Barbara Ehrenreich

 

Barbara Ehrenreich, author and activist recently passed away at the age of 81.  Her writings were important to me.  Specifically, two of her books, "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America" and "Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking Is Undermining America" were revelations. In them, Ms Ehrenreich wrote things that I had long thought and felt like a freak for thinking them. I'm going to miss her voice and am glad that I encountered it during the time that I had on this side of the grass.  Here are a couple of quotes. From "Nickel and Dimed":  “When someone works for less pay than she can live on — when, for example, she goes hungry so that you can eat more cheaply and conveniently — then she has made a great sacrifice for you, she has made you a gift of some part of her abilities, her health, and her life. The 'working poor,' as they are approvingly termed, are in fact the major philanthropists of our society. They neglect their own children so that the children of others will be cared for; they live in substandard housing so that other homes will be shiny and perfect; they endure privation so that inflation will be low and stock prices high. To be a member of the working poor is to be an anonymous donor, a nameless benefactor, to everyone else.”  ~ Barbara Ehrenreich ~ From "Bright-Sided": What would it mean in practice to eliminate all the 'negative people' from one's life? It might be a good move to separate from a chronically carping spouse, but it is not so easy to abandon the whiny toddler, the colicky infant, or the sullen teenager. And at the workplace, while it's probably advisable to detect and terminate those who show signs of becoming mass killers, there are other annoying people who might actually have something useful to say: the financial officer who keeps worrying about the bank's subprime mortgage exposure or the auto executive who questions the company's overinvestment in SUVs and trucks. Purge everyone who 'brings you down,' and you risk being very lonely, or, what is worse, cut off from reality. ~ Barbara Ehrenreich ~

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