A Return Topic: Ontario's Minimum Wage

One of my very first posts on this blog was praising the former Liberal Mcguinty Government efforts to increase the minimum wage for Ontario's workers and while I have changed in many respects both in my thinking and my view on capitalism, one of the fundamental views that I still hold is that the poorest of the poor, work the hardest but do not get equal compensation.

Again I ask you put down your shovels and hear me out.

I can honestly understand the views of a business worrying about rising labour costs and the need to tighten the belt to appease profit margins as well as angry shareholders who still remember the sting of the Great Recession and the collapse of Lehman Brothers. The argument on the left is that because people are at the bottom relying on minimum wage employment the state has an obligation to raise the wages of its struggling citizens to better their life.

I am not here to make the argument, if that argument were true then the state should simply demand that all people are paid equally across the board or would mandate that all companies provide a so called "Living Wage". Something that would in theory create a truly just society but we live in reality and the ensuing chaos of having highly paid professionals, having their work diminished to a street sweeper would probably be too much for some.

So what is my argument?

The current economic conditions in Ontario are not truly favorable, we have seen the manufacturing base crawl out of the hole that had been the 2008 recession and the high Lonnie that made them noncompetitive with both the low cost wage of Chinese manufacturing and the highly skilled, high quality of the German manufacturing juggernaut.

The recession was also not kind to small businesses and entrepreneurs who went bankrupt in droves because of the constant credit crunch that denied them the option to expand and retool their business in a difficult economic climate. Traditional lenders across the board from banks to pension funds withdrew money out of the market in fear of losing even more money.

Why am I talking about the decline small business and the economy in 2008 and beyond? Because it provides a framework of the primary issues that are at its core. The last rise in the minimum wage was back in 2010 and the current Ontario government run by Kathleen Wynne has decided not to include an increase in next year budget.

The Great Recession was kinda like cutting your arm or leg, you know its bad and you feel a bit of pain but you only truly understand how much it hurts the day after or even a few days after when you try to do anything strenuous. That is what the Great Recession is and will be for the next decade, it has shaped our society into a deeply paranoid and worrisome lot. Constantly looking at even modest economic growth with cynicism and suspicion. This is the thought process of the market and many Ontarians in general "The economy isn't on track we can't raise the bare minimum we pay our poverty stricken workers or else the economy will collapse."

Canada's economic has been positive for the past nine quarters and it could be argued that Canada's economic growth has at long last reached stable and sustained levels. The question arises what will regular businesses do when the minimum wage is raised.

Elizabeth Warren: Why Isn't Minimum Wage $22?

The Senator  from Massachusetts Elizabeth Warren states in the above video of what the real costs of raising the minimum wage from the current federally mandated wage of $7.25 to about $10.10. Would for example raise the price of a #11 from McDonald's from $7.19 to about $7.23 mainly in the increase would be so small because of the companies huge numbers and costing saving measures.

Now one might say that many businesses simply could not do that and in fact the inflationary effect on the economy is even worse because it forces businesses to raises prices ever higher to deal with having to pay their workers more. But as stated by Senator Warren and backed up by Dr. Dube that statistically because so very few people are actually paid minimum wage it cannot affect the economy because the number of people who are paid this amount is so low and that the amount of money they earn, is so low that they cannot change the inflation rate of a modern economy. 

That is my main argument on the minimum wage, it will not harm small time businesses who are afraid of having to pay their workers too much. And big business cannot be harmed because of their vast size and the fact that a minor increase in the overall price of an item they sell will offset the small rise in labor costs without increasing the inflation rate because as I've stated before the number of individuals being paid minimum wage is insignificant to the economy.

And let us no forget that by paying these individuals more they're money goes farther it pays more bills, it buys more stuff. In fact a minimum wage increase is very much like a tax rebate in that it goes directly into the economy quickly and helps the economy grow, something I know all my readers want.

The minimum wage increases productivity from happier workers, it increases economic growth which leads to more money in the economy and above all else it increases the stability of a society where a person who isn't all that bright is able to earn a decent wage for hard work so that they can pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. 

Tune in next time where I go after the real horror for the lowest paid workers: Part Time Wage, Part Time Hours.

Office Politics Part Two: Why Do I Play?

We now come why I started to play Office Politics for part one simply scroll down to the next post.

So I think we all now understand why we have to play office politics, those who don't often get sidelined and slink back into nothingness, a place no one wants to be in tight economic times.

