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RE’s Daily Rant-2/28/2011

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Posted on 28th February 2011 by Reverse Engineer in Economy |Social Issues

california, Dustbowl, Great Depression, Migrant Workers, Okies, starvation, Steinbeck

Starvation Under the Orange Trees
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Rant Lite Today’s rant looks in greater depth at John Steinbeck’s essay “Starvation Under the Orange Trees”.				Quote of the Day Revelation 6:8 And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.

A Tale of Two Depressions As the Great Depression progressed onward, the early collapse in RE prices made many Banks insolvent, which then precipitated the Stock Market Crash of 1929.		4 Amish Children Dead Climate issues in Kentucky causing Die Off among the Amish		Affordable Housing Can $200 Houses resolve the Mortgage Fiasco?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yer4L1Uhayc&feature=related

Looked for a while like RE was down for the count, suffering repeated tag team pummeling by Admin and the TBP Stooges on the question of actual STARVATION during the Great Depression.  The enemy camp contended that nobody really Starved to Death in the FSofA during that time, which I knew for a FACT was not true.  To prove this fact beyond a reasonable doubt, all I had to do was Resurrect the Ghost of John Steinbeck, who was THERE and who wrote about it.  Not just in his fictionalized Grapes of Wrath novel, but also as a Journalist writing non-fiction articles about what went on in the migrant Ag labor camps in California during the time period. I think I can say reasonably that the Ghost of Steinbeck has restored my credibility here, if it ever was really lost in anything but the bullshit ramblings of the Stooge Tag Team. Unless of course you think John Steinbeck was lying.

 Here for refresher from the Comments section of yesterday’s Daily Rant is Steinbeck’s “Starvation Under the Orange Trees” article, published April 15^th, 1938, which now ironically is Income Tax Filing day.  Coincidence?  Perhaps, perhaps not.

Starvation Under the Orange Trees

By John Steinbeck

 

“Starvation Under the Orange Trees” was originally published in the Monterey Trader, April 15, 1938. In that year the Simon J. Lubin Society published it in pamphlet form as the eight chapter of Their Blood is Strong.

The Spring is rich and green in California this year. In the fields the wild grass is ten inches high, and in the orchards and vineyards the grass is deep and nearly ready to be plowed under to enrich the soil. Already the flowers are starting to bloom. Very shortly one of the oil companies will be broadcasting the locations of the wild-flower masses. It is a beautiful spring.

There has been no war in California, no plague, no bombing of open towns and roads, no shelling of cities. It is a beautiful year. And thousands of families are starving in California. In the county seats the coroners are filling in “malnutrition” in the spaces left for “causes of death.” For some reason, a coroner shrinks from writing “starvation” when a thin child is dead in a tent.

For it’s in the tents you see along the roads and in the shacks built from dump heap material that the hunger is, and it isn’t malnutrition. It is starvation. Malnutrition means you go without certain food essentials and take a long time to die, but starvation means no food at all. The green grass spreading right into the tent doorways and the orange trees are loaded. In the cotton fields, a few wisps of the old crop cling to the black stems. But the people who picked the cotton, and cut the peaches and apricots, who crawled all day in the rows of lettuce and beans are hungry. The men who harvested the crops of California, the women and girls who stood all day and half the night in the canneries, are starving.

It was so two years ago in Nipomo, it is so now, it will continue to be so until the rich produce of California can be grown and harvested on some other basis than that of stupidity and greed.

What is to be done about it? The Federal Government is trying to feed and give direct relief, but it is difficult to do quickly for there are forms to fill out, questions to ask, for fear someone who isn’t actually starving may get something. The state relief organizations are trying to send those who haven’t been in the state for a year back to the states they came from. The Associated Farmers, which presumes to speak for the farms of California and which is made up of such earth stained toilers as chain banks, public utilities, railroad companies and those huge corporations called land companies, this financial organization in the face of the crisis is conducting Americanism meetings and bawling about reds and foreign agitators. It has been invariably true in the past that when such a close knit financial group as the Associated Farmers becomes excited about our ancient liberties and foreign agitators, some one is about to lose something.

A wage cut has invariably followed such a campaign of pure Americanism. And of course any resentment of such a wage cut is set down as the work of foreign agitators. Anyway that is the Associated Farmers contribution to the hunger of the men and women who harvest their crops.

The small farmers, who do not belong to the Associated Farmers and cannot make the use of the slop chest, are helpless to do anything about it. The little store keepers at cross roads and in small towns have carried the accounts of the working people until they are near to bankruptcy.

And there are one thousand families in Tulare County, and two thousand families in Kings, fifteen hundred families in Kern, and so on. The families average three persons, by the way. With the exception of a little pea picking, there isn’t going to be any work for nearly three months.

There is sickness in the tents, pneumonia and measles, tuberculosis. Measles in a tent, with no way to protect the eyes, means a child with weakened eyes for life. And there are varied diseases attributable to hunger, rickets and the beginning of pellagra.

The nurses in the county, and there aren’t one-tenth enough of them, are working their heads off, doing a magnificent job and they can only begin to do the work. The corps includes nurses assigned by the federal and state public health services, school nurses and county health nurses, and a few nurses furnished by the Council of Women for Home Missions, a national church organization. I’ve seen them, red-eyed, weary from far too many hours, and seeming to make no impression in the illness about them.

It may be of interest to reiterate the reasons why these people are in the state and the reason they must go hungry. They are here because we need them. Before the white American migrants were here, it was the custom in California to import great numbers of Mexicans, Filipinos, Japanese, to keep them segregated, to herd them about like animals, and, if there were any complaints, to deport or to imprison the leaders. This system of labor was a dream of heaven to such employers as those who now fear foreign agitators so much.

But then the dust and the tractors began displacing the sharecroppers of Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas and Arkansas. Families who had lived for many years on the little “cropper lands” were dispossessed because the land was in the hands of the banks and finance companies, and because these owners found that one man with a tractor could do the work of ten sharecropper families.

Faced with the question of starving or moving, these dispossessed families came west. To a certain extent they were actuated by advertisements and hand bills distributed by labor contractors from California. It is to the advantage of the corporate farmer to have too much labor, for then wages can be cut. Then people who are hungry will fight each other for a job rather than the employer for a living wage.

It is possible to make money for food and gasoline for at least nine months of the year if you are quick on the get away, if your wife and children work in the fields. But then the dead three months strikes, and what can you do then? The migrant cannot save anything. It takes everything he can make to feed his family and buy gasoline to go to the next job. If you don’t believe this, go out in the cotton fields next year. Work all day and see if you have made thirty-five cents. A good picker makes more, of course, but you can’t.

The method of concentrating labor for one of the great crops is this. Handbills are distributed, advertisements are printed. You’ve seen them. Cotton pickers wanted in Bakersfield or Fresno or Imperial Valley. Then all the available migrants rush to the scene. They arrive with no money and little food. The reserve has been spent getting there.

If wages happen to drop a little, they must take them any way. The moment the crop is picked, the locals begin to try to get rid of the people who have harvested their crops. They want to run them out, move them on.

The county hospitals are closed to them. They are not eligible to relief. You must be eligible to eat. That particular locality is through with them until another crop comes in.

It will be remembered that two years ago some so-called agitators were tarred and feathered. The population of migrants left the locality just as the hops were ripe. Then the howling of the locals was terrible to hear. They even tried to get the army and the CCC ordered to pick their crops.

About the fifteenth of January the dead time sets in. There is no work. First the gasoline gives out. And without gasoline a man cannot go to a job even if he could get one. Then the food goes. And then in the rains, with insufficient food, the children develop colds because the ground in the tents is wet.

I talked to a man last week who lost two children in ten days with pneumonia. His face was hard and fierce and he didn’t talk much.

I talked to a girl with a baby and offered her a cigaret. She took two puffs and vomited in the street. She was ashamed. She shouldn’t have tried to smoke, she said, for she hadn’t eaten for two days.

I heard a man whimpering that the baby was sucking but nothing came out of the breast. I heard a man explain very shyly that his little girl couldn’t go to school because she was too weak to walk to school and besides the school lunches of the other children made her unhappy.

I heard a man tell in a monotone how he couldn’t get a doctor while his oldest boy died of pneumonia but that a doctor came right away after it was dead. It is easy to get a doctor to look at a corpse, not so easy to get one for a live person. It is easy to get a body buried. A truck comes right out and takes it away. The state is much more interested in how you die than in how you live. The man who was telling about it had just found that out. He didn’t want to believe it.

Next year the hunger will come again and the year after that and so on until we come out of this coma and realize that our agriculture for all its great produce is a failure.

If you buy a farm horse and only feed him when you work him, the horse will die. No one complains of the necessity of feeding the horse when he is not working. But we complain about feeding the men and women who work our lands. Is it possible that this state is so stupid, so vicious and so greedy that it cannot feed and clothe the men and women who help to make it the richest area in the world? Must the hunger become anger and the anger fury before anything will be done?
Monterey Trader, April 15, 1938 

I first read this essay long ago, even before my college years at Columbia in my Journalism class at Stuyvesant High School, a highly selective Public Magnet School in NY Shity, in that class under the tutelage of Frank McCourt (of “Angela’s Ashes” fame), but I knew it was out there for anyone to Google up.  To make Stuyvesant, you had to out-perform the kids who went to the Bronx High School of Science or Brooklyn Technical School, the other two magnet schools for science and math prodigies. The other schools in this system at the time were the High School for the Performing Arts (the FAME school), and the HS for Art & Design. On a Science and Math level,  Stuyvesant was the Top of the Top of Public Schools ANYWHERE in the FSofA from the 1920s right up until today actually. To get in you had to best every Jewish and Chinese and Indian immigrant child on the entry test, which was the sole means of being selected for the school.  NOTHING else mattered but how you did on that test, the Rite of Passage into Stuyvesant.  Make the grade, you got the best education available on the Public Dime, better in fact than the education available at Prep Schools like Andover and Choate. ALL Smart Kids there, not dimwitted Illuminati Spawn like George Bush who only got into good Prep Schools because of Daddy’s Dollars. It was damn tough to get into Stuyvesant, money could not get you there only your intelligence did, and that was one motherfucking HARD test, let me tell you. Had to be, to separate the relatively smart from the outrageously smart of course. I am one very SMART individual indeed, I know it, a virtually ENDLESS parade of psychologists told me so and tested the living SHIT out of me for 3 years of my childhood from age 9 to 12 to prove it and I am not afraid to say so either any longer regardless of how BRAGGING about it comes off here. You simply have no IDEA how many hours I spent with the psychs testing my intellect over those years, I was a fucking lab rat for them. You wonder WHY I get pissed off when I get confronted with positively STUPID arguments?  You wonder why I am so goddamn PSYCHO?  THIS is the reason for it. This is No Brag, Just FACT, as Will Sonnet said.  It IS who I AM. Later in my life I designed Tests for The Princeton Review, I know how this is done and I do it to this day in my classroom. It’s not hard at all to evaluate relative intelligence within a given body of knowledge at expected grade levels in a society. Of course, what experience you have coming into such tests plays a very big part in how you do on them, regardless of your native intelligence. Almost impossible to design a test that is independent of prior cultural learning, which is why generally IQ tests are not very valid.  As mentioned in some other articles of mine, I took plenty of them also, so I know wherefrom I speak here on this subject.  It is subject for another rant however,  I will not belabor the point further here in this rant.

