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Volume 6 Issue 31…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race…August 8, 2003
Bit of History
John Ernst Steinbeck (1902-1968)
"The techniques of opening conversation are universal. I knew long
ago and rediscovered that the best way to attract attention, help, and
conversation is to be lost. A man who seeing his mother starving to death on a
path kicks her in the stomach to clear the way, will cheerfully devote several
hours of his time giving wrong directions to a total stranger who claims to be
lost."
Born on February 27, 1902 in Salinas, California, John Ernst Steinbeck attended public school. Although his family was not wealthy, his father was a Mason and his mother an Eastern Star. At age fourteen, he decided to be a writer. To please his parents, he attended Stanford University, but dropped out to hone his writing skills; he supported himself with manual laborer. Relationships developed during this period and sympathy for the weak and defenseless deepened his empathy for the disenfranchised and dislocated, an empathy reflected in his work. He drew the characters of his most successful efforts from the lives of the working poor.
Steinbeck's first novels, Cup of Gold (1929), The Pastures of Heaven (1932) and To a God Unknown (1933), were unsuccessful. His first success, Tortilla Flat (1935), is a story about Mexican-American peasants. In Dubious Battle (1936), Steinbeck dissects strike organizers and greedy landowners and the impact of their ruthlessness on the workers caught in the middle. A tragic tale of two migrant workers, Of Mice and Men (1937) received more acclaim. His most famous work, The Grapes of Wrath (1939), details a dispossessed farm family's migration from Oklahoma to California. Steinbeck's descriptions of Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl and California's exploitative agricultural system drew some harsh criticism. It won the Pulitzer Prize (1940). Adapted to screen by John Ford, it was named one of the American Film Institute's greatest films.
Steinbeck collaborated with marine biologist Edward F. Ricketts to publish Sea of Cortez (1941), a study of California fauna. During WWII, he wrote The Moon Is Down (1942), a novel about Norwegians under Nazi control, Bombs Away (1942), a portrait of bomber trainees, and served as a war correspondent. His wartime stories covered unique aspects of the war, such as life at a bomber station, the alluring antics of Bob Hope and a diversionary mission off the coast of Italy.
After the war, Steinbeck published Cannery Row (1945), The Pearl (1947) and The Bus (1947). He worked on screenplays and wrote the original stories for several movies, including Lifeboat (1944), directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and the screenplay Viva Zapata!, Elia Kazan's biographical film about Emiliano Zapata, the peasant that became Mexico's president.
Steinbeck published Burning Bright (1950), East of Eden (1952), and The Winter of Our Discontent (1961). In 1962, Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize for literature. That year, he published Travels with Charley in Search of America (1962), based on his 1960 tour of country. While Travels celebrates American individualism, it decries its hypocrisy. His journey ended with a visit to the New Orleans "cheerleaders" who daily taunted black children newly registered in white schools. Disenchanted with American waste, greed, immorality and racism, Steinbeck's last book, America and Americans (1966), reconsiders the American character, the land, the racial crisis, and the seemingly crumbling morality of its people. A Democrat, author of sixteen novels, a collection of short stories, four screenplays, journals and essays, Steinbeck died in 1968 in New York City, where he had moved in 1950 with his third wife. (Sources: www.sysu.edu, www.classicnote.com, www.nobel.se/literature and www.cyber-nation.com)
By John Burl Smith
John Steinbeck's epic novel Of Mice and Men illustrates the crushing power of "might makes right" when arrayed against the weak and defenseless. A classic portrayal, Steinbeck's central character Lennie, an oversized mentally challenged vagabond, symbolizes society's vulnerability. George, a down-on-his-luck would-be hero, befriends Lennie. Living off George's wits, this odd couple of clumsy hulk and smooth grig eked out a precarious existence as migrants.
All about control, Steinbeck's antagonist, Curley, reflects society's cynical, brutish and bigoted side. A virulent liar and bully who takes pleasure in exacting pain, Curley is pitted against Lennie, the simpleton. A gentle soul in a harsh and cruel world, Lennie is ill-equipped to deal with the moral dilemmas dramatized by life. An excellent novelist, Steinbeck's climax sorts things out so as to model humanity's best potential.
A comparative analysis of attrition and quagmires, compares George W. Bush's the real life drama unfolding in the streets of Baghdad to Of Mice and Men. A study in role reversals, Bush, the character represents the mightiest power in the known universe. Stripping the Iraqis of their ability to defend themselves with 12 years of sanctions and no-fly zones, Bush hornswoggles the United Nations (UN) to help justify his war. Unlike Of Mice and Men, our would-be hero, the UN, rather than defend Iraq's "poor and helpless" people, is on the bully's payroll as an "enforcer." Inhabiting a world dominated by mice, the Neanderthals' greedy, brutish, dog-eat-dog mentality justifies slaughtering the unsuspecting in the name of liberation and democracy.