So I guess you've probably guess that I play office politics.

Yes I know I hear your howls of anger and indignation but please before you beat me to death hear me out and why I decided over two years ago to simply apply a few basic methods to get ahead in my workplace which was and is at present a simple part time job. One would assume that my experience of job satisfaction before and after my change in office politics were the same and I can assure you the exact opposite occurred to me.

On Monday January 16th 2012 while working at my job I was under severe stress and I decided to take my anger out on some equipment in full view of several customers and coworkers who told my boss who then proceeded to fire me on the spot.

After a few meetings with both my boss and a union rep it was decided that I would be given one more chance before I was terminated for good, and I wasn't exactly a model employee before and both my boss and the union rep were well aware of my muddled past.

So here I was a part time worker who had seriously pissed off my boss to the point that he fired me, spin the clocks forward two years and now we regularly laugh and joke around. What changed this dynamic between me and my boss? 

Was it buying him drugs? No.

Was it sucking up to him constantly and praising him? No.

It was money....you bribed him! No!

Are you a Charlatan? No...well kinda but not really.

Now to say I was outside of office politics was an understatement but their was someone who I worked with who was well versed in these politics.

Let's call him Jimmy.

Now Jimmy was a lazy, unproductive and sometimes incompetent worker. What he lacked in basic competence he made up with dazzling skills in making people like him. He gave opinionated speeches about store policy and was never afraid of speaking with the boss about what he thought was wrong with the store.

And let me tell you it paid in spades, he was always given the easiest tasks and was never harassed or yelled at like many of the other workers included myself were subject to. And because of this many of his coworkers myself included mused aloud that he seemed to have a special spot underneath the bosses desk.

That however, was not the case and if it was it would make for a much more interesting story. He was basically asserting himself in the workplace gaining allies wherever he could. He made himself the corridor to where all information passed by befriending everyone and making them laugh either at others or even himself.

He also knew when to cave to key demands by management, there is a time and a place to argue but there is also a time to follow orders without question and is sad to say that this skill can only be learned by observing. Constant observation of the power structure of your workplace is paramount to success, this is no time to waste your time merely working for you to truly get ahead you need to pay careful attention to whose in power and how to use your social skills to befriend them or at least to make contact with them and establish a professional relationship.

Jimmy also worked out how to swing the white lies in such a way that they never became apparent though to be fair it became more and more obvious and his lies started to catch up with him. He simply settled into his power structure and allowed it to slowly degrade. Which can be a failing of those who achieve this prized position at a company.

Jimmy worked out in the beginning that being seen as a totally honest person in some situations could in fact be a significant advantage. We are often taught while we are growing up that telling the truth is paramount to surviving in society and becoming a responsible adult. But is this really true?

How many times has your total honesty as a child or a teenager or even an adult came and bit you on the ass? They key to being seen as honest in the eyes of your coworkers is to take stances on issues of the day that seem important but that are not really, these are sometimes sensitive subjects so be careful how you frame these conversations or you will be in hole trying to dig yourself out.

Politics is a taboo subject almost as much as religious affiliation but an open dialogue with another persons politics is a great way to gain insight on how they view themselves in society. An open mind and a willingness to listen to opinions you don't agree with are necessary, you don't have to stand their and let them bash your views but you do have to listen much more than anything else.

Most people like to be listened to and when someone is imparting their ideology they are trying to make you drink their Kool-Aid which they think is the greatest. It puts you in a powerful position to let a person speaking for several minutes at a time about their person politics. It also never hurts to ask pointed questions about their beliefs because if anyone is serious about politics they will already have cemented ideas about how they way things should be.

To Be Continued.....

Tune in next time for the rest of Office Politics Part Two: Why Do I Play?

Office Politics Part One: To Play Or Not To Play?

Office Politics.

The very word brings a chill to the spin of workers everywhere. It's the constant fear that no matter how hard you work or how well you're liked by your co workers that you're going to get screwed by not being nice to the boss. So the constant nagging question that everyone has is whether to plunge into these icy waters and try to swim for the safe shores of stable employment. And let us not delude ourselves when we mention stable employment, it's the one thing we all care about. Our generation has at long last seen the true destructive nature of an economic recession something that before our generation had never been accustomed to or had never experienced.

Milliennials had never before truly understood the true weight of economic decline until the 2008 recession which will be looked at by future generations as one of the most destructive recessions in recent memories with some calling it the quote unquote "Great Recession" or the "Lesser Depression. Millions of people lost their jobs and a substantial majority of these layoffs were individuals who had just made it into the job market.

