Charlotte Allen on the 75th Anniversary of The Grapes of Wrath

[Jason]

From the December 29, 2014 issue of The Weekly Standard:

As time rolled on, it became clear to everyone except English teachers that Steinbeck had gotten everything wrong in The Grapes of Wrath, perhaps deliberately.
...
With the Okies, he saw a chance to tell a romantic on-the-road tale that he could also invest with high tragedy and left-wing social significance. He could write vividly about Oklahoma dust storms that turned “the sun .  .  . as red as ripe new blood.” The trouble was that Steinbeck had likely never seen a dust storm, and the people he wrote about couldn’t have seen one. Steinbeck had no clue as to what those people could have been thinking about in real life. But he wasn’t one to let the truth interfere with what he wanted to write.

[Monty J]

Jason wrote: "From the December 29, 2014 issue of The Weekly Standard:As time rolled on, it became clear to everyone except English teachers that Steinbeck had gotten everything wrong in The Grapes of Wrath, per..."

This is right-wing political tripe published in a tarnished rag that only lovers of Rush Limbaugh could appreciate.

Per Wikipedia: "The Weekly Standard is an American neoconservative opinion magazine published 48 times per year. Its founding publisher, News Corporation [founded by Rupert Murdoch], debuted the title September 18, 1995. Currently edited by founder William Kristol and Fred Barnes, the Standard has been described as a 'redoubt of neoconservatism' and as 'the neo-con bible'. Since it was founded in 1995, the Weekly Standard has never been profitable, and has remained in business through subsidies from conservative benefactors such as former owner Rupert Murdoch. Many of the magazine's articles are written by members of conservative think tanks located in Washington, D.C." [In other words, the magazine is a fascist propaganda organ.]

Propagandist Charlotte Allen has about as much credibility as a Li'l Orphan Annie comic book, itself a fantasy of right-wing propaganda.

Glaring among Allen's ridiculous lies is: ...Steinbeck had no clue as to what those people could have been thinking about in real life.

As a young man, Steinbeck worked among the migrant workers as a farm laborer. As an accomplished writer (Of Mice and Men and three other novels had been published) he was hired by a magazine to investigate reports about terrible conditions of migrant workers in California's Central Valley. He toured the labor camps and became so appalled by what he witnessed that he felt compelled to memorialize the suffering in a novel. He wrote history as it was happening. The threat of communism during the Great Depression was real. By holding up a mirror to the grim realities of capitalism, Steinbeck may have helped prevent a revolution. The novel even embarrassed Eleanor Roosevelt into touring the labor camps.

Steinbeck made sure that someone with years of experience in California farm labor--Tom Collins, head of the Arvin/Weedpatch/"Wheatpatch" labor camp featured in the film and novel--was hired as the film's technical advisor, making it a condition of sale of the film rights.

When Darrel Zanuck, himself a conservative, produced the John Ford (another conservative)-directed film of TGOW, he hired investigators and found conditions worse than Steinbeck reported in the book.


TGOW won a Pulitzer. They don't give such awards to insensitive distortions of history. You embarrass yourself by posting neoconservative (aka "fascist") propaganda here. You embarrass humanity.

Who's paying you, Murdoch or the KOCH-topus?

[Karen]

I also take issue with this from that article I quote here-
"I had seen no sign, in the late 1950s, that any people like the Joads had ever existed: no ragged tent-camps with starving, cruelly exploited inhabitants subsisting on vegetable gleanings; no abandoned boxcars that entire multi-generational families called home. By then, the farmworkers were all of Mexican descent, Cesar Chavez’s people."

Huh? What is this supposed to mean? So what- as if this proves her right? Conservative or not, a stupid statement is just that- stupid.

[Monty J]

Karen wrote: "I also take issue with this from that article I quote here-
'I had seen no sign, in the late 1950s, that any people like the Joads had ever existed: no ragged tent-camps with starving, cruelly exploited inhabitants subsisting on vegetable gleanings; no abandoned boxcars that entire multi-generational families called home. By then, the farmworkers were all of Mexican descent, Cesar Chavez’s people.'"


Allen's bigotry is appalling. See the way she dismisses the "farmworkers ...of Mexican descent" as "Cesar Chavez's people?"

See how she infers that being Chicano makes the farmworkers less important than "people like the Joads," who were white?

How can this racist view of racial minorities continue to pervade the neoconservative outlook?

