{"id":1459447,"date":"2024-01-23T06:57:49","date_gmt":"2024-01-23T06:57:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/?p=311471"},"modified":"2024-01-23T06:57:49","modified_gmt":"2024-01-23T06:57:49","slug":"change-is-coming-soon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2024\/01\/23\/change-is-coming-soon\/","title":{"rendered":"Change Is Coming Soon"},"content":{"rendered":"\"\"<\/a>\n
\"\"

Howard Zinn at Pathfinder Book Store, Los Angeles, August 2000. (Photo: Slobodandimitrov \/ Wikipedia)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cAll Americans owe them a debt for \u2014 if nothing else \u2014 releasing the idealism locked so long inside a nation that has not recently tasted the drama of a social upheaval. And for making us look on the young people of the country with a new respect.\u201d That\u2019s how\u00a0Howard Zinn<\/a>\u00a0opened his book\u00a0The New Abolitionists<\/em><\/a>\u00a0about the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee of the 1960s. Zinn pointed out a truth from the Black freedom struggles of that era and earlier: that young people were often labeled aloof and apathetic, apolitical and uncommitted \u2014 until suddenly they were at the very forefront of justice struggles for themselves and for the larger society. Connected to that truth is the reality that, in the history of social-change movements in the United States and globally,\u00a0young people<\/a>\u00a0almost invariably find themselves in the lead.<\/p>\n

I remember first reading\u00a0The New Abolitionists<\/em>\u00a0in the 1990s when I was a college student and activist. I had grown weary of hearing older people complain about the inactivity of my generation, decrying why we weren\u2019t more involved in the social issues of the day. Of course, even then, such critiques came in the face of mass protests, often led by the young, against the\u00a0first Iraq war<\/a>\u00a0(launched by President George H.W. Bush), the Republican\u00a0Contract With America<\/a>, and the right-wing \u201cfamily values\u201d movement. Such assertions about the apathy of youth were proffered even as young people were waging fights for\u00a0marriage equality<\/a>, the\u00a0protection of abortion<\/a>, and pushing back against the\u00a0attack on immigrants<\/a>, as well as holding mass marches like the\u00a0Battle for Seattle<\/a>\u00a0at the World Trade Organization meeting as well as\u00a0protests at the Republican National Convention of 2000<\/a>, and so much more.<\/p>\n

Another quote from Zinn remains similarly etched in my mind. \u201cTheirs,\u201d he wrote, \u201cwas the silent generation until they spoke, the complacent generation until they marched and sang, the money-seeking generation until they gave it up for\u2026 the fight for justice in the dank and dangerous hamlets of the Black Belt.\u201d<\/p>\n

And if it was true that, in the 1990s and 2000s, young people were so much less complacent than was recognized at the time, it\u2019s even truer (to the nth degree!) in the case of the Millennials and Gen Z today. Younger generations are out there leading the way toward justice in a fashion that they seldom get credit for.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t Look Up<\/strong><\/p>\n

Let me suggest, as a start, that we simply chuck out the sort of generalizations about Millennials and Gen Z that pepper the media today: that those younger generations spend\u00a0too much money<\/a>\u00a0on avocado toast and Starbucks when they should be buying real estate or paying down their\u00a0student loans<\/a>. Accused of doing everything through social media, it\u2019s an under-recognized and unappreciated reality of this century that young people have been showing up in a remarkable fashion, leading the way in on-the-ground movements to ensure that Black lives matter, dealing vividly with the onrushing horror of climate change, as well as continued conflict and war, not to speak of defending economic justice and living wages, abortion access, LGBTQ rights, and more.<\/p>\n

Take, for instance, the greatest social upheaval of the past five years: the uprising that followed the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, with #BlackLivesMatter protests being staged in\u00a0staggering numbers<\/a>\u00a0of communities, many of which had\u00a0never hosted<\/a>\u00a0such an action before. Those marches and rallies, led mainly by teenagers and young adults, may have been the broadest wave of protests in American history.<\/p>\n

When it comes to the environmental movement, young people have been organizing campaigns for climate justice, calling for a\u00a0#GreenNewDeal<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0#climatedefiance<\/a>\u00a0from\u00a0Cop City<\/a>\u00a0to the\u00a0March to End Fossil Fuels<\/a>\u00a0to a\u00a0hunger strike<\/a>\u00a0in front of the White House. At the same time, they have been\u00a0bird-dogging politicians<\/a>\u00a0on both sides of the aisle with an urgency and militancy not previously associated with climate change. Meanwhile, a surge of unionization drives, whether at Walmart, Starbucks, Amazon, or Dollar General, has largely been led by\u00a0young low-wage workers of color<\/a>\u00a0and has increased appreciation for and recognition of\u00a0workers\u2019 rights and labor unions<\/a>\u00a0to a level not seen in decades. Add to that the\u00a0eviction moratoriums<\/a>,\u00a0mutual-aid<\/a>\u00a0provisions, and\u00a0student-debt strikes<\/a>\u00a0of the pandemic years, which gained ground no one had thought possible even months earlier.<\/p>\n