Many forced themselves back into academia hoping that the intellectual institutions would shield them in exchange for tens of thousands of dollars worth of debt and future repayment. So it's been several years since the end of the recession and now slowly but surely these students are peeking out of their dorm rooms and parents basement in the hopes of finding gainful employment.

However, they now find themselves not in the free environment of universities or colleges or classrooms but of office cubicles and meeting rooms where middle management steers the ship and often declines any other opinion but their own, or in some cases the opinion of someone above them.

So what is a lowly new employee to do?

Free and open discussion where the pinnacle of their old classrooms and their teachers freely invited open discussion of a range of topics with very little control.

Here in lies the problem.

When I was much younger I had a much more black and white perspective. With politics, with discussion and with right and wrong. What a change a few years can make!

I've seen first hand how largely lazy and ineffective workers can and will rise in highly political workplaces (and I use the word political as in office politics) that has dominated corporate culture for quite a long time. Its very often that the hard worker is constant screwed over and is only held in place by the threat of dismissal or demotion.

Not only are good workers constantly denigrated and undermined they feel trapped in the workplace where they are constantly attacked not only by upper management (with their own goal of controlling their employees and to maximize productivity) but also what I’d surmise as employees who have solidified themselves as semi-concrete institutions within a corporate structure.

These employees through various acts of semi-competence have gained the attention of management. But to say that these employees are good workers is a misunderstanding of what their actual goals are. Their true goals are to gain both respect and power from funneling and controlling information in the workplace. This information can be as minor as a simple statement of actual fact “Bobby did a great job.” Or can be misconstrued into a different statement “Bobby did a great job but he use to be better.” These two statements side by side are two different views points with the latter being a subjective point without any real quantifiable measurement.

However, if a management official either agrees with the statement or suspects the statement to be true the power that this one employee has grows as the manager sees the employee as a penetrating voice of opinion in the workplace. Another example of an employee using factually correct statements with minor revisions of personal opinions are when they take a fellow employees criticism of upper management and enhances it in a more negative light. Example “Bobby said that moving the office copier to the end of the hall made it harder for new employees to find it.” An employee with a sharp ear and a knack for storytelling will now change the narrative to “Bobby called John an idiot for moving the copier to the end of the hall saying that new employees aren't smart enough to find it.”

This slight change in the sentence structure and an adding of a negative connotation and most importantly this employee will bring this criticisms to the attention of upper management resulting in a loss of confidence in “Bobby” but increasing the visible power that this employee has. Also if this criticism is simply stated aloud in front of upper management can force the manager to take much more drastic measures to insure that his own power is not diminished in the workplace due to individual speaking poorly of him. This employee will after many months and even years will solidify his power base in the workplace and will be seen as someone who is held in high esteem by upper management even if his actual productivity is actually lower than other employees. He will be seen as engaged in the workplace and he will be rewarded for his constant undermining of other employees by management.

However, this can descend into a war of backstabbing and proxy fights if two individuals of equal measures are drawn into a battle over power and status. This usually occurs between new inexperienced management members and established employees who have are well versed and respected in the workplace. The war which is mostly done by proxy is done through various other employees and upper management. The new manager will seek to establish his status and power by stepping on the most influential employee to show everyone in the workplace that he is worthy of his new found status in the corporation. What will follow will be weeks of infighting between the employee and manager who will both try and diminish the perceived power that manager has and will become uncooperative and openly hostile.

It should however be noted that in many cases the open salvo in the war is usually started by the newly minted manager and not the established employee. The employee who has long ago settled into his power base will only fight back if he feels a threat to his power base or if the new manager does not respect and acknowledge the power of this established employee.

If the new manager decides as I've stated before to diminish the power of the established employee to force everyone around him to respect his authority then the employee will strike back. The opening salvo from this employee will be both harsh and in some cases an overblown reaction to his long solidified power. The employee will use both cunning linguistics and conversation tactics to force the management type to say disparaging things about other managers or employees. If this process does not work then the employee will simply manufacture false statements and spread them as truth to upper management and employees who will believe him since he rarely if ever is known to lie. These false or semi-false statements will diminished the credibility of the manager and will damage relations with other employees.

