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Long-Term Unemployment: No Help for the 99ers
This week Congress will consider legislation to reauthorize extended unemployment benefits for the rest of the year. It's going to be an epic fight: Republicans in the Senate will likely do everything they can to stand in the way of a bill projected to add $123 billion to the deficit, forcing Dem leadership to round up a supermajority for a last-minute Friday vote before Congress adjourns for its Memorial Day recess.
Job seekers search for employment opportunities at a graduate recruitment fair at the ExCeL Centre in London in 2009. This week Congress will consider legislation to reauthorize extended unemployment benefits for the rest of the year. (AFP/File/Ben Stansall) Too bad the jobs crisis, in a big way, has already left this bill in
the dust. Hundreds of thousands of people have exhausted their extended
unemployment benefits. In some states, laid-off workers can receive
checks for 99 weeks -- and that's all they're going to get. This bill
isn't for the "99ers" and there's no proposal on deck to give them
additional weeks of benefits.
"What's frustrating is that our government doesn't seem to think this is an important issue," said Christy Blake, a 35-year-old mother of two in Fruitland, Md. "We didn't put ourselves here. It wasn't our choice. I have been diligently looking for work."
Blake told HuffPost she received her last biweekly $618 unemployment check in February. She said she lost her job as an accounting associate with the city of Fruitland in September 2008 (jobless Marylanders can get 73 weeks of benefits). She said she's three months behind on rent and has no idea how she'll pay the $205.63 electric bill that came with a May 28 cutoff warning. She said she's applied for jobs at Walmart, Target and McDonald's without any luck. She has no idea what to do.
Meanwhile, members of Congress are losing their appetite even for renewing existing benefits. Several members of the House and Senate have flirted with the idea that unemployment checks make people too lazy to look for work. Most recently, Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper (D-Pa.) told the Washington Post that businesses in her district wanted to start hiring but were getting few applicants because Congress had given the unemployed so many weeks of benefits.
"Now, whether that's true or not, I'm still trying to decipher," said Dahlkemper. "But I think it's something we really need to look at."
Blake is concerned about the situation: "I think it really stinks," she said. "It's beyond stinking."
More than a million people will probably be in Blake's boat by the end of the year. She's one of 19,000 in Maryland to have exhausted all available benefits, according to the state's labor department. As of last week, 65,400 people had exhausted benefits in New York -- up from 57,000 at the end of April. In Michigan, it's 34,900. In Illinois, 22,000. In Pennsylvania, 35,200. In California, 110,609. In Florida, the number had climbed to 130,000 before May and currently stands at 193,000.
People who've been out of work for longer than six months constitute 45.9 percent of the total unemployed. Those out of work at least a year make up 23 percent.
Only two-thirds of the country's 15.3 million unemployed receive benefits when they lose their jobs in the first place. Dean Baker, co-director of the progressive Center for Economic and Policy Research, said that while he supported extending benefits in principle, "It's a bit hard to push an argument that the benefits should be extended when so many people are getting nothing."
Some families ineligible for unemployment benefits can get on welfare, formally known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. The total number of TANF caseloads has risen to 4.6 million as of December after a steady monthly increase from 4.1 million the previous year. Policy experts say the program serves far fewer families than it should.
Pamela Robinette of Philadelphia told HuffPost she lost her job as an administrative assistant in April 2008 and received her final unemployment check in March. She can't turn to TANF -- her children are grown. "If I'm kicked out of my apartment, I can always live in my car," she said.
Robinette said she thought she could move in with her mother in Texas -- but her sister and daughter are already there. "I'm 53 years old -- to move back in with mommy after all this time, it's degrading," she said. "I think the American government is screwing its citizens."
After a Tuesday vote, the House will send the measure to the Senate, where Democrats will need to file a time-consuming cloture motion to proceed to a final vote at the end of the week. Aside from unemployment benefits, the bill includes tax breaks for individuals and businesses and $2.5 billion to extend a jobs subsidy program through 2010 that will have funded 185,000 jobs through September (Republicans are targeting the program; Democrats didn't stand up for it when they had a chance to extend its funding in March).
An enterprising layoff victim in California garnered more than 20,000 signatures for a petition demanding Congress give the long-term jobless additional weeks of benefits, but few members of the House or Senate have indicated that they support the idea.
UPDATE 6:50 PM: A Dem aide advises that the House vote will now happen on Wednesday instead of Tuesday.
Laura Bassett contributed to this article.
- Posted in
81 Comments so far
Show AllBetter to spend the money creating jobs. Extending unemployment benefits only delays the crunch.
Revolution will be catalyzed by hunger.