Frank McCourt was one of the greatest Teachers I ever had, and in “Angela’s Ashes” he evoked the true existence of the Irish Poor. I am soooo glad Frank wrote that novel before he died, he told all these stories to us many times in that classroom.  I have read a LOT of stuff in 53 years walking the earth since those days in the ancient and decaying Public School of Stuyvesant,situated between 15^th and 16^th Street east of Union Square in NY Shity I attended from 1972-1974 listening to Frank’s stories, and I forget very little of it. Do NOT underestimate my ability to dredge it all up from the jumbled attic of my mind as needs be here. If you know nothing of Stuyvesant HS, I suggest you Google it up.  More Westinghouse winners then even Phillips Exeter or Andover or Choate. My good friend Eric Lander (our last names came sequentially in alphabetical order so he was always right in front of me in many classes.  Outrageous GENIUS that dude was and is) in fact went on to win the Westinghouse, and then to head up the Whitehead Institute at MIT where much of the Human Genome project was elucidated.  Even more than Columbia, this is where I got the kind of education I can use now as I argue on the pages of TBP. Now what is in the Card Catalogue of my mind is available to access through Google.  All to the good there, it is a powerful weapon to have at your disposal in an debate.

Folks, even if you did not go past reading Steinbeck’s fictionalized account of the Joad family in The Grapes of Wrath, you simply had to know from reading it that the plight of the migrant Okies was indeed quite severe through the period of the Great Depression.  Admin has himself used The Grapes of Wrath as a jumping off point for some of his Feature Articles, yet through this thread he denies the implications of that novel.  Had he read “Starvation Under the Orange Trees”, perhaps he would not have been so quick to dismiss my contention that people here in the FSofA really DID starve to death during the Great Depression. We all make mistakes though, it just depends how brave you are to ADMIT when you were in error.  Will JimQ ADMIT his error?  I doubt it, but ya never know.

You can see also in “Starvation Under the Orange Trees” how this dovetails with my prior Rants on the subject of Unionization.  The great FEAR of the Landowners and Corporate Ag was that the Okies would Organize, as Steinbeck wrote.  There were endless waves of impoverished migrants coming into California from the Midwest, replaceable labor each year whether they starved or not in the Winter months.  Steinbeck writes that this scene repeated itself each year, and wonders at the end of the article when “must the hunger become anger and the anger fury”?  It did become FURY in the pockets where this occurred, but for the most part the news of it was suppressed by the corporate owned MSM of the day, and little besides John Steinbeck’s accounts survive the censorship to this day.  Steinbeck of course was vilified as a Communist Sympathizer in the post-WWII years, which actually turns out to be a good thing from the historical record POV because it is WHY his works survive to be Googled up.  Thank God also that Steinbeck’s letters to his friends also have for the most part survived.

How MANY actually died this way?  Really I have no concrete ability to say, but I am sure it was a significant number.  The Great Depression was an economic dislocation of the First Order, and considering the environmental catastrophe of the Dust Bowl at the same time, there is no reason to suspect we did all that much better over here than they did over in Europe during this time period.  Boris Badanoff  the Ruskie Historian thinks the numbers were similar here as in Europe, perhaps he is right and perhaps wrong, but its just not that important on a moral and ethical level what the absolute numbers really were.  We will never really know the answer to that question.  Really though, almost any number of people dieing this way is quite unacceptable if there really is plenty to go round, and there most certainly was even in the worst years of the Great Depression.  It just had real distribution problems because the monetary system had failed.

After WWII, the Migrant Workers of Okies were replaced by impoverished Mexicans crossing the border.  Again for the most part their plight was ignored, but they DID eventually succeed in Organizing under Cesar Chavez.  This for a while along with the burgeoning economic Bubble that was California from the 60s through to the 90s made the lives of these people somewhat more livable, although of course there was still significant exploitation of illegal immigrants through the time period by Corporate Ag.

As we proceed into the future of our current Economic Collapse, the same sort of shit is likely to recur here.  There will once again be waves of economic refugees descending on what few locations have any sort of work at all, and without Unions and Organization, such labor is easy to exploit, and it will be so exploited.  You can rail all you like over the corruption systemic in Unions, but the fact of the matter is it is the only way the individual laborer can protect himself from being exploited. In the time of Plenty this might not seem so necessary, but in a time of Deprivation, it is essential Protection.  Individuals MUST Tribe Up for protection, just like a herd of Wildebeasts must do so to protect from the Predatory Lions surrounding the Herd.  In this case, the Predatory Lions are the Capitalist or Feudalist Landowners who will use the legal machinery of the State to define their Ownership rights, and the power of the State Military and Police forces to enforce those rights.  Without Unions, the individual Sheeple are easy pick’ins.

Now, on the question of the Root of All Evil and my contention Biblical Evil did not exist prior to the advent of Agriculture, the point was made that most certainly there was plenty of Violence and Warfare prior to Agriculture.  I do not dispute that point at all.  This however conflates the concept of Evil with Violence and Warfare, and they are not precisely the same thing.  Both Violence and Warfare can have either Good or Evil motivations attached even in the context of Ag society, but of course that context was different in H-G society.

In Ag societies, all the distribution of the food produced by the society is accomplished through the monetary system.  Because of that, it is possible and even quite likely that in times of Plenty the Poor will Starve while the Rich Eat Cake.  Also quite possible is that impoverished poor people will be conscripted up to fight wars of aggression against other similarly constructed societies.  This is EVIL, because in fact none of it is necessary, it is an artifact of the monetary distribution of wealth in BOTH the competing societies.

In H-G societies which undertake Warfare, it is in fact generally NECESSARY to do so.  The absolute SURVIVAL of the Tribe is hanging in the balance.  Its not about how resources are distributed within the tribe, but how resources are accessed between tribes. As I see it, it is NOT Evil to undertake warfare and violence when your own survival is at stake and the resources are not there to support everyone.  This is just Darwinian survival in practice amongst Homo Sapiens.  It only becomes Evil when in fact there ARE enough resources for everyone, just some folks Hoard up resources at the expense of others.  Call this claiming portions of the Earth as Private Property.

I do not believe in the concept of Private Property with respect to the resources of the Earth.  These are all God’s Gift to ALL of mankind, and mankind as a herding animal can collectively establish grazing grounds, but the minute INDIVIDUALS in the society exert Property Rights over the grazing grounds is the minute you run into the problem of Evil. We can exist only as a COMMUNITY of people, not as Individuals. It is a fallacy to seek Freedom outside of the Community as an individual.  It generally cannot be accomplished, really only if you are a Jeremiah Johnson Mountain Man can this be accomplished, and even THEN your life gets impacted on by others of your ilk. True Freedom died the day the Polynesian Navigators came upon the Big Island of Hawaii, the LAST place on Earth that no other Homo Sapiens lived upon that had great resources upon which to build a society.  After that, it has all been a fight over these resources between all Homo Sapiens, with the Ag and Industrial cultures winning the day.

Now of course, this time is quite DONE.  We will shrink back, we will REVERSE ENGINEER first back to the time before the thermodynamic energy of Fossil fuels was accessed in the 1750s with the Steam Engine, and eventually to Stone Age technology. So be it, this does not mean the end of intellect, of the exploration of the universe in any sense but the physical.  Humanity can have a very RICH life of the intellect and philosophy, we do not need Computers to pursue this. It is all in the MIND, God’s real GIFT to Humanity, that of SENTIENCE.  You need nothing more than this besides basic food and shelter, Of course, to our current population of industrialized slaves across the Globe, that is a pretty tough sell. So be it.

RE 

65 Comments

1. 

   Administrator says:

   RE – The master of misinformation and falsehood.

   RE claimed that 7 million Americans died of starvation in 1932-33.

   RE’s contention was demolished as pure and utter bullshit by Admin

   RE then contended that 7 million Americans died of starvation from 1925 – 1940

   RE’s contention was demolished as the rantings of a lunatic by Admin

   RE now contends that some people died of starvation based on an article by John Steinbeck. I read the article and it is truly a tale of woe. It is good that RE is now using legitimate sources for his rantings rather than his friend Boris the Russian historian

   So now RE, in his mind, has won a debate that started when he contended that 7 million Americans died of starvation in the space of two years, when only 2.5 million people in the entire country died of all causes during those two years.

   RE is like a junkyard dog that just keeps coming back for another kick in the gonads. Persistence does not equal intelligence.

   Well-loved. Like or Dislike: 8  3

   28th February 2011 at 4:31 pm

2. 

   Reverse Engineer says:

   RE never claimed that 7 Milion People died in the FSofA, RE reported that such estimations have been made by others. Admin as usual is passing out misinformation and not addressing the main moral questions in the argument, preferring to grasp at straws over precisely how many it was that starved. Admin claimed that NOBODY starved during the Great Depression, and that claim has been proved FALSE beyond a reasonable doubt.

   RE

   Hot debate. What do you think? 5  7

   28th February 2011 at 4:38 pm

3. 

   Administrator says:

   Mr. 7 Million Man now denies that he claimed 7 million Americans died of starvation. Shocking!!!!

   Someone else must have posted the ravings of Boris the Great as proof that it happened. You are a bigger denier than Peter was to Jesus.

   Show me the fucking death certificates that say CAUSE OF DEATH: STARVATION. Beyond a reasonable doubt my ass. I want proof.

   You are a known member of the Columbia University Illuminati that will stop at nothing to spread your misinformation and lies.

   Hot debate. What do you think? 6  2

   28th February 2011 at 4:52 pm

4. 

   Reverse Engineer says:

   What I wrote, PRECISELY, was the following:

   “By some estimates, as many as people died from starvation related problems duriing the Great Depression in the FSofA as died in the Holocaust over in Europe. WHY do you think Tom Joad speaks of his children’s bellies being full in this quote, which you yourself recently used in your Depression post?”

