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Reaganomics Blues
Item
Identifier:
IA.ITM.002437-->
Description
In the 30s Hollywood made extravagant song and dance movies, replete with fancy people strutting around in monkey suits and top hats. The idea was to take the country's mind off the millions of folks out of work. But instead of going to the movies, those out in the streets formed Unemployed Councils to resist evictions and fight for jobless relief, while those still working strove to organize the mammoth assembly plants. And as they struggled, they wrote songs that stand in marked contrast to the showbix numbers.In the 80s a rerun of the 30s is in the making. More people are unemployed than at any time since the Depression, and Ronald Reagan is strutting around performing the song and dance of prosperity. Reagan is busy reducing corporate taxes, the idea being to increase the supply of profits which could be used to create jobs. But just as in the 30s, the banks and corporations are busy using their profits to speculate and buy each other up, while closing factories across the country. The only relief Ron is trickling down to the unemployed is his comic performance. But not so funny are the social services cuts, nuclear weapons production and interventions in Central America and the Middle East.
Once again, however, unemployed, homeless and working people alike are refusing to dance to this tune. Like before, we are organizing in response to this warmed-over profits first/people second economics -- this Reaganomics. Here then are some of the songs of the New Depression. Not so new, of course, to the many who have never experienced prosperity, but new in its ever-widening scope.
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