Sinking under the weight of his lies, Bush's quagmire is Lyndon Johnson's horror story. Dramatized on international news, the run up to the Iraqi invasion lacked any moral or legal justification. Recasting Steinbeck's antagonist, as the symbol of freedom and democracy, Bush wrapped himself in heroic garb to obscure naked aggression. An international bully, Bush calls US solders liberators, while they occupy and control Iraq's oil and other economic resources. Facing Vietnam-style attrition, young US soldiers die daily to justify the same lies Johnson told families about Vietnam.
Comparing and contrasting the UN's role with Steinbeck's hero, the international community joined the "Iraq feeding frenzy." The UN has not condemned US aggression nor called for its withdrawal from Iraq. After betraying the Iraqi people by pulling out inspectors, thereby clearing the way for Bush's invasion, the UN and its non-governmental organizations (NGO) are lapping Iraqi blood. The US-led invasion lacked UN backing. If the UN enters Iraq without condemning the US' illegal occupation, it legitimizes the US' naked aggression. Echoing Steinbeck's proposition, it is apropos to ask international leaders, which are you, "mice or men?"
The Invisible Man (For Ellison*)
By Conrad Kent Rivers
Your world is unimportant to me,
I am the man people refuse to see.
My voice is the inner impact of
Everything discontented and lonely.
Your name is meaningless to me,
I am black and white with names.
My soul is a cold grey sheet of
Unrewarded dreams - a satirical design.
I am clustered together like bankers
Lawyers, judges, doctors, merchants.
I am a bio-chemical accident of epidermis.
A phantom in other people's silly minds.
I am too dark for darkness,
And too black and blue for a shadow.
Because you can see my tears
That makes me disgustingly human.
About Me: Born in New Jersey in 1933, Conrad Kent Rivers graduated from Wilberforce University and studied at Temple University and Chicago Teachers College. Author of Perchance to Dream, Othello (1959), and These Black Bodies and This Sun-burnt Face (1962), his poems have appeared in many magazines and anthologies. US veteran and teacher, he remarked on his work, "I write about the Negro because I am a Negro, and I am not at peace with myself or the world. I cannot separate my consciousness from the absolute injustice of hate." *Ralph Ellison is author of the novel Invisible Man. (Source: Kaleidoscope: Poems by American Negro Poets, edited by Robert Hayden)
Peeping Poin Update
On the run, like Saddam Hussein, since his last Bagdad dispatch in October 2002 (What Price Iraqi Oil? - The DISH Vol. 5 No 40), Deep Cover Operative, Peep City Barnabas has proven to be a prophet. Back in the US, he updated a report from September 2002 called Odd-Man-Out - The DISH Vol. 5 No 36). Disclosing top secret information, Barnabas detailed a Wall Street style high stakes off-track betting scheme backed by some high rollers operating out of the White House basement. These black baggers were handicapping VP Dick Cheney's chances of being George W. Bush's running mate in 2004. Moreover, Odd-Man-Out.com will pay a quiniela for picking Cheney's replacement.
Peep City's update told of a bearish report on Colin Powell by the "shadow government's" Principles' Committee. These insider traders bid up Donald Rumsfeld's stock in advance of Iraq's invasion. Speculation regarding Cheney's departure ran rampant following ENRON's meltdown and the energy task force debacle. Disguised as an energy venture capital hedge fund, Odd-Man-Out was seen as a campaign fund-raiser for 2004. According to Barnabas, two real dark horses that could pay the daily double, whose daggers are well hidden in their tunics, are Attorney General John Ashcroft and Homeland Security Chief Tom Ridge.
Totally incredulous, while dismissing The DISH's reports, the media insisted "such speculation was not only ridiculous but unpatriotic" That is until last week (7-29-03) when media reports disclosed that the Pentagon's Defense Advance Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) Terrorism Information Awareness (TIA) project has deployed a variation of Odd-Man-Out.com. The brainchild of dirty trickster, Adm. John Poindexter of Iran-Contra fame said, "the Policy Analysis Market (PAM) program is a tool in the fight against terrorism." Prophetically mimicking Peep City's dispatch, PAM allows anonymous traders to bet on forecasted terrorist attacks, assassinations and coups. The bounty-hunter murders of Uday and Qusay Hussein, coups and assassinations, such as those of Patrice Lumumba in the Congo and Salvador Allende in Chile, and the $400 million in profits made on 9-11 put options are examples of the PAM betting pool (Reliving History -The DISH Vol. 6 No 27).
Two Senators Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) exploded in outrage when they learned of PAM, calling it "morally repugnant." This disclosure raised concerns regarding the Terrorist Information Awareness program, whose name was changed from Total Information Awareness (TIA) program. Congress shut down the project because it spied on US citizens by tapping into private databases to collect medical records and financial data (the 9-11 put options). Unable to operate out of the White House, Poindexter (Peeping Poin - The DISH Vol. 6 No 5), requested $8 million to bankroll PAM's floating crap shoot (Craps - The DISH Vol. 6 No 25).
