I have a lot to say about what I see as the “slacker generation”, by whom I mean young adults who have not yet chosen a path for their lives, and are either still in school or are wandering aimlessly about the job market.

Back in my youth, in the 1970s, we had our kids who had no ambition, and generally 3 or 4 of them could be found hanging out here or there, not really doing much of anything and not really bothering anybody. We made minimal note of their existence and paid them little mind. They had their world, we had ours.

Today’s slackers have a thousand more ways to pass the time, a thousand ways to fool themselves into thinking that there just might be a point to their lives. One of the all-time great social experiments will be bearing all sorts of demographic statistical booty for decades to come. If we ever wonder why each decade our productive output shrinks on a per capita basis, we may one day wander back to these days, when so many people came of age and said “Eh.”

Which brings me back around to UCLA, about which I wrote yesterday.

James Franco, the up and coming actor and recent UCLA graduate, had been invited to speak at the commencement for the UCLA College Of Arts And Letters. One student put up a Facebook page in protest at Franco’s youth and inexperience. I took umbrage at both the insinuation that Franco was inadequate, and at he heavy-handed way the students went about taking him down, when all the man had done was accept an invitation.

This left the college in a bind, with commencement a  week away. They solved this problem by inviting Brad Delson, Linkin Park guitarist, who readily accepted.

Suddenly, the issue was no longer youth and inexperience. After all, Delson and Franco are both 31. And it could not be about the shallowness of his career path: both guys are in show biz. No, now it was about, well let’s see: Delson got his degree in 1999, while Franco dawdled and did not get his until 2008. Delson is raising a family; Franco is single. Delson has begun to develop his philanthropic side; Franco, as far as the world knows, has not.

Suddenly, a “contemporary” was OK under certain circumstances. Such as: “We got our little protest on, got somewhere with it…what’s next?”

In other words, the Great UCLA Slacker Protest was just their flavor of the week.

On November 2, 2008 in this very space, I wrote the following:

President Obama, you do not get to cry poverty to us, not this time, not after a $750 billion transfer of wealth from the workers of this country to the fat-cat bankers and professional investors. Not this time, when we have a unified progressive Executive and Legislative branch for the first time in over a generation. Not this time, when the world economy is melting down, entire nations are going broke, and many millions of people will be thrust into unemployment through no fault of their own. Not this time, when we need real solutions to the problems of everyday people in this country and in so much of the world. Not this time, Mr. President. Don’t cry poverty to us.

Last Thursday, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told a House committee:

“Unless we demonstrate a strong commitment to fiscal sustainability in the longer term, we will have neither financial stability nor healthy economic growth.”

He also said this:

“We expect that the recovery will only gradually gain momentum and that economic slack will diminish slowly,” he said. “In particular, businesses are likely to be cautious about hiring, and the unemployment rate is likely to rise for a time, even after economic growth resumes.”

Give the man credit for not being shy about it: “There will be more unemployed, but we are done giving out stimulus money. The fat cats got theirs, the working man gets none.”

This, while the U.S. Government consents to the breakdown of GM and the loss of thousands of jobs. This while the unemployment rate continues to rise, now at 9.1 percent of the labor force that hasn’t given up looking for work yet. This while the barely-discussed retail sector continues to take a pounding which will surely get worse when more and more jobs evaporate.

And here’s the real secret: Bernanke really is fine with it. Why?

Because the unemployed are desperate and motivated. They will work cheap, they will do any job, they will suffer most any condition and if they won’t, somebody else will.

In other words, it is the cheap labor provided by the unemployed that fuels what passes in the capitalist world for “economic recovery.”

And for those who get too desperate, there’s always jail.

Here on the Obama watch we are asking this question: Mr. President: What are you going to do in order to break this cycle of punishing the innocent and rewarding the guilty?

What, didn’t we vote for enough change?

We already know that the predators in the predatory lending scandal preyed upon the financially illiterate and the desperate, as well as the greedy. We already know that the predators cynically expected many of these loans to default, but at subprime rates and enough money down, their sliderules told them to expect a profit.

We now know how spectacularly wrong they were, and the primary reason was their own greed. There were no studies available to identify likely default rates among this new class of borrower, because lending practices such as this had never existed before. So, these predators convinced their backers to price these loans at historical rates, and gleefully wrote, then sold, billions upon billions of dollars worth of subprime loans.

