BS: An interesting Steinbeck comment!

Subject: BS: An interesting Steinbeck comment!
From: Deckman
Date: 07 May 04 - 12:06 AM

I am a fan of John Steinbeck. I have been re-reading a biography written by Jay Parini, 1995. I just came across this comment that John Steinbeck wrote in a letter to a friend. He had just returned from touring Viet Nam, in the late sixties:

"I understand your feeling about this war. We seem to be sinking deeper and deeper into the mire. It is true that we are. I am pretty sure by now that the people running the war have neither the conception nor control of it. And I think that I do have some conception but I can't write it.
    I know we cannot win this war, nor any war for that matter. And it seems to me that the design is for us to sink deeper and deeper into it, more and more of us. When we have put down a firm foundation of our dead and when we have by a slow, losing process been sucked into the texture of Southeast Asia, we will never be able nor will we want to get out." (John Steinbeck, by Jay Parini, Henry Holt, page 477).

I can't help but wonder what John Steinbeck would say of our present war today? Bob(deckman)Nelson

Subject: RE: BS: An interesting Steinbeck comment!
From: Amos
Date: 07 May 04 - 12:20 AM

Bob,

I submit that the reverse is true here -- the administration pursued the war out of some certain conviction that it had to have foundations sunk deep into Mideast soil. If it took some dead, well, that was the price of steering civilization the way Bush felt it had to go. But there was never any desire except to get in. Partly this was because that was where the oil was. Partly it was to have a place from which to perhaps block the planetary Jihad. Partly...well, who knows what all the damn threads in Bush' head were. I can only shudder to think.

But the embedding of the West into the subsoil of the near/mid-East has been intentional.

My wee thought for the day, anyway.

A

Subject: RE: BS: An interesting Steinbeck comment!
From: Deckman
Date: 07 May 04 - 05:38 AM

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

Subject: RE: BS: An interesting Steinbeck comment!
From: Cluin
Date: 07 May 04 - 07:32 AM

From Steinbeck's Cannery Row (1945):

   "It has always seemed strange to me," said Doc. "The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second."
   "Who wants to be good if he has to be hungry too?" said Richard Frost.

Subject: RE: BS: An interesting Steinbeck comment!
From: Amos
Date: 07 May 04 - 09:46 AM

The issue of manufactured consent is at the heart of some of endless anger about the last few years. First, the egregious and (to me) abusive use of the machinery of consent, degrading a system of communications into a system of mean manipulation; and second, a deep horror at the number of people willing to buy their consent off the shelf of the least-thoughtful, least-ethical manufacturer, and go around wearing it with vim as though it were of value. This boggles me because, to me, it is a testimony to a deep commitment to intellectual opportunism and dishonesty.

A

Subject: RE: BS: An interesting Steinbeck comment!
From: mack/misophist
Date: 07 May 04 - 10:57 AM

My brain isn't sure what Amos is saying above. But my heart is certain it's true. Would you expand the idea?

Subject: RE: BS: An interesting Steinbeck comment!
From: Deckman
Date: 07 May 04 - 11:17 AM

Amos, well said. I'll be gone for a couple of days, but I look forward to reading this thread when I return. Bob

Subject: RE: BS: An interesting Steinbeck comment!
From: Amos
Date: 07 May 04 - 11:29 AM

Mack:

I was just observing that I have a long slow burn of anger in me because (1) the Bushites havve raised manipulation of our communications to a new high art form -- a mean and godless art indeed! and (2)so many people are willing to pick up and carry as their own these manufactured ideas, like mindless computers echoing the same download, asserting them with force as genuine viewpoints, when they are just copies of some "position" invented by manipulators. This is especially dark because it degrades the system used to build consensus, and uses it instead to acheive mindless compliance. I believe this is what hapopened in German, also.

Anyone who has grown up being bombarded with advertisements has learned to recognize the difference between communication and manipulative noise -- so how come so many forget this distinction when it comes to politics? People who would never fall for a slice-and-dicer infomercial on TV will buy whole-cloth the Iraq-as-terrorist advertisement without even wondering. And then never notice that when the reality arrives, it stinks and crumbles. Sheeshe.

A

Subject: RE: BS: An interesting Steinbeck comment!
From: Amos
Date: 07 May 04 - 01:30 PM

"German" s/b "Germany". Sorry.

A

Subject: RE: BS: An interesting Steinbeck comment!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 May 04 - 03:43 PM

For sure it's what happened in Germany. The Nazis manufactured consent through ceaseless, repetitious marketing of various lies and half-truths, combined with fearmongering and appeals to patriotism.

