Stephen D. Shenfield | Author and Translator
'Changing the world' without changing the world
- Published on 01 March 2019
- Hits: 114
Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World. By Anand Giridharadas. (Alfred A. Knopf, 2018)
The Ideas Industry. By Daniel W. Drezner. (Oxford University Press, 2017)
The Givers: Wealth, Power, and Philanthropy in a New Gilded Age. By David Callahan. (Alfred A. Knopf, 2017)
The capitalist class controls not only the means of production but also many other important spheres of social life. The authors of these books give us close-up views of how capitalists, aided by servitors of various kinds, control two of these spheres: the formulation and dissemination of ‘new’ ideas and the activity that goes by the name of philanthropy (from the Greek words for ‘love’ and ‘human’). Drezner examines the ‘ideas industry’ and Callahan philanthropy; Giridharadas provides an overview of both.
Waste and want: Grapes of Wrath revisited
- Published on 01 August 2010
- Hits: 8752
In his famous novel The Grapes of Wrath (Chapter 25), John Steinbeck described how food was destroyed during the Great Depression:
Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground.
The people come for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges… A million people hungry, needing the fruit – and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains.And the smell of rot fills the country.
Burn coffee for fuel in the ships… Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out [with nets]. Slaughter the pigs and bury them…
And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificates – died of malnutrition – because the food must be forced to rot.
Letter to a new Jewish mother
- Published on 01 October 2016
- Hits: 3766
I hear that you just gave birth to your first child – a healthy baby boy. Mazel tov! I also hear that everything is going well, just as it should be. You have no cause for worry.
This should be a happy time for you. And so it is, I am sure.
Well, a happy time on the whole.
No, not altogether happy. Not one hundred percent. There is a fly in the ointment. Something does worry you, however you may try not to think about it. Now and then disturbing images intrude, unbidden and unwelcome.
Invitation to correspond
- Published on 08 February 2019
- Hits: 119
Hello!
My name is Joe R. Hopkins. I was born in East Chicago, Indiana in 1954.
I am 5' 10" tall and weigh about 185 lb. I attended Ashland Community College for two years (1972—1973). My studies focused on the social sciences, history, and economics.
I am seeking correspondence with people who try to resist stereotyping others and are interested in some of the things that this website presents for consideration and discussion.
Memories of a childhood in mental hospital
- Published on 24 January 2019
- Hits: 246
Even today children are locked up in mental hospitals where they are deprived of loving care and normal social interaction and subjected to cruel pseudo-treatments like psychiatric drugs and electro-convulsive therapy. The author, currently a prisoner, recalls the two years that he spent in such an institution as a young child.
