Video review: strikes (part 3)

Considering that as the economic recession goes on we are only at the beginning of attacks on us as workers, these two videos show examples from past history.

PROTEST BY SCHOOL TEACHERS



Original caption states,
1933/04/17"Chicago, IL: Parents and pupils join in a huge demonstration, tangling traffic for blocks as hundreds of thousands line the streets of the Loop to watch the bizarre procession staged by employees of the Board of Education, whose pay is eight months in arrears."

FARMERS AND SHOTGUNS

To learn more about the subject matter of the film read about the Farmers' Holiday Association.



Farmers have always been divided. Example are plenty: rich against poor, large against small, left against right, those in favor of genetic modification versus those against.

Farmers have traditionally helped each other out, formed co-operative stores, grain handling companies, or pooled their money towards a machine that none of them could alone afford.

But as time went on larger farms would instead of help out a neighbour for mutual benefit, force smaller neighbours out of business and take it over. This capitalist model of competition is shown battling in this film against the small farmers who try to prevent the sale of food at below production costs. The free enterprise farmer meanwhile rather selfishly take up arms to smash the union farmers.

Today we see the progression of this battle of co-operation versus competition. Large corporate farms are becoming the norm, and ownership of the means of food production is in fewer (and more monopolistic) hands. Farmers themselves are again becoming "technological sharecroppers" with genetically modified seeds, chemicals and contracts to obtain such technology that is becoming necessary to keep up in a marketplace where such crops are no longer an edge but another necessity that allows the farmer to keep his eroding livelihood.