It's what any government does when it clandestinely pursues aggressive self-interest at the expense of ordinary people both at home and abroad.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: An interesting Steinbeck comment!
From: Deda
Date: 07 May 04 - 05:15 PM

The other thing that shocks me, as the child of a journalist, is how there seem to be almost no real journalists left, except for Amy Goodman of Democracy Now. All the mainstream news outlets have lined up to salute and obey their corporate owners. So Bush says, "No photos of flag-drapped coffins", and behold, there are none! Boy, that isn't what I thought American news people were made of!

Subject: RE: BS: An interesting Steinbeck comment!
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 07 May 04 - 07:28 PM

I can see why they try to sell it to us. What is puzzling is why people buy it. In ordinary life it seems to me that people are generally pretty shrewd and sceptical. So what happens to them that they will accepot manipulation from on high which they woudl see through in a moment in ordinary life?

There's a question that always get mentioned in relation to people in public life "Would you buy a used car from him?"

And the truth is, when it comes to that kind of face to face dealing, most people do use their heads, and they aren't taken in by glib talking. Some are, but I think they are the exception. But time and time again the same street smart people vote for candidates that no sane person would buy a used car from.

Subject: RE: BS: An interesting Steinbeck comment!
From: Bobert
Date: 07 May 04 - 07:47 PM

The problem with "manufactured consent" is two fold.

First, with the US moving ever closer to a two party, single rule system of government then at any given time considering the low number of folks who actually vote, 20% of the folks rule the other 80%. This is problem for creating consent.

Second, big media is definately in the hip pocket of the conservatives becuase they, ahhhh, own it....

And what is media? Big corporations and Mussilini stated that the road to facsism is when governemnt and corportaions hook up...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: An interesting Steinbeck comment!
From: LadyJean
Date: 08 May 04 - 01:19 AM

My mother, who came of age in the 1930s was convinced that unemployment bred facism. When a man is out of work, he needs something to make him feel like a man. Facism is great for making men feel like men. A prosperous male, who can look after his family, and have what he wants isn't going to be quite so interested in minding his neighbor's business, or being better than the man down the street.

Subject: RE: BS: An interesting Steinbeck comment!
From: Amos
Date: 08 May 04 - 05:44 AM

This whole manufacturing of consent business was started by a relative of Sigmund Freud, Edward Bernays, known as the "father of spin".

Here's an interesting page about him.

A

Subject: RE: BS: An interesting Steinbeck comment!
From: Amos
Date: 08 May 04 - 05:52 AM

An excerpt of interest:

Science For Hire


Stauber tells the amazing story of how leaded gas came to be. In 1922, General Motors discovered that adding lead to gasoline gave cars more horsepower.


When there was some concern about safety, GM paid the Bureau of Mines to do some fake "testing" and publish "research" that "proved" that inhalation of lead was harmless. This is where Charles Kettering comes in.


Founder of the world famous Sloan-Kettering Memorial Institute for medical research, Charles Kettering also happened to be an executive with General Motors.


By some strange coincidence, we soon have the Sloan Kettering Institute issuing scientific reports stating that lead occurs naturally in the body and that the body has a way of eliminating low level exposure.


Through its association with PR giant Hill & Knowlton and The Industrial Hygiene Foundation, Sloane Kettering opposed all anti-lead research for years. ("Trust Us We're Experts" p. 92). For the next 60 years more and more gasoline became leaded, until by the '70s, 90% of our gasoline was leaded.


Finally it became too obvious to hide that lead was a major carcinogen, and leaded gas was finally phased out in the late '80s. But during those 60 years, it is estimated that some 30 million tons of lead were released in vapor form onto American streets and highways. 30 million tons.

---

BTW, Noam Chomsky wrote at length on the problem of manufactured consent and wrote a book by that name, as well.

A

Subject: RE: BS: An interesting Steinbeck comment!
From: Deckman
Date: 08 May 04 - 07:33 PM

Subject: RE: BS: An interesting Steinbeck comment!
From: Peace
Date: 08 May 04 - 08:24 PM

I Pledge Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America
and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God,
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

When any of us follow blindly, we risk giving away the lives of our children and taking away the lives of other people's children. We have put power into the hands of evil people. And we have done that through disregard, laziness, and simply not caring about our governments and the things they do in OUR names. We have allowed organizations within our governments to corrupt the fabric of our nations, and we have made it possible to accept great lies because we pretend we can do nothing to change the course of our futures. There has developed over the past fifty years a serious sickness in capitols of this world. A sickness so perverse that we no longer recognize it as such.

When world leaders get angry, and citizens get carried away with nationalistic emotions--emotions engineered and coerced and manipulated by fabrications in the press, and by television clips meant to have us react in anger and rage--we fall far short in the effort to reach a destiny that is so far beyond these differences that are NOT between men and women, but are instead between the desires of leaders to control the resources and people of this planet, Earth.