   Do you read the first 3 words there? “BY SOME ESTIMATES”. Not my estimates, some estimates. Please read for comprehension.

   RE

   Hot debate. What do you think? 6  5

   28th February 2011 at 5:02 pm

5. 

   llpoh says:

   Admin says: “RE’s contention was demolished as the rantings of a lunatic by Admin”. Ahem, should have read “Admin, LLPOH, and a host of others”.

   But that one, small quibble aside, you are magnificent in being right.

   Once again, RE tries to hide behind his 10,000 words and contend he said no such thing. Then WHAT THE FUCK WAS THE POINT OF ALL THOSE WORDS?! Mis information is his stock and trade, and the whole reason he writes so many words is to make it impossible for his real message to be so easily discerned.

   Like or Dislike: 5  2

   28th February 2011 at 5:04 pm

6. 

   howard in nyc says:

   keep digging man.

   you begin this latest by lying that “(t)he enemy camp contended that nobody really Starved to Death in the FSofA during that time…”

   ok mr. excellent memory. please produce anywhere in the comments where anyone made this contention. i, with my merely human recall skills, do not remember.

   and that is your first paragraph.

   you continue to be full of shit. your compiling of lies is approaching offensive neighborhood. you are wrong, you are lying, and you are wasting electrons. you’ve wasted three columns attempting and failing miserably to defend a series of small errors (starvation is a current problem; starvation was a huge killer in the depression era) with bigger and bigger lies (i can see how 7 million could’ve died and folks would’ve missed the fact; i never said that!!! you guys said this!!!!)

   what a load of horsecrap.

   at least i am enjoying the steinbeck clips.

   Like or Dislike: 3  2

   28th February 2011 at 5:46 pm

7. 

   howard in nyc says:

   too bad you didn’t pay closer heed to what mccourt was teaching. if you had brought some bullshit like this to him in a paper, he would’ve failed you out of stuyvesant and sent you packing on the seven train back to a normal school.

   oh, sorry, i’m supposed to be impressed because you went to a good high school decades ago, hence i am supposed to lap up all your bullshit now.

   Like or Dislike: 3  2

   28th February 2011 at 5:50 pm

8. 

   bigargon says:

   RE:

   1. the 7 million:
   did people starve during the great depression? no one questions that.
   What is questioned the number Seven million

   2. No evil in pre-ag societies?
   there was plenty of evil. There have been many studies of isolated pre-AG tribes. There was a lot of violence that was beyond mere survival. Much of the violence was ritualistic and often had little to do with the survival of the tribe. many these battles include Wife Stealing, struggles for tribal leadership or supremacy, Elimination of undesirables (such as the killing twins, because they were considered evil), ritualistic Cannibalism, the list could go on.

   John Keagan’s History of Warfare explains this quite well

   Like or Dislike: 3  1

   28th February 2011 at 6:00 pm

9. 

   llpoh says:

   Howard – you are very perceptive.

   Like or Dislike: 2  1

   28th February 2011 at 6:04 pm

10. 

    Reverse Engineer says:

    Some interesting statistics in this piece from the Eleanor Roosevelt Institute. First place I have been able to find Suicide Rates. The incidence according to this article increased from 14 per 100K to 17 per 100K. Also apparently many Hunger marches, which one suspects people do not undertake unless they are in pretty desperate straights.

    RE

    The Great Depression (1929-1939)
    Although the United States had experienced several depressions before the stock market crash on October 27, 1929, none had been as severe nor as long lasting before “Black Thursday” struck Wall Street. At first, economists and leaders thought this was a mild bump, perhaps merely a correction of the market, or in any case, no worse than the recession the nation suffered after World War I.

    Numbers soon proved the optimists incorrect. The depression steadily worsened. By spring of 1933, when FDR took the oath of office, unemployment had risen from 8 to 15 million (roughly 1/3 of the non-farmer workforce) and the gross national product had decreased from $103.8 billion to $55.7 billion. Forty percent of the farms in Mississippi were on the auction block on FDR’s inauguration day. Although the depression was world wide, no other country except Germany reached so high a percentage of unemployed. The poor were hit the hardest. By 1932, Harlem had an unemployment rate of 50 percent and property owned or managed by blacks fell from 30 percent to 5 percent in 1935. Farmers in the Midwest were doubly hit by economic downturns and the Dust Bowl. Schools, with budgets shrinking, shortened both the school day and the school year.

    The breadth and depth of the crisis made it the Great Depression.

    No one knew how best to respond to the crisis. President Hoover believed the dole would do more harm than good and that local governments and private charities should provide relief to the unemployed and homeless. By 1931, some states began to offer aid to local communities. FDR, then governor of New York, worked with Harry Hopkins and Frances Perkins to begin a direct work relief program. This helped only a very few. By 1932, only 1/4 of unemployed families received any relief. In 1932, only 1.5 percent of all government funds were spent on relief and averaged about $1.67 per citizen. Cities, which had to bear the brunt of the relief efforts, teetered on the edge of bankruptcy. By 1932, Cook County (Chicago) was firing firemen, police, and teachers (who had not been paid in 8 months). Breadlines and Hoovervilles (homeless encampments) appeared across the nation.

    Those hurt the most were more stunned than angry. Many sank into despair and shame after they could not find jobs. The suicide rates increased from 14 to 17 per 100,000. Protest that did occur was local, not national: “farm holidays,” neighbors of foreclosed farmers refusing to bid on farms at auction, neighbors moving evicted tenants’ furniture back in, and local hunger marches.

    Resistance to protest often turned violent. In 1932, four members of the Dearborn hunger march were shot and killed when 1,000 soldiers accompanied by tanks and machine guns evicted veterans living in the Bonus Army camp in Washington, D.C.

    FDR, after assuming the presidency, promoted a wide variety of federally funded programs aimed at restoring the American economy, helping relieve the suffering of the unemployed, and reforming the system so that such a severe crisis could never happen again. However, while the New Deal did help restore the GNP to its 1929 level and did introduce basic banking and welfare reforms, FDR refused to run up the deficits that ending the depression required. Only when the federal government imposed rationing, recruited 6 million defense workers (including women and African Americans), drafted 6 million soldiers, and ran massive deficits to fight World War II did the Great Depression finally end.

    ——————————————————————————–

    Like or Dislike: 0  1

    28th February 2011 at 6:46 pm

11. 

    Reverse Engineer says:

    
    RE

    Like or Dislike: 0  1

    28th February 2011 at 6:52 pm

12. 

    Reverse Engineer says:

    For the Pictures that go with this chronicling of the Hunger Marches visit the website at:
    http://www.progressivehistorians.com/2008/02/hunger-on-march.html
    Note this line:
    “Unlike the slow starvation by the poor in their homes, the media couldn’t ignore starving veterans getting rode down by calvary within sight of the Capitol building.”

    RE
    ——–
    “We march on starvation, we march against death,
    we’re ragged, we’ve nothing but body and breath;
    From north and from south, from east and from west
    the army of hunger is marching.”
    - Hunger Marcher’s song, 1932

    “If a modern state is to rest upon a firm foundation its citizens must not be allowed to starve. Some of them do. They do not die quickly. You can starve for a long time without dying.”
    - leader of Children’s Bureau of Philadelphia, 1931

    The first reported food riot of the Great Depression happened January 3, 1931, in England, Arkansas.
    H. C. Coney, a tenant farmer from Lonoke County, was visited by a neighbor who was distressed because she was unable to feed her children. He decided that he must do something, so he loaded his truck with several other neighbors and headed to England to demand food from the Red Cross. Though the original group of men consisted of approximately fifty farmers, some armed, reports state that anywhere from 300 to 500 came together once in the city proper. The Red Cross, which lacked the forms necessary for people to apply for aid, took the brunt of their anger for the promised food never given to those in need. The merchants, either out of fear of what the mob was capable of or out of the kindness of their hearts, offered food to the people that day
    There was no violence that day, so calling it a riot may not have been the best description.
    However, it remains significant for one reason – it was the first, and last, food riot that the national media reported.

    “Our children are crying for food and we are going to get it. We are not going to let our children starve.”
    - parent at England, Arkansas

    The first real food riots in the Great Depression broke out in February 1931.
    In Minneapolis, several hundred men and women smashed the windows of a grocery market and made off with fruit, canned goods, bacon, and ham. One of the store’s owners pulled out a gun to stop the looters, but was leapt upon and had his arm broken. The “riot” was brought under control by 100 policemen. Seven people were arrested.
    “Who has the most children here?”
    - Minneapolis food rioter asked before handing out stolen bacon

    Food riots broke out in San Francisco, Oklahoma City, St. Paul, Van Dyke, and many other cities. But I dare you to find any mention of them in the New York Times.

    Meanwhile, millions of pounds of perfectly good food was being left to rot in the fields because there was no market for it. the hungry couldn’t afford to pay for the food. It appeared that capitalism was breaking down.

    It’s become popular lore amongst Republicans these days that FDR’s New Deal was largely responsible for the Great Depression. I have to wonder if those same Republicans would have voiced the opinion that federal work and food programs were bad while standing in front of hundreds of parents of starving children.

    “There is no poverty in America.”
    - Dr. Ray Lyman Wilbur, Secretary of the Interior, 1931

    As the Depression deepened and starvation spread across the country, the media reported it less and less.
    Thousands of unemployed workers looted food stores (afraid of their contagious effect, the press usually did not report food riots); indeed, Irving Bernstein reports, “By 1932 organized looting of food stores was a nationwide phenomenon.”
    As far as the media was concerned, the poor in America were starving to death in silence.
    But this was still America, and some people were determined to bring attention to the plight of the homeless and hungry no matter what the cost.

    The First Hunger March

    Empty is the cupboard,
    no pillow for the head,
    we are the hunger children
    who cry for milk and bread.
    We are the hunger children
    who cry for milk and bread.
    We are the worker’s children
    who must, who must be fed.

    - song that was sang by children
    at the gates of the White House, Thanksgiving Day, 1932, shortly before they were arrested

    I’m spending my nights at the flophouse
    I’m spending my days on the street
    I’m looking for work and I find none
    I wish I had something to eat

    - the popular ‘Soup Song’ sung to the tune of ‘My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean’

    Local hunger marches started on April 1, 1931, when a large group of unemployed forced their way into the Maryland state legislature to demand relief.
    Later that month 3,000 turned out in Columbus, Ohio. In May 15,000 unemployed marched on Lansing, Michigan. By the end of summer there had been 40 hunger marches in states all over the country.
    Despite this growing movement, it was business as usual in Washington. A few of the more bold Democrats proposed modest relief packages which Hoover immediately vetoed. It required someone outside of the two parties to take this movement to the next level, and that someone was Herbert Benjamin.

