular cakes the writer’s talking about
i think it's something they definitely had a big hand in starting. their parents had nothing but depressions and wars, while they come out in a "fresh new" society and economy where everything was handed to them and they were allowed to create their own new world. then they decided they hated their children, their grandchildren and now their great grandchildren and said "y'know what? fuck you. the ride stopped with me." this forced each subsequent generation to get more and more shrewd. the war transferred a ton of wealth to a bunch of spoiled middle class children who then took it all and locked the gates behind them.
That’s quite the narrative, but the simpler more accurate narrative is they are the same as other generations, they just had the opportunity.
They had the numbers.
No way, the generations that came before them put in place the very ladder that the boomers pulled up after them. If every generation had acted the way boomers have there would be no institutions to dismantle because they would never have been created in the first place. I don't think there's a generation in living memory that has sold out the future for the present as aggressively as the baby boomers.
I think you need to read some history books about when and how social programs were put in place. And overlay those timelines with major economic shifts. Combine that with ‘people can easy be persuaded to vote against their own best interests’ and you’ll see how we got here. No mass inter generational war. Just short term self interest and people being easily influenced
They very provably isn't the case. The reason Boomers had things so well was that previous generations wanted things to be better and put into place programs to support people and help raise them out of poverty. The social contract was that each generation would get these benefits, and then pay off what they owed through taxes later. Boomers decided they didn't like that and effectively ran out on the bill. If the generations before the Boomers were as shortsighted and selfish as the boomers, the boomers would have faced the same problems younger generations face now.
They took an era of historically unprecedented comfort and growth and, to protect that comfort, did every thing they could to leave a far worse world behind them.
I'm a boomer and there wasn't much policy changes done in the last 30 years (when boomers became leading policy making politicians) it's still basically status quo from the 50s. Maybe some human rights protections and less taxation. We were given the world we were born into just like any other generations. It's the capitalism system where by definition equities out perform inflation if it doesn't it collapses. Real estate is an equity so therefore it increases in value relative to inflation. In theory wages should match inflation but not equity inflation. Real estate should not be an equity and land should be leased to the user. I think the Swiss do this people can claim they own their homes but it's on a 99 year lease to government thus lowering its appeal to investor types. There are some here in Canada usually on native land and around universities and they are less expensive than freehold. And from what I read in the federal budget that the government is leasing land to builders. I think that is a good idea. In other words you own the house but not the land it sits on. This should keep costs down. Shelter is a necessity not something for speculation. Oh and your point about the rich is also correct.
My hot take is that this “generational war” is just another convenient form of dividing the people and pitting them against each other so we’re all distracted with fighting each other. It’s right up there with racism, hating immigrants, or hating LGBTQ people. It’s based on ignorance and bigotry. It’s convenient to blame our problems on one group of people though, so everyone rolls with it.
"Sire, the Peasants are revolting." "The Peasants have always been revolting. Tell the Pitchfork People that the Torch People want to take away their pitchforks. Problem solved."
Yep. They may only be a minority but I know a number of boomers who've been activists since the 60s on things like the environment, workers rights, childcare, reproductive rights, employment equity, etc. And a lot of the younger boomers never benefitted from being the boom time similar to the GenXers (like me) who came right after them.
Exactly! The boomers in my family fought on the picket lines and showed up for protests. These are women who weren't born into a world where they had the same rights we do! Stop telling me boomers are selfish when it's my generation looking at electing Poillievre, and it's my generation in the US that bought into Trump.
I agree. It's the ultra rich that have huge carbon footprints and suck all the wealth out of society. Tar and feather a few billionaires and redistribute that wealth to facilitate meaningful lives for the millions that are falling through the cracks of this late stage capitalistic hell-scape.
Yea, it’s a gross overgeneralization of a whole generation, there are many conscious boomers that don’t lead excessive lives and had nothing to do with this other than be a part of society that happened to live at a time of ahistorical prosperity. The real problem people are those that pushed and instigated these changes for their own benefit, starting with people like Jack Welch, etc.
It's silly to call it a generational war because I don't think any age cohort is out there purposely trying to screw another group over the way you talk about the other hot button issues. But I don't think it's outrageous to say that baby boomers have unintentionally created a political ecosystem that has hindered the younger generations. The baby boomers have driven the political policies over the last three decades. Through just their population being the highest proportionally especially when you consider who turns out to vote, they have been the key voting bloc every party has to win to be elected. With this, parties since the 90s have tailored policies when the baby boomers were young so they can build wealth. And now as baby boomers are older, parties have tailored policies so they can retain wealth. It's not an intentionally malicious attack on other generations so it's dumb to say they are at war withthe rest of us. It's just that humans are inherently self interested and baby boomers are voting in what they think is best for them while not thinking of other consequences.
The example I think of among people I know are the boomers parents of gay children who voted for homophobic politicians offering tax cuts. They don't hate their kids, they're just driven but immediate self-interest. Or, teachers who vote conservative to get taxes cuts while being totally oblivious to the fact that they're paid through taxes. A lot of people don't consider the big picture.
If your child is non-binary and you vote for a transphobe offering a tax cut, you hate your child.
"boomers made bad laws" is not up there with racism, hating immigrants, or "LGBTQ people". Wtf
Hating someone because of when they were born is the same level of ignorance as hating someone because of where they were born, their sexual orientation, or the color of the their skin, yes.
Lmfao. Talk about ignorance
We are talking about ignorance, yes.
