Days of Future Past...,

…, no…, this isn't a link to a Moody Blues video. I am still in the Dial-Up Dark Ages here on The Ranch. This isn't even a remembrance of any days I have ever known…, but if I was a pious man I would pray that I never will. We don't seem to learn much from our past…, or maybe we do. We have unemployment and welfare now to keep people from starving the way they did during The Great Depression. And we are dumping billions of dollars and tens of billions of dollars and hundreds of billions of dollars…, dumping them somewhere…, in an attempt to make sure we don't have another Great Depression. Or so they tell me.

I had never read Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" before. I have seen the movie…, and sure enough…, Henry Fonda is now starring in the book. It always happens if you see the movie first. But the movie left out a big part of the book. John Steinbeck didn't just tell a story of the Joad family's plight in "The Grapes of Wrath". Every other chapter dealt with something a bit removed from the Joad's personal story…, it dealt with the story of America at the time. Listen to this and tell me if Steinbeck is talking about Days of Future Past?


“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. The great owners ignored the three cries of history: The land fell into fewer hands, the number of the dispossessed increased, and every effort of the great owners was directed at repression. The money was spent for arms, for gas to protect the great holdings, and spies were sent to catch the murmuring of revolt so that it might be stamped out. The changing economy was ignored, plans for the change ignored; and only means to destroy revolt were considered, while the cause of revolt went on.”


Substitute "banksters" for "great owners". Too much money concentrated in too few hands. Same problem…, past and future. I guess my question is…, are we building up this massive debt burden for our children and grandchildren in order to keep people like the Joad's from starving…, or are we ensuring the survival and prosperity of the great owners' and their ilk?

Scott R. May 23, 2009 - 12:43pm