When Does The Man Stick it to The Man?
I’m not anti-establishment, I’m in the pro-establishment establishment but does that now make me the new anti-establishment or merely the anti-anti-establishment?
Its akin to saying straight, middle aged, white males are now the minority because they have been taken over by the majority of visible minorities, which is of course technically true, depending on where you look. I live in Toronto, Canada’s largest city and as is oft trumpeted; ‘the most racially diverse city in the world’. What that means is that as of last census approximately 50% of the population of Toronto was visible minority. This of course means that minorities are the new majority in Toronto. And remember this is referring to ‘visible’ minorities which means immigrants from European (West and East) countries are counted as part of the majority – which one can deduce means white Anglos – because everyone else is a minority. Indeed, last year Canada admitted 25,000 immigrants into the country, 50% of whom settled in Toronto, and about 40% of the other 50% settled in the four other urbanized regions of Canada: Montreal, Ottawa, Vancouver and Calgary/Edmonton (don’t ask me why Calgary and Edmonton are lumped together – that’s just the way Stats Canada did things). Right, and with 28,000 immigrants allowed into their country in 2002 come the Americans. Ten times the size but barely more immigrants. Canada owns the Americans on per capita immigration numbers and that’s something I’m suitably proud of.
I’m very pro-immigration because it’s a great way to have the worlds best and brightest come to your country and increase your human capital – not to mention making our cities much more interesting and international (oh and the food, mmmmmm the food). Pro-immigration slants have oft been the domain of the political left in Canada, however, now we are seeing a rise of anti-immigration activists on the far left. Why? Simply put they contend by having immigration policies which allow highly skilled labour to immigrate into Canada we are raping and pillaging the developing countries of the world in a sort of reverse brain drain. This is just another case where the anti-establishment (pro-immigration) has become the establishment giving rise to an anti-anti-establishment (anti-immigration).
So if majorities are the new minorities, what is the new majority (and as such with the designation minority becomes trendy by association)? I’ll tell you – the establishment. That’s right. The Man. The Man is the new minority, and the anti-establishment is the new majority, anti-globalization, anti-business, anti-everything you want. But wait – if the anti forces won, that must mean that the anarchists won and a new nongovernmental utopia awaits us. Nay, young Marxist, you have just received a harsh lesson in the indomitable forces of capitalism, run now to your academic institutions because raging against the machine now works for the man in hidden and duplicitous ways. Simply put, the anti-establishment establishment has sold out. They sold out because they found that being anti-establishment was neither lucrative nor interesting enough. The sad shadows of anti-establishment figures now are constrained to bashing George Bush, the Gap and MacDonalds simply because that is what the world expects from them. Creativity and rebellion of the anti-establishment of yore (yore being the 60’s) have been washed away with boring and repetitive critiques of the US government and their hidden alliances with the military, industrial, and big business complex. Just recently I read an article about an ‘anti-establishment’ “rally” – the premise of which was that the current US administration was a reincarnation of the Third Reich. This is what the anti-establishment rallies about these days?
Walking down the street the other day I happened across a trendy clothing store, located in a trendy part of town on a trendy street. What did I see? The trendy clothing store was adorned with the anarchy A (the one with a circle around it) as part of their advertising. The message to the tight young things shopping there was, come into our store and you too can be anti-establishment! How more establishment can you get? The clothes sold weren’t cutting edge, it was very Gap-esque and to be honest I wouldn’t be surprised if it was owned by the same parent company. We have come full circle, and as with most fads this too will pass and will fade from memory. Hands up anyone who can remember the anti-establishment fad in the late 1970’s that the world was being overcome by global-cooling and that a new ice age was approaching.
Welcome to the new world order.
- When Does The Man Stick it to The Man?
- by MaxPower
- Published on October 1st, 2003
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