Last night I watched the old 1940s, black and white film based upon John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath. It is still a powerful movie, one that leaves you with mixed emotions.
Based upon the struggles of a working class American family during the Great Depression of the 1930s, it showed the extremes of human nature: the decency of an ordinary family who, like many, were thrown off their land to make way for Big Business and economies of scale. It showed how, after they set off for California, the Promised Land, in a worn-out old truck, they were exploited by many but found occasional touches of generosity and compassion.
Reaching California, the movie showed man’s inhumanity to man and showed the beginnings of the union movement in response to the gross exploitation of workers by the greedy and the powerful, something which appears to be universal and never-changing (remember John Howard’s Work Choices?). It showed how law enforcement officials tend to back the rich and how the competitive capitalist system struggles to cope with those who are poor, unemployed and homeless.
Ironically, yesterday afternoon I saw photographs of a tent camp for the homelessness in Sacramento in California (see above). I even thought of writing a post about it. Today I have!
It looked a little like the squalid camps that the itinerants were forced into in the 1930. Perhaps this current economic crisis is going to generate another Depression and a repeat of the 1930s. Perhaps another Steinbeck will come forth and another powerful novel will be written with just the names changed.
Perhaps the detention facilities being constructed all over America are being readied for dissenters and the poor and the itinerant. Perhaps the Great Recession is going to turn into a Great Depression, one in which the wealthy, with the help of the law, will again exploit the poor and homeless?
In this divided, unequal, damaged, warring world we live in, anything is possible.
Deep inside, I fear that the worst could again be on our doorstep.
” Deep inside, I fear that the worst could again be on our doorstep. ”
Of that I have no doubt.The writing is on the wall and only a fool can’t see it.
The planet is like a run away train with no driver in the front. The financial crisis coupled with all the other problems like global warming, lack of drinking water, pollution, etc, etc, etc, is and will be a disaster.What’s more, the Obama’s, Brown’s, Putin’s, and most of the worlds leaders, and I use that term loosely, know it. BUT! They cannot conceive any other system than the one we have to carry on the course we are headed in.
A guitar hero of mine an Irishman called Gary Moore at a concert started one of his pieces with the words “Don’t believe an effing thing the c#@*$ tell you. Of course he is right.
It is the total gullability of the populace that we are in this mess.
After the election in Queensland on Saturday, it is still obvious that approx half the population of that state are retarded,they have shorter memories than life forms that live at the bottom of your average garden pond.
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Yeah, I reckon Anna owes Malcolm and Lawrence a big thank you kiss. Anyone who threatens to cut jobs in a recession or tries to suggest retaining aspects of Work Choices must have some screws loose! Cheers.
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I see a trend in Europe of the center left parties actually losing support at a time like this.
They loose support not only to the farther left parties but to the center right parties.
Who wants to try to explain that?
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Hey David, I live in Sacramento. A while back I wrote how I felt this town was an accurate sampling of the state of America. There are some school districts with 33% homeless kids enrolled. The gulf between the haves and have nots is more glaring than I have ever witnessed. Everything is dividing now by this scale. The private girls school i used to attend cost my parents a $90 a month, currently it is $1,000 per month – and now after closing due to financial reasons will be re-opening as an even more exclusive school with monthly rates for one student $1500! That is an entire month’s pay from a minimum wage job.
Unfortunately for the people living in the tents by the river, all the media attention forced these citizens to leave that beautiful and neglected area of town. Nobody uses those areas and was relatively good location for people. The new mayor wants to look good.
I am linking up with others to do what I can. I resist a policy of helping people spontaneously or alone because it can be dangerous.
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Paine, it might have something to do with scared people moving to extreme positions!
Grace, given that an excess of credit brought about the current crisis it amazes me that we, the sheeple, are being urged by our Masters to take advantage of the low interest rates and borrow money that we can’t afford to pay back in order to resurrect/ prop up a corrupt, unfair, planet-destroying economic system.
You can’t get much dumber than that!
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David, you’re still blowing it with the sheeple thing. The exact moment you elevate yourself above another human being, YOU ARE WRONG! What any one of us is capable of, we are all capable of. Sad but true. I’m crying and dying!
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David G Reply:
March 23rd, 2009 at 3:25 pm
“What any one of us is capable of, we are all capable of.”
Is that so, VR2? That is about as nonsensical as the statement that “All men are created equal.”
Humans differ widely and wildly regarding their capabilities. They vary in the amount of intelligence they have, physical strength and dexterity, creativity, looks, stamina, ball skills, resistance to sunburn, leadership qualities, sexual potency, ambition, compassion, etc, etc.
All humans are different though they may have some similar characteristics. The humans who congregate on this blog are here because there are aspects of this blog that fulfill a need for them. There are those who have come here for a while, then disappeared with no reason being given. And there are those who read this blog but never comment. And there are those who would never read this blog because it is too confronting and it holds up a mirror to them that they don’t want to look in!
Please stop crying and dying and help us to change the world before it’s too late!
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Trying to make this world better seems like an ant trying to move a mountian. A single person or even a group of average citizens can do so little compared to the harm that corporate and government institutions can do with almost no effort.
Now the US government is going to give another trillion dollars to rich bankers while more and more people lose their jobs and health care and homes.
It all makes me sick. I feel so helpless.
I am afraid this will all get worse and as bad as it is for those of us looking toward (I will not say forward) retirement I fear it will be so much worse for our children and grandchildren.
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Jeannie, those who run the world do so to advantage themselves, not for the benefit of mankind. While this philosophy prevails, the world will never change and peace will never come.
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