Posted on 02/08/2005 7:34:25 PM PST by marianshah
The University of North Carolina has a peculiar take on which works comprise the canon of “great books.” Last year, UNC’s incoming freshmen had to read Approaching the Qur'án: The Early Revelations, a portrait of Islam so unquestioning that many believed it constituted indoctrination into the religion. Once again UNC has selected a controversial book for its incoming freshman to read, according to a report in the July 11, 2003 edition of the Chronicle of Higher Education (CHE): The book is Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, penned by radical leftist Barbara Ehrenreich. Ironically, UNC administrators thought, as interim Vice Chancellor Dean L. Bresciani said, "it would be a relatively tame selection." However, the move is being criticized by some legislators in North Carolina, who (rightly) describe her work as liberal propaganda infused with religious bigotry.
(Excerpt) Read more at frontpagemag.com ...
Some great young fellows from my state sued bad over that. google Pope Center, and other education defending, conservative institutes, such as David horowitz', and fight this thing!
I know!! The disturbing thing to me is that they LIE to us in the human service professions! I mean it wasn't just some dumb philosophy class...it was SOCIAL work school, where you supposedly graduate, then go out and help people. Isn't it irresponsible to teach such bullsh*t to society's "helpers?"
It's criminal IMO. Fraud at the very least.
It most certainly is, it is my opinion that someone who feels like you should immediately get involved with a group of some sort to protect you.
In her book, she wrote of how she "triumphantly" quit her jobs when the going got rough or when the boss got "unreasonable." She painted herself as this "working class hero" who would show her co-workers that they didn't have to put up with this crap. They could just quit! Of course, it was no big sacrifice for her. She always had her trust-fund comfortable existence to go back to while her co-workers had to go find some other miserable job.
She was very condescending throughout the book and I never figured out just what exactly she was trying to prove by this little social experiment. People with little or no skills find themselves at the bottom run of the economic ladder. I don't have to put myself in a minimum-wage job to figure that out.
My wife had to read "Nickel and Dimed" for her women study group she's in. It only took a brief skim of the book, and a quick internet search to figure out that the author was the Socialist Party vice presidential candidate a few years back, she's a hardcore leftist labor activist, and she had an agenda in mind when doing her 'research'.
The little blue-haired ladies in my wife's study group were shocked to find they had been reading a communist piece of propaganda.
UNC-CH should change its school color from Carolina blue to Bolshevik red. It's horrible here.
Isn't it time for some collegiate oversite? I think this would put an end to the psychotic antics of those leftist pukes.
The incoming freshmen class this year at the University of Missouri-Columbia (of which I am apart) was also required to read this over the summer last year. Then we had to get into discussion groups to talk about the book. Of course the professor leading the discussion talked about how she agreed with so many of the points the socialist author made. However it's news to me that she was an actual Socialist Party candidate. I wish I wouldn't known that at the time this was still an issue here.
There is a long history of this kind of garbage writing - when I first started working - I worked in a manufacturing plant - providing technical support. There was an article by some ex-nun who worked in a factory for a couple of months. Her article was one big whine about how dull, stupid and unimaginative both the job and people doing them were. I was amazed at how different this profile was from what I experienced. I spent some 5 years in numerous factories. I rarely found anyone that compared to her description.
Barbara Ehrenreich is a perfect justification for the French Revolution and the invention of the guillotine.
Her book "Nickel & Dimed" was the subject of an c-span interview a few years back. For anyone with insomnia it can be looked up on the Booknotes section. She was a dull, self centered, old marxist congratulating herself on her cleverness. She hates the US and the things that contribute to its greatness.
She wrote it as 'Pickled and Sauced' I believe. There are some really good reviews that blast the whole thing out of the stratosphere that shouldn't be too hard to find.
That would be the word, yes.
The thing that struck me about this scathing indictment of the free market system that governs the U.S. economy was how much it was at variance with the reality of our nation at that time.
She was in the process of writing this book during a period of unrivaled economic prosperity, when the average median income soared and the amount of self-made millionaires expanded exponentially.
Granted, one of the primary motivations behind publishing this quasi-Marxist screed was to highlight the alleged growing inequality between the upper echelons of the American society and the benighted, unfairly oppressed dregs, who-presumably-require the tender ministrations of someone like Barbara Ehrenreich, a woman who holds multiple, advanced college degrees.
However, I couldn't help but draw the parallel-as I was reading this diatribe-between her feeble attempts at forging a faux solidarity with her fellow workers, and the lame publicity stunts staged during the 1980s-by such political luminaries as "Jerry" Brown-to illustrate the perceived plight of the homeless.
This is the epitome of empty, rhetorical liberalism.
Ms. Ehrenreich's quest to expose the supposed iniquity of the capitalist system only served to undermine her main assertion, i.e., that socialism is a better, more humane model of government.
After all, she would never have been able to reap the huge royalties that accrued to her-through the publication and distribution of this book-if she were forced to live under a system that provided for the confiscatory tax rates that she yearns for.
If you want to read a real defense of the working man, from a writer who actually has something in between his ears besides air, you need to get "The Road To Wigan Pier", written by the renowned polemicist, novelist, soldier, and all-around genius, George Orwell.
Thanks for the ping, but I'll have to read it tomorrow.
I just finished after a 19-hour work marathon and I'm a little exhausted.
Get some rest!
:)
-good night, G.J.P.(Jr.)
Such as when Jane Byrne moved into Cabrini Greene?
A fact which she LOVED to point out repeatedly, ad nauseum, in her screed. "Oh, the irony, of someone as smart and well-educated as me, cleaning pubes out of someone else's bathtub drain." etc. Please.
Here was a woman who was so grossly unqualified to hold that job that she almost made Harold Washington look competent, by comparison.
Besides, Harold Washington is a fellow U of C Maroon.
(Bemused Smiley.)
This is great information, thanks for the link to the article. My roommate has an English class in which "Nickel and Dimed" is required reading, and I know many others in the class. I'll save this in my bookmarks to reference later...
Library list
And I believe they know they are lying, but in their twisted worldview, if they make enough people believe (even a lie) then it will become true! Like magic!
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