Disgruntled feels: Positively invisible! Positive media coverage is practically non-existent for black people. We are the invisible masses until something negative and tragic happens. Just scan the major networks any day and survey the stories about black people. If the news stories are positive, blacks are missing in action. On the other hand, let a black person get charged with assault, murder or something equally heinous and anti-social, particularly if the alleged victim is white, then we get wall-to-wall coverage. Without the negative coverage, we are positively invisible!
Disgruntled wants to know: The United States is popularly known as a nation of immigrants. People of every conceivable color, religious denomination and sexual orientation are represented among its more than one-quarter of a billion inhabitants. Given this truly remarkable diversity and representative democracy, whereby registered voters elected local, state and federal representatives, why are blacks the only group of people arbitrarily assigned leaders by mainstream media? And, why are these "leaders" never elected representatives?
Disgruntled says: During his run for chief executive of the richest and most powerful nation in the world, George W. Bush promised to restore honor to the process and office of president and to repair the broken bonds of trust between Americans and their government. In the wake of revelations of wholesale lies to justify naked aggression and a steady stream of public policies that have left an ever increasing number of Americans poor and homeless, his promise has become meaningless.
Misery Index 2003
In July 2003, the national unemployment rate declined two-tenths of one percent to 6.2%. Ordinarily, the decrease would signal good news for the economy. However, the July statistic was accompanied by an increase in discouraged workers. These individuals are no longer actively seeking employment, they are not included in the unemployment figure. Therefore, the true unemployment rate is significantly higher. In addition, the monthly jobless report included more bad news on the hemorrhaging of high-paying manufacturing jobs going overseas that are unlikely to return.
According to the President's Council of Economic Advisers, the recession is over, even though unemployment, which is a lagging indicator, remains high. Depending on whether or not the Clinton Administration is blamed for the economic downturn, recovery from the recession that began in late 2000 or early 2001 is a jobless one. This means millions of US workers and their families continue to suffer.
The dire economic statistics translate into a high misery index, a measure of the welfare loss due to unemployment and poverty. In terms of sheer numbers of people without jobs, increasing foreclosure rates and homelessness, rising poverty levels and reports of working poor families forced to go hungry because soup kitchens and shelters are overburdened and under-funded, conditions on the ground today rival those experienced during the Great Depression. When Franklin D. Roosevelt was inaugurated on March 4, 1933, at least thirteen million people were unemployed. In 2003, just as many people are out of work.
To turn the US economy around, Roosevelt instituted a number of public programs called the New Deal. Government spending stimulated the economy. Unemployed workers were gainfully employed building bridges, roads, schools, etc. The bold measures lowered the misery index. Today, under the dubious leadership of a compassionate conservative, there is a reluctance to invest in such programs. Instead, we have increased military spending and tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. The idea is the rich will invest in capital and hire more workers. But, where is the incentive to do this when there is excess capacity and historically high productivity? To lower the 2003 misery index bold measures are needed, such as investments in people.
Mailbox: Faxes, E-Mails and Telephone Calls
Email Hommie@aol.com A jury sentenced Chante Mallard, a black woman, to 50 years in prison for leaving an accident victim to slowly die while lodged in her car's windshield. It took the jury less than an hour to return the conviction. The accident victim was a homeless white man. Cops outright killed Amadou Diallo and continue to murder black men across this country on a daily and nobody spends a day in prison. Sure, Mallard was wrong, but where is the justice?
Email Matekopoko@aol.com US Nobel Laureate Slams Bush Gov't as "Worst" in American History By Matthias Streitz (Der Spiegel... 29 July 2003) BERLIN - US Nobel Prize laureate for Economics George A. Akerlof lashed out at the government of US President George W. Bush, calling it the "worst ever" in American history, the online site of the weekly Der Spiegel magazine reported Tuesday. "I think this is the worst government the US has ever had in its more than 200 years of history It has engaged in extraordinarily irresponsible policies not only in foreign policy and economics but also in social and environmental policy."
Email ImpeachsonofBush@yahoogroups.com The votes of as many as 60,000 people in New York City may not have been counted in the 2000 presidential s-election because of an adjustment made to city voting machines in 1964, according to a lawsuit filed yesterday by advocacy groups. The advocates say voters in poor and immigrant communities were more likely to have been among those whose votes had not been counted. For reasons that remain a mystery, election workers disabled special sensor latches in 1964, taking away a safeguard that would have prevented thousands of residents from losing their votes in every election.
Email Digasa@aol.com Www.electors.us/ is dedicated to the democratization of the Presidential Electoral process by education and enforcement of citizens' rights under Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. Enshrined in the Constitution of the United States of America (Amend. XIV§2) and the U.S. Code (2USC §6) is a de jure mandate for the reduction of State representatives to the U.S. Congress for the disenfranchisement of a class of its citizens for any reason whatsoever, de facto implementation has been neglected and deliberately disregarded by an enduring legacy of racial animus in US jurisprudence.
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