hello Tom -- I do not think you are wrong. You know, I am sure, that for many of us our rights already depend on where we live. You probably also know that the best statistical predictor of a child's future income is the zipcode in which they are born. I've been thinking for a long time about our geographic polarization. I grew up in a small town, through without the credibility of doing actual rural work... the closest I've been to farming is working on a small scale organic farm for several summers. I've wished I could move back, but there aren't many jobs for which I'm suited, and in the way of blue dots it's twice as expensive as the surrounding county. So I'm far away, surviving in a small city which is a larger gathering of blue. Ten years younger than you are, I've watched this shift in my generation... in our 20's we thought living in the city was temporary; in our 30's we were more focused on building a career and the city was necessary; by the time we reached our 40's we were reluctant to leave behind the advantages of a less-small place... whether it's the music scene, the abundance of yoga studios, the job, the variety of food, the choice of schools, a broader dating pool.
I've watched us all move away from where we grew up and even as I was a part of it I wondered how the geographic splitting would work out. I fear it's a part of what's happening; the splintering not only of truth but of shared experience. We are self-selecting into areas that reflect our values, which is individually good, but perhaps, collectively, contributing to our breakdown.
didn't mean to go on so long, I'm sorry. I wish I could disagree with you but I don't.
Thank you for this, and no need to apologize. You are describing something real that I have seen too. Our rights and opportunities depend more and more on where we live, and as people move to cities for work or community, the country quietly sorts itself by values.
Individually it makes sense because people want to live where life feels possible. But collectively it widens the divide. We are not just disagreeing now; we are living in different realities.
As a former Iowan, I was transported back to seeing a storm rumble across the plains, the sky purple and green, and the air heavy and foreboding, like your predictions. I think they are right on, and I love your musings. Thank you, Tom.
The only quibble I have with this amazing essay is I think you won't even be able to talk about the Huskers because, in five years, sports betting will have perverted the game so much you won't be able to tell if the results came honestly.
Forgive me, I'm several fingers into my drink of choice tonight. Cheers
Tom, there is so much truth in what you share. A tangible authenticity and authority, if you will.
We need to prepare ourselves for a future many cannot intuit or imagine. It's in the stillness that the vision and the answers come. In daily rituals that foster the kind of stillness necessary to the deep introspection of how the current moment lands into a vision of the future.
A quiet mind. Elusive amidst the shouting coming from all angles.
A proximity to nature, an observance of how the land and the creatures embody a knowing that exists outside of a thinking brain, that is at one with the deeper energies that animate existence. An honoring of the personal practices and habits that foster the slowing down, the connection to an internal receptiveness that allows the wisdom to rush in, much like the wind that we don't see, but rather feel.
I trust these rituals implicitly, the answers are within if we know how to connect with them. On these issues that you write about, you're my guru. And I'm sure that's true for many that have found their way to your writings. In a world that's drifted from trust toward suspicion, you touch on a sense of community that's centered in the heart.
Neighbors, friends, even cognitive adversaries, can and do come together when a common crisis looms. You're building a community that's finding the time for the daily ritual of exploring and embodying this wisdom.
And that, in itself, can never be wrong. Gratitude always.
Kim, thank you for this. What you’re describing, the stillness, the quiet mind, the way the land teaches without ever raising its voice, that’s the kind of knowing most of us forget until life forces us back toward it. You put words to something I’ve been circling for a long time, that preparation for the future isn’t just stockpiling skills or tools, it’s learning how to listen again.
The world is loud right now. Everyone shouting their certainty, everyone demanding attention, everyone trying to sell a feeling of safety that never quite arrives. But the real answers, the ones that steady you, they come the way you say, slow, quiet, from the inside out. They come when you let yourself sit long enough to hear what your own life has been trying to say.
I’m no guru. I’m just someone who’s lived long enough to know that the land doesn’t lie, that stillness isn’t a luxury, and that community is a kind of shelter we build together, one honest conversation at a time. If my writing helps people remember their own wisdom, then that’s more than enough.
Neighbors, friends, even the folks who disagree with every word you say, you’re right, they can still come together when the sky darkens. I’ve seen it. That’s what I trust, more than any institution or headline.
I’m grateful for your words, and for the way you’re listening to the world. That kind of attention is its own form of hope.
