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Death and Joblessness: How Suicide Dogs the Long-Term Unemployed
He hit "publish" on the last Wednesday in July, in the middle of a long afternoon. "I also have become homeless and am on the verge of suicide. I slept out in the wood last night and didn't gett very much sleep. I hate to bring you people down with my problems but I thought you would like to know this. I don't know what else to say except I'm very sorry it turned out like this but I can take the strain of living like this very much longer." (All posts are reproduced as published.)
A photograph taken after a protest in Grand Rapids, Mich. (Creative Commons) The post went up as part of a conversation about homelessness on Unemployed-Friends,
a popular online forum for the unemployed to connect with one another.
Most were discussing how to live in homeless shelters after eviction or
foreclosure. But his post went further. "This is killing me physically
and emotoinally. I am at the end of my rope and getting to the point of
letting go. I have tried everything I know to get help. DHS won't help'
Salvation Army won't help. 211 won't help. I have no idea as to where to
go from here. If you don't hear from me by tomorrow I probably will be
dead."
Thousands of users visit the web site daily, offering one another everything from advice about applying for unemployment insurance benefits to emotional support. It is one of dozens of such sites helping the nation's 14.6 million unemployed - particularly the long-term unemployed, the 6.6 million Americans who have been out of work for more than six months. "I am very tempted to walk in front of an oncoming semi right now. Sorry to go on ranting but I am getting to the point where I feel I have no choice. For those of you that want to know I am currently in Grand Rapids. I appreciate your words of encouragement but right now it doesn't seem to be enough to keep me going."
The post ended, "I will try to tough out another night. Goodbye for now."
***
The unemployed commit suicide at a rate two or three times the national average, researchers estimate. And in many cases, the longer the spell of unemployment, the higher the likelihood of suicide.
On online fora such as Unemployed-Friends, the topic comes up often, users finding news reports or hearing tell of deaths in their community, and mourning them. There was the Staten Island suicide, where an emergency medical services employee who thought himself about to be fired posted his final words on Facebook: "I can't go on anymore. I just hung myself." In Anaheim, Calif., there was the man underwater on his mortgage and awash in credit card debt who shot his wife and and one of his children before himself. His two children survived. His wife did not. In Indiana, there was the middle-aged mother who sent her daughter out to buy soda and killed herself before her daughter came back. That happened the day after the repossession of her Chevy Malibu.
Other stories are more apocryphal. In a post that ginned up dozens of comments and thousands of views on Unemployed-Friends, someone reported a father of three in Michigan had killed himself, writing in his final letter, "I am sorry, I have now lost every ounce of pride I ever had. You will be better off without me." (The report of the suicide is unconfirmed.) A colleague told me he knew of a local man who killed himself when his unemployment insurance ended, because when his unemployment insurance ended he had no way to pay his child support.
The stories appear in letters to Congress as well. "My dad, S, killed himself March 16, 2009 because he ran out of money and could not find work. My whole family had been devastated by the economy. He was 61 years old and could not take it anymore. He could not figure out how to keep the electric on, buy food, or keep a roof over his head. A day before his electric was to be shut off, and 2 weeks away from eviction, my dad took the hardest walk of his life. He left a note on the dining room table for my sister and I. His suicide letter said ‘I love you. I had to do this. I ran out of money. I wish you both luck in your lives'. He left the door unlocked with the door key left in the lock. He carefully laid out two suits for us to pick from to bury him in," one person from Forest Hills, N.Y., wrote to Rep. Anthony Weiner (D). "I almost caught my dad in time, maybe another 10 minutes and I could have saved him."
The stories show the deeper wounds of unemployment, and especially long-term unemployment. It is not just the loss of a job, but the loss of community, routine and purpose. It means worse health. It means higher rates of divorce. It means alcohol abuse. All of these are also risk factors for suicide.
***
The users of Unemployed-Friends knew these stories. And they knew this shame and suffering, knew it well enough to take it seriously, for fear of what it can make people do. The web site goes so far as to keep suicide prevention hotline numbers at the top of every page. So when the note from user Vidirian2001 published to the forum, the virtual community realized it had little time to prevent a real-world death. The first reply begged Vidirian to call emergency services. Others suggested a clinic or the hospital.
"Please take the advice of the posters here - we care about you - even if we don't know you personally - anyone can feel the way you are feeling - we are all facing hard times," one wrote. "Please Please - I am in tears reading your story." They said they were crying and praying for the anonymous poster, and told their own stories of survival. One posted Psalms.
Some asked if any fellow Michiganders would go find the user, to help him or her.
Vidirian2001 did not respond until the next morning. "Hello people. Today doesn't seem to be much better. For those of you that would like to know I am in Grand Rapids MI . If I can't get any help soon I will follow through with my plans. I also have tried calling suicide prevention and they just transferred me to some one else who then dropped the call. I have no blood relatives I can count on. The friends I do have are supportive but can't/won't help me. I am crying right now because I feel there is no way out."
***
There is no saying how many suicides the recession has caused.
