The Grapes of Wrath

Watched the Grapes of Wrath the other night. Too lazy to read the book but it’s my understanding that Steinbeck is considered to have captured the essence of the Great Depression. If that is true and the movie captures the essence of the book I’m really not looking forward to the Great Depression II.

Of course I’m not really sure if we’ll have a Great Depression II. The people in charge appear to have learned from the first one and decided to borrow from the grandkids before the collapse to avoid a great depression rather than waiting to borrow from the grandkids after it has begun to “stimulate a recovery”. But let’s face it - ever since we’ve been spending tomorrow’s money knowing we can borrow again tomorrow.

But lets pretend for a minute that some disgruntled individual decides to stop extending vast amounts of unrealistic credit (luckily the Board of Directors system appears to prevent any individual from having that kind of power) and the house of cards comes down. In the movie the only thing the people have to hang on to is their family. Even their fellow Okies let them know it’s every man (family?) for themselves when push comes to shove.

Given the stats we see today about people who feel they are alone in the world and the general dismantling of the close knit family group I’m thinking that if the system starts to collapse the glue that held off the chaos demons in the thirties (according to the Grapes of Wrath) might not be there. And if there is a lesson from western christendom’s recent foreign adventures it’s that we do not have nearly enough men and women in uniform to enforce a kind of peace if the population was to get rowdy.

The farmer we recently visited who views his co-op members as invested partners to help work and protect his farm if things turn sour seems less crazy now.