[Jason]

Monty J wrote: "fascist"

“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”—Inigo Montoya

[Jason]

Karen wrote:

I also take issue with this from that article I quote here—

"I had seen no sign, in the late 1950s, that any people like the Joads had ever existed: no ragged tent-camps with starving, cruelly exploited inhabitants subsisting on vegetable gleanings; no abandoned boxcars that entire multi-generational families called home. By then, the farmworkers were all of Mexican descent, Cesar Chavez’s people."

Huh? What is this supposed to mean?

It means the Okies as Steinbeck portrayed them no longer existed, if they ever had. They found better lives in California. The work they found was non-farm work. If there was any long-term exploitation of farmworkers going on, it wasn’t of white people, but those of Mexican descent.

[Jason]

Monty J wrote:

Allen's bigotry is appalling. See the way she dismisses the "farmworkers ...of Mexican descent" as "Cesar Chavez's people?"

See how she infers that being Chicano makes the farmworkers less important than "people like the Joads," who were white?

She didn’t dismiss them or infer they were less important. She was pointing out that the oppressed “whites” of Steinbeck’s story weren’t so oppressed, at least not for long.

[Monty J]

Jason wrote: "Monty J wrote: "fascist"

“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”—Inigo Montoya"


I accept Dr. Lawrence Britt's definition: http://www.rense.com/general37/char.htm

Referenced above and itemized below, with special reference to number 11:

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

4. Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread
domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

5. Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.

6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

7. Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

8. Religion and Government are Intertwined - Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.

9. Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

10. Labor Power is Suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

14. Fraudulent Elections - Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.


Fox "News" would be but one example of item #6, but this abuse of the airwaves for rightist propagandizing dates back to the late 1950s, with HL Hunt's Lifeline and similar programming on KRLD Dallas. Hunt, along with RW Welch and Fred Koch, founded the John Birch Society. (Hunt was implicated in the JFK assassination, but nothing was ever proven. His name no longer appears on any official JBS material that I can find.)

The Bush-Gore election would be an example of item #14, along with recent voter suppression laws. And this from today's Yahoo News: "House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, the chamber's third-ranking Republican, served in the Louisiana Legislature when he appeared in 2002 at a convention of the European-American Unity and Rights Organization. Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke founded the group."

[Karen]

Jason wrote: "Karen wrote:I also take issue with this from that article I quote here—"I had seen no sign, in the late 1950s, that any people like the Joads had ever existed: no ragged tent-camps with starving, c..."

It was 20 years later that she saw what she claimed she saw. Did she do a drive by? Did she investigate?

[Monty J]

Karen wrote: "Jason wrote: "Karen wrote:I also take issue with this from that article I quote here—"I had seen no sign, in the late 1950s, that any people like the Joads had ever existed: no ragged tent-camps wi...

It was 20 years later that she saw what she claimed she saw. Did she do a drive by? Did she investigate? "

Weedpatch, the government labor camp in TGOW, is still there: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Wee...

If she'd cared to get off the Interstate a few miles and poke around Bakersfield she would have had no trouble finding it.

I met an elderly (70s) man who as boy had worked in farm labor out of Weedpatch. He was Filipino. He said that in his time the farm laborers were mostly Filipino, then over time they were predominantly Mexican. Okie, Filipino, Chicano. Things change; that doesn't deny the reality of what was during the Depression.

(The guy had some great stories. I told him he could write a book, but he said he was too busy with all his grandkids and girlfriends. Quite a guy.)

[Monty J]

Jason wrote: "If there was any long-term exploitation of farmworkers going on, it wasn’t of white people, but those of Mexican descent."

Do you see the racist bigotry in this comment? What difference does it make what race they were? Exploitation is exploitation!!

Let's say, only for the sake of discussion, that Steinbeck knew no one would care enough about poor Mexicans to read a book about them so he made them Okies. Does that change the fact that human beings were exploited?

But for the record they WERE Okies. Tom Collins kept meticulous daily logs of the activities in Weedpatch and he made them available to both Steinbeck and filmmakers Zanuck and Ford.

The authenticity of these characters' origins was verified, and is probably still verifiable today. To have it questioned by the unworthy likes of yourself and Charlotte Allen for political gain is an insult to the people who suffered and to the great artists who honored them in print and film.

[Jason]

Monty – Your ability to hijack a discussion is only surpassed by your ability to read things not written. So far, according to you, I am fascist and racist. Slow down, my friend. It’s impossible to have a discussion with someone who reads 1+1=2 and thinks the person is implying that 1+1=5,000.

[Monty J]

Jason wrote: "Slow down, my friend."