With the majority of our tax dollars supporting the MID, prisons, bloated police depts. and auxillary, quasi-state apparachiks do you think that disruptive and damaging civil disobedience has a chance in hell of working? What planet do you live on? They will arrest and fine you big-time adding to their coffers and emptying yours. As we say at the out-of-work and-looking-hard meetings I attend with other 50+ Americans it is the " we'll paint each other's houses " and not report the income option. Or the huge garage sale option; take your pick.
To add insult to injury, the IRS is starting to crack down on people who trade services and Obama will announce his social security dilution plan in December 2010.
This is a timid defeatist attitude.
The people will rise up, and sooner than you think. The only question is who will lead them. At present, the Tea Party and the Rand Paul's would like to keep the oppressed mired in the ignorance of right wing racism and anti-unionism, not to mention militarism.
The foundation controlled American Left has spent much of its time and energy on identity politics and very little on organizing around working class economic issues. In the 50's, McCarthyism removed the working class militants from the unions, and the labor movement has dwindled to near irrelevancy. Some, like the Longshore union, still have some fight, but most are toothless.
I think that young people represent the leading revolutionary potential. They are being savaged economically and are much more supportive of socialist solutions. They also have less to lose by going directly against the state. The unemployed and destitute are also a revolution waiting to happen.
I leave youu with these famous words, "Don't mourn, organize."
We have and will continue to organize and march. However, as with most direct actions, these permitted protests and other actions attract hundreds of police mounted on horses and/or in full riot gear with paddy wagons at the ready. The fines and court appearences run into the hundreds of dollars. Do you think jobless people can afford this? One minor misstep off the pre-arranged route and you get arrested. Then the full force of the legal system kicks in. I, for one, have marched and seen the police in action and it is only a partial solution at best and expensive at worst. Good luck, though.
Police on horses are the front line...in 2008 an army brigade re-assigned to upstate New York to be dedicated to domestic disturbances.
linkwray, I've marched in hundreds and hundreds of demos and the only people to get arrested were those who had made the choice to risk arrest by "crosing the line."
If you are saying that fear of arrest is a reasonable excuse not to demonstrate, I have to say that you are wrong and are feeding into police state thinking.
I accept that your experience was what you report, DJH. But for another view, try Paul Hawken's account of Seattle. (If you don't know who he is, he founded Erehwon Natural Foods and is the Hawken of Smith & Hawken Tools. I.e., he's a wealthy capitalist, but concerned about what Capitalism is doing to the world).
-----------------------------------
When I was able to open my eyes, I saw lying next to me a young man, 19, maybe 20 at the oldest. He was in shock, twitching and shivering uncontrollably from being tear-gassed and pepper-sprayed at close range. His burned eyes were tightly closed, and he was panting irregularly. Then he passed out. He went from excruciating pain to unconsciousness on a sidewalk wet from the water that a medic had poured over him to flush his eyes.
------------------------------------
The whole account is at http://www.mapcruzin.com/globalwatch/paul_hawken.htm It is well worth reading.
How incredibly insulting that a Congressperson would repeat such a baldface lie. Businesses wanting to hire, but too few applicants? That statement says a lot but not what they'd like you to get. Businesses will say anything to deflect responsibility. Oh yeah ... millions of people really WANT to be unemployed and collect unemployment checks. Have any of these critics ever been unemployed? Have they ever tried to live on unemployment insurance?
Now they want us to believe it is the unemployed who are at fault! Who's next ... my 93 year old aunt who doesn't work and gets SS?
The stupidity that comes out of some people is just exhausting! And ... the Washington Post shows even more stupidity for printing such downright crap.
Yesterday I talked to a staffer for Rep. Dahlkemper who said she'd never actually talked to an auto dealer to find out what he paid in wages, etc. The staffer said it was a rumor or an overheard remark. This makes the WP? This is the " cover " story that the Dems have to stoop to sell out the American people? Priceless!!! Also, I just got off the phone with a Sen. from Oregon who's staffer said the Senator will not be making a statement concerning this issue. Priceless!!! With the backbone of jellyfish and liars who use the MSM as " flakjackets " who needs the Dems. I really think that economists who tell people who qualify for EUC benefits but can't find work while real unemployment is 17-18% that they should suffer along with contract workers who get nothing are, you guessed it, Priceless!!! Does Mr. Baker think; that because we worked for the same employer for 20 years, saw our 401Ks get clobbered thru malfeasence, saw illegal wars have waste, fraud and abuse run amok, paid thousands of dollars in taxes this year while bankers lavished themselves at the public trough that we should " take one for the Democratic team " ?. Good luck with that fable in November!!!
Your 90 year old aunt is next, and so are you.
Membership on O'Bomber's deficit commission is stacked so that it will begin the push to lower social security benefits and raise the retirement age.
Barack Obama is truly an enemy of the American People, a stooge for the banksters and a war criminal.
And ... the Washington Post shows even more stupidity for printing such downright crap.
