[Marxism] Disposable Children, Disposable Slaves and the Future of the World

[Bonnie Weinstein <giobon@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear comrades,

What everyone seems to keep ignoring is that there is a very different
reality for youth today than that of their parents. Two-and three-tier
contracts; the gutted organized labor movement; has changed reality for our
youth today. 

To say there isn't a draft is not quite true because there is a tremendous
economic draft that forces young people to join the military if they have
any hope of reaching the economic heights their parents were able to reach--
to buy a house or, even a new car--without plunging themselves into
unmanageable debt or, indeed, not being able to even qualify to get into
debt. (That the military is the only way out is certainly the spin the
military is trying to convince young people to believe by spending billions
of dollars in advertising money.)

In addition, now, even their once-affluent parents are beginning to feel the
pinch as they have to borrow to send their kids to college--and are not able
to help them buy a house--something the working class in the '60s and'70s
could afford to do for their coming-of-age kids.

Young adults are finding it much harder to leave the nest. When I was
18-years-old, one lousy, unskilled  weekly paycheck (in cash, by the way)
could take care of my rent for a month and I had plenty left over to buy
clothes and eat good food! Them days are gone! (When I struck out on my own,
I wasn't even a high school graduate and could barely type 20 words per
minute. I hadn't turned 18 yet and got my first job in late July in 1963 at
Schrafft's restaurant on 34th Street and Fifth Avenue in New York. My 18th
birthday was August 10, 1963. I was working there on August 28, the day of
the great March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom led by Martin Luther King
and I was working there November 22, when Kennedy got killed. Most of the
waitresses were Irish and the whole restaurant came to a halt. People were
crying all around me. I was fired  soon after because I was a lousy waitress
and complained about my tips! I also complained about hearing about Kennedy.
It was driving me insane--you couldn't escape it. But I was able to go out
the next day and get another job--in a little print shop in the Bowery--that
paid $72.00 a week. Newly married, our rent was $75.00 a month and my
husband, a union house-painter made much more than me, although his work was
seasonal.)

Now, young people need to be able to get into debt just in order to qualify
for a rental unit that will, most likely, cost half of their monthly income!
They better be able to afford (qualify) for a credit card or a car loan and
withstand a credit history search that they will likely have to pay for when
applying to rent an apartment!

This leaves them either straitjacketed to credit before they are even out on
their own, and, hence, to their low-paid, multi-jobs or out in the streets
selling "purple drank" (a mixture of codeine cough syrup and soda) to get
the cash for what they need!

And for Black youth? The depression is here! Their communities are
police-occupied and more go to prison than to college!

Our youth, Black or white or whatever, have no unified voice! They must fend
for themselves--their parents can give them little hope--except, perhaps,
help them by babysitting for their children. And, don't minimize this
tremendous problem because more than half of the children born today are
born into single-parent families that have no one but the grandparents to
look after their kids, while they do whatever they can to earn the money to
feed them! And if you have no family to help with the kids--there's always
your car in the parking lot at your jobsite, i.e., you're on your own. Often
it means, your kids are on their own with older siblings taking care of the
younger ones.

So, as is the intended effect of multi-tiered pay scales--whether you work
for a union shop or not (all kinds of jobs have multi-tiered pay-scales
where far fewer employees fall into the higher pay-scale catagory)--the
youth today make about half what their parents made, adjusting for
inflation, and are working even more hours, and even fewer of them have any
benefits at all.

Yet the prices have, indeed, risen. Rents and medical bills are through the
roof. The higher costs of real food--fresh meats and produce and milk
products--makes the higher calorie-content of fast foods the better choice
for the working poor--unhealthier but affordable. You get more bang for your
buck, so to speak. 

(See Michael Polan's "The Cornification of Food," an interview that could be
heard live for free on line at the time but which costs money now. You can
purchase a broadcast of the interview for $5.00 at:
 http://www.veggiechic.com/michael-pollan-on-the-cornification-of-food/
And there are places where you can buy a transcript of it. I wish it were
available free because it has so much important information to offer.)

And the little kids--today's grandchildren? They can't even go out and play!
Their only socialization is in school, under restriction and supervison.
They have no freedom! They are always being watched, or completely ignored,
left alone cooped up in their homes.

They live virtual lives in front of the TV or playing video games. They talk
or text-message to their friends over the phones if their lucky enough to
have them. They don't climb trees or play by the edge of a pond catching
frogs. Or even hang out in front of the ice cream parlor. Those things exist
for them only in the virtual world! They virtually play over the telephone!