I think you’re right. I would advice we relearn skills we forgot because in consumer society’s we are used everything is there and often cheap. I think about the fact that there will be more scarcity of goods because of supply-chain problems and less food because of climate change and conflict. In city’s that risks raising tensions but even there growing food is possible on balcony’s, small gardens, rooftops and community gardens. Learning to repair stuff will be more important. In city’s it’s easy to organise a repair and share economy. Many such projects exist already and are quite easy to copy. And it’s an opportunity to build a community of people you can rely on in case of trouble
I think you’re seeing the road ahead clearly. We really have forgotten a lot of basic skills because consumer life made everything feel endless and cheap. But scarcity is coming, whether from climate, conflict, or supply chains that are already stretched thin.
Cities will feel those pressures fastest, but you’re right that they also give us chances to adapt. Food can be grown in small pockets of space. Repairing things instead of tossing them will matter again. And a share-and-repair economy is one of the few changes that actually strengthens a community instead of hollowing it out.
What you’re describing is practical, hopeful, and grounded. It’s the kind of thinking we need if we’re going to get through what’s coming together rather than alone.
Mr. Tom Joad there is too much here to comment on, but I enjoyed it tremendously and am inspired to write an entire article in response.
Just one comment...your father was right and credit cards are a scam. First of all, they are not credit but debits. Credit is when the milk man dropped off the milk on the porch every morning and we paid him at the end of the week. Or I went to the grocery for my grandmother and he kept a tab and I went and paid him on Friday. No interest.
Credit cards are debits, but double debits, you get issued a card that you can use because you can't pay all of your bills and the companies that issue the charge also are heavily invested in the companies you owe so they benefit both by your purchase and by the interest that is a second charge on that interest which I call a scam.
Two reasons, if we couldn't purchase more than we can afford then prices couldn't be higher than what people could pay. The second part of the scam is that the companies you purchase are heavily in debt (Google is weird and has more assets than debt---last I heard, no debt). Musk, for instance is the richest man in the world because he gets to count his debts as assets...you and I are poor, though we might purchase homes etc and have "assets" that we don't own, thus assets include debts.
But it is not the same.
The truly wealthy can buy whatever they want based on this asseted (English doesn't have an adjective form of asset so I shall create my own) debt because it is so large but your debt is not enough to live in the same manner.
To be truly wealthy is to be able to borrow as much as they want because those who can't borrow as much they want and use "credit" cards or interested purchases increase the debt of the wealthy (primarily corporations or those who have a great deal of stock in those corp.).
Thank you for this. You gave me a lot to chew on. I agree with you more than you might think. My father’s whole point, all those years ago, was that the system is built so the average person is always one step behind, always in debt to someone who is richer than them. You’re describing the same structure, just with clearer language.
What we call “credit” today isn’t credit in any human sense. It’s a financial instrument that exists to keep money flowing upward. The milk-man version of credit was built on trust. Today’s version is built on extraction. You’re right that the card companies win twice: they profit on the purchase and then they profit again on the interest. And yes, the corporations that sell us the goods are tied into the same structure. They feed each other.
Your point about debt as an asset is the heart of it. The wealthy use debt as leverage, as a tool. Regular people use debt as a lifeline. Same word, completely different realities. When the wealthy borrow, it makes them wealthier. When the rest of us borrow, it makes us vulnerable.
So yes, my father was right. And you’re right. The whole thing only works because we’re encouraged to live beyond what we can afford, and then punished for doing exactly what the system depends on us doing.
I’d love to read the article you write in response
i'll let you know when I finish my article, but it might be towards the end of the coming week as there is so much in your article to respond to. As always though your articles are powerful dives into our emotional discordance with society's structure that we have difficulty making sense of.
As always, excellent writing. The present is hard these days for so many people but the future is scary. I fear you are correct and we must prepare as community to survive and have a life.
Because everything you have stated here is already happening in real time ! I’m not going to nit-pick through all 10.
I don’t have to.
And just for the record: I’m 73 and live in a Blue state on the East coast. Your mid-western view is lagging, actually dragging behind the current state of affairs within this country.
Notice I used the term “country”, I didn’t say The “United States” of America. Because there is nothing united about these states. It’s just the opposite from where I’m sitting as I pop open my 2nd beer of the morning.
Moving on to address your weather related comments:
I’ve always been a weather geek. I had to, where and how I was raised. That said, when I was a young lad, and had just landed my first major employment (Great salary, healthcare, retirement pension, etc.) I was the youngest in a group of 6 men whose work was weather dependent. After being in my new position for only a week or so, we were given our job assignment for the day. So, we grabbed our equipment and headed out to the site. Along the way, the “old timer’s” as I called them, were looking up at the sky, wondering aloud if we were going to be able to accomplish our assignment.
