This is a review of Iowa Public Television's documentary on the 1980s farm crisis in Iowa. (IPTV is now IowaPBS.) It's full of historical data that debunks the main theses of the documentary. this is PART I.
Here's one review from another setting: ""EXCELLENT. A major intellectual contribution as a critique of IPTV [media], history and politics." Clara Oleson, former Labor Educator at the University of Iowa Labor Center.
SYNOPSIS OF MY THESES
On The Farm Crisis Documentary:
1. Essentially fails to tell a fair story.
2. Shows conservative bias FOR the status quo & AGAINST farmers, rural twons, Iowa, & U.S.
3. Conservative views of the corporte complex re over-represented & false; the alternate views are under-represented or missing.
What I show in Response:
1. A different, better interpretation of the basic facts of the farm crisis.
2. History leading up to it is especially flawed.
3. The major issue, (farm prices,) is seriously neglected and misinterpreted.
4. This changes the psychological and political interpretation from conservative individualism to group empowerment for democratic citizenship.
5. Finally, I will show a failure of the film's basic conclusions related to our more recent history, since the 1980s, & the lessons to be learned.
PART II will follow. PART III, about what happened after the 1980s is also very important, and remains a work in progress as this video is uploaded. The data charts come from my massive data analysis of the issues of economic distributive farm justice. Several hundred more of these are available on SlideShare. This is done from the perspective of the Family Farm Movement, which is a Farm Justice Movement. This perspective, much of which is pre-internet, has largely been erased from history. My playlists and other videos and video reviews strongly reinforce the analysis here. Regarding these and more, I have a number of other playlists relevant to this video: "Farm Bill History," "Farm Bill & Food Bill," "Dairy Crisis," "Trade and the Food Poverty Crisis," "Family Farm Issues," and "Mega Agribusiness."