I'm just getting warmed up. Everybody needs to understand that any time someone disparages John Steinbeck or something he wrote they're going to have my pen to answer to. That's just how it is. Think of me as Tom Joad; where there's someone being bullied or taken advantage of or a kid going hungry, I'll be there.

Charlotte Allen is supposed to be a biblical scholar, having written The Human Christ: The Search for the Historical Jesus.

Perhaps she is familiar with Matthew 25:37-40: 37 Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? 38 When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? 39 Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? 40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

Allen has a string of degrees from Stanford, Harvard, U.S.C., and a doctorate in medieval and Byzantine studies from the University of Mars or wherever. But where is the evidence she has a SOUL?

All that time and money spent on an education that she's throwing away pandering to the wealthy 1%, people who need her the least. She needs to get out of her ivory tower and experience a bit of the suffering of which she seems so callously ignorant. Maybe, hopefully, then she'll sing a different tune, if she hasn't succumbed to Randist propaganda.

(signed: Tom Joad)

[Monty J]

Jason wrote: "...the oppressed “whites” of Steinbeck’s story weren’t so oppressed, at least not for long."

The improvement in the farm workers' conditions was a direct result of publication of TGOW. By exposing their abuses and atrocities, the book shamed the large corporate farmers and organizations like the Associated Farmers of America into relaxing their abuse. It also triggered investigations and a crackdown at the state and federal level.

The powerful people Steinbeck exposed were so incensed that they made threats and plotted against him. (Remind anyone of Jesus?) After repeated threats against his life and limb, a friendly sheriff advised him to carry a gun, which he did, and of a plot to have a prostitute knock on Steinbeck's hotel room door and scream "rape" when he opened it.

These were not nice people whom Charlotte Allen seems compelled to defend. The smaller farmers treated the workers with respect for the most part. It was the giant whales of greed who were the culprits. You know, Ayn Rand's kind of people.

(Thanks, by the way, for giving me the opportunity to clarify a few things.)

[E.D.]

Jason,

You do know Jesus was a commie, right?

[Jason]

E.D.—I'm not sure you know what the word "commie" means.

[E.D.]

Jason,

I'm not sure you know who the mythological Jesus allegedly was.

Semantics are such fun, no? :}

[Jason]

E.D.—I really can't help you if you deny that Jesus even existed. But congratulations on surpassing Monty's ability to hijack a discussion into the realm of the absurd.

[E.D.]

Jason,

I'm seeing the absurdity of critiquing those who find a critique of TGOW by a neoconservative absurd..., a bit absurd.

Where, exactly, did you think the "discussion" was going to go? What, pray tell, was the point?

Truly, I am not disparaging your faith....,rather, I'm trying to discern where it juxtaposes with Ms. Allen's socio-political lean.

Perhaps you could clarify your purpose in posting to begin with.

[Monty J]

don wrote: "comparing yourself to "Tom Joad"
would be like"

Tom Joad is almost my alter-ego. He's but a fictional character, but his spiritual essence is part of what makes me tick.

I had a distant cousin from Arizona who served time in the '50s for writing hot checks. I met him only once. I was 5 or so. His hands were like saddle leather from hard labor. His demeanor was a curious combination of hard and soft. Like TJ.

In the orphanage where I spent the last nine years of my "childhood," I lived with the offspring of others like my cousin. They were my brothers and sisters. Hopelessness was a shadow lurking around every corner, but we believed God loved us. That and our naive innocence carried us through each day despite the grim reality of our situation.

Joad I cannot help but be. To deny it would be to dishonor the suffering we shared and the thousand heroisms of those who made our lives more bearable.

[Monty J]

Jason wrote: "Monty's ability to hijack a discussion... "

"Hijack" is an interesting term. I came prepared with facts and clear logic. All I'm hearing is a faint "hijack--hijack" croaked from deep in the forest.

Ribit--ribit.

Think of me as a guy with a mallet held over a Whack-a-Mole table waiting for the next Neo-Con to take a swipe at Steinbeck. A BIG mallet.

[Isa]

I really enjoyed the book. I have read it twice, once when younger and recently.
I think Steinbeck is an excellent story teller.

As well as exploitation being a topic covered in the story. I thought the main idea was about the mechanisation and the corporate take over of small farm holdings. Something to which we are all now beholden to.

[Monty J]

don wrote: " I don't think "Tom Joad" would argue
with a signpost."

Joad would have walked away shaking his head, whereas I would take out my Magic Marker and change the lettering.