---------------------------------------
You misunderstand them. It's not stupidity, it's intentional propaganda. The Post is the US equivalent of the USSR's Izvestiya: the house organ for government.
Baker is right on. Companies, generally emboldened by legal 'authority', are challenging benefits like never before. Old coot McCain mentioned during his stumbling run, how unemployment insurance needs to be overhauled, "it's something from the 1950s".
Keep in mind, if you are in the unfortunate situation where your company starts pushing you towards the door, they will attempt to force a "disqualifying response" out of you. They will also have you sign documents starting on day 1, that hopelessly narrow "performance expectations", greasing their liabilities when the door hits you on the butt.
If we had more Democracy in our workplaces their would be *much* less need for UI insurance in the first place, but that makes too much sense. The attitude today is that we need to worship our business leaders and allow them unfettered access to exploitation.
Obamacare increases the role employers play in providing medical insurance because Obama knows that employer-based medical insurance gives employers leverage against employees...not only do you lose your job if you are laid off, you lose your medical insurance.
Obama knows that single-payer medical insurance would give employees leverage. That is why he never allowed a Congressional Budget Office analysis of or any discussion of single-payer during the Obamacare charade.
Another reason Single Payer never was considered is that it would render Workers Comp Insurance more or less obsolete, thus even less revenue for the insurance crooks.Republikkkans often say that we cannot remove the insurance companies from the health care system as it is 20% of the American economy. How come they never consider the other 80% that has to feed these greedy bastards? Single Payer is what is needed to make America competitive.
Your comment is correct. People are "forced" to quit and thus rendered ineligible. Also, many independent contractors, who work essentially as employees, are ineligible. They are a major component of the workforce.
"Congress losing its appetite for unemployment insurance extension"???????!!!!!!....Millions of Americans, long term unemployed and facing the continuing lack of jobs in this country which has been created by greed and incompetent government...Americans have lost THEIR appetite for elected representatives who would display such an ininformed, out of touch, politically charged/self-serving perspective on the dire and urgent survival needs of Americans and this country.
PUHLEEEZE!!! How much more irrelevant and ridiculous a statement could be made - "Congress losing its appetite" - its appetite for addressing and serving the realities of jobless Americans in this country?? Vote them all out and start over.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
"I think the American government is screwing its citizens."
Exhibit AAA why the Democratic Party should be discarded to history's dust bin. It's outlived its original purpose as the Party of opportunity for all and the opposition Party to concentrated wealth and doesn't even understand what that purpose was anymore.
But I'm not talking about "economic opportunity" here, but economic and physical survival. THAT was the purpose of the New Deal: To enable tens of millions of people to SURVIVE the Great Depression that was fomented by that generation's crooked banks and speculators.
The teeth of the SECOND GREAT DEPRESSION will start to sink in this December. That's when the first big wave of people who lost their jobs in November 2008 will exhaust their unemployment benefits. That month, and every month thereafter throughout 2011, roughly half a million Americans will exhaust all unemployment benefits with, so far, negligible net new job creation since 2008. We are talking about millions of men, women and children here, folks. And the Dimocratic Party thinks it can ignore them. TANF is TEMPORARY--only for those who have children and it is severely underfunded.
AMERICA WILL SOON BECOME AN ECONOMIC TRAP DOOR TO HOMELESSNESS FOR TENS OF MILLIONS OF THE LONG-TERM UNEMPLOYED who can't afford transportation, utilities (especially heat to survive the winter), insurance of ANY kind, clothing, shoes, internet access, laundrymats to wash their clothes. Small necessities (toilet paper, toothpaste, soap, laundry detergent) suddenly become enormous financial hurdles that eat up time with no guarantee of acquiring them. This is inexcusable and unjustifiable cruelty on a massive scale and an intolerable waste of American potential and American lives due to the major frauds perpetrated by un-prosecuted financial industry criminal cronies of the Democratic Party.
For those of you who've had enough:
Someone in a position to do so needs to set up a national website to host information on a date for a national progressive leadership summit ASAP. We need to contact all the authentically progressive organizations we know of and drive them to that site to participate in this summit. The purpose of the summit will be to start building a new umbrella progressive populist movement and Party to resist and overturn the Democratic Party that has become just another soul-dead parasitic corporate Machine.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
Any effective attempt to create a new, baggage free, national umbrella movement to unite American progressives must have its own media strategy with the ability to mimic the audience market penetration that commercial TV news or radio achieves. The best way I see to do that is to support legislation currently languishing in Congress to make licenses to operate low power FM (LPFM) radio stations cheaper and more accessible to non-profit organizations. If enough progressive non-profits in a given town or city can blanket those areas with overlapping broadcast radii, then they can mimic commercial media's audience penetration.
