Will the Young Turn on the Old?

Whenever I feel that the older generation is destroying the planet, I console myself by thinking the younger generation will save it.

If cell phones don't cause brain cancer eh?

But now I'm not so sure.

The poll finds that 47 per cent of young respondents in Canada feel that it is more important for society to reward individual performance than to share prosperity more equitably. That compares with 39 per cent of their elders.

Indeed, 54 per cent of young people in Canada (about the same as in the U.S.) say they want to "earn a lot of money" -only in China and India is the eagerness for wealth greater.

As well, 62 per cent of young Canadians say an ideal society should be characterized by the lowest possible taxes rather than by the optimal social benefits (exceeded only by the Americans, at 72 per cent). And 44 per cent of the Canadians say they are not ready to pay for retirees' social benefits.

Great eh? Watch out granny, watch out world, here come our little greedsters.

I must say I have trouble believing this poll.  I haven't the slightest interest in being piggy rich. Neither do most of my friends. And although some of them are really struggling to pay the bills, none of us would even THINK of not supporting seniors.

But then I suppose nobody should be surprised if some young Canadians are really that greedy.They are bathed in a culture where money means success. And live in a country where Stephen Harper's Cons promote the cult of the individual. Where taxes are bad, and community is communism.

But I'm sure they'll soon learn the hard way that most of them are NEVER going to be rich. The Cons are just the useful idiots of Big Business who want to turn Canada into a jungle. Without a sense of community we will never save this country. Or the planet.

And of course that money isn't everything.

But then I could be wrong and in that case we're in big trouble eh?

So what will it be I wonder?

Young and old TOGETHER? Community makes us stronger and better, and greed is a Con disease?

Or one, two, three, four, pick up the cell phone and fire off the beer cannon?



And party until they JAIL us?

Or four, three, two, one, where did the future go?




Recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers.