Dem Cotton Pickin Okies Essays - Dust Bowl, New Deal Agencies

'Dem Cotton Pickin' Okies Not only stock markets were affected by the Depression. The farming society may have been the ones who suffered the most. Not only their section in the bank had been destroyed, but also the dust had eaten up their homes, work place, and places of entertainment! When dust storms hit no one knew what the 1,000 feet high, black dust clouds were. Some thought life was ending, and others thought it was judgment day. This phenomenon was caused by the drought, which lead to the decline of farmers. The soil turned bad, and caused the Dust Bowl. The residents of the Midwest had to deal with this very dilemma and it was not easy at all. For the most part, families stayed in their houses and tied handkerchiefs over their noses. If they had to leave they would add goggles to protect their eyes. The houses were sealed tight with cloth wedged in the cracks of the doors and windows. Women would knead bread dough inside drawers opened just enough for their hands to avoid the dust getting into the bread. Also to avoid dust contaminated food the women learned to stir pots quickly and to keep water sealed in mason jars. Farmers, whose normal feed crop failed, would harvest thistles and soap weed to feed their stock. The decline of farm prices fell about fifty three percent in 1929 due to the Great Depression. Because of this the farmers' income fell which meant they didn't have the money to pay for equipment or seeds, which also meant the land sat there unused. This is the way the Depression affected farmers. The land that was left was destroyed, and turned into dust. Although many of the people adapted to this hardship, some just could not handle it. These people migrated West, most to California. Some 150,000 to 200,000 acres of our cultivated land and a large portion of our grass land is literally blowing away for the reason that for the past two years no vegetation has grown. Fields are bare and pastures are without grass to hold the soil. Our roads are blocked. Trucks from consolidated schools have been unable to take the children to their schools. F. E. Herring to Elmer Thomas, on conditions in Roger Mills County, Oklahoma, April 7, 1937. In the midst of drought, there lies a suffering humanity, subdued in tragedy -Book of Jacob Prelude to the End 1:18 Arriving in California, disappointment awaits them. The fruit is plentiful. However, there is demand for workers only during picking season of a particular fruit. The workers are forced to migrate, looking for jobs. Receiving an actual job was an enduring feat. Many ran out of gasoline looking for work, and couldnt afford any more. Besides these hardships, these people were discriminated against, and taken advantage of. Upon their arrival, they were called Okies. Originally, this term meant that someone was from Oklahoma. As time went by, it was used as an insult. These Okies were honest workers, and labored hard. The wages they received were seldom enough to provide wholesome meals for a large family. As more workers arrived, each offered to work for a lower price. And as if not enough, the locals developed fear of the migrant workers. The local farmers and police, were afraid that the Okies would quickly steal any land and food that wasnt guarded. This misconception drove them to incredible lengths to guard everything. Leaders that spoke out and organized unions were quickly arrested and placed in prison, often without trial. Sometimes it is difficult to believe that this was how America was at one time. In the mid 1930s, relief finally came to needy Okies. This was a direct result of new government acts and aid programs. Since 1935 the Farm Security Administration has been making small loansaveraging about $350to needy farm families, to enable them to get a new start on the land. Ordinarily such loans are just large enough to finance the purchase of the seed, livestock, and equipment necessary to carry on farming operations. They are repayable over a period of from one to five years at 5 per cent interest. Will Alexander, FSA administrator, statement before the Temporary National