Most of the programming on all these various LPFM stations would be very diverse and original and very LOCAL in nature-- something contemporary commercial media has all but destroyed. The array of progressive stations I propose could also be loosely organized on a regional and national level to cooperate to focus on key issues and up & coming progressive electoral candidates and their messages--without all that information first going through corporate filters. Radio is a very effective medium to reach people both at home and, especially, on the job. Long before there was Fox TV News, Rush Limbaugh had dominated the white male 18-to-35 radio demographic by reaching them on their jobs and in their cars, and the Left has failed miserably to fight back against him on his own turf for 30 years. That must end.
A progressive media revolution such as I describe would lay critical information groundwork for a new national progressive movement and/or Third Party. The next step would be the NATIONAL PROGRESSIVE POPULIST LEADERSHIP SUMMIT. Such a summit would convene for the purposes of compiling a list of nationally needed policies. That list would then be sent back to the various member groups for their rank & file to select from it 3 to 5 key policy platform planks from which to construct a national policy platform. A follow-up leadership summit would then be held to take a final vote on the specific platform planks. Then the leaders would vote on selection of individual members to form committees to:
(1) Conduct media strategy in cooperation with the LPFM progressive media I described above.
(2) Locate lawyers to volunteer to conduct the movement's legal strategies to include a national protest bailout fund to help anyone who is a member of the movement or Party to get out of jail when they are jailed for protesting.
(3) Organize grass roots & online fundraising; approach organizations and wealthy individuals to see if they have had enough of the corrupt DLC Democrats and would like to contribute to a real progressive movement and/or Party.
(4) Start picking and funding good articulate and persuasive candidates at the local and State level ASAP!
(5) Keep each other motivated with mutual logistic & moral support including our own food coops, our own pooled transportation, our own music, our own chants, our own media so we become tenacious, enduring and persistent regardless of what comes. We have to appeal to the people about the bread and butter issues the two dominant Parties have ignored for 16 years now and build our movement into a People's Party to forge a government "of the people, by the people and for the people" that is resilient against corporatism.
The time to act is now, not after the fascist partisan duopoly whoring for corporate America criminalizes poverty and treats anti-poverty activists as "terrorists."
At a fire in Boston a building burned down because one Fire Hyrdrant had no pressure and the other could not be turned on because it had rusted .
Infrastructure across the nation in each and every state decays.
Trillions spent to bail out banks. Trillions spent to make war in foreign lands.
Yet we hear this nonsense "Government can not create jobs".
They can take a trillion dollars and instead of using it to blow up villagers in Afghanistan they can implement a national infrastructure program like the OLD TVA and hire all these people to work.
And DON"T outsource such a program. All of the monies should flow into the pockets of the people or for the materials needed. None should go to "shareholders" and "profits".
"Yet we hear this nonsense "Government can not create jobs".
Actually thats very true.
But what they mmean is it cannot create any value added jobs. Jobs that create wealth. It can only reallocate wealth created by others into bureaucratic jobs.
"They can take a trillion dollars and instead of using it to blow up villagers in Afghanistan they can implement a national infrastructure program like the OLD TVA and hire all these people to work."
Damn GOOD idea there!
>>But what they mmean is it cannot create any value added jobs. Jobs that create wealth. It can only reallocate wealth created by others into bureaucratic jobs.
Simply untrue and later contradicted by yourself.
The TVA and those infrastructure jobs were created by the Government and the WEALTH they created in the way of highways, dams bridges and the like have "added wealth" to the USA for the past 60 years.
The Hoover dam was built with Government money and still provides power today. No private entirty of the time would have financed the Hoover dam.
That dam helped created tens of thousands of Jobs. It CREATED wealth.
Building a Nuclear submarine at 2 billion per copy creates NO jobs other then those involved in its construction.
Which is the better investment of GOVERNMENT money?
Which investment of GOVERNMENT money created more jobs?
Not at all. Government programs like TVA can create wealth, but government jobs do not. Beyond the point of need they are simply time fillers and we have a bunch. The jobs you mention are not government jobs, but in the private sector where they belong.
Government jobs are those that provide direct employment by the government and not project oriented.
The question remains, where did the government get the money to invest in these programs and how many Hoover dams have we built lately.
Building both of these is governments job.
The TVA were GOVERNMENT Jobs. It was not the private sector providing the Capital. The construction of the Interstates was not funded by the private sector and Corporations . They were funded by the Government .
Here in BC it was the Government that built all of the dams in the 1950s. That they might hire some private Companies is immaterial. Claiming this not creating jobs is like claiming private companies do not create jobs if they hire someone to do the work.
Where did the money come from? It came from the PEOPLE. That is the same place General Electric gets its Money. That or it was borrowed and printed up at a printing Press. Again any Government can do this. If there is no people to collect taxes from or do the labor, then the Government could not have funded or built those projects. If there are no people to sell their product TO the Private enterprise can not make a profit. The source of the "wealth" is the same.
