2011 … nearly 4 million properties had gone into foreclosure.

2012 … 23 million Americans were either unemployed, underemployed, or had given up looking for work altogether. That same year, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that 1-in-2 people were considered poor or “near poor”.

While The Great Recession was not a total destruction of America’s economic institutions like The Great Depression, the social and ideological differences that caused them felt the same: extreme partisanship, Wall Street’s greed and indifference, and America’s culture of narcissism. In the end, the institutions of democracy and capitalism failed, as did those entrusted to keep watch over them.

99ers: Views From The Great Recession is a a cautionary tale about what happens when systems fail. No single administration can be blamed for what happened, Republican and Democrat, alike, share in what in September 2008. An event that greatly helped President Obama get elected, and afforded the Democrat party to earn super majorities in both houses of Congress. Unfortunately, the Obama administration failed to lead, like FDR, in not forcefully addressing the underlying causes that led to the Great Recession, and consequently, unwittingly planted the seed for the politics of grievance and anger that plagues our modern politics.

Paying homage to the FSA Masters of the ’30s and ’40s, 99ers documents 02 communities — a Tent City in Lakewood, NJ and the Occupy Wall Street encampment at Zuccotti Park in NYC — that, while ideologically distant, were connected by events outside their control. Blending film and deliberate portraits, 99ers captures people reacting to the spontaneity of history unfolding real time. A history that began at the dawn of the 20th century and continues to shape our national consciousness, prompting us to reevaluate our past and envision the kind of America we might seek: a democracy for all, or only for the privileged few.

Peace