    Herbert Benjamin was an unapologetic communist until his dying day. A few months before he had returned from Moscow where he had received training on organizing the unemployed.
    Unlike Coxey’s Army in 1894, this hunger strike would have 1,670 “delegates” rather than being a ragtag group. Columns of unemployed represented by all races would leave from Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, and St. Louis, and all arrive on December 6. Marches from the west coast would leave earlier and meet up in either Chicago or St. Louis.
    Each delegate wore an armband that said “National Hunger March, December 7, 1931″, which was the day that Congress would open for a new session. There were ten marchers to a truck as well as a smaller car that would run ahead looking for hostile crowds and/or police. While the media and local governments were extremely hostile to the marchers (Mayor Mackey of Philadelphia advised them to “pass by” his city. Hartford closed its streets to them), the public often turned out in large numbers to cheer them on and protect them from the local police. The marches were given $40 for all expenses, but frequently local communities would furnish them food and medical care free of charge, or at cost.

    All of the columns reached Washington D.C. on December 6, as scheduled. Both the Hoover Administration and the media was in an uproar.
    Three days later, however, 14 persons appeared outside the White House as “hunger marchers.” In a cold drizzle they unfurled their banners (“Mr. Hoover, We Demand Food & Lodging,” “Mr. Hoover You Have Money for the Entertainment of the Fascist Assassin Grandi.”). Promptly the police pounced on them, arrested all 14 for parading without a permit.
    [...]
    Next day the U. S. Secret Service paid Leader Benjamin the compliment of taking his “hunger march” seriously and thus helping to publicize it throughout the land. Chief Moran declared that his sleuths had learned the march was really a Communist demonstration on a large scale. “Marchers” from all parts of the country would be brought to Washington in 1,144 trucks, 92 automobiles. They would be lodged and fed along the way. They would have medical attention. They would defend themselves with stones. They would be organized in military fashion. They would petition the President and Congress for relief for the jobless. They would make trouble. Only one thing in their plans did Chief Moran fail to ascertain and that was where the money was coming from to finance such a large undertaking. As usual, Moscow was publicly suspected.
    “The marchers were of several races, mostly whites and negroes, but among them were several scores of yellow men from various climes. Many women appeared in the column.”
    - Daily Mirror

    1,000 police showed up for the march, as well as 1,000 Marines, and an unknown number of secret service. Another 500 police were in the Capitol. Police were armed with shotguns and machine guns.
    Vice-President Curtis sent out word that no marchers could enter the Capitol grounds carrying placards that were critical of the president. [Hmmm. Doesn't that sound a little familiar?]
    Congress refused to let them speak in the Capitol. Neither Democrat nor Republican heard their demands. In response the demonstrators sang the “Internationale”. President Hoover also refused to see them. According to the Washington Herald, the marches who were arrested were beaten.
    The march then went to the AFL Headquarters to meet with President William Green, who promptly berated the marchers.

    The first hunger march was over and the marchers left Washington. However, it had forced the media to actually report on the hunger problem in America, something it was loath to do. It also pushed Congress to propose relief legislation, which the Hoover Administration promptly defeated.

    “As I expected it was an orderly as well as an impressive demonstration.”
    - 77-year old Mayor Jacob Coxey

    A grassroots movement grows

    Father James R. Cox was known as Mayor of Shantytown in Pittsburgh because he was so active in helping the homeless.
    The first hunger marchers had scarcely left Washington before Father Cox started his own Hunger March. Dubbed “Cox’s Army”, it started on January 6, 1932 at 12,000 in size, but grew to 25,000 by the time it reached Washington.
    Father Cox hated communists and felt the need to reclaim the pressing issue of homelessness and hunger in America from the communists. In fact, Cox’s march was funded by store owners in the Pittsburgh area.
    President Hoover personally met with Father Cox and heard his proposals, which were then ignored after the photo-op was over.

    In March 7, 1932, about 4,000 unemployed factory workers marched on the Ford Motor Company in Detroit. They were looking either to get their old jobs back, or unemployment insurance.
    They marched from Detroit to the River Rouge plant. Their signs read, “We Want Bread Not Crumbs,” “Tax the Rich, Feed the Poor,” “Free the Scottsboro Boys,” and “Stop Jim Crow.” At the Dearborn line, the crowd was told to disperse. None of the marchers was armed, but teargas and fire hoses were used on the crowd. Finally, the order to shoot was given – scores were wounded. Killed outright were Joe York, Joe DeBlasio, Coleman Leny, and Joe Bussell.
    The order to shoot was given by private thugs hired by Ford, who was violently anti-union at the time. Firemen hosed them with icy water in the sub-freezing temperatures.
    About 60 men were wounded, mostly in the back as they ran. One later died. The police blamed communists for the violence and sought to arrest Communist leader William Z. Foster, as well as starting a crackdown on leftist organizations.

    The Unemployed Council decided to hold a public funeral, and between 30,000 and 70,000 people turned out for what was later called the Ford Hunger March. The Detroit police wisely decided not to make a show of force that day.
    A massive crowd, tens of thousands strong, took over the broad main street. Detroit police decided it was better to disappear. For several miles, through the downtown area, stopping all traffic and all business, the crowd escorted the victims to their graves. Nothing like this had ever been seen in Detroit.
    [note: there was a Ford Hunger March reunion in Detroit during the deep recession of 1982, which also got little media coverage]

    Anacostia Flats

    All of you there
    All of you there
    Pay the bonus, pay the bonus
    For the Yanks are starving,
    The Yanks are starving everywhere
    - sung by Bonus Marchers to the tune of “The Yanks are coming”

    They’ll red-cross all the sick and maimed,
    They’ll wooden-cross all those who fall,
    They’ll iron-cross the hero guys,
    and double-cross us all.
    - also sung by the Bonus Marchers

    After WWI the veterans were given IOUs that would pay them on average of $1,000. The veteran organizations lobbied for an upwards adjustment, which Congress approved several times. Each time it was vetoed by first President Harding, and then President Coolidge. Finally Congress over-rode the presidential veto in 1924, and the veterans were to get a bonus – in 1945.
    As the Depression deepened, many popular figures began pressing for early payment of the bonus. They included retired Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler. The only political party that supported early payment was the communist party.
    The leftist, Worker’s Ex-Servicemen’s League proposed that veterans should come to Washington to lobby for the bonus. It was only a proposal and there was no coordination involved. Nevertheless, on March 10, a few days after the WESL proposal, 300 veterans started for Washington from Portland, led by Walter Waters, a former Army sargent. Waters followers rode boxcars, hobo fashion, and somehow managed to spread the word of this march on Washington despite minimal press coverage.

    When the veterans and their families began arriving in Washington they faced all sorts of petty harassment. For example, the water sprinklers on the Capitol grounds were left running around the clock so the veterans could not sleep on the grass. They occupied parks and a row of condemned buildings along Pennsylvania Avenue, between the White House and the Capitol. When those sites overflowed the Bonus Army camped in a Hooverville on the Anacostia Flats, a swampy area across the Anacostia River.
    When it became clear that large numbers of veterans were actually going to stay, Hoover offered to buy them off with temporary housing for 6,000. However, the number of veterans arriving exceeded 15,000. Hoover refused to meet with the leaders of the Bonus Army throughout.
    In a cynical political ploy, the House passed a bill awarding the bonus to the veterans with the intention of killing the bill in the Senate. On the day of the vote in the Senate the Anacostia Bridge was raised just as the veterans were about to cross it. Two other nearby bridges were also blocked. By the time that bridge was lowered the Senate had already defeated the bill.

    Waters and the bonus army refused to leave Washington (they had nowhere to go) and that made the Hoover Administration nervous. As the long, hot months crawled by, tensions escalated.
    On July 28th there was a confrontation. The government wanted to tear down the shantytown to build office buildings. Words were exchanged and some veterans threw rocks and bricks. The police responded by shooting one veteran to death. Quick to respond with force, the army was called in.

    “You will have United States troops proceed immediately to the scene of the disorder. Surround the affected area and clear it without delay.”
    - Hoover’s orders to MacArthur
    Army Chief of Staff and Major General Douglas MacArthur watched a brigade of steel-helmeted soldiers precisely align themselves in a straight four-column phalanx, bayonets affixed to rifles. He nodded his head in satisfaction. Discipline was wonderful. Up ahead, Major George Patton kicked his heels against his mount, and the big horse reared forward to signal a line of cavalry. The riders drew their sabers, and the animals stepped out in unison, hoofs smacking loudly on the street. Five Renault tanks lurched behind. Seven-ton relics from World War I and presumably just for show, the old machines nonetheless left little doubt as to the seriousness of the moment. On cue, at about 4:30 p.m. on July 28, 1932, the infantry began a slow, steady march forward. Completing the surreal atmosphere, a machine gun unit unlimbered, and its crew busily set up.

    This was no parade, although hundreds of curious office workers had interrupted their daily routines to crowd the sidewalk or hang out of windows along Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and the Capitol to see what would happen. Up ahead, a group of weary civilians, many dressed in rags and ill-fitting, faded uniforms, waited in anticipation amid their sorry camp of tents and structures made from clapboard and sheets of tin covered in tar paper. Some loitered in the street. They had heard something was afoot — expected it after what happened earlier. Now, a murmur rose from the camp crowd. Upon seeing the Army’s menacing approach, they were momentarily stunned, disbelieving.
    President Hoover was rightly worried about the political fallout of sending the military against the camp, but General MacArthur felt the bonus army was a communist threat.
    When many of the veterans refused to flee before the guns and tanks, MacArthur’s soldiers donned masks and began launching tear gas grenades at the Hooverville.
    As cavalry dispersed a group of outnumbered veterans waving a U.S. flag, a shocked bystander, his face streaked with tears from the gas, accosted MacArthur as he rode along in a staff car. “The American flag means nothing to me after this,” the man yelled. The general quieted him with a stern rebuke, “Put that man under arrest if he opens his mouth again.”
    The residents of Anacostia Flats were not given time to gather together what little possessions they had before their shacks were set ablaze by the troops. General MacArthur later lied and tried to claim that the veterans had set them on fire.

    “For the banks of America, Hoover has prescribed oxygen. For the unemployed, chlorine.”
    - newspaper columnist Heywood Broun

    Two veterans, William Hushka and Eric Carlson, were shot and killed. Two infants died from tear gas asphyxiation. One bystandard was shot and several veterans and children were hurt.