Well, I just blurted out ...”It smells like ice to me”.
You can only imagine how me, being the only worker in his 20’s among 5 other’s in their 50’s suffered from making that comment. They were brutal, and that is putting it mildly!
In less than an hour later, it started sleeting so hard our work assignment was canceled. I could go on but, I need another beer!
Cheer’s, and I wish you & yours a very Happy Thanksgiving!
It did. I live in the suburbs of Buffalo NY so I certainly have a different landscape than you but you but I really appreciated the picture you painted of where you live.
You gave voice to the way I've been feeling. I've felt a sense of impending doom and what I thought was an irrational feeling that I need to leave this place. I'm 68 and my husband is 61 For the last month or two I've been researching different states trying to find a new place to live because I truly believe that the US as I know is dying. I've been living in rural WV for 25 years (not born here) . I have never felt like I belong here and my "neighborhood" is as MAGA as it gets. When the US fractures into whatever it will become, the thought of being stuck here terrifies me. I'm looking to find a smallish town in a democratic state because I too believe community is important. Gonna sell our little piece of land in the woods and get the hell outta here! Thank you for validating these feelings I've been having. Maybe I'm not just a crazy old woman after all!
You’re not crazy at all. You’re paying attention and listening to that inner alarm that most people try to ignore. Living in a place where you’ve never truly belonged, especially one so steeped in MAGA sentiment, takes a toll. It wears on your nerves, your sense of safety, your sense of future.
Wanting out isn’t irrational. It’s wisdom earned over time. A small town in a democratic state, somewhere with community and neighbors who don’t see you as the enemy, a place where you can breathe again, makes perfect sense.
Selling your land and starting fresh isn’t running away. It’s choosing where your next chapter gets written. You are not a crazy old woman. You are someone who sees what’s coming and refuses to be caught standing still.
I think you're probably, and depressingly, right. In our seventies, my husband and have begun growing our own vegetables and fruit. Fortunately we've done most of the heavy work, but self sufficiency is a long way off!
Absolutely. Starting your garden at this stage is impressive. Even partial self-sufficiency builds skills, resilience, and quiet victories that matter more than the end goal.
Most of this I agree with. But the mayor over the president? You know what that sounds like to me? "The baron will matter more than the king." Tom, people ruling over us is how we got where we are. Different names, different titles, same bullshit hierarchy.
I hear you. And you’re right in one sense, titles alone don’t fix anything. But what I’m trying to get at isn’t about giving the mayor more power than the president. It’s about impact. Your mayor can make your life better or worse in ways a distant president simply cannot touch. Schools, roads, policing, local services, zoning, emergency response. That is where the real levers of daily life are.
We have been chasing kings and presidents for decades while ignoring the small levers that actually shape our neighborhoods. Focusing on the local doesn’t mean the hierarchy disappears. It means we start pushing where we actually can move things. The baron might matter more than the king, not because he is above the king, but because he walks your streets every day.
It is not about replacing one boss with another. It is about recognizing where real change can happen.
Back to the future? We have long (always?) been a nation of localities. Before rapid transportation and instantaneous communications, where we were from largely defined who we were and how we thought. Access to education and different thinking and cultures was a privilege. For a while, access was available to the masses, but only a percentage took advantage. The "melting pot" was mostly corporatization of commerce; a Mickey D and Wallymart on every Main St.
Are we better off for that? Have we made progress? Hard to say.
Thanks for this. I'm 20 years older than "Tom Joad", meaning born into war and all that meant by way of shaping our day to day. Also meant the shape of the ensuing years. A lot of what Tom dreads looks to me like a return to what this country was when I was a kid, a teen, a college student. It was good, way better than this increasing abdication of personal responsibility and dependency on the "central government". If where this country is headed is back to the time when people knew how to DO STUFF, I'm all for it.
hello Tom -- I do not think you are wrong. You know, I am sure, that for many of us our rights already depend on where we live. You probably also know that the best statistical predictor of a child's future income is the zipcode in which they are born. I've been thinking for a long time about our geographic polarization. I grew up in a small town, through without the credibility of doing actual rural work... the closest I've been to farming is working on a small scale organic farm for several summers. I've wished I could move back, but there aren't many jobs for which I'm suited, and in the way of blue dots it's twice as expensive as the surrounding county. So I'm far away, surviving in a small city which is a larger gathering of blue. Ten years younger than you are, I've watched this shift in my generation... in our 20's we thought living in the city was temporary; in our 30's we were more focused on building a career and the city was necessary; by the time we reached our 40's we were reluctant to leave behind the advantages of a less-small place... whether it's the music scene, the abundance of yoga studios, the job, the variety of food, the choice of schools, a broader dating pool.