And don\u2019t forget the movement to stop gun violence that, from the\u00a0March for Our Lives<\/a>\u00a0in Florida to the\u00a0protests leading<\/a>\u00a0to the expulsion and subsequent reinstatement of state legislators Justin Jones and Justin Pearson in Tennessee, galvanized millions across racial and political lines. Teenagers in striking numbers are challenging this society to value their futures more than guns. And most recently, calls for a\u00a0#ceasefirenow<\/a>\u00a0and #freepalestine have heralded the birth of a new peace movement in the wake of Hamas\u2019s attacks on Israel and the\u00a0Israeli destruction<\/a>\u00a0of much of Gaza. Although university presidents have been getting more media attention, Palestinian, Jewish, and Muslim students have been the ones organizing and out there, insisting that indiscriminate violence perpetrated against Palestinians, especially children, will not happen \u201cin our name<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

From Unexpected Places<\/strong><\/p>\n

An observation Zinn made so many years ago about young people in the 1960s may have lessons for movements today: \u201cThey came out of unexpected places; they were mostly black and therefore unseen until they suddenly became the most visible people in America; they came out of Greensboro, North Carolina, and Nashville, Tennessee, and Rock Hill, South Carolina, and Atlanta, Georgia. And they were committed. To the point of jail, which is a large commitment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s generation of activists are similarly committed and come from places as varied as\u00a0Parkland<\/a>, Florida,\u00a0Uvalde<\/a>, Texas,\u00a0Buffalo<\/a>, New York, and\u00a0Durham<\/a>, North Carolina. Below the surface, some deep stuff is brewing that could indeed continue to compel new generations of the young into action. As we approach the first quarter mark of the twenty-first century, we\u2019re stepping firmly into a new technological era characterized by unparalleled levels of digital power. The\u00a0Fourth Industrial Revolution<\/a>, as elite economists and think-tankers like to call it, promises a technological revolution that, in the words of World Economic Forum founder\u00a0Klaus Schwab<\/a>, is likely to occur on a \u201cscale, scope, and complexity\u201d never before experienced. That revolution will, of course, include the integration of artificial intelligence and other labor-replacing technology into many kinds of in-person as well as remote work and is likely to involve the \u201cdeskilling\u201d of our labor force from the point of production all the way to the market.<\/p>\n

Residents of Detroit, once the Silicon Valley of auto manufacturing, understand this viscerally. At the turn of the twentieth century, the Ford River Rouge Plant was the largest, most productive factory in the world, a private city with\u00a0100,000 workers<\/a>\u00a0and its own municipal services. Today, the plant employs only a fraction of that number \u2014 about 10,000 people \u2014 and yet, thanks to a surge of robotic innovation, it produces even more cars than it did in the heady days of the 1930s. Consider such a shift just the tip of the spear of the kind of change \u201ccoming to a city near you,\u201d as one veteran auto worker and union organizer once told me. All of this is impacting everything from wages to health-care plans, pensions to how workers organize. Indeed, some pushback to such revolutionary shifts in production can be\u00a0seen in<\/a>\u00a0the labor strikes the United Auto Workers launched late in 2023.<\/p>\n

Overall, such developments are deeply impacting young people. After all, workers are now generally making less than their parents did, even though they may produce more for the economy. Growing parts of our workforce are increasingly non-unionized, low-wage, part-time and\/or contracted out, often without benefits like health care, paid sick leave, or retirement plans. And not surprisingly, such workers struggle to afford housing, childcare, and other necessities, experiencing on the whole harsher lives than the generations that preceded them.<\/p>\n

In addition, the last 40 years have done more than just transform work and daily life for younger generations. They have conditioned so many to lose faith in government as a site for struggle and change. Instead, Americans are increasingly dependent on private, market-based solutions that extol the wealthy for their humanitarianism (even as they reap the rewards from federal policymaking and an economy rigged in their favor).<\/p>\n

Crises upon Crises<\/strong><\/p>\n

Consider the social, political, and economic environment that\u2019s producing the multi-layered crises faced by today\u2019s younger generations. When compared to other advanced countries, the United States lags perilously behind in almost every important category. In this rich land, about\u00a045 million people<\/a>\u00a0regularly experience hunger and food insecurity, nearly\u00a080 million<\/a>\u00a0are uninsured or underinsured, close to\u00a010 million live<\/a>\u00a0without housing or on the brink of homelessness, while the education system continues to score near the bottom compared to the other 37 countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. And in all of this, young people are impacted disproportionately.<\/p>\n

