The 'working poor,' as they are approvingly termed, are in fact the major philanthropists of our society.
Barbara EhrenreichRead
People tend to judge presidents on how the economy performs, and yet we don't expect them to have the power to do much about it. Or we don't want them to exercise that power, if they were to have it.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the contradiction in how we hold presidents accountable for the economy while fearing their influence over it.
Barbara Ehrenreich's quote points out the paradox in the public's expectations of presidential power concerning economic performance. While citizens often judge presidents based on economic outcomes, they simultaneously express a distrust in granting them the necessary authority to effectively manage or influence economic conditions. This reflects an inherent tension between accountability and the desire for limited presidential power.
In practice
In a discussion about political accountability during a town hall meeting.
The 'working poor,' as they are approvingly termed, are in fact the major philanthropists of our society.
The secret of the truly successful, I believe, is that they learned very early in life how not to be busy. They saw through that adage, repeated to me so often in childhood, that anything worth doing is worth doing well. The truth is, many things are worth doing only in the most slovenly, halfhearted fashion possible, and many other things are not worth doing at all.
From the point of view of the pharmaceutical industry, the AIDS problem has already been solved. After all, we already have a drug which can be sold at the incredible price of $8,000 an annual dose, and which has the added virtue of not diminishing the market by actually curing anyone.
Well I do think there are people who are habitually negative and depressed and take the opposite approach because they imagine the worst, and their minds become dominated by that. They let their own emotions and expectations transform their perceptions of the world.
Some of us still get all weepy when we think about the Gaia Hypothesis, the idea that earth is a big furry goddess-creature who resembles everybody's mom in that she knows what's best for us. But if you look at the historical record - Krakatoa, Mt. Vesuvius, Hurricane Charley, poison ivy, and so forth down the ages - you have to ask yourself: Whose side is she on, anyway?
I would never call myself a cancer survivor because I think it devalues those who do not survive. There's this whole mythology that people bravely battle their cancer and then they become survivors. Well, the ones who don't survive may be just as brave, you know, just as courageous, wonderful people.
People finally understood that the role of the social-democratic party rests on its conscious leadership of the mass struggle against the existing society, a struggle that must reckon with the vital, necessary conditions of capitalist society.
My politics are short and sweet, like the old woman's dance.
I personally hope and wish that Britain will stay part and parcel of the European Union.
Term limits would cure both senility and seniority- both terrible legislative diseases.
I don't know a country in the world that doesn't have borders and doesn't want to know who is coming into their country.
One has to be a lowbrow, a bit of a murderer, to be a politician, ready and willing to see people sacrificed, slaughtered, for the sake of an idea, whether a good one or a bad one.
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