During the Great Depression, the suicide rate increased about 20 percent, from 14 to 17 per 100,000 people. The Asian economic crisis in 1997 led to an estimated 10,400 additional suicides in Japan, Hong Kong and Korea, with suicides spiking more than 40 percent among some demographic groups. But such statistics can mislead, social scientists say. Joblessness does not cause suicide. Rather, it correlates: Depressed persons tend to lose their jobs due to poor work performance, and a few also commit suicide. Jobless people tend to turn to alcohol, worsening their depression, and increasing the chances that they harm themselves. Still, academic studies show that suicide rates tend to move with the unemployment rate. Researchers in New Zealand found that the unemployed were up to three times as likely to commit suicide, with middle-aged men the most likely.
So how many suicides are associated with the recession? Nobody knows, not yet. The statistics lag about three years, so the official Center for Disease Control numbers still predate the financial crisis. Right now, therefore, the reports remain anecdotal.
But looking at individual counties' or cities' data, there are ominous signs of a real spike. Some counties show no change. Others show dramatic climbs. In rural Elkhart County, Ind., where the unemployment rate is 13.7 percent, there were nearly 40 percent more suicides in 2009 than in a normal year. In Macomb County, Mich., where the unemployment rate is also 13.7 percent, an average of 81 people per year committed suicide between 1979 and 2006. That climbed to 104 in 2008 and to more than 180 in 2009.
The suicide prevention hotlines also show signs of stress. In Jan. 2007, as the recession started, there were 13,423 calls to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, a nationwide toll-free hotline. A year later, there were 39,467. In Aug. 2009, the call volume peaked at 57,625. Last year, the government granted the group an extra $1 million to increase programs in places with high unemployment rates.
***
By Thursday, the posters on Unemployed-Friends knew more about the user known as Vidirian2001. They had gone back to his first post, which went up in June. "Hello everyone. I am Scott I am 45 years old. I have been out of work for over 3 1/2 years. I am getting to the end of my rope. Yesterday, the postman came to the door with a letter for me to sign for. I thought it was something to do with my parents property which is in forclosure. It turns out my wife of 7 years is filing for divorce and is kicking me out of the apartment."
Rapidly, they pieced identifying details together: Scott, male, 45, estranged. They knew he lived in Grand Rapids, Mich., where the unemployment rate is 11.1 percent. They knew that he posted from a library somewhere in Grand Rapids. They knew he was suicidal, but still reaching out. They knew they had to help him.
Users started calling all of the libraries in Grand Rapids in real time, asking the workers to go find him. Another called the Grand Rapids Police Department's non-emergency line, providing them with all of the information about Scott and his known whereabouts. Another called the Michigan suicide prevention office. Along with the librarians and the police, they managed to get Scott, still suicidal, to a hospital for urgently needed medical care.
And one user living in Traverse City, hours from Grand Rapids but within driving distance, offered Scott a place to stay to get him off of the streets. "I think it would be better for someone(my son) to pick him up than have him travel alone by bus- he is too vulnerable at this point for the trip alone. We are already rearranging our dining area so we can make him a make shift room of his own so he will have some kind of privacy. My hubby is hoping he likes to fish cause that will give him a new fishing partner!" she wrote.
"For all offering to help pay for this I will get back with you if we need any help with gas money but I think we have enough gas in our van to make the trip I am 126 miles away and I get really good mileage and a couple of my kids are willing to help with money if we need it."
***
The governmental statistics on suicide, unemployment and the relationship between the two are surprisingly thin.
Amy Rowland, a spokesperson for the CDC Injury Center, acknowledges as much, noting a bump in the suicide rate for older male workers. "Studies done by other researchers show that economic strain and loss are risk factors for suicide." she says. "However more studies need to be done to better understand what might be occurring in this age group that is contributing to these increases and how we can best control and prevent it."
Economists Richard Dunn of Texas A&M University and Timothy Classen of Loyola University Chicago are conducting some of those studies. They wanted to pinpoint the effect joblessness had on suicide rates. The problem was sorting out correlation and causation, as many people lose their jobs for depression or alcoholism or drug abuse, which in turn increase the risk of suicide. The economists, of course, could not fire people at random and then track them. So they looked for natural experiments, where workers were fired for reasons other than job performance. They zeroed in on mass layoffs, like when a factory closes and thousands of workers find themselves suddenly unemployed.
Unemployment, they found, does increase the risk of suicide. And not just once, but twice: First, just after the factory shuts down, and then again, about six months later, when unemployment insurance ends. The impact is strongest among men. Dunn explains: "If you had laid off 4,000 [men] initially, one would have killed himself immediately, within a month, and six months later, another person would have killed himself."
"We don't expect all 4,000 people to remain unemployed in month six," Dunn continues. "It is probably 2,000 or 1,000 people who are. So the research suggests that the impact of losing your unemployment benefits is actually stronger than the impact of losing your job. How much stronger? We don't know. But twice as strong, three times as strong. Some significant difference."
That is to say, duration of unemployment and loss of unemployment benefits are more important determinants of suicide risk than job loss itself.
***
I spoke with Scott on the phone this week, his voice affectless, his sentences matter-of-fact and declarative, his mood impossible to read. The first thing he told me is that he continues to struggle with suicidal thoughts.