The Government is OF the people unless you are the USA where it of the COrporation.
If your Government stopped all spending the USA would suffer a massive increase in unemployment. Your MIC would go UNDER.
I think the answer is for everyone who is out of unemployment benefits to move to Arizona, now that all the undocumented workers there are being forced to leave. There must be a whole slew of openings for wholesome and educational jobs such as meat packing or, or maybe lawn mowing and fruit picking. Why,whole families caould work together and enjoy the benefits of the great outdoors and make money too. Is America great or what?
UR2Funny.
So all Taco Bells employ only undocumented illegals? The one four blocks from where I live has African-Americans and Anglos working there as I type. Go to Phoenix, please. I was there in Jan. for ten days and was within 8 miles of the border and even visited Nogales. Spent time with native Arizonians who were of Mexican descent. They spoke of how conservative it was; how polluted it was and how religiously fundamentalist it was. They called Joe Arpaio a Nazi. Not my favorite place but maybe you'd enjoy the hot green tea with lemon bag(Bigelow) or the chilled Arizona; you have a choice, ya know?
At one time, meat packing represented a good union job. Meat packing was once a highly unionized profession. Starting in the 70's, the capitalists moved meat packing plants to "right to work" states and began the decline of unionization in that occupation.
Meanwhile, the powers that be were busy opening the country to a cheap often "illegal" work force, further undermining the meat packers union. Liberals were duped nearly wholesale into joining this effort to "liberalize" immigration laws.
Hey ardent,
Right to Work laws and corporate relocation to RTW states was a huge factor in union decline in the USA. You can get all insulting and personal about it, but that's just a fact.
That said, I agree that conservatism in the US union leadership was self destructive but conservatism flowed from McCarthy purges and J Edgar Hoover infiltration (and Ronnie Reagan at the actor's guild). The radicals and militants were purged and the conservatives were advanced. Hoover was not above using the Mafia boys to ensure the rightward tilt of the unions.
I did not "blame" undocumented immigrants for the decline of American unionism. I was criticizing the bi-partisan (read corporatist) immigartion laws passed in the US. Specifically I was noting that the political motivation behind bi-partisan US immigration policy is a desire to keep the supply of cheap workers up and the unions down.
The solution here is for the AFL-CIO and affiliated unions to accelerate and fund organizing among documented and undocumented workers in the US. On governmental level, Amnesty for undocumented immigrants with community roots combined with tighter immigration laws and heavy fines for EMPLOYERS who violate immigration and labor laws might help.
And yeah, at one time a family could be supported by a union meat packer. I never said it was anyone's dream job. Those are your word's ardent.Your crazy rant demonstated an elitist mindset that tosses hate rhetoric at working class Americans, of all races and nationalities.
What makes you so much better than those "working slobs" you seem to hate so much, ardent?
There is no doubt that illegal workers have hurt the unions and the US worker, but this is not the fault of the illegal workers. And who benefits? The capitalists.
The problem is not the nationality of the workers, it is the creation of a 2nd class of workers in America (actually a 3rd, unionized 1st, non-unionized 2nd, undocumented 3rd).
Justice demands that people who have lived and worked here for years should be provided a path to citizenship. But justice also demands an end to the employment of undocumented workers, with the penalties flowing primarily towards employers.
I do not claim to have the depth of knowledge about immigrant issues. I've gone to pro-immigrant rallies, particularly after 9/11.
I'm willing to reasonably discuss this issue.
Maybe I'll create a new user name, Icky Thump.
Well, Americans:
What, nothin’ better to do?
Why don’t you kick yourself out?
You’re an immigrant too.
Who’s usin’ who?
What should we do?
Well you can’t be a pimp
And a prostitute too
Icky thump, handcuffed to a bunk
Robbed blind
Looked around
And there was nobody else
Left alone
I hit myself with a stone
Went home
And learned how to clean up after myself
This is not just an issue of Republican stonewalling. As usual the obmamabots at HuffPo deceptively let the Dems off the hook on this one.
Congress goes on recess May 29 thru June 7. The current extensions end June 2.
Pelosi didn’t deal with it last week and took last Friday off. Pelosi had the House take this morning off.
Rather than dealing with the unemployment extensions, Pelosi had the House start with H. Res. 1258: expressing support for designation of May 2010 as Mental Health Month,
H. Res. 1382: expressing sympathy to the families of those killed by North Korea in the sinking of the Republic of Korea Ship Cheonan, and solidarity with the Republic of Korea in the aftermath of this tragic incident,
H. Res. 584: recognizing the importance of manufactured and modular housing in the United States,
H. Con. Res. 278: expressing the sense of Congress that a grateful Nation supports and salutes Sons and Daughters in Touch on its 20th Anniversary and
H.R. 3885: to carry out a pilot program on dog training therapy.
