Log in

View Full Version : In Steinbeck's footsteps: America's middle-class underclass


bricolage
29th July 2011, 21:39
I haven't bothered to actually read the article as I think it just sums up the footage but the video is a very interesting piece from Paul Mason, probably the only journalist in this country I have any time for. Well worth a watch.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14296682
RadioRaheem84
29th July 2011, 21:44
I don't know why the mainstream media has just now discovered poverty?

They act like it just came into fruition with the recession.
Ingraham Effingham
29th July 2011, 21:47
I don't know why the mainstream media has just now discovered poverty?

They act like it just came into fruition with the recession.

They discovered it when it became popular (marketable). The poor democraphic is HOT right now, poverty is HIP.
CHE with an AK
29th July 2011, 22:02
1. The U.S. has a law that dog food must be edible for human consumption.

2. Dog food sales have increased dramatically in the U.S.


3. Why the fuck aren't the streets on fire? Oh yeah, credit cards and American idol. :mellow:
CHE with an AK
29th July 2011, 22:12
Steinbeck's footsteps
http://schools.aldine.k12.tx.us/webs/ofcummings/upload/grapes_of_wrath.jpg
Time for an updated sequel ???





"This is the beginning—from 'I' to 'we'. If you who own the things people must have could understand this, you might preserve yourself. If you could separate causes from results, if you could know that Paine, Marx, Jefferson, Lenin were results, not causes, you might survive. But that you cannot know. For the quality of owning freezes you forever into 'I', and cuts you off forever from the 'we'."
— Chapter 14


"How can you frighten a man whose hunger is not only in his own cramped stomach but in the wretched bellies of his children? You can't scare him – he has known a fear beyond every other."
— Chapter 19
A Revolutionary Tool
30th July 2011, 05:27
It really is a fantastic book, probably my favorite fiction book(obviously that's why a quote of it is in my sig).
Metacomet
30th July 2011, 13:47
We were getting to socialism..........then FDR brought us back to capitalism hooray!

Things now should be like the 30s, I just think we are better distracted now.
RadioRaheem84
30th July 2011, 16:42
I at least want to see a return of the progressive era of film and theatre. From Orson Welle's Cradle Will Rock to Citizen Kane to The Grapes of Wrath.

Someone has to make a movie or two that touches on the public angst.
Sensible Socialist
30th July 2011, 19:32
This is an example of the myth of the middle class. People who are a paycheck away from homelessness and being tricked into thinking they've achieved the American dream.
Jose Gracchus
30th July 2011, 19:43
1. The U.S. has a law that dog food must be edible for human consumption.

2. Dog food sales have increased dramatically in the U.S.


3. Why the fuck aren't the streets on fire? Oh yeah, credit cards and American idol. :mellow:

Proof for the first two? Not because I doubt, but because it would make for amazing polemic.