There is ample evidence of the uber-conservative propaganda blitz in print, broadcasting and on-line media. Certain catch phrases and code words pop up over and over. One of the most insidious examples I've noticed recently is the assertion that Franklin Roosevelt's administration actually prolonged the Great Depression. This notion can be breezily inserted into a conversation by referring to "the failed New Deal policies."
Implicit in this line of attack is the notion that any government effort to help unemployed workers will only encourage laziness and create a cycle of dependency, a cycle which is not only un-productive for the economy but thoroughly un-American.
When you read first-person accounts of the Depression, many of the recollections emphasize the embarrassment and shame workers felt after being pushed into the unemployment ranks with no job prospects anywhere in sight. To critics of the New Deal, these feelings were justified, and that attitude is now re-emerging with new enthusiasm on the far right.
According to the "government is the problem" bloviators, anyone who loses their job is just that -- a loser. We know that because bosses don't fire good people, right? And if it turns out your job disappeared because the factory closed or the company shut down, well, that just proves your firm was a loser and you were a dummy to keep working there. In any case, all blame goes to the victim.
People who hate the New Deal don't like the idea of social safety nets. They see unemployment as an attitude problem with a simple solution. All it takes to succeed is to pull yourself up by the bootstraps and make it happen. Anyone who can't do that is a disgrace to the American tradition of rugged individualism and self-reliance.
Using this argument, it follows that being unemployed for a prolonged period of time can only mean you are not a real American. You're just a dolt who wants a government bailout for your bad career choices. The best thing you can do is shut up and go off into the hills and find a cave to squat in so responsible, hardworking citizens don't have to listen to your childish whining.
The anti-New Deal crowd is all about "me first." You can identify them instantly on radio call-in shows because they describe government aid programs as "giving my hard earned money to deadbeats" and they have no sense of being part of a community. To them, the word "community" is basically the same as "communism."
As the recession grinds on, I'm going to be on the alert for politicians or media commentators who suggest it might be time to re-evaluate the benefits of "government regulations" on things like minimum wages, overtime pay, collective bargaining rights, and other legacies of the New Deal that free-enterprise fanatics have always hated.
Their logic will be the same as it's been since the industrial revolution. If you can find a guy who's willing to work 12 hours a day for $100 a week including Saturdays, what right does the government have to interfere with a private business arrangement?
In his book The Coldest Winter author David Halberstam described the 1930s this way: "The Great Depression had revealed the deepest chasms in American society, and a profound political, economic, and social alienation had taken place."
Those chasms haven't gone away. What troubles me even more is the number of people in this country who are relentlessly trying to make them deeper.
Kai
I'm still, kind of homeless. I work temp jobs when I can find them, but I'm half living out of my car, half at the mercy of friends and family.
"Where does it stop?" you ask? I don't know...I guess it stops with homelessness and joblessness, and people dying from lack of health care, and freezing to death on sidewalks.
So let me get this straight. By your own admission, you sponged off the taxpayer 26 weeks (26 more weeks than what you would have gotten with unemployment insurance that you paid into) and then, and only then, ‘[You] had to take any job I could find…’ It is almost as if you are making my argument for me. As long as we enable people for sponge for two years, they will not take ‘any’ job’ but will instead wait for their dream job all the while living off the taxpayers’ money. In short, by stopping their payments we force tehm to look for work. Which you admit is readily available, albiet as temporary jobs.
I also appreciate that you then took a state job that was corrupt, which feeds into my other concern of public unions and the environment of waste that they support. It is almost as if you a poster child for what is wrong with unemployment insurance extensions and government jobs/spending.
Good luck on your attempts to get a full-time job. I recommend that you support the GOP and Tea Party’s efforts to reduce government spending, over taxation and regulation of businesses, and Obamacare. All these things are hindering businesses from growing and providing you with a full-time job.
Kai
Protectionism is not the key.
a) I would rather have people come in on H1B Visas and work in the US and pay taxes, than have those jobs exported overseas. If you are really worried about foreign labor, write your congressman a letter to stop ILLEGAL immigration. The jobs they do are mostly in cash, with no taxes, and the are a strain on our services which takes money away from citizens both in taxes and in services. I work in Hong Kong as a skilled worker but the US taxes globally so I pay taxes in the US. The US taxpayer is a net beneficiary of our visa system.
2) Canada is doing well because of limited unions and it is cheaper. That is right, it is not the workers paradise and employers in Canada have more fair methods to deal with unionized labor. In 2002, 82% of all film production took place in California–now it’s down to roughly 30%, a lot of that has moved to Canada, especially TV shows. Other unionized jobs have followed suit.
3) You cannot tax companies into coming back to the US, we have the highest nominal corporate tax rate. It hurts growth in the US.