The employee will however, remain discontent at the lack of process in the managers fall from grace specifically because the fractures nature of the workplace make it nearly impossible for upper management to disceren who is truly incompetent and damaging to the company meaning that few if any terminations actually occur, they instead rely on heavy turnover to accomplish their own goals and productivity targets. These two individuals will slug it out and for the most part they will keep their own power base but the long standing question of this article is whether or not to play.

With this huge and often vocal fight will push less vocal employees into the shadows and they will become inherently invisible to upper management and when the time comes to trim the fat at work these productive and hardworking but quiet employees will find themselves on the chopping block and in danger of losing their jobs.

Tune in next time where I talk about why I use to not play office politics and why I play it now.

With Great Power Comes Great Corruptibility

Well it seems that the crazies who run my head have finally given me an answer on what I should do about the question that has been running around in my head for the last few days. I've decided that I'm going to join the Antares Fleet http://antaresfleet.org/index.php . And in that capacity I asked myself what I really wanted out of the fleet.

While I would have enjoyed a position among the higher ups I thought something further down would be better. Now granted I am technically the 5th most senior member of the Antares Fleet, but that's besides the point my job as Antares Fleet Master Chief Petty Officer or AFMCPO as its easier to say or at least it should be. My job is to connect the heads of the Fleet to the general membership, they can voice their concerns to me and comment on any current legislation.

Now you might wonder why I chose a Scar and Simba picture for my blog today. The reason is simple. Inside my head their are two sides of me, much the proverbial coin. As you can tell most of the time Scar is in control looking for possible routes around situation and of course trying to get the best result. My Scar side wants me to control the situations around me for the best result and damn the dissenters. This is the problem with giving anyone power I suppose, you give someone a position in the hopes that the corrupt side of the individual will be kept at bay with either his/her morals or the individual's respect for the system.

Honestly while I wouldn't call myself corrupt, I wouldn't paint a rainbow over my head. When I was first elected to my high schools government, I was the one abusing the power. In fact one day where my school was throwing a free barbecue for all the students I was able to cut line of not one or two people but almost 200 people. Yes I know its horrible the only thing I said to move the students was "Student government coming through out of my way!"

Some people yelled at me but few tried to stop me at all, it seemed that my own confidence in my own power allowed me to push to the front which I shouldn't have been able to do. Some people waited in line for 45 minutes but because I wanted to leave early with a good lunch I decided to play dirty and it worked.

While its been a couple years since I've done anything that bad I always remember that side of me that used an obtuse power that really didn't matter and used it to gain leverage.

It's my first week as the AFMCPO and its going well I can only hope that I don't end but being like Scar and more like Simba. My worst fear for this fleet is that our good intentions will slowly erode without a good constitution and without proper leaders. Unfortunately our society has shown us that a piece of paper rarely stops men and women from doing anything to serve their own selfish interest.

A Question of Loyalty?

So as you might have guessed the meaning behind my newest title if you had read my 2nd posting on my blog. Which is unlikely, also how do you check is someone has viewed your blog? Any who its happened. My CO (i.e. Commander Officer) has decided to leave Bravo fleet for a Indy Fleet that has just started up. My feelings on the matter are unusually murky and not as settled as I'm use to. I usually can look at something and set it on one side or the other, black and wide left or right. But right now I'm not sure what to make of this new fleet. Is it another fools journey into obscurity? Or is something that I should try and invest in? Ever since one of my CO was knocked out of his JAG position for not following dishonest orders it has always been my dream to insure that any Star Trek website have iron clad democratic rights for its prosecuted and to shrine any JAG officers with full independence and allow them to conduct trials without undue outside influence.

The question as my title so accurately is a question of loyalty. Do I invest in this venture and gain the kind of influence I've always wanted or do I go back to the drawing board and find another ship that will probably be not as good as the Templar has been to me. It's something I have to think about, questions need to be asked, first and foremost is what Bravo Fleet was doing to pressure or which players were asking to leave because of infighting within Bravo Fleet. After I finish this post I'll be sending my CO a few pointed questions and some statements that if get answered well (to which I have no doubt) then I just may join this fleet for good and do what I've always wanted to do.

The Minimum Wage Isn't High Enough

Another year and another wage increase for the lowest paid workers in the province of Ontario. And as usual business are crying about how they will suffer, in fact this years wage increase was almost cancel because of the 2008 recession. And it makes sense I mean if large corporations are going under for their own incompetence the workers must be scarified to appease the rich elite of Ontario.

