Image Union, episode 0729

"Reclaiming America" is a short documentary about the American Agriculture Movement's 1985 protest in front of the Chicago Board of Trade. The protesters, family farmers, target futures trading and the speculative shorting tactics used in the financial system. 49 protesters were arrested over two days. Footage focuses on speeches from Wayne Cryts, president of the American Agricultural Movement.

0:07Copy video clip URL Title card, “Reclaiming America Plus 2.”

0:31Copy video clip URL Image Union opening.

1:15Copy video clip URL Narrator opens to an agricultural workers protest in front of the Chicago Board of Trade.

1:46Copy video clip URL Open to wheat reaper machine.

2:07Copy video clip URL Wayne Cryts, president of the American Agriculture Movement, describes the plight of family farmers  within the speculative financial system.

3:56Copy video clip URL Cryts: “The reason why we’re up here is to draw attention to the most unjust market and system in the world…” He describes in detail the dangers of speculative short selling markets. Namely, “What we have is a marketing system that allows people to sell our product without buying it from us, with total disregard to our costs of production or rate of return.” Cryts’s speech continues over shots of family farmers walking over the Dan Ryan expressway toward the Chicago Board of Trade. Cryts describes the logistics of the protest and the need for a peaceful protest.

12:49Copy video clip URL Open to the Chicago Board of Trade. Protestors, pedestrians, police officers, and private security meet in front of the building.

16:15Copy video clip URL Cunningham maintains that if there were no such speculators trading agricultural futures, then the farmers would suffer the caprice of sellers–elevators or large grain firms.

18:03Copy video clip URL Farmers try to enter CBOT, but without success. One farmer is arrested.

18:25Copy video clip URL “If you look around and see who’s here, it’s not a bunch of wild-eyed radicals…” Cryts calls for more involvement by farmers.

19:03Copy video clip URL “If you have anything of value, it has to come from nature and it has to take some labor to produce it…nature is the mother, labor the father.”

19:25Copy video clip URL End credits.

19:52Copy video clip URL End of tape.

 

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