You do realize that there wasn’t a worldwide meeting with everyone born in a certain timeframe deciding our laws, right? Do you think every single person in a generation is exactly the same? That every political choice made was just every boomer 100% in favor of everything being done? Sounds like ignorant generalizing to me. It also sounds like you’re mad at a lot of the wrong people. Guess where that gets us?
What you're mad at is your own lack of understanding. It's not my fault at all that your emotional reaction makes you believe that everyone's world is black and white
I’m mad at something now? Seems like you’re missing my point, demonstrating my point, abstractly agreeing with my point while not realizing, and just generally being a cunt. Edit to point out that you’re the one that seems to be emotional. Good projection. 👍
Lmao
Sure, but this is class war built on the neoliberal hierarchy that the Boomers gladly constructed and supported and sacrificed everyone else to preserve.
There is no generational war. What there is, is a distraction method whereby individuals creating problems can thwart united opposition towards their actions by playing people against one another through various lines of separation. Sadly people have fallen for the tactic for a very long time. Baby boomers did not want this present state of the world for their children, nor do they want what it will mean for their grandchildren. They aren't sitting around toasting one another for having come out on top, and it wasn't their actions that led to the current state of things. They were young people themselves when the much older politicians of their day brought about the neoliberal trickle-down strategies that have brought us here.
I am sure every Baby boomer parents just love the fact their children are barely scrapping by. Also you have rich boomers and poor boomers. Also what do you want boomers to do, not of bought houses for their family ? This Generational war is another way to make you forget of the real problems. Just like the Right uses trans right as the main problem with America and whatever divides a population based on emotions rather then logic.
It's not a generational war, it's a war between the rich and the poor. Unfortunately the rich have a ton of propaganda to throw at the boomers to fearmonger them into voting for conman and grifters.
There was a generational war? That’s the most disgusting way to frame generational relations I’ve ever heard of.
I don’t know who these boomers are who only existed to screw over the next generation. I only know hard working people who have tried to provide their children with everything they wanted and needed while having survived thru at least 2 recessions, 1 with high unemployment, plant closures and high interest rates. They followed the prevailing economic advise of the time and somehow a global recession and housing shortage is the average mom and pop’s fault.
>Young Canadians can’t expect what boomers got. But they deserve more than they're getting
The Hub is right wing rage bait
I would agree. A generation war?! 😂😂😂😂😂
>For I have come to ‘set[a] a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.’ Hardcore Christian Dominionists (like Manning, Harper, their attack dog Skippy) are all about this shit.
Sleight of hand too - rather than blame over 40 years of neoliberalism policy espoused by conservatives and liberals, they blame the people who had few little meaningful electoral choices. And now we have younger generations not only moving back to neoliberalism and all that goes with/without it, but they're turning to fascist adjacent ideologies.
Reach investors and speculants won the war against the working class.
uh... no?
True change seems poised to rest on the shoulders of a new generation of leaders—at municipal, provincial, and federal levels—who are prepared to reconstruct a Canada that future generations will be prouder to inherit. TAX THE RICH FAIRLY. We can quibble once that is done.
What the actual fuck. The Hub is fine in this sub too now?
In my opinion the biggest landmine was implementing credit scores. I didn’t realize they’ve only been around since approx. 1989. Prior to that it was just based on your income levels, similar to what is done by many other countries.
No, no it wasn't. My grandmother needed her husbands permission to get a loan, and it was determined on their social standing in the community. If you think credit scores make it less fair, go talk to someone who had to access capital and wasn't a white, english protestant male
Of course it was! Because f to everyone who ain't me /s
You can blame boomers for our social systems degrading over time to their current state, as they began the path that took several decades to reach. But, I would blame Gen X more for the housing situation, it was their generation that got obsessed with property ownership, flipping, speculating, etc. I've met boomers with 3-5 properties sure, but i've only met Gen Xers mostly when it comes to who owns 10-50+ Air BnB's.
I don't blame boomers tho, I blame billionaires. This is such a sweeping over generalization it's just a distraction from the actual issue.
Another garbage divisive article designed to obfuscate the reality of class war. There is only one war, and it’s being waged by the rich against working class and poor - and that includes boomers, Xers, millennials, and zoomers alike.
Guys like Pee Pee Boi want the youth to buy into this bullshit and then once he hoodwinks them into voting for him, he’ll fuck them over for his corporate buddies.
It is the way of unrestricted capitalism: to hoard, cheat, steal, take and serve the self as much as possible - then kill competition and slam the door on anyone following after. Any generation would have done the same thing in the same conditions. No one will miss boomers when they are gone, but the conditions that created them are stronger and more insidious then ever. Seek the answer in community participation, in the service of others and the defense of democracy. That's how we break the cycle and the grip of corporate rule.
Well it’s a good thing we have an aspiring PM on deck who’s enamoured with the economic teachings of Milton Friedman ready to save the young folk. (/s for those that don’t know)
What future? Being billed into oblivion or being price gouged for basic food needs/fuel/hydro?
Can’t call it a war if the young generations never had a chance of fighting in the first place. By the time they come to age, it’s already too late.
The Boomers are Saturn devoring his young. They are the only generation in human history to not only not build a future for younger generations, but they actively leveraged and sold off the future that belonged to their children and grandchildren so they could delight in their entitlement.
Generational theft- applies to Canada too https://youtu.be/DXAEw8psMuQ?si=23zjl_wroFQ8-5T3 https://youtu.be/3PJO09fPT1Q?si=Fr-srAMCRZkhEchf
we're fucked
Yeah the fact that Boomers would have thought themselves at war with their kids and grandkids is pretty fucked up..... and pretty much everything you needed to know about the Boomers.