8/20 F.I.S.T. Youth Cipher on Charter Schools and Public Education

**** PUBLIC SCHOOLS CLOSING, CHARTERS OPENING ****

“Without education, you are not going anywhere in this world.” — Malcolm X

>: JOIN THE CIPHER! :<

WHO: Youth 13 - 24
DATE: Thursday Aug 20, 2009
TIME: 5 - 7 PM
There will be refreshments!

St. Katherine Drexel Parrish
175 Ruggles St
Roxbury, MA.

>: Do you know the difference between Boston Public Schools and Charter Schools?
>: Why is Corporate America so invested in public education?
>: Do you feel like your voice is being heard?
>: Do you think there is a connection between the drop out rate and youth violence?
>: Do you know about the School to Prison or the Military Pipeline?

If you have answered yes to any of these questions ….

* Let’s Politic and Build an Alternative!
* The time is NOW for the voice of youth and young adults to be heard!
* STOP selling our education to the highest bidder!
* $$$ for Education, NOT War and Occupation!

Info: Contact Miya: 617-935-2309; 617-522-6626; FISTBoston@gmail.com

Endorsed by: Politicin’ with the Sisters @ Women’s Fightback Network (WFN); Fight Imperialism, Stand Together (F.I.S.T.); Bail Out the People Movement (BOPM); WYSE; Lower Roxbury Coalition; The Powerful Students of CASH

~~~~~~~~~
Join the Lower Roxbury Coalition for the Back 2 School BBQ
EVERYONE is Invited
Date: Friday, August 21, 2009
Time: 2PM - 5PM
Free Food, Backpack!
Fun, Talent, Games and Prizes!
Contact: 617.989.3249
~~~~~~~~~
———————————————————————————————————————————————-
Bail Out the People Movement Press Release on Youth Unemployment:

For Immediate Release - August 13, 2009

Youth jobless stats “beyond scary; they’re catastrophic,” says Bob Herbert
Sept. 20 Pittsburgh march for jobs right on time

On Sunday, Sept. 20 a National March for Jobs will step off from the historic Hill District in Pittsburgh, PA just prior to the G20 summit declaring that the unemployed, the homeless, the hungry and the poor must no longer be invisible and silent. This is particularly urgent for young workers as highlighted by New York Times columnist Bob Herbert this week. (www.nytimes.com/2009/08/11/opinion/11herbert.html <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/11/opinion/11herbert.html> )

Herbert wrote, “Two issues that absolutely undermine any rosy assessment of last week’s employment report are the swelling ranks of the long-term unemployed and the crushing levels of joblessness among young” workers. … The plight of young workers, especially young men, is particularly frightening. The percentage of young … men who are actually working is the lowest it has been in the 61 years of record-keeping, according to the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston.

“Only 65 of every 100 men aged 20 through 24 years old were working on any given day in the first six months of this year. … For male teenagers, the numbers were disastrous: only 28 of every 100 males were employed in the 16 through 19-year-old age group. For minority teenagers, forget about it. The numbers are beyond scary; they’re catastrophic.”

Herbert called the 0.1 percent unemployment drop in July “wildly deceptive,” because the decline was “not because more people found jobs, but because 450,000 people withdrew from the labor market. They stopped looking, so they weren’t counted as unemployed.”

Larry Hales, youth organizer for the Bail Out the People Movement, said, “Young workers, in particular youth of color, are demanding meaningful jobs and education, not jail or the military. The ‘free marketers’ disrupting health care town halls hide their anti-worker economic policies that increase poverty and unemployment.”

FIST Statement on the G20: <http://fistyouth.wordpress.com/2009/07/30/fist-statement-on-the-g20/>
Fight Imperialism Stand Together (FIST) is calling on all youth and organizations of young people to support the Bail out the People Movement’s call for a global week of solidarity with the unemployed, to coincide with the G20 summit.

This September 24th and 25th, the G20 Summit of the world’s richest countries and developing nations will be in Pittsburgh to discuss the world’s worst economic collapse since the Great Depression.

Government leaders, finance ministers, and central bankers will sit down to meet with corporate and banking executives, while people who have been hit the hardest around the world are ignored.

In May of this year, the International Labor Organization issued a projection that, due to the global recession, unemployment would increase by anywhere in between 39 to 59 million people for 2009.

For youth, this number is said to increase between 11 and 17 million, or 14-15% from the previous 12%.

The worst part is that although these numbers are impactful enough, these are actually understated.  In the U.S., while the official unemployment rate stands at 9.6%, the real unemployment, rate, accounting for people who long ago stopped looking for work and those who need full time work and can only find part time work, is 16.5%. This translates to nearly 26 million people in the U.S. alone.

The youth unemployment rate for those 16 to 24 is more than 14%. The unemployment rate increases to 20% for Latina/o youth and 30% for Black youth.

The ILO also projects that more than 200 million additional workers, from 2007-2009 will have been forced to live on less than $2 per day. This is in addition to the more than 1 billion people that are already living in dire poverty and surviving on less than $1 per day, according to the World Bank.

While the poor and working class continue to suffer, capitalist governments around the world have injected trillions into financial institutions. The U.S. has given away nearly $12 trillion to banks or auto corporations. That’s 20% of the world’s gross domestic product.

Join the Bail Out the People Movement, FIST and other organizations as we mobilize to build caravans of the unemployed from around the country to join together in Pittsburgh.

Help us construct a Tent City for the unemployed and march on the summit of the world’s richest nations and so-called developing nations to raise demands of the billions of people who were not invited to sit at the table. Remember, without struggle there is no gain.

Fight Imperialism Stand Together.
July 30, 2009