From the Grapes of Wrath to Gaza's Ruins: Greed's Timeless Genocide

 By James Midson

Here in this blog post, my goal is simple: To enlighten you to the connection, and to open your eyes on the corruption. What is going on in Gaza right now is not just “lets get the terrorists,” but in actuality, it is a planned and coordinated genocide fueled by greed and ego in the chase for profits; A pattern that is nothing new at all. Let's take a look at our own history highlighted in The Grapes of Wrath for some behavioral context:

First I’ll cover what we’ve seen in The Grapes of Wrath to set the context of how this mass murder all links back to money and greed. In the 1930’s the United States capitalist economy faced its first real test with the Great Depression. Hundreds of thousands were displaced, with no homes, no food, and nowhere to go. The reason why? Simple. Banks needed to keep afloat so they foreclosed properties and fed on the already struggling for any ounce of  money that they had left in order for them to remain on top. They didn't actually care about the little kids starving and the mother’s having to give birth in dirty, decrepit vehicles that they must live in without any access to medical care. They just cared about their own future, which involved one thing: money. 

    My point here is that even in our OWN country when times were tough, those who had all the money in the country only cared about their own position and how to maintain it and expand their power and influence instead of helping their own people. So now the question arises: are we seeing a repeat of history where powerful forces with money and influence do not care about starving little kids and the deaths of tens of thousands? And I'm not talking about banks foreclosing farms because things are much different from that in Gaza. What I’m saying that this boils down to in both cases is this idea of dehumanization driven by the pursuit of power and profit. Just as the banks in The Grapes of Wrath saw struggling families like the Joad’s as obstacles to discard in order for themselves to survive, the Israeli Defense Force and Zionist forces at play in Isreal and the United States government today view the Palestinian population as expendable “goyim” or “cattle”, that are completely okay to kill, rape, and control in the name of their religion, resources, and geopolitical dominance. The parallels are so apparent that it is laughable: in the 1930s, it was land and loans. Now, it’s oil, strategic territory to build a canal going straight through Gaza, and some scripture in a multi-millenia old religious text called the Talmud that tells the Zionists that it's okay to commit the acts they are committing against these people.

Then there's the US and the capitalist forces. If those who held all the money in the United States only cared about themselves during the Great Depression (which was evident on many occasions highlighted in The Grapes of Wrath), and refused to help their own citizens, then why would the money-hungry people in power care about the people in Gaza if it jeopardizes their position of power, influence, and wealth? It’s the same game, just a different board. Back then, it was banks bleeding the poor dry to keep their ledgers black. And today, it’s the U.S. political machine, greased by Israeli lobbying and AIPAC’s pockets (which shouldnt be legal in Congress anyway), turning a blind eye to genocide because the checks keep coming and they dont want them to stop. Politicians, corporations, and elites aren’t just complicit. They’re completely bought and paid for, raking in millions to prop up Israel’s agenda while Gaza burns and innocent Palestinian children lose limbs from bombs dropping on their heads because “that's where the terrorists are” or “they would have grown up to be terrorists” (according to Israeli/American propaganda). So then you start to ask yourself this: why would these people who run the country give up that sweet deal of cash and power to save a population they’ve never seen as human to begin with? It’s all capitalist male greed, plain and simple: a brotherhood of egos where power is the prize, and the bodies of Palestinian kids—or American farmers, for that matter—are just acceptable losses in the pursuit of future profit. History doesn’t just rhyme. It's stuck on the same damn chorus and all we can do is sit back and watch as countless innocents die horrible deaths.

A typical image of Gaza-- there's nothing left

A child wandering around looking for scraps to eat

To those reading this blog post, I ask of you this: open your eyes to the thread that runs from the pages of The Grapes of Wrath to the blood-soaked streets of Gaza. As I said before, my goal here is to make you all aware of the connection. But what I request is for you all to pray and support these people. Lift up the Palestinians in your thoughts and prayers, because they’re enduring a hell most can’t fathom. However, don’t be stupid enough to think what’s going on is just pure "we need to get the terrorists," or "this wouldn't have happened if October 7th happened" For those who buy that line, take a damn minute. Dig into it, just as you took the time to read The Grapes of Wrath and saw how the thirst for constant power and greed turned people in power into vultures, picking the bones of starving families. It’s the same rot today: unchecked, it festers into genocide. See where this road leads when we let the powerful money hungry vultures write the rules.