He explains what happened on the day of his post: He was sitting at a kiosk on the computer, considering whether to throw himself in front of a semi or to go "dance with a train," the words delivered to me as if he were noting the weather. Suddenly, the police approached him in the library and took him to a nearby hospital. Most persons threatening suicide must remain in the hospital for at least 24 hours of observation. Scott says that the hospital released him in an hour, with numbers for services to call. He promised them that he would go get counseling. He spent another night homeless, sleeping on a cement slab in the back of his former apartment building. "There was a patio back where I used to live, so I went there," he says.
"After that, the people I'm staying with - well, their sons - they came and got me. I had counseling set up in Grand Rapids, but I'm in Traverse City now. I'm not going to go 150 miles -150 each way, a two and a half hour drive - for counseling." He is not currently in therapy, and does not have ready access to medical care.
We talk about his former life. He has struggled with depression for decades. It runs in his family. His mother and father both suffered from it, too. He was a wood worker and furniture maker, but the industry has left Michigan for China and Malaysia. Still, he had a wife and an apartment, food on the table. But he lost his job. Earlier this summer, his wife left and evicted him, leaving him destitute and homeless. Now, he is living with a family that found him on a message board, in a makeshift bedroom in their home. Both the husband and wife are unemployed themselves. They are hoping to sell their house if they can, and move out of Michigan to somewhere warmer, somewhere with jobs. Scott is waiting on food stamps and possible disability payments for a wrist injury.
He is disappointed with the state of Michigan - he has no caseworker, no hospital stay, no counseling, no Medicaid - disappointed "to say the least. That's just putting it mildly." He also feels disappointed with Congress. "The - the system is broken, as far as I'm concerned," his voice breaking for a moment. "It's broken and it needs to be repaired drastically and urgently, but the people in Congress could care less as long as they've got theirs. I'm not even the worst off. On the forum, one guy sold his computer to buy some milk for his kid, then got in his van and shot himself. I'm better off than many."
When the Unemployed-Friends rescue happened, he posted: "All I have to say to you people on this forum is: YOU PEOPLE ARE A GODSEND. Not only for me but for others who need a helping hand and someone to talk to. I am crying tears of joy because someone who doesn't even know me is willing to help me in my time of need."
I ask him how he is feeling now. He replies, "Like a burden. I have no money. I have no job. I'm not going to lie to you. I still think about it."
- Posted in
56 Comments so far
Show AllThanks for information about "Unemployed friends" though I think it would just be more depressing. I've been out of work for over two years and having to depend on my wife's limited income. Many of my friends are unemployed as well. If you're over 50 finding work is next to impossible and working for $8.00 an hour isn't worth the effort. Suicide is something I think about often but that is what the system really wants -- we the expendable to simply kill ourselves and save them money. Instead I'm working with others to try and create a real, mutually supporting community among progressives. As we no longer have to worry about what our bosses think, we should be making louder demands, maybe go and camp out on the Mall in DC. We can keep each other alive or we can kill ourselves alone in our desperation. I prefer the former but the later remains an option.
Jaded Prole,
Didn't you run a web site and publish a magazine (out of the Norfolk area) of labor-and-socialist poetry and short stories? I forgot the magazine/website's name.
A ReaganBushClintonBushObamaville on the Mall in DC - per the Hooverville of old, is an excellent idea.
Yes, the Blue Collar Review. I still publish it and am working on the new issue but while it pays for itself via supporters and subscriptions, it really is a not for profit and I make no money on it. It, and my wife keep me going. The DC campout might be a reconstituted version of King's efforts but we could be demanding public works jobs and a real safety net -- especially for those of us middle-aged and older!
Thanks. I'll order a subscription today.
During the Bill Clinton administration the unemployment rate fell to a 30-year low of 3.8%. So FU, you disinformation scumbag! You've got blood on your hands.
http://www.ibew.org/legislative/W080714_JustFacts.pdf
Under Clinton, unemployment was low, but wages were stagnant, benefits, particularly reirement plans were dropped, the NLRB was empaneled with those hostile to unions, and employers were given new muscle to slap the worker down. The result was unprecedented levels of employment insecurity. This set the stage for unimpeded layoffs once the economy turned down, and worker in terrible shape to weather the downturn.
Oh, I almost forget - he also dismantles the entire welfare sysatem that could be helping a lot of the post-99er unemployed right now.
Then, of course, there were the bubble-building, "free trade" job-exporting, economic policies started by Clinton that led to the current economic downturn.
One of those economic policies allowed for signing into law the repeal of Glass-Steagall which lead directly to the "financial crisis" requiring taxpayer bailouts of the filthy rich. So "FU" to the guy that said the same to you.
I marvel at your excellent dispassionate response to the uninformed Clinton worshiper's mudslinging.
People are killing themselves while you 100%, all-shit disinformation jackasses wank off about 3.8% unemployment not being good enough. It "set the stage" for Bush's asinine policies? Yeah right, and you probably give Reagan the credit for the eight years of peace and prosperity during Clinton's two terms as well.
