Literature // Current TV

My Sister Lives On The Mantelpiece Book Launch

Orion Children's Books are proud to launch the stunning trailer for the most... more

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Publisher to change Huckleberry Finn...How Dare They!?

What is a word worth? According to Publishers Weekly, NewSouth Books’ upcoming... more

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Grapes Of Wrath - 2011

“And the great owners, who must lose their land in an upheaval, the great owners with access to history, with eyes to read history and to know the great fact: when property accumulates in too few hands it is taken away. And that companion fact: when a majority of the people are hungry and cold they will take by force what they need. And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed.” – John Steinbeck – Grapes of Wrath

John Steinbeck wrote his masterpiece The Grapes of Wrath at the age of 37 in 1939, at the tail end of the Great Depression. Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize for literature. John Ford then made a classic film adaption in 1941, starring Henry Fonda. It is considered one of the top 25 films in American history. The book was also one of the most banned in US history. Steinbeck was ridiculed as a communist and anti-capitalist by showing support for the working poor. Some things never change, as the moneyed interests that control the media message have attempted to deflect the blame for our current Depression away from their fraudulent deeds. The novel stands as a chronicle of the Great Depression and as a commentary on the economic and social system that gave rise to it. Steinbeck’s opus to the working poor reverberates across the decades. He wrote the novel in the midst of the last Fourth Turning Crisis. His themes of man’s inhumanity to man, the dignity and rage of the working class, and the selfishness and greed of the moneyed class ring true today.

Steinbeck became the champion of the working class. When he decided to write a novel about the plight of migrant farm workers, he took his task very seriously. To prepare, he lived with an Oklahoma farm family and made the journey with them to California. Seventy years later the plight of the working class is the same. If Steinbeck were alive today he would live with a Michigan auto manufacturing family making a journey to fantasyland of green energy, where automobiles ran on corn and sunshine. The working class bore the brunt of the Great Depression in the 1930s and they are bearing the burden during our current Greater Depression. Steinbeck knew who the culprits were seventy years ago. We know who the culprits are today. They are one in the same. The moneyed banking interests caused the Great Depression and they created the disastrous collapse that has thus far destroyed 7 million middle class jobs. Steinbeck understood that the poor working class of this country had more dignity and compassion for their fellow man than any Wall Street banker out for enrichment at the expense of the working class.
Okies and the Land of Milk & Honey

“How can you frighten a man whose hunger is not only in his own cramped stomach but in the wretched bellies of his children? You can’t scare him–he has known a fear beyond every other.” - John Steinbeck – Grapes of Wrath

The America of 1930 was different in many aspects from the America of 2011. The population of the U.S. was 123 million, living in 26 million households, or 4.7 people per household. Today the population of the U.S. is 310 million, living in 118 million households, or 2.6 people per household. The living and working structure of the country was dramatically different in 1930. The percentage of the population that lived in rural areas exceeded 40%, down from 60% in 1900, as the country rapidly industrialized. One quarter of the population still worked on farms. Today, less than 20% of Americans live in rural areas, while less than 2% live on farms. In 1935, there were 6.8 million farms in the U.S. Today there are 2.1 million farms. The family farm has been slowly but surely displaced by corporate mega-farms since the 1920s, with 46,000 farms now accounting for 50% of all farm production today.

The sad plight of the American working farmer did not begin with the Stock Market Crash of 1929..........

Continue reading at:

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/guest-post-grapes-wrath-2011?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+zerohedge%2Ffeed+%28zero+hedge+-+on+a+long+enough+timeline%2C+the+survival+rate+for+everyone+drops+to+zero%29“And the great owners, who must lose their land in an upheaval, the great owners... more

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Happy Valentine’s Day: “William and Maud”

A poetic Valentine's Day tribute to one of history's great stories of... more

hoosierdaddy
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Thread Count - new poetry from Sara Backer

New from Sara Backer - coping with guilt in an age of global warming...

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New Installment of TFR Out Now

The newest installment of TFR has been posted and is available at... more

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S&R Poetry: Timorous Trigonometries, by Mark Todd

Latest poem from Mark Todd at Scholars & Rogues.

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Ardency: A Chronicle of the Amistad Rebels | New York Journal of Books

My latest NYJB review is of an epic work of poetry and great humanity that may appeal... more

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Pride and Prejudice: Hidden Lusts by Mitzi Szereto (book trailer)

Author Mitzi Szereto brings you the entire cast of characters from Jane Austen's... more

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20 Essential Works of Latin-American Literature

Latin-American literature, in spite of its prolificacy and influence, sadly enjoys... more

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Controversial sequal to 'The Catcher In The Rye' is released

If you've been waiting on the edge of your seat for sixty years - or though for... more

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30 Surprising Things That U.S. High Schoolers Don’t Know

A couple of years ago, Common Core — a high school advocacy organization that... more

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Circalit - Screenplays, Novels & Short Stories » mariaz » Projects » THE ENIGMA OF WASHINGTON SQUARE

Amazing book looking for a publisher... more

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Commuter Digressing (new poetry at Scholars & Rogues)

"I have taken in on his wings the map of a forest in shades of brown, I have... more

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Top 50 Linguistics Blogs

The article has listed the top 50 linguistics blogs. By actual linguistic experts,... more

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Poetry: Progress Note

Scholars & Rogues Poetry Journal launches with new work from Joseph Reich:... more

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11 Excellent Novels that Take Place All in One Day

Many highly effective writers have seized upon this universal phenomenon in order to... more

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Henry Miller, Awake and Asleep

Henry Miller covered his bathroom walls with images--sculptures, paintings, photos of... more

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50 Greatest Works of Immigration Literature

Immigration debates flood news sources today, but the realities experienced by those... more

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The Story Of Rudyard Kipling

Recently Complete News Updates Today The Story of England is a grown-up version of Mr... more

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