Forum Post: "The Long Term Unemployed"
Posted 11 years ago on June 14, 2012, 2:07 p.m. EST by far2wrld
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The truth of the matter, the media keeps putting the blame on the unemployed for the jobless rate right now, but the truth is that the real ones to blame are the employers, if people didnt want to work there wouldnt be so many people applying for a job. Their also saying that people out of work for more than a year -say that their chances of finding a job are even lower than before. And the media does'nt say why that reason is. " The truth of the matter is that we are looking at a new form of descrimenation". CNN denies the awfull truth of long term unemployed descrimenation.
The blame should go to an economic system that people lack control of.
And then some.
If, for instance, our banking was done at credit unions (owned by depositors, who vote for board members), we wouldn't be in the situation we're in today. If retailers and manufacturers were largely cooperatives, we wouldn't have watched as our manufacturing sector packed up and moved offshore. If we had participatory democracy, our political system wouldn't have become a cesspool of corruption. If instead of an immense centralized bureaucracy (in a country far too large to hope that a centralized, national bureaucracy could effectively manage our economy and society), and mutual aid programs for those in need were managed locally, we wouldn't find our poor (who have virtually no bargaining power) begging Washington for scraps. If our health insurance companies were nonprofits, democratically managed, we wouldn't have to cry to Washington for reasonable reforms, we would be able to upgrade our system as needed (on an ongoing basis).
It's not to say there aren't some functions that are national in scope, for which we do (arguably) need a federal government to perform, but the people are out gunned. We lack the right to recall our federal elected officials (and in most cases, the same is true for state and local officials), and a right to vote someone in, without the corresponding right to vote them out, is only "half" of a right to vote.
For some of these things, we may need a Constitutional amendment or convention. However, this won't happen unless the people are first convinced of the need for change, and then the people take back their legislative bodies (congress is important, but state assemblies are even more important). We have a robust history of voluntary association in this country (a panoply of citizen watchdog groups, public interest organizations, charitable organizations, local activism, etc.), so I don't buy the argument that we're a complacent country. It's just that we've apparently lost our common sense at some point. On one side we have a system that seems to reward unbridled greed, while on the other side we have people who are basically communists (even if they don't call themselves communists).
The key thing is to fight to abolish the slave wage and win that battle once and for all. After the last crash, the left won a new deal, stricter regulations and controls on the economy and social programs that softened the hard edges of capitalism, but look how short of a time has passed before the right, who have the financial resources, undermined those regulations. Next, it will be the social programs that are already being attacked. The new 'new' deal has to remove the financial power from the capitalists. Abolishing the slave wage and bringing democracy to the work place would do the trick.
Property is not theft, and whether some property is owned by groups or individuals, ownership induces stewardship (people do not give a shit about things they have no stake in). Moreover, while cooperatives are a great idea, employee owned firms is something I've supported for a long time, some people actually do not want to commit themselves to that sort of thing (so, basically, renting out their services is preferable to them). The idea that because some things were built by our ancestors, no one should have ownership over those things, is bullshit. It may sound good on paper, but it's a philosophy divorced from common sense.
I mean, you're stuck trying to convince people who may have a decent job, a nice home, a decent community with good schools, healthcare, etc., who looks around and sees a world where most people are far worse off than they are ... that somehow they're a slave because they work for wages.
Put it this way, even most banksters work for wages. Our economic system is not completely undemocratic, but it needs to be democratized much more. However, if the only people calling for this are a bunch of wayward communists, then it will never happen. They're the gift that keeps on giving to the 1%. The establishment doesn't even need to pony a good counterargument, they just have to point to how fucked up and scrambled their detractors are.
To think that we have the secret formula, a collection of ideas that somehow corresponds with human nature better than what we've developed so far (even though none of these ideas are new, they've been around for a long time), is a borderline cult mentality (not to mention, it's lack of humility illustrates profound ignorance).
It took the great depression to get the new deal. People are feeling the effects of the current crisis but we are far from that reaching that scope of anger with business as usual.
In my view the New Deal was okay, but it didn't change the underlying top down nature of our system. I do think we need a federal government for things like Medicare, social security, obviously national defense (but national defense does not imply a defense of hegemony for the 0.0001%), and regulation. One of the ideas from 19th century anarchist thought, which I like, is the idea of federalism, and of course another is participatory democracy.
This doesn't mean I think that we should abolish federal social welfare programs, but I do think they could managed better at the local level. In other words, I think it would be a wiser approach to block grant many of these programs. Provide the same (or ideally more) funding, but allow localities to manage these programs, allow significantly more flexibility, etc.