You smear the only president to give us full employment in thirty years? Read the FACTS:
http://www.ibew.org/legislative/W080714_JustFacts.pdf
Clinton packed the NLRB with people hostile to unions? More bullshit. That was Reagan. Here's what the TN Chamber of Commerce wrote about the Clinton NLRB in 2005:
"During the administration of President Bill Clinton, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) overturned several long-established workplace practices, drawing the ire of employers who were forced to deal with significant changes in the interpretation of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Employers have been calling on the NLRB to reexamine these changes in the law since President George W. Bush was elected in 2000."
You can read the details here: http://www.tnchamber.org/insider/mar05.pdf
Besides providing full-employment (the greatest gift to labor a president can give), Clinton was also,
"given high marks from labor for essentially defensive actions against right-wing Republican efforts to dismantle the social safety net... He signed into law the Family and Medical Leave Act, which labor appreciated... He also issued an Executive Order to prohibit the awarding of federal contracts worth more than $100,000 to any employer who had permanently replaced striking workers... Clinton’s strongest defense of unionization was unquestionably his veto of the 1995 "Teamwork for Employees and Managers Act" (TEAM). Clinton said the bill would abolish protections that ensure independent and democratic representation in the workplace."
http://www.ler.illinois.edu/faculty/papers/bruno-presidentiallabor.pdf
Yeah, that's right, Clinton rolled back the Reagan/Bush trickle-down/de-regulation/voodoo economics dogma that had possessed the public and Congress for 12 years, and fought off the vicious attacks of the zombie Right (with mixed success) after winning the presidency with just 43% of the vote (against 57% for Bush and Perot).
"Free-trade" was "started by" Reagan and Bush, not Bill Clinton. Anyone capable of reading Wikipedia knows that.
Welfare cuts? A half truth is still a lie. Clinton stopped the
Penny (D-Minn)/Kasich (R-Ohio) $90 billion 1994 deficit reduction plan, and offered his own $37 billion in spending cuts. That's just 41% of what a bipartisan cabal of Republicans and coporatists in his own party wanted. See: http://www.businessweek.com/archives/1994/b335416.arc.htm
But that's not good enough for you slime-balls, is it. Even as people are committing suicide you pigs are still puking out your "Bill Clinton was just as bad as the worst, most degenerate, most destructive trio of dirt-bag presidents in at least 70 years" disinformation. You're either false-flag military PR ops, or ignorant clowns. Either way, you've all got blood on your hands.
We have intractable economic/political problems that haven'y been solved in the 50 years that I've been politically aware and active. It breaks down to 22 years of Democratic rule and 30 years Republican. The problems are not unsolveable. Other advanced countries have accomplished much more with far less resources. The problems lie within the middle and upper classes whose lives are so comfortable and whose special treatment has made them numb and dumb. This is now changing very rapidly. It takes leadership and salesmanship and a lot of effort to move the comfortable to do the correct and fair thing. To make them uncomfortable it took the collapse of the economy and the continuing disaster in the real estate, stock and jobs market. These markets will continue to deflate and wilt. The anger and finger-pointing are just symptoms of the calamity to come. The leaders of both parties knew of the problems and did little to fight the political/economic elites. The country needs another way and I hope we find it very quickly. I'm not optimistic that Clinton or Obama or, for that matter, Bernie Sanders and other progressive leaders can get it done. Sorry.
BOTH of the two major political parties have become the enemy of Middle America. To continue to vote for candidates from either of them is not only pointless and will effect no change, but profoundly immoral.
Since both parties are the same, voting today is now only an effective way to protest. Voting for a democrat or republican will only continue to reenforce a stinkingly corrupt self-serving system.
Don't commit suicide. Steal food from supermarkets. Find a vacant house (plenty out here in the rust-belt) Get a nice sharp knife, and ask a rich man for a generous, on-the-spot-donation to the homeless.
Preach, SaboCat!
Amen.
Skip the knife. You're not going to find a rich man on the street anyway, only a middle class man.
I dunno, I'm talking about the city. Even my well-off dentist uses the bus to get to work. There are plenty of rich poeple on the sidewalks in the "Golden Triangle" on any nice day, and particularly on Friday and Saturday evenings going from the upscale restaurants to the Opera House and Concert Hall. Theater and classical concert-goers tend to be the bourgie-liberal rich, so it would be nice to think the knife isn't necessary, but this would be wishful thinking. After all, panhandling is illegal between sundown and sunrise in Pittsburgh, and it seems any other time at police discretion. Also, the church-based do-gooders put up posters at the T-stations saying giving to the homeless is bad.
As for me, I try to keep some loose dollar bills from my generous government-job salasy in my pocket to give to the homeless panghandlers I encounter.
Agreed. I hate violence, but why not steal from the people who've ACCRUED wealth, e.g. Lloyd Blankfein et al., only by shuffling paper? They did NOT earn their wealth; they accrued it. Big difference there.
"Along with the librarians and the police, they managed to get Scott, still suicidal, to a hospital for urgently needed medical care."
Where upon release he will be presented with an unpayable bill of several thousand dollars.
