Raise the Hammer

Richard Wright: Thank for posting, your words flowed so gracefully. A Smith is so blind, that he cannot see the forest for the trees. I feel for your family members as they struggle to find work that will allow to earn a living wage, to have access to benefits, the ability to save for a rainy day or even retirement. A Smith has no idea of our social safety net for those that lose jobs, as work is not easy to find and once your EI benefits run out, well one is left to live on $560.00 per month as a single person on Ontario Works. One cannot even afford market rent on this amount and many find themselves homeless and lose the $560.00. Ontario Works, in conjunction with many of the not for profits, those places where one thinks they would get help, are forced into workfare programs, which push people into precarious work situations, where employment violations go on daily, where they could lose their job because they report a health and safety violation, to be on the never ending poverty cycle. Also under workfare, a person is not covered by employment standards, which allows for people to be push into work that they do not even get paid for, and if one refuses, well then they are just cut off.

Interestingly enough, I watched Bowling For Columbine tonight and one thing that the movie did focus on one mother who was forced off of welfare, to work at two jobs, in which this person was bussed several hours away and still could not afford her rent for her family. It is very telling that Lockheed-Martin, one of the weapons manufacturers is the driving force behind this ideology. It was also telling that one of America's music icons, whose business was one of the jobs where this mother worked got a tax break.

What value does a weapons manfacturer offer society, not much in my mind. What value is this music icon offering to his fellow citizens, when people are working for starvation wages, so that he can live in a mansion and close his eyes to the suffering.

It is also telling if your read Mr Howard's editorial the other day in the spec, that a local elected official, Paul MIller was kicked of the legislature because he dared to speak up for his constituents. Also in his editorial he mentioned that Andrea Howarth, continued to send the message for the people who struggle in Hamilton, yet it seems that our Minister of Social Services has used threatening words, to have others, like the grandparents of ROCK, to be cut off.

People need to be paying attention to these things, as it does tells us what these, the elites really think of the people, those in the middle class who are now under attack, the working poor, those that struggle whether they are injuried and cannot work , if they are sick, if they are unemployed and cannot find work, the many seniors who do not have pensions and struggle on the meagre amounts of CPP and OAS.

A Smith, needs to take some of his angst and direct at the forces to be, those, the business elite, the very rich, who are consolidating their power. It is very sad that he spends much time blaming those who do not make the policies such as NAFTA, free trade, which have led to to decrease of workers rights, the growth of the temp industry, the lowering of wages, the lack of benefits, the growth of the poverty industry and the growing number of people in this country that live in poverty.

Unless, he is one of top 1% earners, he is cutting his own throat, he just does not see it yet, but he will, if the tide does not change.