Feminist & Progressive:
In Conversation With Barbara Ehrenreich

Meet Barbara Ehrenreich in person on Tuesday, July 15 in Oakland at an event sponsored by KPFA and Cody's books. The bestselling author of Nickel and Dimed, Bait and Switch, and Global Woman, and brilliant feminist member of Progressives for Obama, will discuss her new book, This Land Is Their Land, and clarify the Obama phenomenon and the onrushing tide of change.

It was a rare privilege and a real treat to get to talk with Barbara before the event. Even if you can't make it to Oakland, I trust you'll enjoy the following interchange. —Bart Brodsky

Bart Brodsky: You're probably tired of hearing it, but Nickel and Dimed was a phenomenal book, and I think you really captured the concept of the "two Americas" long before John Edwards made it an official campaign theme. What's happened—

Barbara Ehrenreich: I don't mind hearing it again.

(laughs)

Bart Brodsky: Yes, the book was an adventure as much as an exposé. What's happened to the underclass since then?

BE: To the poor? I prefer the word "poor" to the "underclass." This has the connotation of being this permanent bunch of deadbeats and muggers and so on.

BB: I think of it as the underpaid.

BE: The new edition of Nickel and Dimed is coming out [in June] with a new Afterword, trying to answer that question. But even since I wrote that Afterword things have gotten so much worse, with rising food and gas prices, particularly.

BB: Which hits the poor much harder because it's proportionately much more of their income.

BE: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

BB: In Bait and Switch you showed that white-collar workers also weren't immune from economic chaos. What do you say to people who argue—and these generally tend to be economists—that "it's a world economy and jobs are just going to move overseas, and businesses have to have excess labor, so there's really nothing government can do about it"?

BE: Well, there are two parts to that question. One, is it inevitable in the world today that people are going to see their pay go down, their benefits go down, and their jobs become less secure? I don't know why it has to be inevitable. You know, some people have been making out like bandits!

BB: Yes!

BE: As long as we have that proliferating overclass, increasingly billionaires, there's no reason to think we wouldn't all do a lot better. But the other part of that question has to do with the roll of government. And I'm not fixated on government as the way to solve everything, except that it is one place where we have our collective money. We could choose to spend twelve billion dollars a month on the war with Iraq, or we could be choosing to spend much more of that on things like schools and healthcare, and crumbling infrastructure, and everything.

BB: I couldn't agree more. It's interesting that when European economies take a downturn, citizens there tend to hold their governments responsible. In the U.S. we often tend to blame ourselves. And taking responsibility can be a good thing, but why are we so immersed in this cowboy culture?

BE: We hear all the time that we are responsible for everything that happens to us. This is beyond the dominant ideology—it's almost a religion in our country. I'm actually writing a book about this now: positive thinking and why it's evil! The gist of positive thinking ideology is that you can really control what happens to you through your attitude. And if something bad happens, like a lay-off, you just have to think what's wrong with your attitude and how do you improve it, and you'll do better next time. And in This Land Is Their Land [Barbara's new book of essays just released in June], there are a few essays on this theme, the constant exhortations to think positively, control your own life, etc., coming along at a time when so many people are, in fact, losing control of their lives.

BB: What else can you tell us about This Land Is Their Land?

BE: The overriding theme which gives the book its title is the way we've become increasingly polarized and divided as a nation. The rich have gone from being just merely rich to being super-rich, and everybody else has been just left behind.

BB: Yes, we seem to be losing the middle class, many of whom are just struggling to stay alive. Will you give us a sample from the book? Let me sell some books for you here!

BE: A lot of the essays are, strangely enough, funny, given the topic. And I guess I try to see things from the point of view of the underdog, the poorer people who aren't doing so well. There's an essay that comes to my mind. Remember when somebody claimed to find a human finger in her chili at Wendy's?

BB: Oh, yes.

BE: Well, the first thing that struck me was, where'd that finger come from? You know, there's a crime here. Pretending you have a finger in your chili to rip-off Wendy's, yes, that's bad. But even worse, how did this finger get there? It turns out, it's from an industrial accident. But very little is known about that. I couldn't find out too much, and that's because fingers are lost so routinely in the American workplace! I bring that kind of slant to everything.

BB: Yes. One of my bugaboos is the way the news is brought to us predigested and manipulated by the corporate media. You bring up a wonderful point about how news is created to begin with.

BE: Right...

BB: Now, I know you're an Obama supporter, and I've been having this raging debate with friends: Can he really make a difference? Whoever's president is going to have to work with Congress and have to deal with the same corporate interests. Aren't progressives setting themselves up for another big disappointment, even if Obama wins?

BE: Well, I'm a founding member of Progressives for Obama, also founded by Tom Hayden and others, and our position is that Obama will do only as well as we push him to do. There has to be a real, energetic social movement to get him to intervene with these problems in a way that doesn't just enhance the wealth and power of the existing elite.

BB: Barbara, it sounds like personal responsibility is ours again! We have to take personal responsibility for pushing Obama!

BE: Sure, we do!

(laughs)

BB: Let me ask you a professional question. How can we make media more responsible? How can we get media to cover more of the issues that are important to us?

BE: I think probably the best thing is to do what you're doing, and that is to create new media, honest new media.

BB: We're doing little bits. It's just that when you see the questions framed by the mass media, or you turn on Fox News and see "equal time" for truth and lies, you get frustrated. It's frustrating!

BE: Of course it is, yes. I'm in the same bind all the time, wanting to get things that I think are important into mainstream media, but knowing that I might have to be content, for example, using my website as a medium.

BB: Interestingly, I've read that more and more people are double-checking facts presented by the mass media, getting alternate opinions, using the internet. So there may be something to our working piecemeal. We may be able to force mass media to do a little better, just as progressives are nudging Obama.

BE: Oh, yes!

BB: I try to be "positive," though that might not be completely consistent with your new book! But it gives me motivation!

BE: When I say I'm against "positive thinking," I'm not against taking positive action! I'm against using positive thinking as a substitute for action!

BB: Thank you! I appreciate that clarification! Now, is there anything I should have asked you that I didn't?

BE: I don't think so!

BB: We got it covered! Thank you very much for you time! We very much appreciate it!

BE: Thank you

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