>>
"For all offering to help pay for this I will get back with you if we need any help with gas money but I think we have enough gas in our van to make the trip I am 126 miles away and I get really good mileage and a couple of my kids are willing to help with money if we need it."
<<
This touches my heart and brings a tear to my eye. The destitute are the only ones left who will help the destitute. I used to agree with the biblical statement that "the love of money is the root of all evil" but the bible is wrong. It is money itself that is the root of all evil. The "money paradigm" needs to go. We need to find a better way. Capitalism says "every man for himself". Socialism says "I am my brother's keeper". Socialism can be corrupted. Capitalism is corruption personified.
>>
He is disappointed with the state of Michigan - he has no caseworker, no hospital stay, no counseling, no Medicaid - disappointed "to say the least. That's just putting it mildly." He also feels disappointed with Congress. "The - the system is broken, as far as I'm concerned," his voice breaking for a moment. "It's broken and it needs to be repaired drastically and urgently, but the people in Congress could care less as long as they've got theirs. I'm not even the worst off. On the forum, one guy sold his computer to buy some milk for his kid, then got in his van and shot himself. I'm better off than many."
<<
The following is a "must read" imho.
Understanding America's Class System
Honk if you love caviar
By Joe Bageant
See essay at: http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2010/08/understanding-america.html#more
"Socialism can be corrupted. Capitalism is corruption personified."
You said a mouthful there!
The president vacations and lives in a big white house; the congress goes on vacation and travels to their OTHER homes and gets ready to spend millions to return to dc and "deficit hawk" the poor and destitute. Some of the "I have nothing but a beating heart" folks who are a burden to the rich and politicians are on vacations too with no vacation spot to go to and no place to come home to and narrow options to keep a heart beating: some would choose to stop the beating heart and have the Soul leave for good. What a dismal, fucking piece of shit situation greed has created and given the lie to "the common welfare". Tony
Is anyone surprised by the fallout of this collapsing economy and the unwillingness of your neighbors to offer aid or comfort? Let alone our gov't in the form of programs to strenghten the safety net and revitalize the shared public resources we all own. There is a concerted effort to make the gov't fail to meet it's obligations and undermine the role it should be playing right now. " Just Say No to the needy, Just Say Yes to the greedy. " I know people who have killed themselves out of despair and destitution. I'm a 99er, folks. I've paid into gov't programs for 46 years and have paid all my country has asked me to. It is not welfare we are seeking. It is our money and we want some of it to live on thru these dark times. End of story.
linkwray, for as long as we have been alive, we were raised to believe in the ideals of capitalism; that if you work hard, do a good job and are loyal to your employer (master) you will be rewarded with time off, toys and a respectable retirement. The people who rose to upper middle class did so because they were more educated, skilled, more intelligent .... That is all a lie.
The indignation of many middle class people for the lower class and welfare recipients is because we felt we achieved our "status" due to something we did right and the others refused to contribute. We learned "redistribution of wealth" was taking from the hard working populations, given to the lazy or stupid. We didn't hear about the redistribution of wealth from the entire middle class to the obscenely wealthy.
Even now you differentiate yourself from welfare recipients - because you have been taught dependency is bad. But think about it. You and most of us are dependent on employers. Those who go into small business are dependent on consumers and the economy and work longer and harder than most employees. Only a few rise to the ranks of "very rich", most due to deceptive, greedy tactics. Now you and millions of other middle aged people are too young to collect social security "insurance" but too old to be employable.
The American Dream is a nightmare. Capitalism as practiced necessarily rewards people who violate people and the planet. You achieved your status because you effectively fulfilled a purpose, established by and for the elite, thinking it was your decision. I too was one of the complacent masses. Now I know better.
Now, the 99ers are the example of what not to be, just like the welfare people used to be. Now, an employee does your job, my job and half of another person's job for 2/3 of what he used to make while kissing the ground on which his employer walks, grateful that he has a job. This is all by design.
I was initially laid off because I was in a position which demanded that I fully disclose the cost and profit margins of a well known OEM to wealthy members of a private, very exclusive buying club. My boss supplied false information to these members and therefore put me in a position where I either kept the lie going or committed a felony. I got a lawyer, spilled the beans and resigned. Then I went to the proper authorities and gave them copies of documents which proved I was being blackmailed in order to keep my job. Everyone involved ended up looking like a crook, and they are, except me. Not incoincidentally, I cannot attain a position with any legitimate business in my former area of expertise. Imagine that! I have been a radical progressive on the issues since 1968: the environment, social and economic equality, etc. I'm not selling out to anyone and do what I do because I was damn good at it. P.S. I'm a lot more into homicide than suicide. Just sayin'.
Should have put "good" instead of welfare. Tony
“Usury centralises money wealth. It does not alter the mode of production, but attaches itself to it as a parasite and makes it miserable. It sucks its blood, kills its nerve, and compels reproduction to proceed under even more disheartening conditions. … usurer’s capital does not confront the laborer as industrial capital,” but “impoverishes this mode of production, paralyzes the productive forces instead of developing them.” - Karl Marx
For every dollar made on Wall street seven is taken out of the real economy.. So, it easy to see who the parasite is!
