The "Perils" Of Socialism

If you have a few minutes, check out the following video. Enlightened, witty and amusing, its message will, of course, be lost on many citizens of the Benighted States of America, as well as those most peculiar denizens of that entity known as "Ford Nation."

I Have Nothing To Add To This

... except the adjective unfettered in front of capitalism

Socialism and Happiness - A Coincidence?

I don't know what the extreme right-wing will make of this, but the fact that the top five countries on the Happiness Index either have socialism at their core or sufficient elements to ensure the general well-being of their populations should give the rabid advocates of unfettered capitalism some pause. For the record, the happiest countries on earth are:

Denmark

Norway

Finland

The Netherlands

Canada

That bastion of free enterprise, the United States, ranked 11th out of 156 countries. My instinct is to say that Canada should bask in the glow of being fifth, as I suspect that soon, given the agenda of dismantling the underpinnings of our society at the heart of the Harper regime's ideology, we have will have nowhere to go but much further down on the list in future rankings.

We Need To Free Ourselves From Our U.S.-Dominated Perspective

I have always thought that one of the biggest tragedies for Canadians is the fact of our proximity to the United States. Not only is our cultural perspective heavily influenced by that closeness, but so too is the way we view economics, which helps to explain the inroads in the past many years that the right-wing has made in our country.

There is an excellent essay in today's Star, written by McMaster Professor David Gouter, who argues that there is much to be reminded of in the economic successes of Northern European countries such as Norway and Sweden, socialist nations that are still thriving despite the economic meltdown brought on by unfettered capitalism in 2008.

You can read his piece here.