The Grapes of McCain (a screenplay)

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http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/8/22/231658/620/374/568131

The Grapes of McCain (a screenplay)

by Bill Prendergast

Fri Aug 22, 2008 at 08:16:58 PM PDT
(MASTER SHOT. Crane shot of endless line of junky old cars stretching off to the horizon on a desert road, lined up at the Arizona border. Everyone in the line of cars, all drivers and passengers, are white. No black people, no Latinos, just white people angrily waving little sheets of paper with the legend: "MCCAIN TO PAY WHITE PEOPLE FIFTY DOLLARS AN HOUR TO PICK LETTUCE IN ARIZONA!")

(MEDIUM SHOT. Arizona border guards with 'statie' hats, sunglasses and truncheons are stopping the first car in line, checking papers, turning back white Republicans who want fifty bucks an hour to pick lettuce. Then they come to a car full of real Beverly Hillbillies types in the first junk car--it's the Joad family again, with every piece of down-market crap they own tied to the car, and Grandpa strapped to the roof.)

(In the front seat are TOM JOAD (a bitter young Henry Fonda type), CASEY (a tent revival preacher type, thinking John Carradine for this part), and MULEY (a crazy coot who lost his property because his Republican legislator delayed the government aid to prevent home foreclosures.)

TOM JOAD is at the wheel. The BORDER GUARD looks at the handbill that TOM has given him.

Border Guard: This ain't no guarantee you and your kin got work to go to in Arizona. All this is, is a handbill sayin' McCain's offerin' fifty dollars to white men to come pick lettuce in Arizona.

Tom Joad: Well, ain't he?

Border Guard:(under his breath) Fuckin' McCain... (to Joad) No, he sure ain't! That's just somethin' he said to degrade people of color by tellin' white folks that they was work that wasn't fit for no white man to do! You gotta a lotta nerve, showin' up to find work in Arizona on the basis of somethin' John McCain said.

Tom Joad: Takes no nerve to do something, ain't nothin' else you can do.

Border Guard: McCain said the fundamentals of economy are sound, why didn'tcha look for work and affordable housing back where ya come from? McCain says the country's basically prosperous--

Tom Joad: Sure don't look none too prosperous.

Second Border Guard: (to first Border Guard) You and me got sense. Them white rank-and-file Republicans got no sense and no feeling. They ain't human. Human being wouldn't live the way they do. Human being couldn't stand to be so miserable.

Arizona Border Guard: (to the Joads) You ain't got that offer from Senator McCain himself in writin', I cain't let none of you in.

Muley Graves: There ain't nobody gonna push me outta my job gittin' fifty dollars an hour to be a white man pickin' lettuce! My grandpa took up 70 years ago with aid from the federal guv'mn't, my pa was born in a military industrial complex economy subsidized and maintained by big government spendin' on it, he got a job based on ripple effects from Keynesian big government redistribution of taxpayer wealth on it, and we were all born on it, and we were all white! And some of of us was killed fightin' for that! ...and some of us died for that. That's what makes that fifty dollar an hour white man pickin' lettuce in Arizona job our'n, bein' born to it,...and workin' on it,...and and dying' on it! And not no piece of paper with the writin' on it!

Tom Joad: Aww, shut up Muley. (to Border Guard) Ain't McCain's word worth nothin'?

Border Guard: He ain't gonna pay you no fifty dollars an hour to pick lettuce here, white, black or purple! His word ain't worth dirt.

Grandpa Joad: (waving handbill) It's my dirt! Eh-heh! No good, but it's - it's mine, all mine.

Tom Joad: How'd he get off the roof? Tie him down again there, Ma!

Grandpa Joad: McCain's a Republican runnin' for president, Tommy! And he's reaall old, like me. He so old he's nearly dead! HA HA!

Tom Joad: Seems like the government's got more interest in a dead man than a live one.

Casey: I wouldn't pray just for a old man with a hundred million dollars who says a feller ain't rich lessen he got five million a year at least. 'cause he's all right. If I was to pray, I'd pray for white folks that's alive and don't know which way to turn to get fifty dollars an hour to pick lettuce.

Ma Joad: There, gramma! There's Arizona.

Grandma Joad: Phbbtt!

Tom Joad: McCain's workin' away our spirits, tryin' to make us cringe and crawl, talkin' 'bout how we all got to protect Czechoslovakia when there ain't been no Czechoslovakia since Havel's velvet revolution, takin' away our decency, offerin' to pay us fifty dollars an hour to do a job no white man would do. Shouldna' never left my job as a fifteen dollar an hour software programmer back in Oklahoma...

Ma Joad: That job made ya mean, Tom. It made ya real durn hard-mean...

Tom Joad: I been thinking about us, too, about our people living like pigs and good rich lettuce land layin' unpicked with no white people gettin' fifty dollars an hour to pick it. Or maybe about one guy with so many houses he don't know how many he's got criticizin' Democrats for elitism, and not countin' a feller rich unless he got five million a year in income, income, mind ya, not even in the equity value of the portfolio. And I been wonderin' if all our folks got together and yelled...

(...)