(There's an article in a past issue of ORION magazine about the reduction of
attention deficit disorder among kids that get to go out in nature and play
in it with other kids. It turns out that letting kids have this opportunity
for 30 minutes a day eliminates the need for any drugs! Who'd a thunk? But
most kids rarely get this chance.)

Our youth are cooped-up, criminalized, incarcerated, unemployed and
under-employed, under-paid, under-educated and neglected by parents that
have to work two and three jobs just to pay the rent and bring home the
MickeyDs; and who must also neglect themselves, their health and their well
being. Their children have become societies' disposable children! They have
become disposable slaves.

They have no champions. They have no hope. They only have 'purple drank.' To
them, the world's gone to hell in a hand-basket and their own parents
haven't been able to do a damn thing to stop it let alone, make it better
even for themselves or show them a way to improve their lives.

Our youth are a giant tinder box waiting to explode because they have very
few opportunities left to them--no home loans; no credit cards; no
decent-paying jobs that pay more than the streets. Many of our children are
living in fight or flight mode all the time. Looking for whatever they can
to bolt themselves out of this bleak reality.

Those that are addicted to drugs and/or have criminal records are 75 percent
likely to be unemployable! And make no mistake about it, those numbers are
increasing at a phenomenal rate! Prisons are a booming business and
education and rehabilitation are becoming more and more expensive and, in
fact, unavailable to those who need it the most! Drastic cuts have been and
still are being made to drug-rehab clinics that cater to the poor and
uninsured. There are plenty of very high-cost private drug rehabilitation
facilities available but they come at a cost of tens of thousands of
dollars.

(A friend who worked for a supermarket here was sent away to a rehab center
out in the country twice--each time for three months--for his alcohol
problem. He was caught drunk on the job and these benefits were available to
him. Otherwise, it would have cost him around $30,000.00--a totally
unaffordable sum for most people yet the need has never been greater.)

The working class throughout the world is being pushed further and further
toward the brink as the newer generations come of age. That's what it means
when they say the gap between the rich and poor is widening.

Will a kinder and gentler capitalism be able to save the day?

Why they're not even claiming that. These candidates--all of them--are
saying how the American people have had it too good! That "we all have to
learn to tighten our belts"--it's just that none of that applies to they,
who have all the money! And everyone in the world knows that! That's
flaunted all over the mass media; on the movie screens and on the TV--the
wealthy draped in their diamonds and designer gowns coyly flaunting a
$30,000.00 purse; the Forbes 500 moving into the billion-dollar range; the
CEOs and their billion-dollar bonuses--everyone knows about those things,
even if you are selling 'purple drank' to your friends in the streets or
chatting behind bars in jail.

The question is, what politics will capture their imagination, hope, and
heart? What politics will offer them a way out of this dark and miserable
future? What politics will offer them the strength and power to change the
world for the better for everyone? What politics will make it crystal clear
to them that, indeed, it is up to them and, moreover in their own
self-interests as well as in the interests of every one and the planet
itself, if they take that power into their own hands and out of the hands of
the capitalist class!

Everything has changed for the lives of our children except the one, most
fundamental reality, i.e., capitalism and its inexorable road back to
barbarism as it's offered future.

It's always been a class thing and Marx, Lenin and Trotsky were right.  I
invite everyone to read part one of Trotsky's "Introduction to the Living
Thoughts of Karl Marx" in our upcoming issues of Socialist Viewpoint. It is
a very timely piece to read. Part one will appear in our Jan/Feb 2008 issue
at socialistviewpoint.org

(Debbie Weinstein is transcribing the whole book and will send it to Dave
Walters when she is done. We couldn't find it in the archives under that
title. And we hope to make it available free as a PDF on our website when
it's done as well.)

There is no doubt that things are different now. Of course they are. But not
fundamentally. 

Modern capitalism will pull itself out of this impending world-wide economic
crisis of the falling rate of profit--enough to acquiesce the working
class--or it won't.

The thing is, now, to our young people, it sure looks like it won't.

Something's got to give. And we have to be their ready to give them the
fruits of our lessons of the past--our rich and fertile Marxist literature;
our long years of experience and expertise in the class struggle itself that
this literature illuminates. Socialism--a world socialist revolution--is the
answer.

How do we show the working class that it is possible?

In solidarity,

Bonnie Weinstein




















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