A great quote from Steinbeck, that seems truer now than ever before.

[white_wolf]

"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 dispossess­­­­ed increased, and every effort of the great owners was directed at repression­­­­."

[ixion]

1. Steinbeck was one of the great writers of the American Struggle

and a first-class story teller. He's one of my top 5 favorite authors.

[villager]

3. He was -- only his Vietnam war stance, towards the end, was lamentable...

n/t

[white_wolf]

9. Everyone makes a few mistakes.

George Orwell was swept up in the WWII patriotism, and Einstein strongly supported the creation of Israel,though he did strongly oppose the racist faction that took and still holds power there.

[villager]

11. I think the historical contexts of Einstein's support for Israel, and Steinbeck's for Vietnam, were

... a tad different.

[white_wolf]

14. They were very different.

Did Steinbeck ever give any reasons for supporting Vietnam?

[villager]

15. good question. There's this snippet from Wikipedia:

"In 1967, at the behest of Newsday magazine, Steinbeck went to Vietnam to report on the war there. Thinking of the Vietnam War as a heroic venture, he was considered a hawk for his position on that war. His sons both served in Vietnam prior to his death, and Steinbeck visited one son in the battlefield (at one point being allowed to man a machine-gun watch position at night at a firebase, while his son and other members of his platoon slept).<25>"

Probably bears more looking into. I think even the "counter-cultural" Kerouac was on the wrong side of the Vietnam equation, as well. Though by then, his drinking had gotten to him...

[Blue_In_AK]

12. Mine, too, Ixion.

I love his writing.

[Richardo]

2. thanks

:patriot:

[Zywiec]

4. When a majority of the people are hungry and cold they will take by force what they need.

Would anyone expect any less?

:shrug:

[RZM]

5. Interesting, but sadly that's not always what happens

Stalin proved this wrong. Soviet society did not 'knit' in the 1930s. It actually 'atomized,' which is pretty much the opposite.

[white_wolf]

6. Perhaps, but Russian society did knit together against the Feudal Tsarist society of Russia.

[RZM]

7. In some ways. But the peasantry (the bulk of the population) really just wanted to be left alone

They wanted to take the land for themselves and leave the cityfolk to do their own thing. When it became clear that wasn't the plan, many considered what followed a 'second serfdom.'

The Bolsheviks were never that popular in the countryside and didn't even have much clout there until collecitivization. The peasantry went along at first only because they were promised the land (Lenin never intended that to be a permanent situation).

[Odin2005]

8. K&R

[Octafish]

10. Now the owner class has the CIA.

And they control The Bomb.

[classysassy]

13. The owner class

Owns the military,the local police,the crooked politicians,the supreme court and all lower courts.We are the new surfs we just haven't told that we are the new slaves.

[The Doctor.]

16. Also, they've tweaked the formula.

They've successfully divided America. They'll have an army of wingnut morons to round up anyone that knows who the real traitors of the US are.

It'll be a while before Steinbeck's words come true.

[white_wolf]

17. Yeah they are "useful idoits."