Real Unemployment is 35.7%; The Internationale

The real unemployment rate for April 2020 as of May 8, 2020 is 35.7% Peak unemployment during the 1930s Great Depression was 24.9%. April job losses were 20.5 million, preceded by March’s job losses of 30 million. California’s unemployment claims were 4 million in the past 7 weeks. San Francisco’s unemployed to date are 17,500. The economic crisis preceded the pandemic which is accelerating the economic crisis of the capitalist profit motive. Only a serious labor movement capable of carrying out a general strike to abolish the profit motive can end this Great Depression of the 21st Century.

The real unemployment rate is described as follows at
http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-charts

"The seasonally-adjusted SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated long-term discouraged workers, who were defined out of official existence in 1994. That estimate is added to the BLS estimate of U-6 unemployment, which includes short-term discouraged workers."

"The U-3 unemployment rate is the monthly headline number. The U-6 unemployment rate is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) broadest unemployment measure, including short-term discouraged and other marginally-attached workers as well as those forced to work part-time because they cannot find full-time employment."

A comprehensive analysis of the economy may be found at http://www.shadowstats.com/

California’s unemployment figures are described by county, showing that there are 17,500 unemployed San Franciscans, is at https://edd.ca.gov/newsroom/unemployment-april-2020.htm

This is our moment, or as the Internationale, labor’s anthem around the world, states, this “is the final conflict.” The Internationale was composed to celebrate the Paris Commune of March-May 1871, the first time workers took state power, and is more fully described in the Civil War in France, by Karl Marx. We usually sing it on May Day, but this May Day, too many of us could not breathe, much less sing, so in preparation for the next May Day, here it is:

Arise, ye prisoners of starvation;
Arise, ye wretched of the earth;
For justice thunders condemnation;
A better world is in birth;
No more tradition’s chains shall bind us,
Arise ye slaves, no more in thrall,
We have been naught,
We shall be all.

Chorus:
‘Tis the final conflict,
Let each stand in one’s place,
The International Workingclass
Shall be the human race. (repeat once).

Additional verses:

We want no condescending saviors
To rule us from a judgment hall;
We workers ask not for their favors,
Let us consult for all;
To make the thief disgorge his booty,
To free the spirit from its cell,
We must ourselves decide our duty,
We must decide and do it well.

The law oppresses us and tricks us,
Taxation drains the victims’ blood;
The rich are free from obligations,
The laws the poor delude;
Too long we’ve languished in subjection,
Equality has other laws:
“No rights” says she, “without their duties,
No claims on equals without cause.”

Behold them seated in their glory,
The kings of mine and rail and soil!
What have you read in all their story,
But how they plundered toil;
Fruits of the people’s work are buried
In the strong coffers of a few;
In voting for their restitution,
The people will only ask their due.

Toilers from shops and fields united,
The party of we who work,
The earth belongs to us, the people,
No room here for the shirk;
How many on our flesh have fattened!
But if the noisome birds of prey
Shall vanish from the sky one morning,
The blessed sunlight still will stay.