I thought I would share a few videos that I sent to students in a U.S. history class which deals with tthe New Deal and struggles in the depression.
The first is an actor doing a one man show about Harrry Bridges, about as brave and militant a trade union leader as we have seen in U.S. history, which is why there were so many attempts to deport him. The second is Woody Guthrie singing Vigilante Man as a backround to newsreel scenes of the great largely left led strikes of the period. The third is a tribute to peoples artist Ben Shawn, whose paintings and posters for labor and peoples movements through his life reached millions and were more powerful than millions of words.
The last two are specially important, although they are unknown to most. They are from a fireside chat Franklin Roosevelt gave in late 1938, in which he outlined the successes and failures of Congress and his administration, its external and internal enemies, used the term liberalism to define his administration, and called upon voters to support New Deal liberal Democrats in the primaries against powerful largely Southern Democrats who had worked against the administration.
Roosevelt failed in that mission to change the Democratic Party (the press called it a "purge" a term given great currency by the political trials in the Soviet Union). The situation today is of course in many respects different but the needs are the same. There is a major backlash, not as violent and terroristic as it was in 1938, peoples movements, and an administration which (as Roosevelt says in his 1938 fireside chat) was elected to serve the needs of those movements.
The purpose of history is not only to understand the past in its own right but to understand its relationship to the present and also, as Progressive historians used to contend, provide a "usable past" to help guide action in the present. At the least these videos should be of interest to our readers. At most, they will help to provide a usable past for our readers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=6V5nN2G437w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyUagbsg-HI&feature=player_detailpage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L24lrWVNVRo&feature=player_detailpage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=aJ33MPb-6ZI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItSiHzL9OYg&feature=player_detailpage