    “The Department of Justice is pressing its investigation into the violence which forced the call of army detachments, and it is my sincere hope that those agitators may be brought speedily to trial in the civil courts.”
    - President Hoover

    Unlike the slow starvation by the poor in their homes, the media couldn’t ignore starving veterans getting rode down by calvary within sight of the Capitol building. The public was outraged.
    Hoover had no choice but to support MacArthur’s actions, or else he would look weak and not in command. In doing so, he left himself without any support at all.

    Please go to this link for a short video about the affair, and this link for a longer talk.

    The Second Hunger March, December 1932

    Even before FDR’s 1932 election there were plans for a second hunger march.
    Unlike the first march this wasn’t going to be a purely communist-sponsored march, and there would be twice as many delegates (3,200). Although there was some hope at the time that the Democrats would be more responsive to the unemployed than the Republicans were, it was agreed that there would be no letup in the pressure.

    The marchers were met with the same efforts to discourage them, and it equally failed. On December 4, 1932, the unarmed, weary, and undernourished marchers were met at the outskirts of Washington by 1,200 policemen armed with sawed-off shotguns and submachine guns.
    For three days the marchers were held in custody on a street on the outskirts of town with no water, no cots or beds, and no toilet. Eventually the marchers were permitted to build a toilet. Despite all this the marchers didn’t give the police any provocations.

    The treatment of the strikers was so out of line that not only did the police allow them to finish their march, but were even allowed to meet the presiding officers of the House and Senate.

    Some people may be under the impression that FDR’s election and the New Deal was simply a logical reaction to extreme hardships. That democracy naturally corrected itself.
    That wasn’t the case. It took a grassroots movement, working against all odds, to push the government into action. It’s a lesson we should remember in 2009, even if a Democrat wins the White House.

    Like or Dislike: 2  1

    28th February 2011 at 6:59 pm

13. 

    howard in nyc says:

    so, your point is that the great depression was really bad.

    who knew!

    oh, don’t forget to vote a thumbs down on this post. you missed one yesterday. but every other post i have has a single, lonely thumbs down. the horror.

    Like or Dislike: 4  3

    28th February 2011 at 7:02 pm

14. 

    Administrator says:

    bigargon

    John Keegan is a member of the Illuminati and can’t be trusted because his facts do not agree with RE’s storyline.

    Like or Dislike: 2  0

    28th February 2011 at 7:07 pm

15. 

    Reverse Engineer says:

    “”Average rate of death by suicide (per 100,000 population)
    1920-1928: 12.1
    1929: 18.1
    1930-1940: 15.4
    The Great Crash of 1929, which suddenly brought economic ruin to thousands of people accustomed to a decade of prosperity, caused an immediate and dramatic spike in suicides. Suicide rates, which averaged 12.1 per 100,000 people in the decade prior to the Depression, jumped to an alarming 18.9 in the year of Wall Street’s crash. The suicide rate remained higher than normal throughout the remainder of the Great Depression, then fell sharply during World War II.”"
    This one is frustrating makes a statement but does not explain!
    http://www.indianjpsychiatry.org/article…
    “”—In the US, there was a rise in farmers’ suicide after great depression. To counter this, the government started a farmers’ insurance program, which is the only major federally managed insurance program, except Medicare in the United States>”"

    Like or Dislike: 3  2

    28th February 2011 at 7:11 pm

16. 

    StuckInNJ says:

    RE —> “The enemy camp contended that nobody really Starved to Death in the FSofA during that time …”

    That is only a partial truth. Partial truths are lies. Therefore, you lie!!

    The full truth is that some people said there was no starvation ….. AND (here it comes) YOU said 7 million died during that time period.

    YOU said it. YOU provided the link. YOU did NOT refute the link. YOU now want to hide behind a puny 3 word disclaimer that the article said, “By some estimates”. But since YOU provided a link to support YOUR argument, therefore YOU AGREED with it. Only now — after you have been trashed and humiliated — are you trying to distance yourself.

    You then take thousands of words to defend your untenable position. Wow. I don’t know whether to admire your persistence, or pity your apparent lack of self-esteem.

    Well …. you ain’t foolin’ nobody!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    You are being very Bill Clintonish here. How much better for Billy to have admitted right up front that he got a blowjob in the Oral Office? Millions of men would have cheered him on. Buy no, he denied the obvious. So have you.

    Question is, will you be un-Clintonish and admit you were full of shit? I doubt it, but you never know.

    Like or Dislike: 2  3

    28th February 2011 at 7:18 pm

17. 

    Reverse Engineer says:

    “One vivid, gruesome moment of those dark days we shall never forget. We saw a crowd of some fifty men fighting over a barrel of garbage which had been set outside the back door of a restaurant. American citizens fighting for scraps of food like animals!”
    – Louise Armstrong, an incident in Chicago, spring 1932

    RE

    Like or Dislike: 3  2

    28th February 2011 at 7:20 pm

18. 

    Administrator says:

    RE seems to be caught in the grip of a David Pierre cutting and pasting frenzy.

    Like or Dislike: 2  1

    28th February 2011 at 7:22 pm

19. 

    StuckInNJ says:

    Also, thank you for enlightening us on how brilliant you are and your Mensa-like IQ score.

    Also, thank you for calling out everyone here on TBP who disagrees with you “TBP stooges”.

    If it’s your goal to alienate everybody here then I would say you are achieving your goal … very efficiently.

    Like or Dislike: 1  1

    28th February 2011 at 7:24 pm

20. 

    llpoh says:

    800 words on how smart he is. We should grovel at his feet.

    Like or Dislike: 1  2

    28th February 2011 at 7:29 pm

21. 

    StuckInNJ says:

    RE —- “Do NOT underestimate my ability to dredge it all up from the jumbled attic of my mind as needs be here. If you know nothing of Stuyvesant HS, I suggest you Google it up. More Westinghouse winners then even Phillips Exeter or Andover or Choate.”

    .
    Well … well … if that is so, then what the fuck happened to you, Mr. long haul truck-driver??

    Please respond with a 10,000 word post. Include pictures of the truck. Thank You.

    Like or Dislike: 1  1

    28th February 2011 at 7:30 pm

22. 

    Dave says:

    ” The enemy camp contended that nobody really Starved to Death in the FSofA during that time, which I knew for a FACT was not true. To prove this fact beyond a reasonable doubt, all I had to do was Resurrect the Ghost of John Steinbeck, who was THERE and who wrote about it. Not just in his fictionalized Grapes of Wrath novel, but also as a Journalist writing non-fiction articles about what went on in the migrant Ag labor camps in California during the time period. I think I can say reasonably that the Ghost of Steinbeck has restored my credibility here, if it ever was really lost in anything but the bullshit ramblings of the Stooge Tag Team. Unless of course you think John Steinbeck was lying.”

    I’m still trying to figure out why Steinbeck would write a fictional account of the Joad family/depression when he was supposedly penning real articles about what was going on in the depression. Or maybe his non-fiction accounts were fiction too?

    Like or Dislike: 1  1

    28th February 2011 at 7:35 pm

23. 

    Reverse Engineer says:

    
    
    RE

    Like or Dislike: 1  2

    28th February 2011 at 7:41 pm

24. 

    StuckInNJ says:

    @RE

    Jeezus Fucking Christ. Stop being a moron.

    Like or Dislike: 1  0

    28th February 2011 at 7:46 pm

25. 

    Reverse Engineer says:

    
    RE

    Like or Dislike: 0  0

    28th February 2011 at 7:53 pm

26. 

    Smokey says:

    StuckInNJ,

    A hard core RE disciple now ready to abandon his leader. Stuck watches RE get so completely and utterly obliterated that even the most deluded and brainwashed of RE’s followers see the writing on the wall.

    Now that RE has been rendered a laughingstock, a pathetic bumbling fool, Stuck eagerly hops on board with the victors. LOL. Piles on as if he’s been there from the jump, exposing the duplicity and hypocrisy of RE all along.

    Yesterday, reading an RE article was, according to Stuck, the equivalent of getting a college education. RE was the light, the purveyor of truth to the ignorant masses.

    Today, RE is a buffoon.

    Newsflash to StuckInNJ—–RE is the same fool today as he was a month ago.

    Hot debate. What do you think? 1  7

    28th February 2011 at 7:58 pm

27. 

    Reverse Engineer says:

    

    Like or Dislike: 0  4

    28th February 2011 at 8:16 pm

28. 

    StuckInNJ says:

    @Smokey

    I was never an RE “disciple”. He is a good writer (albeit too wordy), he normally backs up his positions with something deeper than “Eat shit”, and thus he is by far much more interesting than you.

    I am not “hoping on board” with the victors. I evaluate the merit of each post separately. No one gets a free ride. You are too deluded in your blind hatred to grasp even the most fundamental fact.

    You’re also pissed because I voted thumbs up on RE staying on the island. Tell you what. Why don’t you post similarly. I will vote to have you kicked off in a heartbeat.

    Your fascination with him borders on the psychotic. It was funny at first. But, that time has come and gone. Too bad you’re too stupid to realize it.

    Lastly and most importantly I would appreciate if you stopped addressing me. In other words, fuck off. I don’t like you. Again, I’m not kidding.

    Like or Dislike: 4  1

    28th February 2011 at 8:25 pm

29. 

    Administrator says:

    RE’s mind’s view of America’s Great Depression

    No difference between his fantasy American holocaust and the real holocaust

    

    Like or Dislike: 0  3

    28th February 2011 at 8:28 pm

30. 

    Smokey says:

    Stuck,

    I have never said I wanted RE off the site. I couldn’t give less of a shit that you voted for him to stay. I believe the Administrator is correct in not censoring, and I do NOT think RE should be booted simply because he is deranged.

    I was very clear that I thought RE’s frequency and length of posts were getting out of hand, but I believe the Administrator has that covered.

    Incidentally, nearly ALL the “voters ” on the island thread had much the same opinion as I have. They indicated that they didn’t mind his posts, but wished he’d shorten them or wait until he has something worthwhile to say.

    I do not agree with your assessment that RE is a good writer. I think that by any objective evaluation, he is an extremely poor writer, with the majority of his posts firmly in the area of psychotic narcissism and delusion.

    Like or Dislike: 2  4

    28th February 2011 at 8:41 pm

31. 

    tired of bs says:

    I work for a Jewish organization and have been to multiple Holocaust Museums, lectures, etc. on the topic. How can anyone, journalist or not, compare the two situations. Vote me off the island b/c my views are obviously not in sink with yours. I see Holocaust victems every day at my place of employment who have described the unthinkable horror that they endured. Listen to someone who lived through it and can tell the story of her father and brothers being shot in front of her and her mother while they were taken to a concentration camp. My friend, 88 years old, describes herself as lucky b/c she was able to work with her mother outside the camp during the day and when they returned – there were a lot of people who had been killed.