Even, it turns out, when those borrowers could have qualified for prime loans, which would have saved these borrowers more than one third of their payments, and saved many of them from eventual default.

And where did these predators look for such unsophisticated borrowers? Why not the inner city, where home ownership rates were historically low, and where minority residents had previously been systemically blocked (”red-lined”) from receiving home mortgages? What an un-tapped market!

The NAACP and the City Of Baltimore, MD, have both filed lawsuits against Wells Fargo, accusing them of actually seeking minority borrowers and seeking to push them into subprime loans, even when those borrowers would have qualified for conventional loans. Borrower beware? Of course. But when people come to you and tell you they will loan you money so that you, too can own a home, a message you have never heard before, what sort of experience do you have to fall back on, to guide you? Will some people willingly accept what they’re being told? Enough to make a very large difference.

The Baltimore story is telling. Large stretches of predominantly black neighborhoods are now filled with vacant homes, foreclosed upon when the borrowers could not keep up the payments. Help has come too late for these disenfranchised, and perhaps we need a national commission to hear the complaints of those who were tricked by unscrupulous lenders using clearly predatory practices. Perhaps this commission should be empowered to make restitution of both money and credit worthiness to these borrowers, and put them back in their homes where possible. Perhaps the government should buy up these homes from the banks at low prices and manage the mortgages of the newly re-enfranchised.

Ah, such dreams.

We all know the real story: the banks get government money; they get to dump the bad loans; they get to keep the housing inventory; and they get to profit when these homes are re-sold. The unsophisticated borrowers? They get to keep their debt, their destroyed credit rating, and the difficulty they will forever have trying to secure another home loan.

If you needed any more evidence that Rome is burning, just ask yourself: what has the president said about all of this so far?

James Franco

You may not know James Franco by name, but you almost assuredly know that face: Tristan in Tristan and Isolde; Pete Parker’s friend/nemesis Harry Osborn in the Spiderman saga; zoned out pothead/dealer Saul Silver in Pineapple Express; Harvey Milk’s young lover in Milk. He is currently filming Howl, in which he plays the famous beat poet Allen Ginsburg.

Such diversity of roles for such a young man. Franco is only 31 and has demonstrated a strong capacity to stand out in any sort of genre. He is his generation’s Matt Damon, solidly good looking in his own unique way, utterly charming, and an undeniable screen presence.

He was scheduled to give a commencement address at his alma mater, UCLA, on June 12. He will not be giving that address, and although he came up with a reason for pulling out, the truth is the kids didn’t want him.

How’s that?

Oh yes, it seems that in all their worldly wisdom they had determined that Franco was not yet world wise enough to advise them.

Where are the adults when you need them?

Let’s see: a highly successful film star, ready to burst like a Super Nova, kept up his degree program while achieving these heights, finally earned his degree in 2008, and somehow these 22 year olds think he has nothing to share with them?

The truth is, these students would rather be told what to expect from the next 50 years of life, not from the next ten. They would rather hear from somebody who is not of their generation, a generation so different than any other, it might as well be an alien life form. Quite frankly, I think these kids are spoiled rotten and refuse to give their classmate the credit he is due. They still feel competitive with the man, still all believe they will be the next great star; in other words, they’re still a bunch of dreamers.

Here comes someone of their generation, who can make it real for them how he found his way in this new world, how he managed to juggle everything at once and still come out on top.

And these kids want nothing to do with this message?

Spoiled, rotten, these kids.

If I was Franco I would show up anyway, and stick it in their faces how good looking, relaxed, funny, self deprecating and interesting a successful 31 year old actor can be.

End-note:

The kids chose to replace Franco with Brad Delson. That’s 31 year old Brad Delson, guitarist for the band Linkin Park, who was praised by the Dean In Charge Of Saving Face On Short Notice: “Brad Delson is not only an innovative musician, but he is also a social activist who is committed to change through education.”

So a 31 year old actor wasn’t good enough but a 31 year old rocker is. Well, he did finish his degree in 1999, and he did endow a scholarship at UCLA. Slightly thicker resume.

And, evidently, all the difference in the world to these kids.

It has finally become clear why the United States elected Barack Hussein Obama to the presidency. It was not to chart a different course in economics. It was not to alter American foriegn policy toward hot spots of conflict. It was for moments such as yesterday, in Cairo. 

Yesterday in Cairo, the National Professor gave a lecture. He did it with a black face and a Muslim name. He did it in the cradle of Islam. And he said all the things that needed to be said.

