Champagne Socialists: The New Capitalists

The world has seen in the last few years a rise of a new breed of NIMBYs. Nimby's are the acronym of "not in my backyard" people, typically the sort who become instant activists when the city decides to plant a massive sewage dump right next to their outdoor pool. "Not in my backyard" they scream, and sometimes they get their way, leaving the self-righteous with a story for their grand kids to become bored with instantly, and the NIMBYs themselves with inflated heads.

NIMBY types appear on Vancouver Island in droves. They are the ones who make it to the island, develop houses on the fairways of the newest 'development' by local designer home manufacturers and builders and decide to pull up the drawbridge to the rest of the world. Retire on Vancouver Island's beautiful Qualicum beach if you are lucky enough and then oppose business, development, local economies and further population of the area? Why? Because the NIMBY's made it. They made it to retirement and now feel that they can thwart others attempts to make it to a comfortable living. Why not oppose these obvious evils of the modern world? You have struggled all your life to succeed and now can wrap yourself in 'ecological protection' which is a nice cover for 'I don't want you screwing over my view of the Georgia Strait from my sundeck'.

This attitude is not simply confined to one regionalized species of older, retired and instantly snooty bourgeoisie. Witness the recent Doha round of the WTO talks. In Cancun, the rich activists from the west undermined the poorest nations attempts to construct a productive dialogue with the west about tariffs and subsidies on farming. Farming is the one competitive advantage that the developing world has, with its cheap labour and arable land and the activists opposed the real attempts to develop and enrich the poor. Why? Because they don't want the third world to develop. The west made it, but the champagne westerners don't want others to pollute as much as we do. We are rich, we made it, but you can continue your substandard lifestyle because the environment might suffer. And I don't want to mess up the view of the Georgia Strait from my sundeck with more smog!

Witness the attitudes of hollywood liberals, attacking capitalism, the very thing that drove them and allowed them to make such outrageous fortunes that they can now decide that capitalism is bad and should be undermined. Do you think Madonna was such a Che Guevara fan when she was twenty and bursting with ambition, begging to sleep to the top of the male dominated entertainment industry? Do you think Margaret Cho would ever decide on her way to riches that she might decide to give away her wealth?

Witness the antics of the anti capitalist attitude of any rock star rich enough to have ordered twenty years of cocaine delivery to his door.(Geldoff, Steve Earle, etc)

Witness poverty advocates that propose marginalizing the poor into 'tent cities' that only make rehab a dream, as drug dealers take over that captive market.

Witness the UN stuffing the Palestinians into the UNRWA 'refugee' camps that are terrorist hotbeds because UN refuses to settle them.

The problem is this: The life the baby boomers followed by instant riches and inheritance has made them guilt ridden and those indolent and nouveau rich have become a curse on the rest of the struggling world. The first world 'has-beens' with cash are destroying the positive, capitalist environment where the youth have to struggle and eek out a living. Not only struggle career wise against the girth of baby boomers making up so much of the workers, plugging up senior management roles, but struggle against the non-stop bombardment of outdated sixties socialist propaganda with an unlimited advertising budget in the form of the baby boomers favourite mags: Shared Vision and Common Ground.

I don't wish any ill of baby boomers and the like. What I would like is for them to enjoy their riches, but please, for the good of man: stop bitching about the very environment that made you rich. Stop feeling guilty: just shuttup and let us work our way up the ladder.

Or at least use some of your money to go to China to bitch to the government about their 'loss of the true ideology'. See how long it takes to get thrown in the "People's" jail.