[Isa]

don wrote: "let's play nice'
No seriously we are all forgetting what
a great Novel we are having a pissing contest about."

I agree
I am leaving this discussion.

[Jason]

don wrote: "Then are you saying there was no dustbowl
and western migration."

No. I did not say that.

[E.D.]

Jason wrote: "don wrote: "Then are you saying there was no dustbowl
and western migration."

No. I did not say that."

True. You didn't say that.

".....the Okies as Steinbeck portrayed them no longer existed, *if they ever had*."

You did say that, correct?

[Jason]

E.D. wrote: “‘the Okies as Steinbeck portrayed them no longer existed, *if they ever had*.’ You did say that, correct?”

No. That was a quote of something Charlotte Allen wrote.

[Monty J]

don wrote: "I'm starting to tire of you Jason
you just aren't that interesting
go peddle your papers
"Monty" does your magic marker have an eraser
a magic eraser"

It does, but I rarely use it because it would destroy the evidence of ignorance and betrayal inherent in the neo-con/fascist mentality. Democracy, like Christianity, is under constant attack. Vigilance and activism are required.

Instead of destroying Auschwitz, Germany turned it into a museum as a reminder of what can happen when the power elite runs amok, (as it has been doing here in America.) Let her graffiti stand so her toxic words can be refuted and used against the corruption she represents.

[Monty J]

Jason wrote: "From the December 29, 2014 issue of The Weekly Standard:As time rolled on, it became clear to everyone except English teachers that Steinbeck had gotten everything wrong in The Grapes of Wrath, per..."

Yet another repudiation of Neo-Con propagandist Charlotte Allen refuting her ignorance appears in the UK press: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/bo...

[Jason]

Monty J wrote: "Yet another repudiation of Neo-Con propagandist Charlotte Allen refuting her ignorance appears in the UK press"

There isn’t anything in that Telegraph article that refutes anything Charlotte Allen wrote.

[Monty J]

Jason wrote: "There isn’t anything in that Telegraph article that refutes anything Charlotte Allen wrote. "

Perhaps you missed: • He was proud of his research
While writing The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck visited Arvin Federal Government Camp near Bakersfield, portrayed as "Weedpatch Camp" in the novel. The camp is still used by migrant workers.

[Jason]

Monty J wrote: "Perhaps you missed…"

No, I did not miss that. But Charlotte Allen did not write that Steinbeck wasn’t proud of his research, that Steinbeck didn’t visit Arvin Federal Government Camp, or that the camp isn’t still used by migrant workers.

[E.D.]

Jason wrote: "E.D. wrote: “‘the Okies as Steinbeck portrayed them no longer existed, *if they ever had*.’ You did say that, correct?”

No. That was a quote of something Charlotte Allen wrote."

Yes. In context as "your" response to Karen's question in Message 6.

Would it then be fair to reasonably assume--by your response--that you share that opinion? No more semantics...; yes or no?

[Jason]

E.D. wrote: "Yes. In context as 'your' response to Karen's question in Message 6."

You're right. I wasn't quoting Charlotte Allen there. I was trying to explain her meaning in response to Karen. Thanks for the clarification and I apologize for the mistake, borne out of responding too quickly without looking back up at the context.

E.D. wrote: "Would it then be fair to reasonably assume--by your response--that you share that opinion?"

I’m inclined to accept Charlotte Allen’s view of Steinbeck’s story. But I have no firsthand knowledge, so there’s no reason anyone should accept my opinion of whether Allen is correct about the accuracy of Steinbeck’s portrayal.

[Monty J]

Jason wrote: "Monty J wrote: "Perhaps you missed…"

No, I did not miss that. But Charlotte Allen did not write that Steinbeck wasn’t proud of his research, that Steinbeck didn’t visit Arvin Federal Government Ca..."

Sigh, if I keep having to do your reading for you I'm going to send you a bill.

Allen: "I was thus able, at age 18, to form an independent assessment of Steinbeck’s novel. It was: There’s not a thing in here that rings true.

I’d been to the book’s geographical setting, California’s densely agricultural San Joaquin Valley, because my parents a few years before had selected Highway 99—the same road that Steinbeck’s fictional Joad family follows as they lurch from one tragic mishap to another in their rickety Beverly Hillbillies mobile—as the quickest route for a family trip to San Francisco. I had seen no sign, in the late 1950s, that any people like the Joads had ever existed: no ragged tent-camps..."