Descartes

Descartes Descartes Descartes insists that there is no analogy between walking and thinking since the notions of a walk and a thought are different in essence. Following the philosopher, one can claim that a walk is nothing but the act of walking, i.e. a physical human ability, which does not require any mental efforts and exists independently from the mind. A thought, on the contrary, is a broader notion since it can be applied at three distinct levels: it may refer to the faculty, to the thing, which possesses the faculty, and to the act itself. From this standpoint, Descartes endows a thought with the potential for a broader circle of functions. However, he does not exclude the possibility that a thought may stand for the act of walking or the ability to walk, which makes his distinction rather vague. In simple terms, there is really no analogy between walking and thinking since the first is a physical process and the second a mental, but Descartes complicates the matter. Saying that a thought may stand for the act of walking or the ability to walk, he admits that both notions can be equal, at the same time rejecting this. Further, the philosopher argues that he can be sure only about his thoughts rather than any actions. Metaphysical certainty, in this case, should imply a human cognitive ability to make logical inferences, i.e. the cogito, and it is embarrassing why he is sure about his thoughts and unsure about his actions as if the latter were not controlled or predetermined by our brain. Probably, Descartes position is defensible if one considers his arguments in the Second Meditation, where he wonders if there is any absolutely certain truth. He gives an affirmative answer since even if his experience is illusory, it is still real because it takes place. Therefore, the person who experiences really exists. The single argument proving that the philosopher exists is that he is thinking (or experiencing), which presupposes that he is a thing that experiences (thinks) a mind. Descartes knows for sure that he is a mind since he is not yet sure if his body and the physical world exist. What is more, he is more certain that his mind exists since exactly the intellect represents a truthful state of physical things, and the senses themselves are unable to do it (Descartes). As Descartes exemplifies the matter, even if he seems to himself to be walking, his body may not move at all, as in dreams. Consequently, we should trust our mind rather than our senses. It follows from this that if Descartes considers walking as a sensual experience, he may not make the inference I am walking, therefore I exist, unless the awareness of walking is a thought. In the given context, it is noteworthy to mention Descartes ideas about mind/body dualism. According to the philosopher, a human is a distinctly thinking thing. Although he, as every human, does have a body, with which he [his mind] is tightly connected and which is an unthinking thing, he [his mind] is entirely different from his body and may exist without it (Descartes 5). The philosopher exemplifies how his body is intimately conjoined with his mind: when his body is hurt, he does not perceive the wound by the understanding alone but feels pain; likewise, he feels hungry or thirsty when his body needs food or drink. Therefore, there exists the union and apparent fusion of mind and body (Descartes 7). Despite this apparent fusion, another difference between the mind and body is that the body is inherently divisible, whereas the mind is completely indivisible. Indeed, Descartes can think of distinct parts of his body like foot, arm, head, etc., but he can distinguish no parts in him self as a thinking thing. One more distinctive feature is that the mind receives the immediate impression not from all the parts of the body but only from the brain or some its part. Movements of the brain, in turn, immediately impress the mind only with that sensation which is the most important at the moment. Nevertheless, such distinction between the mind and body seems rather vague to me. Descartes rejects the idea of a thinking body, claiming that he is a mind. It looks like he disregards the fact that human brain is a physical entity, and exactly this physical entity enables humans to think, which makes his argument unconvincing. To make his standpoint more convincing, and, therefore, rebut Hobbes and Gassendis arguments in a more reasonable way, he should explain his position in terms of rationalism. Rationalism argues that a person is born already with knowledge, i.e. knowledge is inherent, and learning stems from intuition. Following Rationalists like Plato and Descartes, who are concerned with absolute universal truths, one can assert that the mind is the single source of knowledge (Empiricism v. Rationalism. n.d.; Rationalism: Some similarities between Plato and Descartes, 17 Mar. 2001). In this connection, it becomes clear why Descartes argues that there is no analogy between walking and thinking and why a person is a thinking thing. Nonetheless, a person can walk, breathe, or eat without thinking, i.e. he or she can perform purely physiological functions without thinking. If, however, one starts to think what to eat or where to go (or in which direction), these actions become impossible without thinking. Likewise, a person can think without doing anything; the only prerequisite for thinking is being alive. All in all, such questions are rather entangled and seem to be of a little practical value. The issues mentioned above may be good for philosophers, who aim at discovering human essence, but ordinary people are not likely to ponder on them.