A film for our times: The Civilian Conservation Corps

Are you an environmentalist? You should watch this film. Are you a minority? Watch this film. Are you concerned about our economy and joblessness? This film is for you. Does your family enjoy parks and hiking trails around the nation? Don’t miss this film. Do you think government interference is no damn good? This film might change your mind.

The parallels between the 1930’s - outlined as a foundation of the CCC story - and now are striking to say the least. The fathers and grandfathers of today’s anti-tax, anti-government crowd - laying awake nights worrying about a certain descent into Socialism - hated Roosevelt for creating the CCC.

This film- and several other things I’ve read and watched lately - have convinced me that Roosevelt saved the country in more ways than one. Had it not been for FDR, we would have very likely had another revolution, and real socialism would have been the result. Roosevelt - through the New Deal, Social Security, the WPA, CCC amd more - saved America’s wealthy from the fate they feared the most by giving people a safety net, dignity and a hand up.

This film is available on Netflix - we watched it as an instant download - or from PBS.

Friday Fish Wrap: April 16, 2010

I’ve been reading Timothy Egan’s ‘The Worst Hard Time’ - which is all about the Great Depression viewed from the sooty blackness of the Dust Bowl. We all have occasion to think we’ve got it rough, but the days around the Oklahoma panhandle during the mid-1930’s gave rough a whole new meaning.

Those people were the real survivors, and not the self-important, wanna-be celebrities on a ‘reality’ show.

But I got thinking about work. Today was a bit of a back breaker, and I came home really tired. But, it was satisfying tired. We did good things and we did it well - as a team all dedicated to making something work.

Work is rejuvenating, no matter what kind of work it is. Even better, it sometimes pays the bills.

I’ve had all manner of jobs down through the years, and I thought they were all valuable - whether it was  making the ads for the chain drug store in Fulton, Missouri (paid position), or being the national spokesperson for a high-profile and history-making news story (unpaid position). I did my best and it was good.

Where is this leading? That everybody should be working.

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Photo essay of the Great Depression

Actually, I needn’t have gone to the internet for this … I’ve got an album of my mother’s family in Parsons, Kansas during the 1930’s that would do almost as well. It’s no wonder none of them ever had a sense of humor.

The only thing these people had going for them was a greater self-sufficiency …

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We're in the Money: Depression era legacy of Busby Berkeley

I’ve been a dyed in the wool Busby Berkeley fan for the last 40 years - I’ve seen all the films and even know the words to most of the songs - and still these films stand the test of time for sheer creative brillance.

Taking the recent Wall St. events into account - this seems ever so modern (with a young Ginger Rogers ):