Who do we shoot? Or, Brother can you spare a gun?

Daddy comments on yesterday's post:

Times haven't really changed that much; Amelia just added anger to the song's desperation.  Here's a transcript of that famous scene from The Grapes of Wrath I mentioned at dinner:

In the first of two flashbacks that emphasize the wide gap between the rich and poor classes and the failure of the tenant system, Muley remembers how he, one of the dispossessed, was driven off the land by the Shawnee Land and Cattle Company. The coming of mechanized farming, combined with severe weather conditions, caused landlords to notify homes of possession and force hundreds of tenant farmer families off their lands. An agent (Adrian Morris) of the impersonal company, seated in his automobile, speaks to Muley as he stands and learns with his family that they must leave their homeland. Unconvincingly, Muley learns that there's no-one to blame--not even the bureaucratic companies, banks, and their powerless officers. As the flashback concludes, the half-mad ("touched"), lost Muley speaks movingly, eloquently and poignantly about what the land means to him and his family:

Agent: The fact of the matter, Muley, after what them dusters done to the land, the tenant system don't work no more. You don't even break even, much less show a profit. Why, one man and a tractor can handle twelve or fourteen of these places. You just pay him a wage and take all the crop.

Muley: Yeah, but uh, we couldn't do on any less than what our share is now. Why, the children ain't gettin' enough to eat as it is, and they're so ragged. We'd be ashamed if everybody else's children wasn't the same way.

Agent: I can't help that. All I know is, I got my orders. They told me to tell you to get off, and that's what I'm tellin' ya.

Muley: You mean get off of my own land?

Agent: Now don't go to blamin' me! It ain't my fault.

Muley's son (Hollis Jewell): Who's fault is it?

Agent: You know who owns the land. The Shawnee Land and Cattle Company.

Muley: And who's the Shawnee Land and Cattle Company?

Agent: It ain't nobody. It's a company.

Muley's son: They got a President, ain't they? They got somebody who knows what a shotgun's for, ain't they?

Agent: Oh son, it ain't his fault, because the bank tells him what to do.

Muley's son: All right, where's the bank?

Agent: Tulsa. What's the use of pickin' on him? He ain't nothin' but the manager. And he's half-crazy hisself tryin' to keep up with his orders from the East.

Muley: Then who do we shoot?

Agent: Brother, I don't know. If I did, I'd tell ya. I just don't know who's to blame.

Comments

[Robin Edgar]

In my experience U*Us shoot the messenger. . .