Free Speech In The 21st Century
Posted on April 14, 2014 in Political Cartoons
Now more than ever, speech has a price tag.
At Least 22 Veterans Kill Themselves Every Day And No One Gives A Shit
Posted on April 14, 2014 in Articles
The Article: No One Cares About Suicidal Vets by Alice Speri in VICE News.
The Text: That’s 1,892 former soldiers who have killed themselves since the beginning of 2014, according the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America organization (IAVA). But even that is a conservative number, some say, as there is no centralized system to track veteran suicides.
A recent poll found that more than half of post-9/11 veterans know at least one colleague who attempted or managed to kill themselves. For many, the list of friends lost to suicide is much longer.
Mental health is one of the greatest challenges facing returning soldiers, but a deadly combination of indifference, stigma, red tape, and government dysfunction are to blame for the sobering numbers. Citing Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) statistics, the IAVA claims that 22 ex-service members die by suicide every single day.
Life In The Post-Employment Economy
Posted on April 13, 2014 in Articles
The Article: Surviving the post-employment economy by Sarah Kendzior in Al Jazeera.
The Text: A lawyer. A computer scientist. A military analyst. A teacher.
What do these people have in common? They are trained professionals who cannot find full-time jobs. Since 2008, they have been tenuously employed – working one-year contracts, consulting on the side, hustling to survive. They spent thousands on undergraduate and graduate training to avoid that hustle. They eschewed dreams – journalism, art, entertainment – for safer bets, only to discover that the safest bet is that your job will be contingent and disposable.
Unemployed graduates are told that their predicament is their own fault. They should have chosen a more “practical” major, like science or engineering, and stayed away from the fickle and loathsome humanities. The reality is that, in the “jobless recovery”, nearly every sector of the economy has been decimated. Companies have turned permanent jobs into contingency labour, and entry-level positions into unpaid internships.
Changing your major will not change a broken economy.
People devalued
Bernie Sanders On The Dying American Dream
Posted on April 12, 2014 in Videos
NB–when things start going badly for the white middle class, the American Dream is dying. For others who aren’t as fortunate, they never even saw it in the first place.
