» We Need a New John Steinbeck slick n' dirty

We Need a New John Steinbeck

February 19th, 2011 § 37 comments

grapes of wrath

We need a new John Steinbeck in America. Who else is putting class issues into fiction today?

From the Wikipedia entry on “The Grapes of Wrath”:

When preparing to write the novel, Steinbeck wrote: “I want to put a tag of shame on the greedy bastards who are responsible for this [the Great Depression and its effects].”

Who caused the current Great Recession or NeoDepression? From the world’s greatest intellectual:

And there’s been a wave of propaganda over the last couple of months, which is pretty impressive to watch, trying to deflect attention away from those who actually created the economic crisis, like Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, their associates in the government who—Federal Reserve and others—let all this go on and helped it. There’s a—to switch attention away from them to the people really responsible for the crisis—teachers, police, firefighters, sanitation workers, their huge pensions, their incredible healthcare benefits, Cadillac healthcare benefits, and their unions, who are the real villains, the ones who are robbing the taxpayer by making sure that policemen may not starve when they retire. And this is pretty amazing, like right in the middle of the Madison affair, which is critical.

The CEO of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein, got a $12.5 million bonus, and his base pay was more than tripled. Well, that means he—the rules of corporate governments have been modified in the last 30 years by the U.S. government to allow the chief executive officer to pretty much set their own salaries. There’s various ways in which this has been done, but it’s government policy. And one of the effects of it is—people talk about inequality, but what’s a little less recognized is that although there is extreme inequality, it’s mostly because of the top tiny fraction of the population, so like a fraction of one percent of the population, their wealth has just shot through the stratosphere. You go down to the—you know, the next 10 percent are doing pretty well, but it’s not off the spectrum. And this is by design.

So we know who caused the Great Recession: the financial markets. Who gave the most money to Obama’s presidential campaign? The financial markets. From the same interview: “Take a look at the 2008 campaign spending. Obama way outspent McCain. He was funded—his main source of funding was the financial institutions.”

So who is putting ‘the tag of shame’ on these ‘greedy bastards’? Certainly not Obama. Chomsky fingered a ‘wave of propaganda’ that I noticed on another end: the new meme that ‘Obama was anti-business his first two years and now needs to make up with them.’ And this was on NPR, as of a few months back. I heard that and I was like what the hell? Did I turn on Fox all of a sudden? Where did this meme come from? NPR ombudsman? Memetracker Mike? Anyone? Did it come out of the White House itself which would not be surprising, and NPR just aped it?

So not only is Obama not putting the mark of shame where it belongs, he is participating in a fictitious narrative that has him previously fighting the business sector, and who now must sweet-talk them with tax cuts and such so they will ‘create jobs’ which is just more trickle-down, con meme nonsense.

The idea that Obama was anti-business his first two years is just laughable, absurd, against all known notion of the facts. First off, as previously pointed to, it was the financial institutions that contributed mostly to Obama’s campaign. And how many people from Wall Street went to jail for causing the Great Recession? No one did. Not one. Obama’s ‘Wall Street Reform’ was watered down at best and even all this bankster-favoritism didn’t stop Wall Street from launching and financing the completely astroturf and never grass roots Tea Party.

How many people on the high end of Obama’s staff came right outta Wall Street? When Obama gave all the money to the banks so that they would forestall mortgages – there was no strings on this money whatsoever. They didn’t use the money to help homeowners – and Obama didn’t do shit about it.

Not to mention Obama has done jack shit about climate change- at the behest of the corporations that own his ass. (When quarterly profits have become your society’s God, mentioning world destruction is just impolite.) Why hasn’t Elizabeth Warren – an angel sent from heaven if ever there was one – yet been given a position with actual teeth? And I could go on.

Obama’s no-turning-back moment was the ‘tax cut compromise’ of late 2010. For one thing, when Obama had the house and senate and didn’t need the Republican vote – he still ‘compromised.’ When the Republicans in the lame duck Senate took the poor hostage until tax cuts for the rich were extended, Obama didn’t just bend over for them – he threw in some estate tax goodness as well. This is not even befitting the word compromise. When you keep giving in, and giving more than in – and the other side gives nothing – this is not even the word ‘compromise’ anymore. Orwellian word-flipping did not subside when Bush left town. Barak Obama: change millionaires can believe in.

And now – or lately – NPR reports Obama is on a mission ‘to win business back.’ It is one of the most grotesque pieces of propaganda and factual chicanery I have ever personally witnessed in about fifteen years of assiduously listening to NPR.

Where are the politicians attaching the ‘tag of shame’ to the ‘greedy bastards’? Where are the artists? The writers? We know where the politicians are – they are controlled by Goldman Sachs et. al – and they mince a show for the corporate media increasingly led by number one liar Fox.

So who else will talk about class in America? Who else will talk about stratification? A report comes out months ago stating that 1 in 7 Americans have slipped into poverty, and then it disappears down the memory hole. While most Americans who tune in to ‘news’ hear messages like this over and over: “Unions are the enemy. Bankers deserve to make billions because they are worth it. Some Americans deserve to die or suffer because they are worthless. Defense will not be touched or broached because of the bogeyman. Boo!”

Americans need a new John or Joanna Steinbeck. Until then they need to read The Grapes of Wrath, or watch The Grapes of Wrath. They need to be woken up from the chloroform blanket of self-defeating mind poison that is Fox News. Somewhere in our collective unconscious there is a memory that being American means more than being sodomized on a regular basis by Goldman Sachs.

And perhaps, as Chomsky opines, a little Egypt will sprout in Wisconsin.