The only thing I really find disturbing in anarchist and communist thought, is the idea that property is theft, or wage labor constitutes some sort of slavery or indentured servitude. First of all, it's a gross over generalization. Some jobs do suck, some workers are treated like shit, cooperatives and other alternative business models would I think prove superior in many (but probably not all) cases.
So maybe better stated, what I find disturbing, is the lack of sophistication that I'm seeing in our thinking. The quickness to generalize, the lack of rigorous examination, painting all things we don't like with the same color, etc.
I have to admit, I'm pretty raw on my understanding of anarchism and communism, so this is a learning process for me. I throw out ideas that I read about, the ones that make the most sense to me, and see what feedback I get - and rethink them. I think your criticism about broad brushing is fair.
I think that sounds reasonable under some circustances but I don't know that that would be a good idea at this point in time. Considering that state governments are so easily brought to heel by corporate intrests. If we could get the government to loan out money to communities to start their own cooperatives and begin to get these corporate forces out of politics on a national and local level I think that would be something we would want to do first before block grants.
That's certainly reasonable (and I think you're probably right). Quite frankly, I might take your idea a bit further. I think without participatory democracy, any laws we pass to deal with political corruption, will be circumvented eventually. I'm not saying we shouldn't pass those type of laws, but of course getting a little piece of what we want can sometimes shut the door to getting everything the people deserve. If congress woke up tomorrow and restored Glass Steagall, implemented rigorous campaign finance reform, etc., we're still left with the same top down system we had yesterday, the people are still left with no real power to monitor government and hold elected officials accountable when they go against the will of the people (and the interests of our society).
CNN ratings are plummeting.
this is something I slapped together awhile ago and put it on my writers site . this is first draft with no editing so cut me some slack in short it sucks but is poinent to this post
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THE UNFORMATTED WORKER
Are you an unformatted worker? do you find filling out an on-line job application difficult? Do you find that the on-line application process doesn't allow you to fill-in your situation? If this is you then your an unformatted worker. We are becoming a nation of unformatted workers. To often I find myself dumping on-line applications because the application won't allow me to finish the process. If you lie then your automatically disqualified, and the app will not allow you to tell the truth. For example many apps. want you to explain any employment gaps, however some do not even give you a space to explain anything. Which is absurd considering we've been in a 4 yr. depression ( I truly don't care if they call it a recession, it's the big lie, the politicians want to compare it to the 30's depression and say it's not the same). This is not a mistake Employers are using a very brutal Darwinian tactic to weed out potential employees. Not that this is any real indication of how good an employee will be. I was in a supermarket not long ago and just as I was finishing putting my 5 or 6 items on the conveyor belt a supermarket employee walked right around me and went straight to the cashier and put down a drink to be checked out. I was non to happy with this and called her an ignorant little bitch and walked out. So what does she have that I don't? she's a formatted worker. Thereby giving her a job and allowing her to act the way she wants. There are times when the application just doesn't work, one application told me I need to fill-out the pay rates boxes. I new I already did but went back over it again and yes I checked and made sure I followed the exact parameters specified and resubmitted, again it came back as " I need to fill out the pay rates" after trying this 3or4 times I gave up and contacted through email the stupid huge conglomerate of no use and let them Know with many expletives what I thought about their application. Being an unformatted worker gives me the freedom to say exactly what I think. Another very strange trick is in the previous employers section you only get one employer to submit. If you don't know in advance, what you put in may be dependent on what you have to work with. The human experience cannot be put into the narrow format of an on-line application. Unfortunately they are designed that way to cull people out of consideration. This will only propagate the legions of unemployed for years to come.
Last Modified: February 25, 2012 at 08:26 pm
that's what I figure
the world doesn't need me
they can hire someone else
The 1% have convinced us to pass laws lowering their taxes, creating loopholes, gutting regulations all with understanding they would be the job creators. They got what they wanted by rigging the system, and buying the "peoples" representatives claiming our money would "trickle back down" to the 99%. Instead they downsized, outsourced, offshored/jobs/assets/hq's, union busted, cut benefits, stole/destroyed pensions and therefore breached the agreement. We want our money back! Tax 'em up the %ss. Turn the corps over to the employees. Put execs in jail. Support OWS.
The blame should go on an apathetic public that sat by as they inflated the housing market, shipped our jobs overseas, printing cash like no tomorrow, and started illegal wars.
What kind of a representative government people elect the same people that did this to fix it?
Shame on all of us.