    Another 90 year old friend and holocaust survivor described being taken to the showers and never knowing if they would be hosed off or executed. He is now in our senior healthcare organization and is too afraid to take a shower – he must be bathed.

    Yes, we have faced many difficultes as a nation – but NONE that could compare to the horror that the Jewish, Catholic, Mentally challenged and others faced since they were not part of Hitlers Ideal race.

    I too have read of what happened during that horrendous time of American history and I too read the Grapes of Wrath – but your off base when it comes to this subject – I don’t care what the heck your IQ is!!

    Intelligent and with life experiences!!!!

    Like or Dislike: 3  3

    28th February 2011 at 10:00 pm

32. 

    StuckInNJ says:

    Where is RE? He is reduced to posting pointless pics.

    I, The Judge, declare TBP the winner in this debate. RE knocked down by several TBPers is delivered the final devastating blow by “tired of bs”. Better luck next time, kid.

    Like or Dislike: 1  3

    28th February 2011 at 11:21 pm

33. 

    Jmarz says:

    I’m going to have to agree with Smokey on the fact that RE is a self centered, narcissistic contributor. Who cares where he went to high school or college. These daily posts are getting to his head. RE was clearly destroyed on this thread but he is to cocky to admit it.

    Like or Dislike: 2  2

    28th February 2011 at 11:35 pm

34. 

    Reverse Engineer says:

    One more time for the comprehension challenged. I have said this at least 4 different ways so far but some of you seem unable to grasp this simple point.

    I really have no idea precisely how many people died of starvation or starvation related opportunistic diseases in the Great Depression. It is quit clear the number is greater than Zero however.

    The reason I put up all the pictures of what are clearly starving people taken by Dorothea Lange is to drive home that this wasn’t just plain old “going to bed hungry”, it was real starvation. They look precisely like Anorexics do now, and we all know Anorexics starve themselves. They also die from their starvation, and it is quite likely many of the skinny folks in those pictures died also eventually of starvation.

    As to whether the number was 7000 or 7 Million, we will never know the answer to that question. You can be quite sure however that then just as now, Da Goobermint would Lie and Cover it up and it would not be reported by the MSM. The country was already very close to going Communist, and FDR was doing all the spin control he could to keep that from happening.

    Now that we have this question settled, perhaps the more important moral questions can be addressed.

    RE

    Like or Dislike: 3  2

    28th February 2011 at 11:43 pm

35. 

    howard in nyc says:

    settled?

    SETTLED?

    NOTHING IS SETTLED UNTIL WE SAY IT IS!!!

    

    NOTHING IS SETTLED. NOTHING!!!!

    

    Like or Dislike: 3  2

    28th February 2011 at 11:58 pm

36. 

    Reverse Engineer says:

    

    Like or Dislike: 2  0

    28th February 2011 at 12:26 am

37. 

    flash says:

    ‘If you buy a farm horse and only feed him when you work him, the horse will die. No one complains of the necessity of feeding the horse when he is not working. But we complain about feeding the men and women who work our lands. Is it possible that this state is so stupid, so vicious and so greedy that it cannot feed and clothe the men and women who help to make it the richest area in the world?”

    Gut wrenching essay by Steinbeck , epsecially considering the fascist fucks of that era were contributing to the problem of hunger by wanton destruction of crops, the dumping tens of thousands of gallons of raw milk and the killing thousands of pigs all in the name of price controls which is akin to saying the corporate bottom line trumps you children lives any day of the week..
    And the assholes never learn. The government still pays farmed to destroy crops and if you think this is a free country , just go out and start farming sugar cane or peanuts and try to market them.i doubt you can even gate the seed stock since you have to be licenses by the fascsit Thugacracy to grwo these crops.

    Government is nothing more than an evil parasite sucking on the ass of all humanity.

    

    Like or Dislike: 2  0

    28th February 2011 at 7:08 am

38. 

    Reverse Engineer says:

    Good point regarding Da Goobermint destruction of food in their efforts to upport the prices by reducing the supply Flash.

    At the SAME time though, as Steinbeck writes, you have Da Goobermint trying to get relief to these people:

    “What is to be done about it? The Federal Government is trying to feed and give direct relief, but it is difficult to do quickly for there are forms to fill out, questions to ask, for fear someone who isn’t actually starving may get something. The state relief organizations are trying to send those who haven’t been in the state for a year back to the states they came from. ”

    Obviously, different factions with Da Goobermint were ll fighting with each other in how to deal with the problem. The states are trying deportation, the fed is trying food relief.

    This is why there was a real battle going on at the time as far as Communism was concerned, and FSR was trying to walk the tightrope of socialism to maintain private property rights while at the same time providing sufficient relief to keep the people from outright revolt and an overthrow of Da Goobermint entirely.

    Interesting also that FDR managed to keep getting re-elected through this time period, 4 terms in all. I find that one very suspicious.

    RE

    Like or Dislike: 0  0

    28th February 2011 at 12:17 pm

39. 

    Reverse Engineer says:

    I finally found an article from September 1932 Fortune Magazine with a pretty complete recounting of starvation and malnutrition problems across the country. This should lay to rest once and for all the misinformation posted that “nobody died of starvation” here during the Great Depression.

    RE

    AMERICA IN THE GRIP OF THE DEPRESSION
    Fortune Magazine, September 1932

    Few if any of the industrial areas have been able to maintain a minimum decency level of life for their unemployed. Budg­etary standards as set up by welfare or­ganizations, public and private, after years of experiment have been discarded. Food only, in most cases, is provided and little enough of that. Rents are seldom paid. Shoes and clothing are given in rare in‑ stances only. Money for doctors and den­tists is not to be had. And free clinics are filled to overflowing. Weekly allowances per family have fallen as low as $2.39 in New York with $3 and $4 the rule in most cities and $5 a high figure. And even on these terms funds budgeted for a twelve-month period have been exhausted in three or four….

    About 1,000,000 out of .. . [New York City's] 3,200,000 working population are unemployed. Last April 410,000 were es­timated to be in dire want. Seven hundred and fifty thousand in 150,000 families were receiving emergency aid while 16o,ooo more in 32,000 families were waiting to receive aid not then available. Of these.latter families–families which normally earn an average of $141.50 a month–the average income from all sources was $8.20. Of families receiving relief, the al­lowance has been anything from a box of groceries up to $60 a month. In general, New York relief, in the phrase of Mr. William Hodson, executive director of the New York Welfare Council, has been on “a disaster basis.” And the effects have been disaster effects. It is impossible to estimate the number of deaths in the last year in which starvation was a contributing cause. But ninety-five persons suffering directly from starvation were admitted to the city hospitals in 1931, of whom twenty died; and 143 suffering from mal­nutrition, of whom twenty-five died….

    The situation in Philadelphia was described by its Community Council in July, 1932, as one of “slow starvation and pro­gressive disintegration of family life.” […] Of the city’s 445,000 families with em­ployable workers 210,000 had workers un­employed or on part time, about one in four had no worker employed on full time, and 12 per cent had no worker em­ployed. Even the average person unem­ployed had been out of work for thirty-seven weeks and had had only a little over one week of casual or relief work during the period…. The Governor of the state estimated that 250,000 persons in Philadelphia “faced actual starvation.” Over the state at large the same conditions held. In June, 1931, 919,000 or 25 per cent of the normally employed in the state were unemployed, according to the “se­cret” report then submitted to the Gov­ernor, and the number had risen to 1,000,000 by December and to 1,250,000 in August, 1932. One hundred and fifty thousand children were in need of char­ity. Malnutrition had increased in forty-eight counties–27 per cent of school children being undernourished…. New patients in the tuberculosis clinics had doubled. And the general death rate and disease rate had risen….

    Unemployed in Chicago number . . . 40 per cent of its employable workers while the number for the state at large is about one in three of the gainfully employed. … The minimum relief budget has been $2.40 per week for an adult and $1.50 per week for a child for food, with $22 to $23 per month to a family. But these figures have since been cut to $2.15 weekly for a man, $1.10 for a child. And persons demanding relief must be com­pletely destitute to receive it. Rents are not paid by the relief agencies and hous­ing is, in certain sections, unspeakably bad….

    In Youngstown, due to the local opti­mism, no united relief was undertaken until January, 1931. Meantime homeless men slept in the garbage in the municipal incinerator to keep warm. In January an abandoned police station was made into a flophouse. Attempts of Communists to or­ganize the flophouseholders failed and a bond issue was eventually floated. Men in desperate need get two days work a week….

    Obviously, however, urban figures give an incomplete picture of the whole indus­trial situation, for they do not include such areas as the industrial area of New Jersey. In Passaic County, for example, 23,749 persons, heads of families, representing 90,699 of the county’s 300,000 popula­tion, have applied for relief. The authori­ties have been forced to pick 12,171 fami­lies, about half, and give them relief amounting to about $9 a month per fam­ily. And in Paterson 8,500 of the regis­tered 12,000 unemployed are without relief of any kind. Moreover, the situation in the textile areas of the state is com­plicated by the fact that certain em­ployers have taken advantage of the ne-cessity of their employees to reestablish sweatshop conditions. Under such cir­cumstances the employed as well as the unemployed become a burden upon the community. But elsewhere in the textile mill towns even the pretense of a living wage has been dropped. North Carolina has 100,000 unemployed textile workers with another 100,000 on the payrolls of closed plants, most of whom are begging on the roads, having long ago exhausted their savings from the low wage paid them before the depression. And those em­ployed on part time are hardly better off since the full-time wage now averages about $6.50. In Georgia, in the Piedmont Mill Village of Egan Park, fifteen families have banded together to keep alive on a total weekly income of $10. And similar stories come from other towns in the re­gion. . . . It is hardly necessary to add that malnutrition, undernourishment, rickets, tuberculosis, and other diseases increase under such conditions. And that relief in these areas is badly organized or nonex­istent.

    The story of factory unemployment is, however, only part of the story. In agri­culture and in mining, particularly soft-coal mining, the depression is not in its fourth year but in its eighth or tenth or twelfth. It is estimated that there is a destitute coal-mining population of 1,200,000 souls dependent upon some 240,000 unemployed and distressed bitumi­nous miners, most of whom live in six states in regions where coal mining is the only important enterprise, where mer­chants are bankrupt, banks closed, schools without funds, and once wealthy residents in actual want. And this situation is of many years’ standing for even in the boom years of 1928 and 1929 the industry as a whole lost a total of $41,000,000. The American Friends Service Committee, which has worked with children in Ken­tucky, West Virginia, and Williamson and Franklin counties, Illinois, estimates that of the 500,000 soft-coal workers making a living in 1928 only 300,000 are now employed and on wages often as low as $8 a week. Over the entire area from 20 per cent to 99 per cent of the children are found to be underweight and the probability is that 20,000 children and 20,000 adults will shortly be in actual and pressing want.