4) Lower corporate taxes, lower capital gains taxes and stop worrying what the rich are making. It is the fastest way to create jobs.
Kai
The right wing knows that if you keep asserting something people will buy it. It always worked with Reagan.
The trouble is, if you are a member of the shrinking middle class, and it is not happening to you (still employed), you just don't see it. Or pretend not to.
I am a smart, educated person who can read behavior and intent in criminals and the republican/teabaggers, big business, financial sector are all in that category. Actually you don't have to have self loathing or an education to know that since they tell us that in very bold,clear and concise verbage on a daily basis.
And anybody who wants to can come and tell me to my face that I am at fault in any way shape or form for what the republican/teabagger, banks, big business did to our economy and the job market and they get an earful that will cost them their ability to hear.
NOBODY is going to stand there and tell me I am lazy because I have applied for about 2,000 jobs from minimum wage to more than I even made before and just have not been one of the people who have happened to get one of them. All 600,000 of us who applied for those 2,000 jobs. Somebody said just go get a job. WTF?! Get a minimum wage job. WTF?! Anything that is more entry level say they really like me but I am way too overqualified. Others have actually send me an email telling me that they would not consider me because I don't currently have a job.
The number of people in my department whose jobs were eliminated just happened to be those of us who had been with the company the longest. It had nothing to do with how well we did our jobs. It was the fact that they probably thought (or maybe we did) earn more money after the decades we had been there. Or the amount of paid vacation we had earned over the decades is weeks that they had to pay us that others didn't have. It was all about saving the most money. They didn't care about the quality of the workmanship. They just wanted to have a great reason to force 3 people do the job of 15 so they could pocket the salary savings themselves as bonuses.
I give you: zombies. Zombies are huge right now and that is because there is large segment of our own citizenry we are being told we cannot help. The homeless, the jobless, are not people like you and me. Something horrible has happened to them and if you are in sympathy with them, it could happen to you too. Zombies. Don't look at them. Don't talk to them. Close your door tight or you could be one of them.
Shameful.
Courage. Solidarity.
They wouldn't understand 90% of the population of this country. They probably heard scary bed time stories about us though.
I would love to see them actually work for a living once. See if they can make the leap from making $300 per week vs paying $300 per day for dinner.
Americans are being forced to be more communal. Brothers and their families sharing the same home and expenses are becoming more and more common.
My ancestors moved from Scotland to America for a chance at a better opportunity. My parents moved from Virginia to Ohio for a chance at a better opportunity. I moved from Akron to Atlanta for a chance at a better opportunity. I built homes until the housing market fell out, I have not been able to find a job that would pay enough to cover child care for my 3 and 8 years old children and fuel, to make it feasible. My neighbor told me Monday that his employer told him that come February his position will be gone, he works for Coca-Cola.
A generation of Americans sacrificed everything including their lives in an attempt to defeat communism, protect the American lifestyle and improve human rights for people around the world. A few decades later greedy politcians sacrificed America’s stature, the lifestyle of it’s people and the human rights of people around the world to benefit themselves and a few of their corporate associates. Most manufactured products available for commerce in America today, came from a communist country.
Where will my children go for a chance at better opportunity?
Biggest U.S. employers Wal-Mart= one million eight hundred thousand
McDonald’s= four hundred fortyseven thousand
Federal, state and local government= twentytwo million
Your out of work. You have skills. With equal trade, not free trade you could be back to work because outside the USA companies could no longer under cut what it costs to produce in America. To some this is a trade war. I disagree. For decades we have allowed other countries to undercut and have a share of Americas markets, now we will support rebuilding America instead of the world. The American party also knows the issues of the last election would disappear with full employment of Americas. Real plans for growing America mean real jobs for Americans. That is what this national government is suppose to be doing, working for a better America. It is time for a party that will, the American party.
Speaking as a fiscal conservative living in SC, I have little concern those who collect unemployment are not really trying to find a job. In order to get your unemployment check, you have to have documentary proof you are seriously looking for one--as in certified mail receipts, e-mail receipts or forms signed by interviewers.
I believe the main concern for us is at what point must an unemployed person take any job he/she can get? Right now, if you are unemployed, you do not have to accept work which pays significantly less than you were making or is in a different profession.
I would be willing to send a letter to my representatives saying "pass the extension" if there were some caveat that after the average unemployment time in any given state, the person must start looking for any job for which they are qualified no matter what the pay or profession.
This is not to say many of the unemployed are not already doing just that of their own volition.
There's no American dream any more, only a fight for survival. The question is why do conservatives insist on constantly braying about American exceptionalism, when the America they've created is so exceptionally unexceptional.
Conservatives believe that you deserve whatever happens to you -- whether you get a huge Wall St. bonus or you lose your job. Since they call themselves Christians, they should be required to read the Book of Job in the Bible.