Feel for all of you in such a terrible situation.
I lost a house to foreclosure in February.
One thing little reported on is that during the great Depression 10 to 12 million citizens were unaccounted for in the USA.
This little researched in the USA itself. Some claim that the millions of people unaccounted for simply left the country without notifying anyone. The US Government own census reports show 10-12 million simply vanished.
The official "sanitized version" is that the people of the USA rallied together and no one went hungry.
A Russian researcher claims as many as 8 million died due to starvation. There are a number of pictures taken of children found on farms and in run down tenements across the USA that one would swear came from the death camps of Nazi Germany with children little more then bones lying on tables.
It rather easy for citizens of the USA to accept that the tyranny of the "Communists" of Stalins USSR allowed many millions of Ukranians to starve to death , but can they ever accept that such an event happened in the USA?
With so many seemingly oblivous to the suffereing of Americans today in this time of mass communications, television and the internet, is it that difficult to accept that history oblivous to millions that might have starved to death 80 years ago?
And many died due to varieties of what's called "exposure": the effects of being unwelcome in any reasonable domicile.
When you walk all day and have no food, you can find yourself with the deep shakes with everyone else in shirtsleeves. When you lay on the ground at night, the cold thermal mass of the ground loots the small warmth from your body. When you lie down in the daytime, people point and say you're lazy and like being broke, and policemen tell you to move on. When the sun and the wind burn your face, people think you too crazy to hire.
There'll never be records because people just buried the dead and walked on.
Think of the great dust storms in the plains states that killed even people locked into their houses with damp rags in the doors and windows. What might we imagine happened to the homeless caught outside?
I at least have never read anything that tried to quantify them.
Thank-you for this bit of history. Unfortunately, my understanding of the depression was tainted by my father's and mother's childhood recollections from their lucky secure circumstances, and, of course, from the old TV series "The Waltons".
Sure, I read "The Grapes of Wrath", but I never imagined that as many as 12 million starved to death during the 1930's.
Through the cold war, right-wingers used to publish these supposed tallys of "Deaths Atributed to Communism from 1917 to Present" - making sure to count every death from famine as well as executions, forced labor, etc... The amount usually being on the order of tens of millions.
But imagine if we made a tally of deaths attributed to Capitalism. Just the capitalist military actions, covert actions, and sponsoreed dictators and death squads alone would run into te tens of millions - and we aren't even beginning to consider starvation from market-driven food shortages overwork, unhealthy work conditions, evictions in the winter, etc.
Have you seen this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Book_of_Capitalism
This is truly heart breaking. Based upon the continued idiotic statements made by various people in Congress who seem clueless on what is happening in the "real world", it is time to bring greater recognition. Tent camps should be erected in the capitol of every state in the country, preferably as close to the capitol grounds as possible. As many as possible should unite in Washington D.C.
President Obama and those in Congress need to SEE the homeless, the unemployed, and what it does to people. At a time when the states desperately need money to help citizens, they continue to throw it down the pit for "wars". Disgusting.
Shame shame shame on America.
It should be noted that stories like this - suicide as an act of economic desperation - do not appear in Canada. I will wager they do not happen in other social democracies either.
But then one remembers. America - like any other fascist country - does not care one bit about its people.
Shame on America.
From what I can gather, reading the news story comments in the Toronto Star, and the accounts of sone aquaintances living up there, Canada is not far behind the US. You have your health care plan, which is important, but that about the only significant difference.
My brother emmigrated up there, and is facing a even more hostility toward unions than he ever saw in the US (Pennsylvania anyway), and the same trend of employers designating employees as "independent contractors" to get out of providing benefits and to cheat the worker out of the employer-matching part of the Canada Pension plan tax.
Maybe Canada still has mre generous unemployment benefits, and still some semblance of a welfare syatem.
You must excuse my Canadian brother for his cold comment and having his facts screwed up, but this Canadian knows that American's do care about each other but the higher you go on wealth the less they care.It was not your fault the crooks that are now controlling the government out sourced your jobs for slave wage counties it was UN American for those that did it because for them the bottom line is profit.There is a war waged against the working class and the main stream media will try to make you go at each others throats to take your frustrations out on each other rather than see the real picture that the bankers and Wall street along with the military industrial complex and corporations have got your so called representatives in there pocket and have sold you down the river.My Canadian brother has not got a clue to our situation at home and that is we are following right behind and it will be washing up on our shores shorty.It's just taking longer because we have single payer health care.
I disagree, salindsay. Social assistance is available to anyone who needs it - the able-body need to be looking for work, but they are not denied subsistance if they need it.
And I never said Americans don't care for each other. I know many do. I said AMERICA doesn't care about its people. And I stand by that. I lived 50 years in the U.S. and I know it's better north of the border.
The United States Corporation doesn't care about its people. The Corporation is of, by and for huge business. People are collateral to the national debt. We are slaves thinking we are free. That is becoming more apparent every day.
Unutterably black crimes are being committed by "our" president and his coteries while we, the American sheeple, seem content to worry about OUR "OWN" stomachs & other comforters. How bout concern and action for "others" for a planet-saving change?
