The Apocalypse is Yours Now (by Barbara Ehrenreich at HuffPost)

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Barbara Ehrenreich


05.21.2007
The Apocalypse is Yours Now (25 comments )

This is the speech I gave at the Haverford College commencement on Sunday May 20.

Thanks so much for inviting me to share this day with you. I'd like to start by saluting the parents here. What I want to know is: After paying tuition for four years, how did you manage to get here today -- by Greyhound?

I'd also like to acknowledge another group of people for their contribution to higher education. It's not just the faculty and administrators who make education possible, you know. Everyone who works on campus plays a role, and I mean the custodians, the maintenance workers, the food service staff, the clerical workers, and the security staff. Let's give them a big round of applause!

Now I want to thank you so much for this honorary degree. Maybe, I'll finally be able to get a decent job!

Of course I'm hoping that all of you graduates will also find decent jobs -- meaning jobs that are fascinating, challenging and compatible with your ideals. I know that won't be easy.

At the moment you accept your diploma today, you will have an average debt of $20,000 and no health insurance. You may be feeling desperate enough to take whatever comes along. Some of you will get caged in cubicles until you're ejected by the next wave of layoffs. Others -- some of the best and brightest of you in fact -- will still be behind a counter in Starbucks or Borders three years down the road.

Parents, if that happens to your child, don't blame him or her, because the sad fact is that the middle class is crumbling under our feet just as these accomplished young people are setting out to find a place in it -- destroyed by layoffs and outsourcings and by severe under-funding for vital fields like science, social work, and education. Benefits are evaporating, and job security is a thing of the past.

...(snip)...

Look, I'm really sorry about the mess my generation and your parents' generation is leaving to you: the cruel economy, the bloody quagmire of US foreign and military policy, our threatened habitat. And I just want you to understand that we tried to do better -- maybe not enough of us, maybe not hard enough -- but we tried. And now you have to try, only with one big difference. For us it was matter of idealism, for you it's a matter of survival. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barbara-ehrenreich/the-apocalypse-is-yours-n_b_48988.html