Men Made it...but can not control it

The owners of the land came onto the land, or more often a spokesman for the owners came...Some of the owner men were kind because they hated what they had to do, and some of them were angry because they hated to be cruel, and some of them were cold because they had long ago found that one could not be an owner unless one were cold. And all of them were caught in something larger than themselves...If a bank or a finance company owned the land, the owner man said, The Bank-or the Company- needs-wants-insists-must have-as thought the Bank or the Company were a monster, with thought and feeling, which had ensnared them. These last would take no responsibility for the banks or the companies because they were men and slaves, while the banks were machines and masters all at the same time...The owner men sat in the cars and explained. You know the land is poor. You've scrabbled at it long enough, God knows.

The squatting tenant men nodded and wondered and drew figures in the dust, and yes, they knew, God knows. If the dust only wouldn't fly. If the top would only stay on the soil, it might not be so bad.

Well it's too late. And the owner men explained the workings and the thinkings of the monster that was stronger then they were...You see, a bank or a company...those creatures don't breathe air, don't eat side-meat. They breathe profits; they eat the interest money. If they don't get it, they die the way you die without air, without side-meat. It is a sad thing, but it is so. It is just so...The bank - the monster has to have profits all the time. It can't stay one size...taxes go on. When the monster stops growing, it dies. It can't stay one size...

We have to do it. We don't like to do it. But the monster's sick. Something's happened to the monster...

Sure, cried the men, but it's our land. We measured it and broke it up. We were born on it, and we got killed on it, died on it. Even if it's no good, it's still ours...

We're sorry. It's not us. It's the monster. The bank isn't like a man.

Yes, but the bank is only made of men.

No, you're wrong there-quite wrong there. The bank is something else than men. It happens that every man in a bank hates what the bank does, and yet the bank does it. The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It's the monster. Men made it, but they can't control it.

John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath

This passage seemed rather appropriate considering the failure of banks - or did they just stop growing at the rate which was expected by the powerful elite running them. And how many Americans will become more poor as a result? When will people realize the in order for us to support so many extremely greedy men, thousands of others must be kept in extreme poverty. You can't have one without the other, and to get rid of one you must eliminate the other. How many jets, multi-million dollar homes, servants, limos, etc, does a single man need?

I pity the rich. I'd rather be poor than rich. It seems that if you get some, you only want more. They have these enormous bulging stomachs with little tiny throats unable to satiate their appetites (the hungry ghost). If they would only try just once to be in service to the rest of us, they would come to understand where real joy is cultivated.