And from the same book, here's another quote that is very appropriate today:

"It is odd to think that Steinbeck, who worked as a journalist at most stages of his life, did not understand that reporters in a market economy can push only so far with their criticisms and must write within the boundaries of what the owners of their papers, who more often than not share interests in power, are prepared to publish. This is all part of what Walter Lippmann, the political analyst, famously called "the manufacture of consent." The United States is a consensual society, which means, of course, that consent has to be produced. But this kind of analysis, rarer then than now, would probably have dismayed Steinbeck."

Very interesting. Bob