"Not a thing in her that rings true" and "no ragged ten-camps" asserts that the Arvin government camp never existed. The article refutes that assertion. Anyone can drill-down and see it with Google Maps even today.

Allen's dishonesty is further illustrated here by her inference that by having driven on some section of Route 66 that she's an authority on that entire road, and since she didn't see the Arvin tent camp it therefore didn't exist.

In a glaring fallacy of logic, Allen infers that because she visited some small portion of the 22,500 square mile San Joaquin Valley during a family trip she is somehow an authority on what Steinbeck gleaned during his research there, which encompassed several days, not a drive-through.

Steinbeck's findings were supported by investigators hired by Producer Darryl Zanuck (a conservative) and as well by President Roosevelt's investigators.

Allen offers not one shred of countervailing evidence. Only her limp assertions. But her choir of Neo-cons will read her words and feel smug in her misinformation, just as they do FOX "News" propaganda. Their obsession for ideological purity commands them to believe her; so they will.

[Jason]

Monty J wrote: "'Not a thing in her that rings true' and 'no ragged ten[t]-camps' asserts that the Arvin government camp never existed"

You are confusing whether a particular camp existed (not in dispute, as far as I am aware) with the accuracy of Steinbeck’s portrayal of the Okies’ travel to California and what they found when the arrived (in dispute).

Monty J wrote: "Allen offers not one shred of countervailing evidence."

Actually, she relies heavily on American Exodus the Dust Bowl Migration and Okie Culture in California by James N. Gregory, “an exhaustive and sympathetic study of Okie culture in California.” She also points to evidence of misrepresentations in Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley.

[Monty J]

Jason wrote: "You are confusing whether a particular camp existed (not in dispute, as far as I am aware)... "

Two tent camps I recall being mentioned in the novel-- Arvin's/Weedpatch, which was there when Steinbeck visited it, there when Allen did her 1950s drive-by and is still there today; and the Hooverville where the woman was shot by a cop. To which tent camp is she referring when Allen says, "...no ragged tent camps"? Is she denying the existence of even the Hoovervilles that plagued the country during the Depression?

So, there aren't any signs of Hoovervilles when Allen did her 1950s drive-by at age 18. Well, Duh. What's her point, that once the Depression is over that part of history is fair game for revision, ceases to be relevant? That's almost as ludicrous as Holocaust denial.



Jason: "...she relies heavily on American Exodus the Dust Bowl Migration and Okie Culture in California by James N. Gregory..."

She makes vague references to the book but provides no citations. How can I trust anything she says after outright lies such as: "Steinbeck himself came from an upper-middle-class family in Salinas, California, and his only hands-on contact with Okies consisted of having interviewed a few of them for some newspaper articles."

Upper middle-class my ass. Steinbeck's mother was a schoolteacher and his father managed a flour plant and served as Treasurer of Monterrey County, hardly a metropolis. Steinbeck in his youth worked side-by-side in the fields with farm laborers, Okies included. His parents paid for his sisters to go to Standford (so they could marry well--and they did, becoming narrow-minded Republicans). But Steinbeck, because "he was a man" had to pay his own way. He worked as a lab technician at Spreckles sugar plant in Manteca. In New York he worked as a construction laborer, toting cement in a wheelbarrow. He wrote his first novel in Lake Tahoe, working as a property caretaker.

In one breath Allen says Steinbeck didn't know any Okies. In the next she admits he did months of research. Which is it?

You can write volumes on what Allen doesn't know about John Steinbeck. But, as Fox "News" demonstrates every day, facts don't matter to a propagandist.

Steinbeck didn't write a book of anthropology or history. He wrote fiction. So what if 90% of the real Okies were brainwashed with John Birch-like propaganda and his characters were imbued by him with an enlightened view that gave hope instead of perpetuating ignorance, despair and exploitation? You think readers don't know this?

What matters is that the Okies' desperate circumstances weren't exaggerated, and Steinbeck's research was vetted by both President Roosevelt and by conservative film producer Darryl Zanuck. It was Zanuck who rewrote the ending to GOW and put those sappy words in Ma Joad's mouth, not Steinbeck. Who vetted James N. Gregory's research? His American Exodus was published in 1991, sixty years after the fact. History books are famous for omission and distortion and pandering to the power elite. Ugly truths, like the massacre of an entire black community in Tulsa, Oklahoma [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_ra...] get buried for decades, if they ever come to light.


Sometimes it takes powerful fiction to preserve and protect the truth from prevaricating propagandists and pandering history professors.