    Kentucky conditions have been well aired as a result of the fascist policy pur­sued by the local authorities, particularly in Harlan County. Miners in that county who work at all work one to one and a half days a week with payment in scrip from which the company deducts an average of $11.80 monthly for rent, med­ical attention, powder and caps, and in­surance. To pay this deduction, a man must mine forty-five tons a month, which means he must work nine days. Most of them work a total of six days and the re­sult is a load of debt with no balance for food. As a consequence, pellagra–a de­ficiency disease of the nerve centers fi­nally causing insanity–is common. In Pineville, Kentucky, 157 children are fed one meal a day at a soup kitchen–the meal consisting of boiled potatoes, boiled beans, and cornbread, an ideal pellagra-breeding diet. Most of the miners attempt to farm but the land is poor and jars for canning are too expensive for a commu­nity in which cash is practically nonex­istent. Moreover, there was last year a se­vere drought in this district, and a great many miners’ crops were destroyed by sun and pests–a fact which must be com­pared with the September, 1931, state­ment of Executive-Director Croxton of the President’s Organization on Unem­ployment Relief to the effect that the un­employment situation in, West Virginia and Kentucky would be alleviated by the “bountiful crops.”…

    So it goes from one city to another and out into the mill towns and the mine villages and on beyond into the farms where the hides of a carload of cattle will hardly buy a pair of shoes and al­falfa costing $12 a ton to raise sells at $2.50 and the tractors rust in the fields. The difficulty with such facts is that in mass they cease to have meaning. And the reiteration of the statement that hundreds of thousands of people have faced or are facing starvation with inadequate doles to support them merely produces skepti­cism. “They haven’t starved yet,” remarks the reader. “They get along somehow.”

    It is true they get along somehow. But just how they get along is another matter, There were eleven days in Philadelphia last April when private funds had run out and public funds were not yet available. During that period, the relief organiza­tions studied ninety-one families to see just how people get along under those circumstances. They found out. One woman borrowed fifty cents, bought stale bread at three and one half cents a loaf, and the family lived on it for eleven days, Another put the last food order into soup stock and vegetables, and made a soup. When a member of the family was hun­gry, he ate as little as he could. Another picked up spoiled vegetables along the docks and except for three foodless days, the family ate them. Another made a stew with her last food order, which she cooked over and over daily to keep it from spoil­ing. Another family lived on dandelions. Another on potatoes. Another had no food for two and one-half days. And one in ten of the women were pregnant and one in three of the children of nursing age. And they “got along”….

    The depression, along with its misery, has produced its social curiosities, not the least of which is the wandering popula­tion it has spilled upon the roads. Means of locomotion vary but the objective is always the same–somewhere else. No one has yet undertaken to estimate the num­ber of hitchhikers whose thumbs jerk onward along the American pike, nor the number of spavined Fords dragging desti­tute families from town to town in search of a solvent relative or n generous friend. But the total migratory population of the country has been put at 600,000 to 1,000,000.

    The presence of these wandering groups is curious and significant…. When millions of people have no relation to the land and are able at the same time to find cheap transportation, the effect of an eco­nomic crisis is not to fix them in one place but to drive them elsewhere. And the consequence, as regards these groups, is a complete failure of local relief. The desti­tute families of the Fords and the homeless men of the flat cars are entitled to relief in no city. As the history of the Bonus Expeditionary Force after its ouster from Washington makes clear.

    Like or Dislike: 3  0

    28th February 2011 at 2:27 pm

40. 

    Reverse Engineer says:

    
    RE

    Like or Dislike: 1  0

    28th February 2011 at 3:22 pm

41. 

    Reverse Engineer says:

    Here is Boris explaining how he came up with his numbers

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFJGr1qYiww

    RE

    Like or Dislike: 0  0

    28th February 2011 at 4:03 pm

42. 

    StuckInNJ says:

    That Fortune article is one helluva good find, RE.

    You deserve credit for providing real evidence. That’s an eye-popping article.

    I wonder if those insisting there was no starvation will refute this article or ignore it. Probably the latter. Par for the course.

    Like or Dislike: 0  1

    28th February 2011 at 5:26 pm

43. 

    Reverse Engineer says:

    Persistence pays off Stuck. Along with not letting Group Think phase you when you get beat on

    RE

    Like or Dislike: 0  1

    28th February 2011 at 5:39 pm

44. 

    StuckInNJ says:

    I think you meant “faze” …. unless of course you own a Star Trek Phazer.

    Like or Dislike: 0  0

    28th February 2011 at 5:50 pm

45. 

    Reverse Engineer says:

    oops, messed up on the homonym, thanks

    RE

    Like or Dislike: 0  1

    28th February 2011 at 5:54 pm

46. 

    Reverse Engineer says:

    Oh, I do have a follow up Rant mostly written, but probably will not post until tomorrow. I’m still digging up pics and info for this thread today.

    RE

    Like or Dislike: 0  0

    28th February 2011 at 5:57 pm

47. 

    LLPOH says:

    Stuck – I do not wish to be party to what is happening between you and Smokey. I do wish to explain something, though. You said the following: “You are too deluded in your blind hatred”.

    To a large extent you could say the same of me. Smokey and I come from somewhat similar business backgrounds. The reality is that RE’s position on things is totally antithetical to mine. TBP seeks to educate, and hopefully prevent or mitigate coming issues (that is my take, anyway), which I fully support. To my way of looking at things, RE is a coiled viper in the midst of TBP. He pines for destruction of the things I hold most dear. By subterfuge he tries to get his message out, and hides behind mountains of words. You can have no influence on him whatsoever in any argument, as he will steadfastly stand by his position, no matter how ridiculous, as is evidenced by the starvation issue. He seeks the destruction of the capitalist system and the death of those he terms Pigmen and Illuminatti (best I can tell that means those in the top 20% income bracket) , the elimination of the majority of the world’s population, and elimination of the industrial age. He believes himself so smart as to be invincible (what, about 1000 words in this article about how smart he is – everyone tells him so. Please.) – and has taken on an ever increasing air of superiority. Any comment made to him leads him to putting up another 5000 words.

    RE is like a red flag to a bull to me. I am trying not to be so involved with him, but sometimes cannot help myself. I am stunned that people ever buy into his stuff, given what he is really about. He has an agenda – an evil agenda as far as I am concerned. He surely feels the same about me, given his propensity to damn me to hell.

    I say this to suggest that personal background plays a huge part in how one responds to RE. For what it is worth.

    Like or Dislike: 2  0

    28th February 2011 at 5:59 pm

48. 

    LLPOH says:

    Stuck – I for one never meant to say no one starved. Mass starvation (7 million or anything resembling that) is entirely out of the question. When there was as much misery as there was, there will certainly be deaths associated. All hard evidence suggests that there was no mass starvation or deaths. The death rates prove this.

    Like or Dislike: 4  0

    28th February 2011 at 6:05 pm

49. 

    Reverse Engineer says:

    Mainly my agenda is to cut through the lies and propaganda that masquerades as the truth in the minds of most Amerikans. Among those lies is the idea that “nobody starved here in the FSofA” during the Gread Depression. That does a disservice to all the people who clearly DID starve, it is disrespect of the first order.

    Another lie I try to cut through is that industrialization really benefitted most of the people of the world. It did not, and the benefits it brought to a small percentage of the world’s population by rapidly consuming its fossil fuel reserves was a brief and fleeting one.

    I also seek to make sure the blame for the current condition of the world and its people is placed upon those who deserve that blame, which is NOT the poor people of the world who live in the 30 Blocks of Squalor here, but rather on greedy folks who claim the world’s resources as their own private property and who perpetuate a monetary system designed to centralize wealth through the banking system.

    Ideally, I would prefer nobody dies, but sadly we simply burned up too much energy too fast to keep grwoing as much food as we did, so some people are gonna go here no matter what. If some people gotta go, it should be the right people. The ones who are responsible for it and who took the most benefit from it. The Rich.

    RE

    Like or Dislike: 0  1

    28th February 2011 at 6:14 pm

50. 

    Reverse Engineer says:

    I CALL LIAR!

    LLPOH wrote the following:

    “Admin – as I said before, I do not need facts for this – I KNOW it did not happen. My family came from the worst affected area, and I have spoke to them in depth. It was a horrific time for them. There was great suffering. But people DID NOT STARVE TO DEATH. Any suggestion that they did is simply an outright falsehood.” LLPOH

    You are a Liar LLPOH, as well as being wrong.

    RE

    Like or Dislike: 0  3

    28th February 2011 at 6:19 pm

51. 

    StuckInNJ says:

    llpoh

    Smokey hurls insults as a deeply personal level. He is the opposite of RE … short bursts of profanity and racist crap with very little other content. I’m sick of him, and that’s that.

    AS you can see RE responded regarding his intents here. I think it’s a reasonable and accurate response. You, of course, should and will form your own opinion.

    All I can say is that in terms of education here on TBP is that a good education covers BOTH sides of the issue. In its most extreme form, the side one loves … and the side one hates. RE provides one of those sides.

    I did not single you out as one who said there was no starvation. There seems to be two extremes here; the 7 million vs just a few starved. What I learned; it’s a lot less than 7m and a lot more than just a few.

    Like or Dislike: 0  2

    28th February 2011 at 6:32 pm

52. 

    Reverse Engineer says:

    Also, the part of the article bragging about how smart I am was 815 words, not “about 1000″, and “people” did not tell me how smart I am, a parade of psychologists did from age 9-12. That is down there specifically in the article, but you twist it around to fit your agenda. Anyhow, if Smokey can brag about how big his Dick is here all the time, why can’t I brag about how big my Brain is? He has written WAY more than 815 words on his Johnson. Frankly, he has written more than 850 POSTS where that was the main subject of his post.

    RE

    Like or Dislike: 0  3

    28th February 2011 at 6:36 pm

53. 

    howard in nyc says:

    jesus motherfucking christ what a bunch of shit.

    hey–i thought you said this issue was ‘settled’. and it was a good opportunity to move on to address important moral issues.

    yet, you are still flogging the horse you declared dead. with ‘research’ to attack a straw man of your own construction. after the fact of two rants on the subject and countless follow up posts.

    hey, genius. next time, try doing your research BEFORE you write and publish an article. posting an article, then providing your evidence after the fact, even when you evidence fits the issue (which yours did not) is, well assed backwards.

    here is the headline.