Perhaps most damning, ours is a society that has become terrifyingly tolerant of\u00a0unnecessary death and suffering<\/a>. Deaths by poverty are an increasingly all-American reality. Low-wage jobs that have been found to shorten lives are the norm. In 2023, researchers at the University of California, Riverside, found that poverty was the fourth-leading cause of death in this country, right after heart disease, smoking, and cancer. While\u00a0life expectancy<\/a>\u00a0continues to rise across the industrialized world, it\u2019s\u00a0stagnated<\/a>\u00a0in the U.S. since the 2010s and, during the first three years of the Covid pandemic, it dropped in a way that, according to experts, was unprecedented in modern world history. That marks us as unique not just among wealthy countries, but among poorer ones as well. And again, its impact was felt above all by the young. What we call \u201cdeaths of despair\u201d are also accelerating, although the label is misleading, since so many overdoses and suicides are caused not by some amorphous social malaise but by medical neglect and lack of access to adequate care and mental-health treatment for the under- or uninsured.<\/p>\n

Nor are low wages, crises of legitimacy, and falling life expectancy the only significant issues facing our younger generations. Just last week, the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0reported that 2023 was\u00a0the hottest year on record<\/a>\u00a0(with climate chaos worsening yearly and little chance of the elimination of our reliance on fossil fuels in sight). Add to that the fact that anyone born in the last three decades can hardly remember a time when the United States was not in some fashion at war (whether declared or not) and pouring its taxpayer dollars into the Pentagon budget. In fact, according to the National Priorities Project, this country\u00a0has spent<\/a>\u00a0a staggering $21 trillion on militarization since September 11, 2001, including increased border patrols, a rising police presence in our communities, and various aspects of the Global War on Terror that\u00a0came home<\/a>\u00a0big-time. Add to all that, the rise of Trumpian-style authoritarianism and attacks on our democratic system more extreme than at any time since the Civil War.<\/p>\n

What Time Is It?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thousands of years ago, the ancient Greeks taught that there were two ways to understand time \u2014 and the times in which we live.\u00a0Chronos<\/em>\u00a0was quantitative time, the measured chronological time of a clock.\u00a0Kairos<\/em>, on the other hand, was qualitative time: the special, even transformative, time of a specific moment (and possibly of a movement).\u00a0Kairos<\/em>\u00a0is all about opportunity. In the days of antiquity, Greek archers were trained to recognize the brief\u00a0kairos<\/em>\u00a0moment, the opening when their arrow had the best chance of reaching its target. In the Bible (and as a biblical scholar I run into this a lot),\u00a0Kairos<\/em>\u00a0describes a moment when the eternal breaks into history.<\/p>\n

German-American theologian Paul Tillich introduced the modern use of\u00a0kairos<\/em>\u00a0in describing the period between the First World War and the rise of fascism. In retrospect, he recognized the existential stakes of that transitional moment and mourned the societal failure to stem the tide of fascism in Germany, Italy, and Spain. There was a similar\u00a0kairos<\/em>\u00a0moment in apartheid South Africa when a group of mainly Black theologians wrote a Kairos Document noting that \u201cfor very many\u2026 in South Africa, this is the KAIROS, the moment of grace and opportunity\u2026 a challenge to decisive action. It is a dangerous time because, if this opportunity is missed, and allowed to pass by, the loss\u2026 will be immeasurable.\u201d<\/p>\n

2024 may well be a\u00a0kairos<\/em>\u00a0moment for us here in the United States. There\u2019s so much at stake, so much to lose, but if Howard Zinn were with us today, I suspect he would look at the rise of bold and visionary organizing, led by generations of young leaders, and tell us that change, on a planet in deep distress, is coming soon.<\/p>\n

This piece first appeared at TomDispatch<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

The post Change Is Coming Soon<\/a> appeared first on CounterPunch.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cAll Americans owe them a debt for \u2014 if nothing else \u2014 releasing the idealism locked so long inside a nation that has not recently tasted the drama of a social upheaval. And for making us look on the young people of the country with a new respect.\u201d That\u2019s how\u00a0Howard Zinn\u00a0opened his book\u00a0The New Abolitionists\u00a0about More<\/a><\/p>\n

The post Change Is Coming Soon<\/a> appeared first on CounterPunch.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":277,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1459447"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/277"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1459447"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1459447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1459449,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1459447\/revisions\/1459449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1459447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1459447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1459447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}