Tom Joad beats John Galt

Just back from Stratford, ON, where we saw a powerful performance of the Tony award winning stage adaptation of "The Grapes of Wrath." The play (and novel) tells the story of the Joad family, fighting to stay together and stay alive in the Great Depression. Through death and hard times, starvation and privation, they do what they need to do to move forward. It's a quintessentially American story of perseverance in the face of overwhelming odds.

The villains of the story are the corporations and the crooked law enforcers who do their bidding.  The poor are not doing anything illegal, but are continuously attacked and imprisoned for asserting their fundamental rights as Americans. The local law doesn't want and migrants to stay on public land long enough to vote or apply for 'relief' (welfare). Corporations don't want to pay a living wage - so they drum up 1,000 workers for 500 jobs and take the ones desperate enough to work for a pittance.

And anyone who protests the starvation wages is labelled a 'Red' and stomped out - literally.

Tom Joad is the character who learns to fight back.

"I'll be all around in the dark - I'll be everywhere. Wherever you can look - wherever there's a fight, so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad. I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry and they know supper's ready, and when the people are eatin' the stuff they raise and livin' in the houses they build - I'll be there, too."

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Where is Tom Joad today?

Just as it was in the 1930's, the question we must ask ourselves today is this: who is America for?

The Right will tell you America is for the Owners. It's for the rich few to pay the poor many whatever they can get away with. Power and wealth are for the oligarchs, not democratic 'people.'  John Galt is the 'hero' who will lead the owners to revel in the power of ownership.

But how can any nation exist only to serve a pampered elite? It's not only immoral, it's counterproductive. Economically, the whole nation prospers when all the citizens prosper.

And more simply, America is for Americans.  The nation is not a device to generate unlimited cash for the few lucky politically connected greed-heads. It's a nation for the 300 million citizens who go to work or school or whatever every day. Somewhere in the last 40 years or so, the Haves got so disconnected from the Have-Nots that they just can't see them anymore.

So the political arm of the comfortable supports unlimited funds for war making and unlimited tax handovers to the rich, while denying all assistance to people in need. Cuts to food assistance are fine, but don't de-fund any weapon systems.

The US has sunk a trillion into tax breaks for the rich and a trillion (and counting) into needless cruel unjust war, and is now discussing what programs for the poor and elderly will be eliminated to pay for it. Treason.

Where are you Tom Joad?