Until we treat world leaders as the pariahs they are, and multi-nationals as the bloodsuckers they are, and until we treat all humanity as our brethren and subsequently worthy of our assistance and love, until then, we will willingly buy into that old lie, "Dulse et decorum est pro patria mori."

I no longer believe a single damned thing any government official says. Period. Nor do I believe news broadcasters who spend time getting their hair done while they should be digesting the reports they are about to deliver. What kind of people have we become, and what kind of people are we perceived to be by corporations, when we need our opinions formed for us by television sets? Just what the hell have we become when we so easily send our children to kill other people's children in the name of whatever 'ism' seems like it will sell, will exonerate us of our guilt, our complicity? And what kind of people have we become when the obvious solution--the incarceration of all world leaders--is an idea so much beyond our imaginations that we dare not even think of it?

Indeed, the greatest trick the Devil ever did was convincing us that he doesn't exist. We shall pay a tremendous price for our collective corruption. The innocent will pay as dearly as the guilty, for we are none of us beyond ownership of the seeds of hatred that have been sown in our names.

Now, I am going to go bitch at Little Hawk for not getting his goat to me, because I too feel as deeply and darkly as many of my peers. Esmerelda, where the hell are you?

Subject: RE: BS: An interesting Steinbeck comment!
From: Deckman
Date: 08 May 04 - 08:46 PM

I've just returned from a two day trip. When I posted this thread, I suspected that Steinbeck would generate some good thoughts and good comments. I'm going to make a HUGE leap in subject here, but I will make it pertinent to this subject:

I was visitng a person I've known for years. Like many of us, we all have light and dark sides to ourselves and our actions. I knew something of this person's dark sides, but this weekend, I learned far more than I ever wanted to know. Many "bubbles" were burst, if you will. As this person told me details of past events, I realized, again, that I can no longer bury my head in the sand about several prominant persons I've known for years. Some of these persons are/were well known politions.

My point is this: I can NO LONGER afford the luxury of believing what I read in the press, or the public image. (I told you I would try to make this pertinent to this thread).

It's clear to me that this sham war in Iraq is finally starting to unravel. As an American citizen, I sick and tired of being manipulated. I'm tired of it ... I MEAN I'M TIRED OF IT!!!! Bob

Subject: RE: BS: An interesting Steinbeck comment!
From: Bobert
Date: 08 May 04 - 08:46 PM

Ditto on what brucie just said....

Saves a lot ot retypin'...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: An interesting Steinbeck comment!
From: Amos
Date: 08 May 04 - 08:56 PM

I wrote somewhere recently that it seemed the stormy threads of some kind of revolution were in the offing. The anger I was speaking form has just been roundly echoed by Deckman and brucie.

Maybe it is time for a serious bout of surgery on the body politic, cutting away all the channels of devious evasion and all the cancer of intentional falsification, and letting some sunlight and fresh air blow thorugh the weary ribs...


A

Subject: RE: BS: An interesting Steinbeck comment!
From: Deckman
Date: 08 May 04 - 09:03 PM

AMOS ... my gosh ... you're a poet! CHEERS, Bob

Subject: RE: BS: An interesting Steinbeck comment!
From: Amos
Date: 08 May 04 - 09:13 PM

Thanks, Bob!! I guess revolutions have to take what they can get!   :>)


A

Subject: RE: BS: An interesting Steinbeck comment!
From: Peace
Date: 08 May 04 - 09:48 PM

Very nice, Amos, very.

"Maybe it is time for a serious bout of surgery on the body politic, cutting away all the channels of devious evasion and all the cancer of intentional falsification, and letting some sunlight and fresh air blow thorugh the weary ribs..."

Subject: RE: BS: An interesting Steinbeck comment!
From: Peace
Date: 09 May 04 - 07:51 PM

Is this then "The Winter of our Discontent" or "The Grapes of Wrath"?

Subject: RE: BS: An interesting Steinbeck comment!
From: Peace
Date: 09 May 04 - 07:54 PM

Twenty years ago I took one of Steinbeck's books and examined about fifty pages to see the 'length' of words he used. There were not all that many that went to four syllables. He and Churchill could do wonders with the basic language. That always impressed me.

Subject: RE: BS: An interesting Steinbeck comment!
From: Amos
Date: 09 May 04 - 08:02 PM

Right on, brucie -=- he was a master of the ordinary noun made brilliant and the most sensitive insight rendered clear by plain language. I often shake my head in awe reading his lines.

A

Subject: RE: BS: An interesting Steinbeck comment!
From: Deckman
Date: 09 May 04 - 08:46 PM

As I am a fan of Steinbeck, I also revere Robinson Jeffers, the Big Sur Poet. They were almost neighbors and knew each other. If you want to read power in words, read Jeffers "Hurt Hawks." Bob