I've watched us all move away from where we grew up and even as I was a part of it I wondered how the geographic splitting would work out. I fear it's a part of what's happening; the splintering not only of truth but of shared experience. We are self-selecting into areas that reflect our values, which is individually good, but perhaps, collectively, contributing to our breakdown.
didn't mean to go on so long, I'm sorry. I wish I could disagree with you but I don't.
Thank you for this, and no need to apologize. You are describing something real that I have seen too. Our rights and opportunities depend more and more on where we live, and as people move to cities for work or community, the country quietly sorts itself by values.
Individually it makes sense because people want to live where life feels possible. But collectively it widens the divide. We are not just disagreeing now; we are living in different realities.
As a former Iowan, I was transported back to seeing a storm rumble across the plains, the sky purple and green, and the air heavy and foreboding, like your predictions. I think they are right on, and I love your musings. Thank you, Tom.
Thank you Sheila!!
The only quibble I have with this amazing essay is I think you won't even be able to talk about the Huskers because, in five years, sports betting will have perverted the game so much you won't be able to tell if the results came honestly.
Forgive me, I'm several fingers into my drink of choice tonight. Cheers
I agree with that 100%. It’s getting worse every day.
Tom, there is so much truth in what you share. A tangible authenticity and authority, if you will.
We need to prepare ourselves for a future many cannot intuit or imagine. It's in the stillness that the vision and the answers come. In daily rituals that foster the kind of stillness necessary to the deep introspection of how the current moment lands into a vision of the future.
A quiet mind. Elusive amidst the shouting coming from all angles.
A proximity to nature, an observance of how the land and the creatures embody a knowing that exists outside of a thinking brain, that is at one with the deeper energies that animate existence. An honoring of the personal practices and habits that foster the slowing down, the connection to an internal receptiveness that allows the wisdom to rush in, much like the wind that we don't see, but rather feel.
I trust these rituals implicitly, the answers are within if we know how to connect with them. On these issues that you write about, you're my guru. And I'm sure that's true for many that have found their way to your writings. In a world that's drifted from trust toward suspicion, you touch on a sense of community that's centered in the heart.
Neighbors, friends, even cognitive adversaries, can and do come together when a common crisis looms. You're building a community that's finding the time for the daily ritual of exploring and embodying this wisdom.
And that, in itself, can never be wrong. Gratitude always.
Kim, thank you for this. What you’re describing, the stillness, the quiet mind, the way the land teaches without ever raising its voice, that’s the kind of knowing most of us forget until life forces us back toward it. You put words to something I’ve been circling for a long time, that preparation for the future isn’t just stockpiling skills or tools, it’s learning how to listen again.
The world is loud right now. Everyone shouting their certainty, everyone demanding attention, everyone trying to sell a feeling of safety that never quite arrives. But the real answers, the ones that steady you, they come the way you say, slow, quiet, from the inside out. They come when you let yourself sit long enough to hear what your own life has been trying to say.
I’m no guru. I’m just someone who’s lived long enough to know that the land doesn’t lie, that stillness isn’t a luxury, and that community is a kind of shelter we build together, one honest conversation at a time. If my writing helps people remember their own wisdom, then that’s more than enough.
Neighbors, friends, even the folks who disagree with every word you say, you’re right, they can still come together when the sky darkens. I’ve seen it. That’s what I trust, more than any institution or headline.
I’m grateful for your words, and for the way you’re listening to the world. That kind of attention is its own form of hope.
Ugh. Just steps away from The Road. Happy Holidays!
Happy holidays!!!
I think you’re right. I would advice we relearn skills we forgot because in consumer society’s we are used everything is there and often cheap. I think about the fact that there will be more scarcity of goods because of supply-chain problems and less food because of climate change and conflict. In city’s that risks raising tensions but even there growing food is possible on balcony’s, small gardens, rooftops and community gardens. Learning to repair stuff will be more important. In city’s it’s easy to organise a repair and share economy. Many such projects exist already and are quite easy to copy. And it’s an opportunity to build a community of people you can rely on in case of trouble
I think you’re seeing the road ahead clearly. We really have forgotten a lot of basic skills because consumer life made everything feel endless and cheap. But scarcity is coming, whether from climate, conflict, or supply chains that are already stretched thin.
