If you've never read John Steinbeck's incredible novel: "The Grapes of Wrath," you owe it to yourself to do so. If you've never seen the movie which starred a young Henry Fonda, you should treat yourself to watching an American classic.
I've read that book many times in my life. Steinbeck was one of my favorite authors and I never get tired of his incredible ability to write believable dialog and create "real" characters who breathe and bleed and break the reader's heart.
I've just finished watching that movie again and it struck me how some of that amazing dialog fits so perfectly in today's environment of dishonest and corrupt government and struggling masses of poor Americans.
A character named Casy, who was killed earlier in the film by the corrupt and violent "cops" who were trying to evict the struggling Americans who were forced west during the Great Depression is discussed by Tom Joad and his mother. The conversation between the Fonda character, Tom Joad, and his mother about Tom leaving his family to strike out and fight corruption and greed in the government near the end is so appropriate today that I wanted to share some of it with those who read my blog:
"What do you figure you're gonna do?" Tom's mother asked.
"You know what I've been thinking' about? "'Bout Casy. `Bout what he said and what he done and about how he died. And I remember all of it." Tom said.
"He was a good man." his mom responded.
"And I've been thinking about us too. `Bout our people livin' like pigs and good, rich land layin' fallow. Or maybe one guy with a million acres and a hundred thousand farmers starving. And I been wonderin' if all our folks got together and yelled..." Tom said.
"Oh, Tommy, they'd drag you out and cut you down just like they done to Casey!" his mother interrupted.
"They'd drive me out anyways. Sooner or later they'd get me if not for one thing, for another," he went on.
Their poignant conversation goes on and becomes one of the greatest pieces of dialog in literary and movie history:
Tom says:
"Well, maybe it's like Casey says... A fellow ain't got a soul of his own. Just a little piece of a big soul. The one big soul that belongs to everybody. Then...."
"Then what, Tommy?"
"Then it don't matter... 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 and 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.
At the end of the movie, the family is riding in the beat up old truck toward a hopeful future of picking crops for a dollar a day. Another classic conversation takes place to end the movie.
"What's the matter, Ma? Getting' scared?" her other son asks.
"HA! I ain't never gonna be scared no more. Was though. For a while it looked as though we was beat. Good and beat! Looked like we didn't have nobody in the whole wide world but enemies. Like nobody was friendly no more. Made me feel kinda bad and scared too. Like we was lost and nobody cared."
Then she makes the stunning point that ends the movie:
"That's what makes us tough. Rich fellas comes up and they die and their kids ain't no good and they die out. But we keep a comin'.. We're the people that live. They can't wipe us out and they can't lick us. We'll keep goin' on forever, Pa, `cause we're the people."
So, take heart fellow Democrats.
For a while it looked as though we was beat. Good and beat! Looked like we didn't have nobody in the whole wide world but enemies. Like nobody was friendly no more. Made me feel kinda bad and scared too. Like we was lost and nobody cared. That's what makes us tough. Rich fellas comes up and they die and their kids ain't no good and they die out. But we keep a comin'.. We're the people that live. They can't wipe us out and they can't lick us. We'll keep goin' on forever, Pa, `cause we're the people.
George W. Bush is one of those "worthless" rich kids who "ain't no good." Hopefully he will be impeached so our government can be "of the people, by the people and for the people" again.