Jeevee, you're right. That's part of the plan, to get unemployed people so consumed with survival that they have no concern for the rest of the world. People become so enveloped in "we need help", they forget that the problems causing massive unemployment, homelessness, starvation and premature death.
That's what this bill for 99ers is all about. After Congress takes their month long PAID vacation, they will consider extending help to people their laws caused (hmmmm...and they complain about paying people $350 a week not to work). They hope the unemployed will be so grateful for the crumbs, they will forget about fixing the problems causing unemployment. Why else would extensions be up for Congressional action every couple of months ... to keep everyone begging for more.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
I remember back in the "Go-go Eighties" as the media takeovers & mega-mergers by right-wing corporate holding companies began the process of what is now an extreme concentration of media ownership. This was commensurate with the Reaganite supply-side trickle-down mantra of deregulation and GATT anti-labor swill that has led to our now extreme concentration of wealth in the hands of the richest one-tenth of one percent.
The tense chatter in several of the soon to be gutted (of their institutional memory and pro-publica reportorial & editorial tendencies) major news magazines and some TV news divisions was that the "new economy" would be one of "winners and losers," and that it would be a "winner-take-all" type of capitalism. The American masses didn't pay attention enough to contemplate what that would truly mean.
Most of those that supported it enough to line up and vote for fascist tools like Bush Sr., Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton didn't actually read up on deregulation and free trade, but depended on corporatist hearsay in their workplaces and right-wing radio (as Rush Limbaugh soon dominated the white male 18-to-35 demographic). But even the post-takeover, post-merger, increasingly corporatist "mainstream media" was, by 1994, a blatant adjunct of the malignant, self-engorging robber baron oligarchy--now its envenomed tentacles on command. With the advent of the garishly sensational Tonya Harding & O.J. Simp-a-thon media frenzies, followed by Lewinsky-gate it was clear what Big Media's real priority was: Bread and circuses--keep the masses distracted from the true enemies and specific threats that were confronting them. Divide and conquer. Now such sensationalist distractions are a 24/7/365 media bombardment, ever more infantile and reinforced with even more bovine "reality TV" and "celebrity news."
The corporate news chatter was, in the early to mid 1980s, still tense for a while on the subject of "winner take all" capitalism and its impending "winners and losers" because they still feared an organized labor + public push back. But when there was no push-back the corporations were emboldened and quickly became more ruthless. I knew the America I loved had entered its long slow death glide when the corporations started doing mass layoffs even right before and during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This was something they wouldn't have DARED do a few years earlier. The American masses had lost their moral compass and any sense of working-class solidarity--that early. The corporatists knew then that they were cattle to be media-stampeded in any direction they chose to be roped, branded and led to the slaughter. The American working-class was too lazy-minded and gutless to defend itself by the mid 1990s. Behold it now. On its knees begging for crumbs and, too many of them, committing suicide both inside the military-industrial-petrol complex and out.
No telling how many of the people duped by the first snakebite of Reaganism who goose-stepped with the Newtzis, the neo-cons and the Tea Party are now contemplating suicide because their Republican grand delusion was shredded before their very eyes along with their jobs, their lives and the lives of their loved ones.
Germany is doing better than the U.S. now because they preserved
more of their big ticket export manufacturing sectors
from offshoring than did the U.S. France is
more complicated. It exports some high-tech goods as well as a lot of
high quality organic food in an era when American corporate processed,
genetically modified, sterile seed based & fast food is gaining a global
bad reputation for causing all sorts of health problems.
The U.S. McEconomy now is absolutely reliant on "any means necessary"
to prop up the stock market. Too many Americans are now overly
dependent on stock dividends from foreign located, U.S. owned
manufacturing that has a direct negative pressure on job creation in
the U.S.
A critical example is General Motors. GM is now being
portrayed in our corporate press as "showing a profit." But it is
still 60% controlled by the federal government and relies on its
factories and sales in China for its post-bailout "re-growth." The
U.S. government (via the tax payers) have been subsidizing its
continued offshoring in order to boost its stock market value and it
is preparing to do an IPO with its fascistically heightened stock
value. The long-term investment in CHINESE jobs for CHINESE workers
absent any similar commitment to U.S. jobs for U.S. workers is what is
omitted from the American people in glowing American corporatist news
reports on GM's "recovery."
As the housing bubble formed, more of our real economy was penetrated
and damaged by incestuous speculation in black market derivatives
among both the commercial and retail banks. This was the direct
result of traitor Bill Clinton gutting the Glass-Steagall Act and further deregulating derivatives at the end of his second term. Germany and France didn't go as hog wild into
such speculation. We're reaping what we've sewed, militarily and economically.
All of us who are unemployed, elderly, disabled -- we need to remember that if we kill ourselves, we literally fulfill the Ruling Class purpose.
The Ruling Class -- it makes no difference whether DemocRat or GOPorker, whether Barack Obama or Sarah Palin -- really does want us dead.
By the standards of capitalism -- infinite greed elevated to maximum virtue, limitless selfishness exalted as ultimate good -- we are worthless.
To capitalists, our humanity does not matter.