This will be the last increase for the next few years, and while I hate not to have another increase I'm somewhat happy, before the Liberal government came into power, the minimum wage in the province was horrible. I still remember the days of being paid $6.95 an hour as a dishwasher. Now as of March 31st 2010 the mandated Ontario minimum wage is $10.25 for anyone over the age of 18.

However, I really got to ask myself, if I'm getting paid a minimum wage do I do a minimum job as a grocery clerk for No Frills? Think about it, if I get paid the lowest legal wage why should I work my ass of for my boss who hoards all the money to himself? He has a nice car and a lucrative business that is always keeping him in the black. So while he gets thousands of dollars every month and nets himself a healthy profit what does he do for his workers? Does he pay them above minimum wage? No of course not, why not keep using the stupid and under educated students from a local high school as a means to keep costs down and profits up. And do you know what he gave us as a Christmas bonus? Guess really I can wait......a fucking sweater...something probably made in china by an 8 year old kid. Yes thats generous of you, I'm ecstatic about my sweater.

As you can tell I don't really like my boss...not to say he's a bad guy...I simply think he's a workaholic that loves to push himself up by pushing his employees down. In the old days you paid a good worker for a job well done and because of that, that very same worker would do anything he could to help the company to survive. In the old days if a company was becoming less profitable because of a recession would bite the bullet and not fire a few hundred workers to keep the profits up.

Those days are dead for my generation, we are expected to work just as hard as our parents and even harder for less money and paid higher taxes that the government needs for subsidizing the rich corporations.

The minimum wage should be set as something reasonable. How about every time the company makes a profit in the week everyone gets a portion of it. The more hours you put in and the harder you work the more you earn. Isn't that capitalism at its best rewarding the most hard working with the higher wage? Oh I'm sorry this is not capitalism at work this is corporatism.

South Park Is Right About Facebook

I just finished watching the newest South Park episode "You Have 0 Friends" a great Facebook parody that gets to the heart whats wrong with online media in general. Yes I know its hypocritical to talk about online media when I myself am using an online blog but I gotta rant somewhere and the city council have banned me from ranting in front of local community center.

The episode shows how we feel about our friends, there are some people that before Facebook came into being thought of their friends as commodities to be used an exploited for their own selfish needs. Now instead of that two-faced-bitch-blond-cheerleader-two-face-got-knocked-up Jessica being the only person its become epidemic with everyone on Facebook trying to get more friends and getting sucked into a meaningless facade of friendship that never get face time.

And that's what this episode is really about, kids don't meet friends playing outside they meet them online and half the time their swearing at the noob who just killed them with a rocket. I'm not sure if kids are getting the same type of friendship like it was in the old days. Sure I was born in the late 80's but when I was growing up their wasn't a computer or even a gaming console to occupy my time. It was playing outside with friends or running around the school yard trying to avoid being captured by the enemy.

The real question has got to be is why we treat our friends like commodities, is it something that has just happened because of new media and new ideas about friendship or is it something much deeper is it our own human sense of greed and selfishness that drives us. I don't know all I know is that I have a Facebook account and I don't have a virtual farm.

South Park has given us a mirror for society to look at, and we may laugh at its generalizations but as always they have a lot of truth and knowledge to pass on to many people.

Why Does Everyone Want Independence?

I started simming for a Star Trek website back about 5 years ago, and in that time I have written countless stories with people from across the world. I have been in every possible Fleet that's simm talk for a bunch of people who start up a website for recruiting then start up ship/starbase simms and give them to people to run and in return these overlords give you access to avatars, new recruits and special websites for you to use. Unfortunately when you put bureaucracy and Star Trek together you get a bunch of self righteous fools who want to be real admirals. What ends up happening is that ships leave the fleet or are force out through intimidation threats and not so independent judges.

So you must ask yourself why I chose the title for this post. While sometimes these overseers can be stupid and down right moronic the captains leading the charge for independence are unfortunately the same people you are fighting against. They want power over you their ship and anything else who will join them and bow to them. Its a human condition that we all want power, its our need of power that has advanced our society and on occasion brings it down around us. Right now my new simm which I have been apart of for maybe 5 months has gone down the Indy path as I like to call it. This would be fine if this was the first or even second time that a ship has gone Indy after I joined. No friends, this is the fourth ship that I've join and in a few months goes rogue, I mean for fucks sake am I a bloody carrier for rebellion. Every single time the simm goes rogue I can just imagine that Star Wars clone officer saying "Rebel Scum when will they learn".