What other American president could have ever done the same?

And so, we now understand: we elected Barack Obama to make peace with Islam. It was to put a credible face on a message to the Muslim world: Please stop trying to kill us.

Islam

One thing President Obama’s eloquence cannot do, however, is resolve eternal conflicts. Surely he knows this, and yet he uttered a phrase such as this:

the sweeping change brought by modernity and globalization led many Muslims to view the West as hostile to the traditions of Islam.

This is at once both unnecessarily apologetic and crudely drawn. If there is one thing we understand about Islam, it is that it’s most fanatical proponents do not consider their way of life “tradition” but the word of Allah. And there is, in the view of these fanatics, an absolute conflict between modern ways and their obedience to Islam. What president Obama needed to say was that the Muslim world needs to resolve these internal conflicts; the Muslim world needs a “Pope”, in other words, a grand eminence, most revered and respected leader, and a method by which to choose such a person, and that person must determine what Islam represents in a changing world, and that person must seek a path by which the world does not feel threatened by Islam, and vice versa.

I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world; one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect; and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles – principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.

Yes, president Obama has a tough job, no doubt, trying to make sense of the senseless, but how can he do so without acknowledging that these extremists represent an interpretation of the Koran which is at least tolerated and at best used strategically by the Muslim world itself? Extremism is a method of political disruption and change within the Muslim world; we expect to end Islamic extremism toward the west without resolving this baseline issue? And we expect to solve it without the expressed condemnation of the Muslim world toward such tactics?

President Obama goes on to acknowledge that his words cannot bring immediate change; what he does not say is that his words cannot bring about any change at all. What he failed to say was “It’s on you. Get this figured out.”

Afghanistan

Perhaps the most disturbing signals president Obama sent in this speech were those regarding the justification for war in Afghanistan.

When violent extremists operate in one stretch of mountains, people are endangered across an ocean.

In Ankara, I made clear that America is not – and never will be – at war with Islam. We will, however, relentlessly confront violent extremists who pose a grave threat to our security. Because we reject the same thing that people of all faiths reject: the killing of innocent men, women, and children. And it is my first duty as President to protect the American people.

Make no mistake: we do not want to keep our troops in Afghanistan. We seek no military bases there. It is agonizing for America to lose our young men and women. It is costly and politically difficult to continue this conflict. We would gladly bring every single one of our troops home if we could be confident that there were not violent extremists in Afghanistan and Pakistan determined to kill as many Americans as they possibly can. But that is not yet the case.

And therein lies the true issue: permanent war is justifiable as long as one person lives with the stated intention of committing violence against the United States. Does this president believe that we can continue to be fooled into believing that there is no other way to disrupt terrorism? Does this president believe that Americans expect terrorism to be eradicated from the face of the planet? Does this president forget that, prior to 9/11, the most devastating act of a terrorist to ” the killing of innocent men, women, and children” in America was committed by an American?

And does this president believe that we want our troops hacking thought the mountains in the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan, looking for “bad guys”? Trying to figure out who to shoot and who not to shoot, while trying not to get shot themselves?

President Obama then goes on to mention, in a single paragraph, that “none of us should tolerate these extremists. They have killed in many countries. They have killed people of different faiths – more than any other, they have killed Muslims. Their actions are irreconcilable with the rights of human beings, the progress of nations, and with Islam.” He also said “The sooner the extremists are isolated and unwelcome in Muslim communities, the sooner we will all be safer.” What he failed to address is the simple fact that these extremists believe that they are the ones who correctly interpret the Koran, and that they alone carry forward the true destiny of their faith.

Violence

This same story can be told by people from South Africa to South Asia; from Eastern Europe to Indonesia. It’s a story with a simple truth: that violence is a dead end.

President Obama was speaking of extremists with that line, but he might as well have been speaking of American foreign policy, a long list of efforts to disrupt the internal politics of sovereign nations by any means necessary, including and especially violence.

Long before the overt wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. provided weapons and support to elements within those countries who were doing our dirty work for us. By now, the rest of the world knows clearly what many in this country simply deny: this country spreads violence, and does so in order to achieve political goals. Did President Obama denounce these tactics? He did not.

I’m trying to make a conscious effort to keep my posts shorter; I will comment on the other topics in the speech: Israel/Palestine, Nuclear Weapons, Democracy and others; in a future post.