Long before I ever had any political consciousness, John Steinbeck helped me see the working class.
Monterey has always been a special place in my imagination, and being stationed there during my early years in the military compelled me to read Steinbeck seriously. Steinbeck’s haunting omnipresence of Monterey even now makes it impossible to spend any amount of time there and not luxuriate in his words.
My favorite book of his is also his least successful one, and perhaps his most overtly political. In Dubious Battle, published in 1936, has as its backdrop the Great Depression—a story about literally fighting to organize migrant agricultural workers against the bosses.
As I watch the darkness of Trump’s inauguration descend on America, cheered on by so many misguided souls who are rightly aggrieved by the failure of normal politics, a passage from In Dubious Battle leaped to the front of my mind. Jim, the book’s protagonist, and Mac, a salt, are talking about the vigilantes—Pinkerton types—that the agro-industrialists hired to harass, beat, lynch, and kill workers trying to unionize.
Mac, who in hell are these vigilantes, anyway? What kind of guys are they?
Why, they’re the dirtiest guys in any town. They’re the same ones that burned the houses of old German people during the war. They’re the same ones that lynch Negroes. They like to be cruel. They like to hurt people, and they always give it a nice name, patriotism or protecting the constitution. But they’re just the old nigger torturers working. The owners use ‘em, tell ‘em we have to protect the people against reds. Y’see that lets ‘em burn houses and torture and beat people with no danger…They’ve got no guys; they’ll only shoot from cover, or gang a man when they’re ten to one. I guess they’re about the worst scum in the world.
These people—and the politicians who appeal to them—are the enemies of peace, democracy, and equality. The targets of their violence depends on what’s fashionable. Their reasoning bends with what’s de rigour in reactionary politics. But they’re always among us, and we need to be clear-eyed about who they are and what they’re doing.
That’s the promise of this newsletter. My mission statement has always been about understanding and opposing these types at all times.
If you need to find your inner moral clarity, check out my man Seiji Oda, a Bay Area rapper steeped in the hyphy movement. Seiji has a melodic, sing-song style that’s funky and gangster all at the same time. His words of inspiration: Fuck 12, fuck ICE, fuck Trump:
Right now, I’m not sure we can muster much more than a rebel attitude that knows its enemies. For what it’s worth, the song’s not about 12 (police), ICE, or Trump—here’s the full song in all its hyphy glory:
Know your enemy. Read. And take care of yourself. But let’s take care of each other, too. ✌️
By strange coincidence, I've been reading 'Dorothy Healey Remembers', the autobiography of one of America's foremost Communist Party members during the 20th century. Healey also judged 'In Dubious Battle' her favorite Steinbeck novel - but until reading her book, I'd never even heard of it (though 'The Grapes of Wrath' is amongst my favorite novels)! As a result, I added 'In Dubious Battle' to my 'must read soon' list. Your endorsement gives me another reason to move it closer to the top of that list!