And the worse of it, everyone goes along with it, no one objects, everyone wants to follow the captain out of some sick Star Trekess hard on that everyone follows the captain because he's always right. Well guess what kids he ain't the fucking pope (and he makes even worse decisions) and he doesn't become infallible when he gets four bloody pips on his god damn collar.

Time and time again I have seen the captain set a bold vision for the new independent and better simm only to have to crumble or slowly die around him. And just like a Soviet loud speaker stating the same think over and over again "Everything is fine, return to your homes" also a key phrase during all zombie apocalypses.

So now I have to ask myself...what the fuck do I do? Join on this new quest in the hopes that the ship doesn't sink like a ship or jump ship like a fleeing rat?

Spend More Time With My Family.....This is Getting Desperate

People Don't Give A Shit

So this is my first blog post which probably will never be read or viewed. But in the vain hope that someone will use a generic google search I shall write on.

So as you can see the image above shows Canada's apathy for politics. Unlike Americans who are beginning to stew in their own hatred of each other Canada has become an apolitical nation. No one votes, but complains when something is done by the government that they didn't like. Granted many governments voted in are hated for doing something the electorate that voted them in didn't want but that's besides the point. Back in 08' when I was still in my Public Relations Diploma Program. Our entire class was expected to take a public affairs class that mainly focused on goverment and how it works. Being the sky person that I was I barely said anything, until that is when the teacher (a balding man with long hair that reminded me of a hippie) ask everyone to tell the class their name and anything generic.

When I stood up, I had to admit I was nervous sure I can debate with the best of them but this was a new class with people I didn't know and I felt the shuttering of nervousness ripple threw my stomach.

So I started to slightly ramble telling them my name and the reason for its meaning (which many students before me had stated) I told them it was mother who named me after one of Jesus deciples and that it matter little since I was an atheist and that I was a former communist. To my shock no one looked at me weird. One of the students in the class started up a conversation asking what a communist was and the class discussion took off, people were asking question and the professor was amused. They discussion were of course anti-communist (not all together surprising but at least they didn't badly about my atheism).

On and one the entire class discussed the topic of communism, they brought up sevearl hard question (Stalin seems to have crippled everyone's views about the original ideas behind communism) which I did my very best to answer. Some of my question were good but others fell off when it became apparent that many people viewed my defense of censorship. Not my best area of expertise but I tried nonetheless to defend the prat ice.

The class and myself were eventually forced to start lerning the lession. And this is where I shined, I mean who do you know that watched political speeches and polling's numbers like a sport before high school? It just didn't happen, the teacher started asking, and one a few hands would go up, this was the first time in my entire college year that I could answer every question. It seemed almost insane, everyone was starting to look at me for the answer people started ask me where I learned it all.

Some of the more misguided ones thought I had gone to some private school in Toronto, I just laughed it off with nervousness in my voice and my leg unwilling to stop moving (nervous leg syndrome). And just to make it clear, I went to a Catholic High School (Yes I know its ironic an atheist in a catholic school laugh it up) and I told them that anything I learned was through the internet, television and of course several books that I bought at Indigo.

After a few weeks everyone started to like me better (maybe they just liked to compare my answers on an assignment but that's besides the point. After a few weeks (which was during the 08's election year) people starting asking who to vote for. Should they vote Conservative, Liberal or New Democrat? They started asking me, ask if I knew what they believe in, I told them that I was going to voted for the Liberals because while I didn't like Dion at least I knew he couldn't lie his way out of a wet paper bag.

I just said to look up the views and beliefs of both parties from independent sources and compare their own beliefs and then vote. Here was a class that had complained in other course about the boredom of the class that I enjoyed going to every afternoon. Now here they were asking about voting and party policy.

I admit it made me jitter with excitement and while my teacher may not have been the most exiciting teacher he was engaging and pragmatic of any teacher. For years I've had to deal with wishy washy taechers who couldn't give me a straight answer.

The class all voted that year and people even talked of meeting up afterwords to discuss the vote. Here was a class that had been apathetic and only interested in other things but now after a few short weeks their minds had changed.

I'm hopefully one day the government will put aside some of its money and finally stop spending it on fancy new departments or more money for the military and make its citizens involved in the democratic process. That of course will never happen, one vote means one vote, and if everyone is stupid and pushed away from voting then it might as well be a communist dictatorship.

This is Filipe signing off.

P.S: I hate Twitter...just putting it out there