Yesterday in a site wide communication to all members, U-Cubed Defined the current "Lost Generation" of staggering levels of youth unemployment in America. The email came directly from Rick Sloan, Executive Director of U-Cubed/Union of Unemployed.
From the U-cubed email:
Dear UCubed Leaders and Activists:
Do you remember President Roosevelt's line about "people who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made?" Well, recent events prove that dictatorships can also be unmade by hungry and jobless people.
Decades of rightist reaction - Roosevelt's still timely phrase - can vanish almost overnight. Why? Well, necessitous men and women hunger for more than food. The truncheons, torture chambers, informer networks and petty tyrants can create an appetite for Freedom, Liberty and Democracy.
Perhaps that is why the tools of small "d" democrats - websites, blogs, Facebook and Twitter - were able to organize hundreds of thousands of protesters and filled the streets of Tunis, Amman, Cairo and Sana'a. It wasn’t high tech alone but the kinetic energy of an idea: Enough is enough.
The potential energy of those incipient democrats - literally millions of unemployed young people - existed in Tunisia, Yemen and Egypt. The street heat came from what some now call "The Lost Generation." The jobless rate among young men was 30 percent in Tunisia, 40 percent in Yemen and 25 percent in Egypt. For young Arab women, the rate is always higher.
Here in the United States, the "official" unemployment rate among teenagers (16 to 19 years) was 23.5 percent. Among young adults (20 to 24 years), the rate was 15.2 percent. Over 3.8 million young people were counted as jobless, one-quarter of the "official" number of unemployed. However, the real unemployment for adults is usually twice the "official" rate published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
So it is not surprising that, when you drilled into the BLS statistics, Afro-American teenagers had an "official" rate of 46.9 percent. Hispanic teens saw an "official" rate of 32.9 percent. And the "official" rate for White teens rested at 23.5 percent.
America's unemployed teens and young adults are as anxious about their futures as their counterparts were in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen. And they, too, are fast approaching the limits of their patience. Soon, very soon, they will reach that tipping point between potential and kinetic energy.
This Spring the potential energy of anxious teens, angry students, irate trade unionists and enraged jobless could be released. Hopefully, as we witnessed in Madison, WI, their kinetic energy will produce peaceful, inspiring protests. And even more hopefully, those protests can move this Nation to address its jobs crisis.
If their potential is never realized or, more precisely, if their potential energy is never released, then those small "d" democrats still will have one very personal protest to register. It is called a ballot. And they know how to use it.
In November 2012, their protest ballots will sweep away those who failed dismally to address the jobs crisis. And they will elect leaders who can bend an entire government to putting Americans back to work.
- THE METHODS OF NONVIOLENT PROTEST AND PERSUASION
- THE METHODS OF SOCIAL NONCOOPERATION
- THE METHODS OF ECONOMIC NONCOOPERATION: (1) ECONOMIC BOYCOTTS & (2)THE STRIKE
- THE METHODS OF POLITICAL NONCOOPERATION
- THE METHODS OF NONVIOLENT INTERVENTION
Many of the ideas listed there are a blueprint for how "WE THE PEOPLE" can effect real change ourselves - if we band together in solidarity to do so.
Source: Gene Sharp, The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Vol. 2: The Methods of Nonviolent Action (Boston: Porter Sargent Publishers, 1973).
My favorite Quote of the day: "We can’t be shocked when government recedes into the shadows to do dastardly things, but we should be shocked when (the) media doesn’t shine a light!"
The fact is that if the 99ers want to keep their story in the public eye, we need to keep the media engaged in our struggle on a daily basis. The best way to do so is to be NEWS WORTHY on a daily basis. If people get out in the streets of their own communities (especially the smaller ones where there is not much making news) and generate news worthy activity and if this happens all over America - the 99ers cannot help but be front page news somewhere every single day. After this activity is sustained for a week or less, the unemployed in this country will have the attention of the media and thus Washington in short order - after all, the Politicians are already gearing up for the 2012 election - only the 99ers CANNOT WAIT until then for the help they need NOW to survive.
For the Unemployed People of San Diego and all Americans: A really good place to start is - if you have not yet done so, join U-Cubed - it is free and there you can connect with like minded adults in your own area to make a difference. PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD on your social networks that we hope to increase membership and thus the effectiveness of our cause "to survive"
There is absolutely no reason whatsoever why the current membership in U-Cubed should not at least double before June 2011 - after all, there are already millions of UI exhaustees in America today and another 2 million at least will join their ranks by the end of September this year. Do not wait until YOU are out of UI benefits and have no money to eat or search for that elusive job! Act NOW.
We must ALL stand together or surely we will ALL perish together.
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