Do You Want Freedom-Fries with that???

So new statistics demonstrate what we on the left have been saying for years now - while countries like the United States have more wealth than they have ever had before, poverty is getting worse every year. Nearly fifty million Americans are now living below the poverty line and nearly half of Americans are struggling just to survive.

These statistic blow the prevailing rightwing ideology out of the water. They keep telling us that we can't afford decent pensions, we can't afford to keep the elderly out of poverty, we can't afford for working people to have a decent life. But it is all a lie. The Western countries have never had so much wealth and corporations have never made so many billions, but fifty million people in the world's largest economy live in poverty. This makes it very clear that it is not the shiftless, lazy, indulgent working-class who are the problem - the problem is a system in which there is unprecedented wealth in the hands of a small percentage of the people.

For more than twenty years we on the left have been saying that the so-called neo-liberal policies would lead to more poverty and a greater inequality of wealth, many people have bought the rightwing line that we just can't afford to have working people have a good life. Let's make it clear, and shout it from the rooftops, Western governments are going bankrupt at a time of unprecedented wealth not because the working people are shiftless and lazy and have an unrealistic sense of entitlement - but because the greed of the rich has reached unprecedented levels. The rightwing claims are now clearly false.

When countries with hundreds of billionaires and thousands upon thousands of millionaires watches while half their population can barely get by - something is wrong with the system! Four Hundred families in the US own nearly half the wealth.

More hard times are coming for Canada and the rightwing policies of our government will make it much worse. If you want to live like so-called third-world nations have done for so long, keep supporting rightwing policies and the career of you children will consist of little more than delivering pizzas and serving french-fries.