“The Republicans hardly need a party and the cumbersome cadre of low-level officials that form one; they have a bankroll as large as the Pentagon's budget, dozens of fatted PACs, and the well-advertised support of the Christian deity.” NeedsWellsChristianFormLevelsPartySupportAtheismRepublicanLowsPositive AtheismBudgetsOfficialsDozenDeitiesPentagonLow LevelPacsCadre Author:Barbara Ehrenreich
“Americans love marriage too much. We rush into mariage with abandon, expecting a micro-Utopia on earth. We pile all our needs onto it, our expectations, neuroses, and hopes. In fact, we've made marriage into the panda bear of human social institutions: we've loved it to death.” NeedsHumansMadeFactsEarthSocialToo MuchBearsExpectationsInstitutionsAbandonExpectingUtopiaNeurosisMarriage LoveSocial InstitutionsPandas Author:Barbara Ehrenreich
“It's a glorious universe the positive thinkers have come up with, a vast, shimmering aurora borealis in which desires mingle freely with their realizations. ... Dreams go out and fulfill themselves; wishes need only to be articulated.” ThinkingNeedsDreamDesireUniverseWishOptimismCome UpRealizationGloriousThinkerWishful ThinkingAuroraPositive Thinker Book:Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America Source: Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America
“the fastest-growing brand of religion is of the magical 'name it and claim it' variety, in which the deity exists only to meet one's immediate, self-identified needs.” NeedsSelfNamesGrowingClaimsBrandsVarietyDeities Book:Going to Extremes: Notes from a Divided Nation Source: Going to Extremes: Notes from a Divided Nation
“Even healthy families need outside sources of moral guidance to keep those tensions from imploding--and this means, among other things, a public philosophy of gender equality and concern for child welfare. When instead the larger culture aggrandizes wife beaters, degrades women or nods approvingly at child slappers, the family gets a little more dangerous for everyone, and so, inevitably, does the larger world.” WorldNeedsMeanChildrenLittlesDoePhilosophyCultureMoralWifeDangerousSourceHealthyConcernGenderWelfareGuidanceTensionGender EqualityDegradeHealthy FamilySlappers Author:Barbara Ehrenreich
“We need a kind of feminism that aims not just to assimilate into the institutions that men have created over the centuries, but to infiltrate and subvert them.” MenNeedsKindWomenFeminismCenturyAimInstitutionsWomens Rights Author:Barbara Ehrenreich
“What we need is a tough new kind of feminism with no illusions. Women do not change institutions simply by assimilating into them. We need a feminism that teaches a woman to say no - not just to the date rapist or overly insistent boyfriend but, when necessary, to the military or corporate hierarchy within which she finds herself. We need a kind of feminism that aims not just to assimilate into the institutions that men have created over the centuries, but to infiltrate and subvert them.” MenNeedsKindWomenTeachFeminismCenturyMilitaryIllusionToughAimInstitutionsCorporateWomens RightsHierarchy Author:Barbara Ehrenreich
“The only truly new ideas [the right] has come up with in the last twenty years are (1) supply side economics, which is a way of redistributing the wealth upward toward those who already have more than they know what to do with, and (2) creationism, which is a parallel idea for redistributing ignorance out from its fundamentalist strongholds to those who know more than they need to.” KnowsWayNeedsYearsIdeasLastsPoliticalPoliticsSidesWealthIgnoranceEconomicsTwentiesCome UpNew IdeasParallelsFundamentalistCreationismStrongholdsSupply Side Economics Book:WORST YEARS OF OUR LIVES Source: WORST YEARS OF OUR LIVES
“Whenever people can access deities directly without the intervention of a religious hierarchy, they don't need to have hierarchy so much.” PeopleNeedsReligiousAccessHierarchyInterventionDeities Author:Barbara Ehrenreich
“We need to brace ourselves for a struggle against terrifying obstacles...bot h of our own making and imposed by the natural world. And the first step is to recover from the mass delusion that is positive thinking.” ThinkingWorldNeedsFirstsNaturalStepsStrugglePositive ThinkingMassObstaclesDelusionFirst StepsNatural WorldBraces Author:Barbara Ehrenreich