Pelosi had the House recess at 3:40pm. Maybe this evening’s session will deal with the unemployment extensions. NOPE.
And will Pelosi and Reid create a standalone bill to handle the unemployment extensions through the end of the year? NO.
This is tragic....the HR bills that these crooks actually craft and discuss and pass on a daily basis...meanwhile the Gulf fills w/ oil and as this goes on there are MASSIVE numbers of workplace violations and other mechanical problems in coal mines, other oil rig operations and factories like the meat-processing plants that routinely contaminate our food w/ E-Coli etc.... This country is awash in tragic accidents just waiting to happen or are opening like a hole in a dam...and these fukers are passing legislation like the ones here pointed out!!!
Where are the angry citizens like the ones on the streets in Greece right now???
Jesus...what the hell are we waiting for????
"What's frustrating is that our government doesn't seem to think this is an important issue," said Christy Blake, a 35-year-old mother of two in Fruitland, Md. "We didn't put ourselves here. It wasn't our choice. I have been diligently looking for work."
I wonder if Christy and others like her (and me...I am working..but only 22 hrs. a week and obviously rely on my partner to house me for free and feed me because 200 a week is NOT A LIVING WAGE) knows her labor history. Does she and others understand trade models like NAFTA, FTAA, GATT I wonder? Do these people KNOW the larger vision of the richest 1 percent of Americans who LOVE this form of globalization...where they can extract AS MUCH PROFIT AS POSSIBLE FROM THEIR SLAVE-WORKERS HERE AND AROUND THE WORLD WITHOUT CAUSING A REVOLT AND LOSING THEIR PERSONAL EMPIRES.
This isn't rocket science....this is the GOAL of the rich and powerful (who control our government..look at BP...yeah some boot on their throat!!! I can't believe that idiot on the news last night from the "govt" making such a stupid and dishonest remark). So when the unemployed and under-employed stop relying on their unemployment check and start creating worker-owned-coop's and/or using local currency like time-dollars and riding bicycles instead of relying on BP and others to fill your lazy car fuel tanks and become MORE self-reliant.... YOU WILL KEEP BEGGING ON YOUR KNEES FOR CRUMBS AND FOR YOUR LIFE. I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees.
Stop complaining and start educating and solving your own problems. I am working everyday towards becoming more and more free from this corrupt and self-destructive American "life" style (more like a death style to me).
peace
Self -reliance only goes so far. It does not address the vast gulf between the rich and the rest in the US. It doesn't stop the military madness or the oil madness.
Face it, self reliance helps on a personal level, but only organized mass resistance can adress the major problems
Also, you seem to be saying that there is something wrong with collecting UI. WTF?!
UI is not begging for crumbs. It's a part of the social contact in the US and has been since FDR.
Yes...unions... in 1953 (the height of union worker membership in the USA) was 32.5 percent of the workforce. In 2004 (last stat I could find at this moment) it was 12.5 percent of the workforce. I would have to say that there has been a big smack-down within and from without unions to dismantle the union model. Under Obama....he is continuing the smack-down CERTAINLY in the education sector... kill public education and put in place charter schools where unionized workers is PROHIBITED! Way to go Obummer !!!
The best worker model in my opinion is worker-owned collectives...but it takes a lot of people to take their work seriously in long-term committment and investment of time and effort. They are very popular out here in northern CA.
Oh really? Well, in the Bask region of Spain just prior to the crushing blow of the US supported dictator Franco, worker owned collectives were thriving! In Argentina today there are more than 200 worker-owned collectives and I would say that given the oppressive conditions capitalism has waged on the lives of those poor but proud people in the late 90's and early 2000's, they are in a much better position today than they were in 2001 when Bechtel was extorting huge sums of fees to the people for clean drinking water. The people didn't take it for long.... they over-took their government and since that time have turned their economy around...is it perfect??? No. Is it better and are better working situations evolving in that once devistated nation? YES!
I am not living in a fantasy world. I am living in a hell-hole called the United States and it is crumbling around me. I don't give a crap about keeping the failed economic model propped up. It doesn't serve me, my family, my friends and my fellow community members who are living in un-social and un-democratic and un-livable conditions. If you like the way things are going....FINE. Best to you! But don't crap on my analysis without giving me something to ponder and possibly rethink my own political analysis that is VIABLE and positive. I am tired of people telling other people who actually study history and economic theory what will and won't work based on their opinion alone! Ugh!!! Go back to watching Faux News!
