My life­long friend John, who’s a pro­fes­sor of engi­neer­ing at a North­east­ern lib­eral arts col­lege, and increas­ingly irra­tional, sent the fol­low­ing note last night to a very small mail­inglist we both par­tic­i­pate in…

I just watched the final install­ment of Ken Burns’ doc­u­men­tary on the dust bowl. I highly rec­om­mend it. Some amaz­ing imagery, some­times of hell, and amaz­ing sto­ries of human per­se­ver­ance and tough­ness. Coin­ci­den­tally a good les­son in neg­a­tives of cap­i­tal­ism, and the dam­age short­sighted, self­ish prof­i­teers can cause, and the need for gov­ern­ment and regulations.

FDR really saved the day by insti­tut­ing a national farm­ing sci­ence pro­gram, with a really smart expert in charge, who over a cou­ple of years in the mid­dle of the decade suc­ceeded in get­ting about 50% of the land ter­race farmed, and planted with grass, etc. And the WPA saved a lot of peo­ple from star­va­tion. My father, a life­long repub­li­can, used to com­plain about his father, a very hard work­ing, con­ser­v­a­tive fel­low of few words who raised 11 chil­dren dur­ing the depres­sion, dirt poor, always vot­ing demo­c­rat: I remem­ber my grand­fa­ther say­ing once “FDR saved us. You don’t know what it was like.” This doc­u­men­tary touches on that, but mainly focuses on the dust bowl.

I sent this reply…

An extended alle­gory and a link…

You’re mind­ing your own busi­ness, strug­gling up a steep hill, when an enor­mously rich man in a brand new 1932 Packard runs you off the road into a deep ravine along­side the hill. You’re pretty banged up, but you’re alive, and as you climb out from under­neath your crushed Model T, you hear the plummy voice of the rich man call­ing faintly from the top of the cliff, coun­sel­ing you to stay strong while he goes for help.

“Welp,” you say to your­self, “It could be worse, this rich fel­low can at least fetch an ambu­lance to take me and the mis­sus and the kids to the hospital.”

But, then, the next thing you know, this rich man — so well inten­tioned, but so inept — gets into his Packard, revs the engine, and backs the car straight into a pine tree, which top­ples over and starts an avalanche of boul­ders down into the ravine. One of the rocks knocks you into the swollen river below, while another lands on top of your flivver, break­ing your wife’s leg, and leav­ing your young son, Johnny, senseless.

Again, from the top of the ravine, comes the calm, upper-class voice of the rich man, telling you to not take coun­sel of your fears, that indeed, fear is the worst of all pos­si­ble emo­tions. And while you agree that heed­less fear is a ter­ri­ble thing, you also think that a lit­tle panic might not be unwar­ranted, see­ing as how your wife has a com­pound frac­ture, Johnny is lay­ing half under a boul­der, and you’re cling­ing to an exposed tree root in a rag­ing moun­tain river.

And while the rich man talks and talks, the shad­ows are start­ing to get longer as the sun crawls across the sky

You shout up to the rich man, ask­ing him to please get help. He says it’s on the way, that in fact happy days are right around the cor­ner. But, you’re begin­ning to sus­pect that this fel­low doesn’ t know what he’s talk­ing about, because all you can hear from the top of the cliff is the sound of the rich man and the pas­sen­gers in his car argu­ing about how to get the car out of the ditch and run­ning again. It’s clear to you, an ordi­nary work­ing man, that none of them have any mechan­i­cal expe­ri­ence. And while they argue, and push on the car from var­i­ous angles, and bang at it angrily with tire irons, more boul­ders are dis­lodged and roll into the ravine.

As the sun sets, the sooth­ing voice of the rich man con­tin­ues to reas­sure you that help is on the way, although as far as you can tell nei­ther he, nor his pas­sen­gers have made any effort to walk the two miles back to town, pre­fer­ring more imprac­ti­cal solu­tions like try­ing to build a hot air res­cue bal­loon from the convertible’s can­vas top.

Finally, close to mid­night, as you’re just about to let go of your root and sink peace­fully into the arms of a watery death, a large mil­i­tary con­voy comes upon the scene and imme­di­ately sets to work res­cu­ing you and your family.

You’re saved!

In later years, sit­ting around the fire in your rock­ing chairs, your son Johnny, who spent much of the ordeal lying under a boul­der, fad­ing in and out of con­scious­ness, loves to go on and on about how the rich man “saved you”, and how he remem­bers the calm voice of the rich man keep­ing your spir­its up as you suffered.

In fact, you’ve heard it so often that you and your wife just give each other a sort of silent side­ways look, one that says, “that boy Johnny just ain’t been right since they got that boul­der off of his head.“

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012 – 11-18/2013-looks-a-lot-like-1937-in-four-fearsome-ways.html