Federal Politics: I’m All Right Jack

By David Murray. The term ‘I’m all right Jack’ described the bitter dismay of sailors (jacks) returning home after wartime in the Navy to find themselves not treated as patriots or heroes, but ignored. Today it means a complacent, selfish, and a get-ahead society.

So many things encompass this term today. Things like global warming. Some people think it is not affecting them. Locally you just have to look at the effect the pine beetle has had on our forest.

Many baby boomers who, thanks to our mothers and fathers, have had a pretty good life – great job, housing and education opportunities. We are so quick to forget the days of the $50,000 – $100,000 house, $500 tuition, and the opportunity to walk across the street to get a well paying job if the boss didn’t like us.

Many in our generation belonged to a union. Fewer belong today. In 2001 43 percent of the workers in our province belonged to a union, today sadly only 29 percent belong.

So many workers forget the role trade unions had in fighting for fair wages and working conditions which helped to non-union workers as well.

It makes me mad when I hear a worker say, ‘I am not worried, I only have a few years left to go before I retire.’ They forget; if we don’t have younger workers paying into their pensions, they will be more than worried when they reach the age of 75 and no longer have benefits.

So many young people today are really getting disillusioned. Education is so expensive now, they are taking on massive debt, yet have no promise of a future job on the horizon. It is little wonder the Occupy Movement has sprung up.

The division of economic wealth has shifted too far one way. The one percent are controlling too much and this is being facilitated by the Conservative government in Canada.

I hope that everyone who reads this article holds our government to account. We must make them accountable. Write and email your local MP and ask questions. Why? Why? Why? This way if you don’t get an answer, the solution may be the same as it was in 1935 with the slogan “Iron Heel” Bennett, “Get rid of them”.

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