Cities will feel those pressures fastest, but you’re right that they also give us chances to adapt. Food can be grown in small pockets of space. Repairing things instead of tossing them will matter again. And a share-and-repair economy is one of the few changes that actually strengthens a community instead of hollowing it out.
What you’re describing is practical, hopeful, and grounded. It’s the kind of thinking we need if we’re going to get through what’s coming together rather than alone.
I get a lot of hope and inspiration here: https://www.resilience.org/.
Thank you!! I will check it out.
Mr. Tom Joad there is too much here to comment on, but I enjoyed it tremendously and am inspired to write an entire article in response.
Just one comment...your father was right and credit cards are a scam. First of all, they are not credit but debits. Credit is when the milk man dropped off the milk on the porch every morning and we paid him at the end of the week. Or I went to the grocery for my grandmother and he kept a tab and I went and paid him on Friday. No interest.
Credit cards are debits, but double debits, you get issued a card that you can use because you can't pay all of your bills and the companies that issue the charge also are heavily invested in the companies you owe so they benefit both by your purchase and by the interest that is a second charge on that interest which I call a scam.
Two reasons, if we couldn't purchase more than we can afford then prices couldn't be higher than what people could pay. The second part of the scam is that the companies you purchase are heavily in debt (Google is weird and has more assets than debt---last I heard, no debt). Musk, for instance is the richest man in the world because he gets to count his debts as assets...you and I are poor, though we might purchase homes etc and have "assets" that we don't own, thus assets include debts.
But it is not the same.
The truly wealthy can buy whatever they want based on this asseted (English doesn't have an adjective form of asset so I shall create my own) debt because it is so large but your debt is not enough to live in the same manner.
To be truly wealthy is to be able to borrow as much as they want because those who can't borrow as much they want and use "credit" cards or interested purchases increase the debt of the wealthy (primarily corporations or those who have a great deal of stock in those corp.).
That is a Scam.
Once again, I think your father was wise.
Thank you for this. You gave me a lot to chew on. I agree with you more than you might think. My father’s whole point, all those years ago, was that the system is built so the average person is always one step behind, always in debt to someone who is richer than them. You’re describing the same structure, just with clearer language.
What we call “credit” today isn’t credit in any human sense. It’s a financial instrument that exists to keep money flowing upward. The milk-man version of credit was built on trust. Today’s version is built on extraction. You’re right that the card companies win twice: they profit on the purchase and then they profit again on the interest. And yes, the corporations that sell us the goods are tied into the same structure. They feed each other.
Your point about debt as an asset is the heart of it. The wealthy use debt as leverage, as a tool. Regular people use debt as a lifeline. Same word, completely different realities. When the wealthy borrow, it makes them wealthier. When the rest of us borrow, it makes us vulnerable.
So yes, my father was right. And you’re right. The whole thing only works because we’re encouraged to live beyond what we can afford, and then punished for doing exactly what the system depends on us doing.
I’d love to read the article you write in response
yes. exactly.
i'll let you know when I finish my article, but it might be towards the end of the coming week as there is so much in your article to respond to. As always though your articles are powerful dives into our emotional discordance with society's structure that we have difficulty making sense of.
Your project sounds strong. Are you also planning anything around promotion or design yet?
As always, excellent writing. The present is hard these days for so many people but the future is scary. I fear you are correct and we must prepare as community to survive and have a life.
Yeah, you are wrong! Big time !
WHY???
Because everything you have stated here is already happening in real time ! I’m not going to nit-pick through all 10.
I don’t have to.
And just for the record: I’m 73 and live in a Blue state on the East coast. Your mid-western view is lagging, actually dragging behind the current state of affairs within this country.
Notice I used the term “country”, I didn’t say The “United States” of America. Because there is nothing united about these states. It’s just the opposite from where I’m sitting as I pop open my 2nd beer of the morning.
