tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884128379999766348.post767950847314356996..comments2024-03-28T22:02:16.520-04:00Comments on Politics and its Discontents: Yet Another Failure of The Corporate CommunityLornehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15741324981120408977noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884128379999766348.post-64430571737993304742012-12-18T19:45:53.495-05:002012-12-18T19:45:53.495-05:00Anon, I think you make some excellent points here,...Anon, I think you make some excellent points here, and I think you are quite correct in your description of traditional attitudes to trades, etc. and that there has undoubtedly been great emphasis on becoming educated to enter a profession. <br /><br />While I have nothing concrete to base it on other than a general feeling, I think those attitudes are slowly changing, partly as a result of the uncertain futures that so-called 'educated' people face, and also as a result of a rejection of the either-or mentality those attitudes represent. Can't a person pursue a so-called 'manual skill' while at the same time be intellectually engaged with the world? I really don't think they are mutually exclusive, and given the great wealth of information and knowledge available literally at the tips of our fingers, there is increasingly little justification for that prejudice.<br /><br />Lornehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15741324981120408977noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884128379999766348.post-42618593591331241462012-12-18T19:06:58.513-05:002012-12-18T19:06:58.513-05:00Part of me (the part that has been out of work for...Part of me (the part that has been out of work for almost a year now) wholly agrees with the outrage of this article, but the problem isn't just that the government isn't funding its own students or making room for skilled canadians, part of the problem is that many canadians dont want to be laborers. In general there is a sense in our parents who look down on their own underpaid long hour work wages and expenses that this type of work isnt worth it (unless you are in the military, but then again, there is a strong anti-military stance in our population too.) Beyond our parents though, there is also the sense that public school do nothing to make being a skilled laborer look appealing, we are taught how the horrors of labor have been cast off by revolutions and intellectual movements, we are taught the environmental horrors of many of these jobs, we are taught that math and poetry and science and technology in the form of computers is the place for creativity and genius (and that we are all very smart for the most part) and not in the trades. In graduation people are usually encouraged to go not to collage but to be a teacher, or a scientist or a mathematician (not poet or writer really, cause there is no money there, just dedicated dreamers working for charity) A great many people just don't want to be skilled laborers, we want to be abstract laborers or revolutionaries (which is an abstract historianist) mostly because of the strange polarity in our culture between laborers and intellectuals that goes back to Plato's Republic and is front and center when someone looks down on you cause you want to build something with your hands and not just buy it or get it from someone else.<br />In some ways, pulling in people who have no choice but to work makes sense, but it exposes the dilemma of our culture's mind set and attitudes to work. Here is another way to put it, when someone hears of someone wants to enter the trades, their motive is usually financial security and we as their peer groups say what ever, you'll have money but what about your soul, then we become amoral scientists and sociologist and professors in english departments or pharmacists who dont take a care in politics settling for financial security cause we did all that damn work getting our souls all educated for the sake of our person. But yet, we are the same as those we decourage from entering the trades. It is a nasty cultural problem that has to be addressed by the schools and by the parents and teachers, not just corporations and the government.<br />I hope that makes sense and thanks for reading.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884128379999766348.post-90046659921770628612012-12-18T11:40:44.692-05:002012-12-18T11:40:44.692-05:00We can only hope that increasing numbers of Canadi...We can only hope that increasing numbers of Canadians will realize this, Anon, before it is too late.Lornehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15741324981120408977noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884128379999766348.post-59847864517333976652012-12-18T11:26:12.910-05:002012-12-18T11:26:12.910-05:00China exports workers in order to depressurize soc...China exports workers in order to depressurize social tensions at home - the Harper government calls them 'temporary foreign workers'. Then Canada sells out our resource industries, refuses to train Canadians to fill the new industrial jobs and allows the new 'investors' to import their nationals to take the jobs.<br /><br />'Here for Canada'? What a load of bullshit. 'Here for Corporations', especially foreign stated owned corporations, is more like it. <br /><br />Once thing is certain, though; the Harper government is definitely not here for Canadians.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884128379999766348.post-37477530405484360322012-12-18T11:08:26.553-05:002012-12-18T11:08:26.553-05:00I have a friend, Owen, who is a great Galbraith en...I have a friend, Owen, who is a great Galbraith enthusiast, and often cites him when we discuss the current sad state of affairs. Without question, his clear-headed wisdom is badly needed today.Lornehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15741324981120408977noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884128379999766348.post-55811947896751222562012-12-18T10:28:15.607-05:002012-12-18T10:28:15.607-05:00For thirty years, Lorne, governments have sold off...For thirty years, Lorne, governments have sold off public resources -- airlines, airwaves, Petro Canada -- to private interests. <br /><br />John Kenneth Galbraith -- that Ontario farm boy who became a pretty good economist -- wrote that the result has been "private wealth and public squalor."Owen Grayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06464860078574618579noreply@blogger.com