Down and Out in America (1986) 1/7

Poverty, foreclosure, homelessness, circa 1986. Directed by Lee Grant. Winner of the 1986 Academy Award for Documentary Film.

I ripped this straight from the original VHS. The film is currently out-of-print and, as far as I know, unavailable for viewing anywhere online (except here).

Twenty-three years after it was made, the depictions of lives on the edge could hardly be more relevant.

• Category

  News & Politics

[pawsum1]

What? You mean to tell me there were homeless people BEFORE Obama? Even worse, this was filmed during the REAGAN administration? This can't be right. Somebody check the copyright date on this. IT'S ALL OBAMA'S FAULT!!!!!!!1!!1

[erp65]

Yes, our collective memories are short, and what survives is hazy & easily bent to what we want to believe in the first place. The wealth gap (between the richest & poorest) skyrocketed in the 1980s, kept widening but not as quickly in the 1990s, and again skyrocketed in the 2000s. Who was president during each of those decades? Coincidence?

[maxime32]

And who held Congress? It is the fault of the WHOLE POLITICAL CLASS!!! Free trade, free immigration, free markets, a free rein to banks and corporations > these are not only Republican policies! Both parties gave us Greenspan and Bernanke!

[erp65]

Agreed, the "whole political class," as you call it, is largely corporatist, and has been for a long time, certainly since the 1950s. My only caveat to that would be that the least among us are helped more under Democratic leadership than Republican leadership, though this help is little more than a band-aid for an unjust system benefiting the powerful at the expense of the powerless.

[THX1205]

Down and Out in America (2010)

[erp65]

- Indeed.

[indyfan22k]

Umm no. Turn off Fox News and do some self educating how American ended up in this mess.

[wolftreetree]

we lost alot when the corporations got the farms.

[indyfan22k]

Things couldn't have been any worse IF americans voted for Carter in Nov 1980 or Mondale in Nov 1984.

Voodo Economics/ "Reaganomics" was a huge reason why 95% of everything we buy in stores is made outside of the USA.

Its amazing how voters, media, polticians fail to remember how Laisez Faire Capatilism and Crony Capitlism fails not only the people of America but also the environment and society in General. When will we learn? maybe never.

[MondoBeno]

In the 1980's, Reagan opened Federal lands to large-scale farming. The independent farms couldn't compete, and you had this.

Most of those foreclosed farms were never sold by the bank. They remained empty, or the counties took them for back taxes. In the 80's