Thank you for explaining you don't mean to dump on me. I would have to say that the replies have been most contentious from my original statement by a few people. I am glad we are on the same side. Again, I want to say I am not trying to tell people they are wrong to collect unemployment...my statement was made to point out that people should work now towards being in a position to not worry about getting an U check by using their time to learning self-reliant skills and connect w/ groups and people in their community who are working outside the system that has screwed them in the first place. I feel passionately that taxpayers are SCREWED and the biggest group who are getting the shaft are the lowest paid workers who pay more of their share of taxes than the rich fukers who have whittled down their tax rate from over 50 percent (where they still lived comfortably better than the average worker) to less than 15 percent today!!!
If we want to go after criminals we need to go after our entire Congressional system who keeps the deck stacked against us. Until that happens I am thinking that we need to take control of our own lives as best we can. That means helping each other and sharing what we have with each other so that we can stop our participation in the corporate treadmill that is killing us, our social existance and our planet. It also means we need to learn more life skills to help ourselves thumb our noses at these fukers.
Thanks for wishing me well. I am fortunate to have a 22 hr. a week job even though my boss is a prick and knows that there are far more people who are willing to put up w/ his crap if I get tired of being RUN-RAGGED for my whopping 11.00 hr. job. On a positive side I have an interview w/ a worker-owned co-op restaurant on Thurs. I sure hope I can get into that scene to be able to experience a more democratic workplace w/ more equality in pay w/ my fellow workers. : )
peace!!
ardent, the history of the post-new deal unionism is a sad one.
I don't have a problem with most of your critique except I think that you blame the victim here more than is warranted.
The decline of the unions was partially self inflicted but that was only one of several factor, such as
mass media anti-union indoctrination funded by wealthy industrialists and bankers
anti-union legislation(right to work laws and lax enforcement of employment and immigration laws or no penalties for employers)
outright persecution (blacklists, JE Hoover, McCarthy).
But don't forget, the radicalism was PURGED from the US labor unions and under the guise of fighting the reds, unions were dealt what turned out to be a decisive blow.
This also accounted forthe union conservatism and support of militarism)
Although many unions are multi racial today, racism still haunts the US labor movement and past racism account for many weak and decaying unions today.
But there still is some life left in the union ranks. Organized labor must still be an important part of the struggle against militarism and economic inequity.
If people were MORE self-reliant (growing food or joining a local community garden or starting a garden w/ a neighbor or two or three....learning to sew, knit, learning homemaking skills, cooking...starting car-share/car-ride boards, bicycling more/mass transit, walking, thrifting and "freecycle" efforts, bulk-buying...I could go on and on here) they would be less tied to the corporate govt. that is strangling them in the first place.
I live in northern California and there is ALL KINDS of organizing going on...the problem is....every group wants to be a leader or top-dog and there is no cooperation with all groups to TAKE ON THE SYSTEM in a more successful and pro-people/pro-environmental way. Until individuals IN all the organizations begin supporting each other and respecting individuals and other groups fighting for the same justice then organizing is just a fashion word and is very weak. All you have to do is look at the anti-war movement since Obama's election and see how weak and quiet the organizations have gotten. It is pittiful!!!!!!!!!
I am saying that UI is a tool to keep people in a passive manner and on the treadmill to keep the system in place that enslaves them in the first place. If I believed that writing checks would solve the LONG-TERM PROBLEM of UNDER AND UNEMPLOYMENT then I would be ALL FOR IT. But it isn't. It just keeps people either sitting at home wishing the employment situation will recover (which it CLEARLY IS NOT EVER GOING TO RECOVER as long as we offshore jobs as American firms continue to do for CHEAP LABOR) or facing lots of rejection when going out to compete against other friends/community members who ALSO need a job. I don't see how there is any kind of economic justice in the current American Globalization that we are imposing. There is no end in sight for Americans to EVER return to any kind of personal prosperity without taking their fellow citizens down.
I highly recommend people find the book "Hope for the Flowers" and read it. A beautiful and simple animated storybook of two catepillers who meet on a pillar of catepillars and fall in love and discover the real purpose of their lives...hint...it is not climbing on top of each other to reach the top. This story is appropriate for people from age 3 to 103.
To summarize freethinker68...the rich and powerful aspire to create a world with 1 million billionaires and 7 billion slaves. The Republicans are pushing toward that goal at 100 mph and the Democrats are pushing toward that goal at 80 mph.
Take your pick.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
Here you are living in a home on someone else's dime talking about how under-paid you are, so why the fuck are you attacking the unemployed and under-employed? A lot of right-wingers would consider you an under-employed person who should be working two or three jobs calling the kettle black. How do you know what all the tens of millions of individual situations are like for all the unemployed? They may not all have sugar partners to provide them with housing and food money.