Moving on to address your weather related comments:
I’ve always been a weather geek. I had to, where and how I was raised. That said, when I was a young lad, and had just landed my first major employment (Great salary, healthcare, retirement pension, etc.) I was the youngest in a group of 6 men whose work was weather dependent. After being in my new position for only a week or so, we were given our job assignment for the day. So, we grabbed our equipment and headed out to the site. Along the way, the “old timer’s” as I called them, were looking up at the sky, wondering aloud if we were going to be able to accomplish our assignment.
Well, I just blurted out ...”It smells like ice to me”.
You can only imagine how me, being the only worker in his 20’s among 5 other’s in their 50’s suffered from making that comment. They were brutal, and that is putting it mildly!
In less than an hour later, it started sleeting so hard our work assignment was canceled. I could go on but, I need another beer!
Cheer’s, and I wish you & yours a very Happy Thanksgiving!
Have a Happy Holiday!!!
Excellent article Tom. It saddened me but truth hurts sometimes.
Thank you. It wasn’t meant as truth so much as a warning flare. I’m glad it spoke to you.
It did. I live in the suburbs of Buffalo NY so I certainly have a different landscape than you but you but I really appreciated the picture you painted of where you live.
You gave voice to the way I've been feeling. I've felt a sense of impending doom and what I thought was an irrational feeling that I need to leave this place. I'm 68 and my husband is 61 For the last month or two I've been researching different states trying to find a new place to live because I truly believe that the US as I know is dying. I've been living in rural WV for 25 years (not born here) . I have never felt like I belong here and my "neighborhood" is as MAGA as it gets. When the US fractures into whatever it will become, the thought of being stuck here terrifies me. I'm looking to find a smallish town in a democratic state because I too believe community is important. Gonna sell our little piece of land in the woods and get the hell outta here! Thank you for validating these feelings I've been having. Maybe I'm not just a crazy old woman after all!
You’re not crazy at all. You’re paying attention and listening to that inner alarm that most people try to ignore. Living in a place where you’ve never truly belonged, especially one so steeped in MAGA sentiment, takes a toll. It wears on your nerves, your sense of safety, your sense of future.
Wanting out isn’t irrational. It’s wisdom earned over time. A small town in a democratic state, somewhere with community and neighbors who don’t see you as the enemy, a place where you can breathe again, makes perfect sense.
Selling your land and starting fresh isn’t running away. It’s choosing where your next chapter gets written. You are not a crazy old woman. You are someone who sees what’s coming and refuses to be caught standing still.
Thank you so much!
I think you're probably, and depressingly, right. In our seventies, my husband and have begun growing our own vegetables and fruit. Fortunately we've done most of the heavy work, but self sufficiency is a long way off!
Absolutely. Starting your garden at this stage is impressive. Even partial self-sufficiency builds skills, resilience, and quiet victories that matter more than the end goal.
I hope you are wrong, but I won't bet on it. I make pretty bad bets myself.
Most of this I agree with. But the mayor over the president? You know what that sounds like to me? "The baron will matter more than the king." Tom, people ruling over us is how we got where we are. Different names, different titles, same bullshit hierarchy.
I hear you. And you’re right in one sense, titles alone don’t fix anything. But what I’m trying to get at isn’t about giving the mayor more power than the president. It’s about impact. Your mayor can make your life better or worse in ways a distant president simply cannot touch. Schools, roads, policing, local services, zoning, emergency response. That is where the real levers of daily life are.
We have been chasing kings and presidents for decades while ignoring the small levers that actually shape our neighborhoods. Focusing on the local doesn’t mean the hierarchy disappears. It means we start pushing where we actually can move things. The baron might matter more than the king, not because he is above the king, but because he walks your streets every day.
It is not about replacing one boss with another. It is about recognizing where real change can happen.
Back to the future? We have long (always?) been a nation of localities. Before rapid transportation and instantaneous communications, where we were from largely defined who we were and how we thought. Access to education and different thinking and cultures was a privilege. For a while, access was available to the masses, but only a percentage took advantage. The "melting pot" was mostly corporatization of commerce; a Mickey D and Wallymart on every Main St.
Are we better off for that? Have we made progress? Hard to say.
Thanks for this. I'm 20 years older than "Tom Joad", meaning born into war and all that meant by way of shaping our day to day. Also meant the shape of the ensuing years. A lot of what Tom dreads looks to me like a return to what this country was when I was a kid, a teen, a college student. It was good, way better than this increasing abdication of personal responsibility and dependency on the "central government". If where this country is headed is back to the time when people knew how to DO STUFF, I'm all for it.
“My father thought credit cards were a scam.” and they were/are!!