    No One Here Ever Suggested that there were ZERO deaths from starvation during the depression.

    One Person Here Suggested that there were 7 million deaths from starvation in america during the depression.

    simple. despite re’s lame repeated attempts to shift the goalposts, and crush us all with tens of thousands of words. at least some of those words, from steinbeck in particular, were interesting. but only incidental to the argument. 7 million; yes or no. not zero or one. 7 fucking million. hell, we even offered to give you a several million cushion.

    the context of the past few days are clear that the “it” which never happened to which llpoh and many other posters, myself included, attacked and thoroughly rejected for the fucking horseshit it was, the assertion of a massive die-off during the depression. a die-off of 7 million americans. a die off that rivaled the european holocaust of ww2. frankly, an assertion that verges on offensive, were it coming from a credible source.

    here are a few other posts from llpoh. in the hours prior to the cherry-picked one above.

    llpoh says:

    Admin – the death rate per thousand would have to exceed 15 for RE’s numbers to be correct. Hmmm. Not so, grasshopper. The death raate seemed to actually fall during this time. Must be some kind of conspiracy. Never fear, RE will surely detail how these seven million died, and who hid their deaths.

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 2 Thumb down 0

    27th February 2011 at 8:56 pm

    llpoh says:

    Admin – RE is channeling DP with this stuff. Any source will do, credible or not, so long asit supports his position.

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 3 Thumb down 1

    27th February 2011 at 9:03 pm

    llpoh says:

    Horseshit. My family came thru the dustbowl. It was a time of deprivation. Never did I hear of death by starvation, although there was hunger.

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 1 Thumb down 0

    26th February 2011 at 7:26 pm

    llpoh says:

    Anyone out there but me have a direct relationship with the dustbowl? Anyone? It is a load of horseshit. 7 million?
    What a stinking pile of shit attempt to justify his whacko tribalist theories. It simply did not happen. Sure there were deaths – mostly related to general poverty. Not to total starvation. I have many direct lines into the depression, and not ONE ever said such a thing. Total horseshit.

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 2 Thumb down 0

    26th February 2011 at 7:48 pm

    obvious to anyone interested in honest discourse is the whole argument was against the ridiculous assertion of a mass die-off of 7 million.

    llpoh, i think you give re much too much credit, vis a vis an agenda. just ego gratification of a deranged mind, possibly a clinically diseased mind. but just ego feeding, and refusal to concede error at any rhetorical cost.

    complete bullshit. bullshit defense of a point, bullshit rhetoric to construct and ‘win’ a debate that never existed. complete and utter waste of time. just another crazed internet blogger with a bunch of nonsense. like tens of thousands of others.

    i would wish for the time lost to this bullshit returned to me. but it was not a waste. what i erroneously judged in re’s scribblings to be some creative and informed speculation on what may come down the pike in the future of the national and world economic fortunes are much less than they appeared. just the ego-run-amok rantings of a sick mind. hey, i was wrong. won’t be wasting any more time here.

    (see how easy that is, re)

    as a great philosopher once said: “There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”

    http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/multimedia/bushism_fool_me_once.mp3

    Like or Dislike: 4  1

    28th February 2011 at 6:59 pm

54. 

    Administrator says:

    FES

    Like or Dislike: 1  0

    28th February 2011 at 7:02 pm

55. 

    LLPOH says:

    As I mentioned above it was never my intent to say “no one” starved. Hell, I am sure that people are starving today. In the quote you used, “people” was meant as a large number, not as no one. In any event, I believe that I have clearly stated that if I gave the appearance of meaning no single person starved, that is obviously a wrong position and was never intended that way.

    Interestingly, you have NEVER retracted your gross lie that 7 million died – rather you have tried to deny ever having said it by twisting words. Interesting don’t you think? If I mis-speak, I generally raise my hand and own up to it. Can’t say that is your way, tho.

    You quibble over 815 vs 1000 words. What a fucking joke. No one, and I mean no one, gives a shit about how smart you are or think you are. For all we know the whole thing is fabricated. Maybe you finished last in your selective class. Who the fuck knows. Who the fuck cares. It is more self-indulgent bullshit. For me, much more impressive is that you went to Columbia, which is far more selective than the high school you mention.

    You only have to look at the life expectancies throughout the world to see that industrialization has been a enormous benefit to mankind. For instance, china’s life expectancy is currently north of 70, and they are 20% of the world’s population. What would it have been 100 years ago – 40? Last time I mentioned this you came back and said increased life expectancy is an evil not a good. What an absolute load of horseshit.

    The fact is the current condition of the world is at an all time high. Perhaps it is not sustainable- that is an entirely different argument. That you seek to “blame” the condition on someone, given that the condition is the best ever in the history of mankind, is laughable – the pure test is life expectancy. You make shit up as you go. Again, it may not be sustainable, but so far it has worked out. You simply want the end of the world as it is today, and will twist things to suit your view of the world.

    Like or Dislike: 1  1

    28th February 2011 at 7:02 pm

56. 

    LLPOH says:

    Howard – outstanding. Truly. Maybe we can talk basketball instead?

    Like or Dislike: 2  0

    28th February 2011 at 7:05 pm

57. 

    Administrator says:

    I see 7 million faces. RE revises history.

    My family lived in Phila during the Depression.

    No one starved.

    Like or Dislike: 2  2

    28th February 2011 at 7:06 pm

58. 

    Smokey says:

    StuckInNJ,

    “Smokey hurls insults as a deeply personal level. He is the opposite of RE….short bursts of profanity and racist crap with very little other content.”

    I don’t deny I’ve made racist remarks on this site. But fuck, Stuck, let’s call a spade a spade. I mean, goddamn, you posted an ENTIRE page of nigger jokes here a couple of weeks ago.

    So, please save me your sanctimonious shit about my racism.

    I don’t have a monopoly on insults around here. Just because I may be better at using them, doesn’t mean that I am the only one using them.

    I remind you of your comment to Tina a week or so ago. Unless I’m mistaken, it went something like “Fuck off, bitch. ”

    You get all pissed off any time your hypocrisy is exposed, like now.

    Guess what. Tough shit.

    Like or Dislike: 3  1

    28th February 2011 at 7:21 pm

59. 

    howard in nyc says:

    Smokey said:
    I mean, goddamn, you posted an ENTIRE page of nigger jokes here a couple of weeks ago.

    and i was not alerted? please point me to this. no one ever tells me the good ones.

    why is asprin white?

    you want it to work, don’t you?

    Like or Dislike: 3  1

    28th February 2011 at 8:04 pm

60. 

    Hope@ZeroKelvin says:

    @howard in nyc: You know, I too feel left out of the racist jokes, although I am a blonde, this is usually treated as a separate race of females, especially in the medical profession…..

    “Three blondes were walking through the forest when they came upon a set of tracks.

    The first blonde said, “Those are deer tracks.”
    The second blonde said, “No, those are elk tracks.”
    The third blonde said, “You’re both wrong, those are moose tracks.”
    The blondes were still arguing when the train hit them.”

    Like or Dislike: 1  0

    28th February 2011 at 8:23 pm

61. 

    Reverse Engineer says:

    “No One Here Ever Suggested that there were ZERO deaths from starvation during the depression.”- Howard

    Wrong Howard. Read for comprehension.

    As I quoted above, LLPOH suggested it in CAPS. To Refresh your Memory:

    “But people DID NOT STARVE TO DEATH. Any suggestion that they did is simply an outright falsehood.” “-LLPOH

    He also said it again in another post YOU just quoted:

    ” It simply did not happen. Sure there were deaths – mostly related to general poverty. Not to total starvation. I have many direct lines into the depression, and not ONE ever said such a thing. Total horseshit.”-LLPOH

    Admin JUST repeated the Lie, with respect to Philadelphia:

    “No one starved.”-Admin

    I GUARANTEE you, if there were people dieing of starvation in NYC (and there were, see the Fortune article) there were also in Philadelphia. If I give it another day digging, I may even be able to get the stats.

    The only thing I said was “By SOME accounts starvation was as high as over in Europe” . By SOME accounts Howard, not by my estimation.

    You are an idiot. Read for comprehension.

    RE

    Like or Dislike: 0  3

    28th February 2011 at 8:24 pm

62. 

    Reverse Engineer says:

    Getting closer to Philadelphia. Starving In the Appalachians now, eviction games in Philadelphia…. Love Google

    “The harsh reality of life during the Great Depression is vividly recalled by Travis (12 yrs) who found his father behind their Massachusetts house, crying and heartbroken. “My dad was the strongest man I knew, but the Depression brought him to his knees.” While starving children in the Appalachians chewed on their hands, nearly drawing blood, nursery school children in Philadelphia played an “eviction game.” Toy furniture would be piled up in one corner of the room, then picked up and moved to another corner. “We ain’t got no money for rent, so we move. Then we get the sheriff on us, so we move again.”

    RE

    Like or Dislike: 0  2

    28th February 2011 at 8:34 pm

63. 

    Reverse Engineer says:

    “The Committee on Unemployment Relief, formed by local philanthropists in 1931, struggled to provide private relief for city residents through traditional methods that were quickly overwhelmed by the scale of the crisis. After 1932, Philadelphia suffered through year after year of bitter, violent, and at times deadly strikes, marches, lock-outs, bombings, riots, and mass demonstrations.”

    Nobody was starving, but they were out there rioting and bombing and dieing that way. I am sure they all had a good meal before going out to riot, just like the Libyans and Egyptians.

    RE

    Like or Dislike: 0  2

    28th February 2011 at 8:49 pm

64. 

    Reverse Engineer says:

    “Interestingly, you have NEVER retracted your gross lie that 7 million died ”

    How can I retract something I never said you stupid moron? I can copy/paste your direct quotes PROVING you said “NO ONE STARVED” in fucking CAPS. Find for the TBP community where I said 7M died and quote it here for us. I never said any such thing. Idiot.

    RE

    Like or Dislike: 0  1

    28th February 2011 at 9:03 pm

65. 

    hyphenman.com says:

    Thanks for the Steinbeck piece. I had never seen that before.

    As an aside, you are presenting good and useful information. I think you undermine your site, your message, and your intent with these little squabbles with jerks whom you encourage to keep taunting you with their flaming by publishing instead of deleting their comments.

    This is my first-time visit so maybe there’s something else going on. But I personally would rather see people add to the discussion rather than detract from it.

    Like or Dislike: 0  1

    28th February 2011 at 12:31 pm

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