Millions of people who lost their jobs in 2008 didn't even qualify for unemployment benefits in the first place. There have been negligible net new jobs created since then and more new job seekers enter the job market every month. This country needs to create around 320,000 NEW JOBS every month to keep pace with the numbers of current "official" unemployed plus new entries into the job market. We haven't done that in a decade. Do the goddamned math. A lot of these people are economically devastated; have exhausted their savings & lost their homes and are watching their children's futures being destroyed. Most of them probably know nothing about co-ops or "local currency like time dollars" and plenty of them have long run out of money for car insurance or gasoline. The problem isn't that too many of us are complaining. It's that not enough of us are complaining and organizing. The government has a definite, established historical role in helping its citizens cope with an economic Depression, and that is what is going to unfold in spades starting in December of this year. We the People are the government's top priority, not servicing corporate America at the expense of the American working-class and the planet's resources. Your sugar partnered lecture about rugged individualism is hog shit. The scale of the problem is obviously too vast to reckon with for you, but spare us your birkenstock hypocrisy. If you want to bloviate about how self-reliant you are then move out and pay for your own lodging and food.
metal
"The government has a definite, established historical role in helping its citizens cope with an economic Depression, and that is what is going to unfold in spades starting in December of this year."
OK...you have me absolutely curious...whats starting to unfold in December? What the heck are you thinking of????
"The government has a definite, established historical role in helping its citizens cope with an economic Depression, and that is what is going to unfold in spades starting in December of this year."
While this is true, have you seen ANY evidence at all that this bunch of inept clowns care, let alone intend to help anyone?
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
In December two things happen: (1) The first giant wave of unemployed who lost their jobs in November 2008 exhaust their unemployment benefits and another roughly half a million will similarly run out every month thereafter through most of 2011 with no significant new net job creation so far since 2008. That means about five to six million people will become destitute next year. (2) That same month (December 2010) Obama's little commission on Social Security and Medicare "reform" will issue their report. If the voters reward the Dims in November Obama will take it as a sign to go ahead and push cuts in Social Security. If the Dims get hammered he might hesitate, but then again, he acts like he's a corporate made man who doesn't care if he's a one term wonder because he's already cut his revolving door golden parachute deals. Either way, the economy could begin a deflationary spiral towards a long lasting true Depression. The sovereign debt crisis our banks helped facilitate in the EU could also feed back on us next year to compound the suffering.
Thanks. Very interesting thinking.
If the democrats aren't hammered with a Paul Bunyon sized hammer we don't deserve to have a country anyway. And the republican establishment too.
We may have taken the lid off but Europe's bankers and financial community looks as venal as ours. And it looks very bad for them, which would of course not be good for us.
Obama is the worst President in my lifetime. Completely unconcerned with the citizens or our future. He is a very small man in a very large job.
As a 99er -
I'm flabbergasted !
We bail out banks - not people.
Class warfare is hell!!!
Especially when most of the underclass is blind and deaf and mentally impaired.
Just got off the phone with my facilitator of Over 50+ And Looking for Work Group: our new slogan is " We'll remember and castrate Obama's Blue Dogs in November ". I kinda like it.
I like it, too!
@metal: your concept of a progressive-populist coalition is a great idea. Just one thing.
Establishing an LPFM national network would take anywhere from 5 to ten years. The candles and pamphlets of the "revolution" would be history by then!
Better suggestion: establish a 24/7 web stream talk channel, taking call-ins from all across the country. The web is quick and demands no federal communications commission licensing. Reach the 23 million people who have listened to online radio last month! (source: Arbitron/Edison 2009)
Hear callers with action plans. Move others to action. Big steps, small steps. Everyone.
Schedule meetups, community town halls, publicize what, where and when. Use the social media: Facebook, etc. Spotlight the emerging leadership and amazing people doing what they can. Because they must. For all of us. Now.
Use the Lakoff framing paradigm at all times. We the people.
Our economy is now suffering the "perfect storm" of forces set in motion since the Reagan presidency. Time to fight. For our lives.
Which side are you on?
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
You sound like you know a great deal more about these technologies than I do. I'm also not a huge user of social sites like Facebook but I recognize the potential it has for organizing. I worked in radio when the internet was still in its infancy. Your ideas sound good although we need to reach many more than 23 million. Goodhelp, why don't you pursue this idea? Once you establish the web stream talk channel post a comment to one of my comments and we can start persuading people to tune in and participate.
We need to organize the unemployed to demand: (1) government jobs ("the employer of last resort") and (2) permanent subsistence level "unemployment" (what the British call "the dole") for everyone who needs it.
We should pool our meager resources -- I'll contribute from my Social Security income -- to fund a radio ad campaign. Tie all our issues together into a coherent 30 second ad that can be easily understood by the average desperate unemployed person:
"The government is wasting trillions of dollars on useless wars and big business bailouts while you're unemployed and need help. Tell them to put the money where it's really needed or you won't vote for them in November."
Can we stop fighting among ourselves about how we got here and just do it?