All that matters to the capitalists is that they can no longer exploit us for profit.
The Ruling Class thus throws us away exactly as if we were garbage.
Were it possible to do so, the Ruling Class would herd us into death camps and exterminate us.
But that would be the ultimate admission the American Dream was never more than a Big Lie.
So instead the Ruling Class tries to discourage us to the point we exterminate ourselves.
That is why Barack the Betrayer's "health reform" includes a $500 billion cutback in Medicare, why Sen. Patty Murray (D/WA) hacked $11.9 billion from the food stamp budget, why Bush abandoned New Orleans to Katrina.
In this context, suicide is surrender to the oppressor.
In these times, survival is an act of revolutionary defiance.
I agree. Thank you for saying it.
We need to resist the division that the power elite are working hard to create. We need to pull together somehow and keep each other alive. It is easier said that done. Thank God for that website indeed:
"When the Unemployed-Friends rescue happened, he posted: "All I have to say to you people on this forum is: YOU PEOPLE ARE A GODSEND. Not only for me but for others who need a helping hand and someone to talk to. I am crying tears of joy because someone who doesn't even know me is willing to help me in my time of need."
This website reminds me very much of PaxilProgress.org for people destroyed by anti-depressants. That site kept me alive when no one would believe what was happening to me in withdrawal and the suicidal thoughts were battering me full time. Like this site, many people found each offline and could offer more support that way. Big Pharma really does gun for this site.
The internet can be a very powerful tool if people have access. Net neutrality is now at risk -- not much of a surprise why.
Being unemployed for a long time, earnestly seeking work is like society is trying to convince you that you have no value. Being cut off from unemployment is like society is telling you they don't care if you live or die. DON'T BELIEVE IT!
This is all part of fear and control over the masses by the elite ruling class. This time of so many people suffering so much for so long - all at the same time - is a chance for us to wake up and stop the cycle of demise.
When you feel despondent and consider suicide, remember, that's when they win. Instead, get defiant, angry and vocal. Demand your government's attention (peacefully). Research "why" this is happening and consider the reasons you never before imagined possible.
I've been out of work for over a year. But I am not depressed about it. It is not my fault. I did everything right. The economy is just a mess. It's an accident of history.
It's not the lack of work that is a problem, it is the lack of money. Being a member of the idle rich must be nice.
That being said, there needs to be a jobs program created as soon as possible. It is just wrong to blow money on wars while the economy is not recovering.
Aimlow Joe was here.
http://www.aimlow.com
Accident of history!!?? You'd better wake up brother. You've got a year left. Then the $hit may hit your personal fan.
Like above, why in a year? Please explain more. thanks.
This was no accident. Neither was the first Great Depression.
What was the reason the first depression was manufactured?
Do tell more, please. And where can I get more info on this subject?
Surplus Citizen Awakes
This dream is getting increasingly
irritating! Me
explaining what's gone wrong to some bemedaled militarist --
Bad enough an industrial society of production line
slavery and belching destruction where at least something produced but now a commodity driven
commercial nightmare where
EVERYTHING is a scam to SELL SELL
SELL and jobs, if you can get one, suck
the life out of you and give you
nothing in return. No sense
of accomplishment or pride or even an illusion
of ownership and getting one is getting
harder and harder demanding degrees and certifications a glowing history and piss tests and maybe shots and
getting anywhere requires a car of your own
rife with expenses and fees and insurance since they
got rid of the trolleys and the trains and
taxis are expensive and the buses few and slow and
did I mention that Driving is a Privilege?
And don't get sick! Don't even think of it -- if you are
working, you might lose money or even your
stupid job and if you're not (and even if you are) you don't have insurance and can't afford medicine much less
the privilege of a doctor's brief attention as he/she rushes
from patient to patient making quota for some HMO
with a fancy logo and a stupid name.
And don't get old!
No one will hire you and are no longer in the
Prime Marketing Segment -- no longer a desirable mark,
neither a buyer nor a seller and thus
irrelevant surplus baggage
yesterday's old news.
Like I said, this dream is getting annoying
and anyway, I have to pee.
Time to get up and
look for a
job . . .
--Al Markowitz
Come on, now, what life does not have it's own set of hardships? Look at the many, many impoverished countries, by the same token they have much more of a 'reason' to commit suicide, and totally self-extinguish, yet the go on. Without hardships and challenges, how can anyone grow? All of us are dealt a crappy hand at some time or another--so what, we should just check out?? Sometimes all you can do is get your basic needs met. No, it is not fun to have to scrape and penny pinch, and ask for help; I know, I've been there more than once. It's understandable to an extent because the vast majority in this country measure their worth as a human being in accordance with their net worth. It's time for a new thinking paradigm, if we're at the point of committing suicide over loss of finances. There HAS to be a better alternative.
Well you can either learn to live off of the land, primitive survival training, which is not the worst way of life. See Tom Brown Jr. aka the tracker.
Or....
Take whatever money that you have left and get all the unemployed together and go sit in washington DC and don't leave until something changes. What else do you have to lose? We lose a potential activist every time one of these people kills themselves. Take your pain and change it into action! We need you!