Carl Remick wrote:
Aha. Am not asking for any interview spoilers, but does she say anything
about Katrina also?
No, alas.
[Too bad, but I'm pleased to learn Ehrenreich's book targets that ol' devil
religion. From the Village Voice review of _Bait and Switch: The (Futile)
Pursuit of the American Dream_:]
... The real pleasure of the book is its intimate depiction of the
"transition" industry. Ehrenreich crams her days with job-hunting seminars
at down-market motels and mall restaurants where she astutely diagnoses the
underlying intention as "pain management and structured grieving." She saves
her most acid commentary for Christian networking groups, where washed-up
workers testify to the control-freakish Almighty's role in their careers.
The Lord "is always busily micromanaging every career and personal move:
advising which jobs to pursue, even causing important emails to be sent."
From the résumé-and-a-prayer God squad to the secular evangelicals of
wish-projection, the transition industry operates as an ideological Band-Aid
dispenser on the killing fields of corporate capitalism. These meetings of
the luckless are anti-unions: Instead of "educate, agitate and organize,"
their undeclared manifesto is mystify, enervate, and atomize. "Anger is an
energy," Johnny Rotten once sang, but in the job-seeking subculture,
expressions of discontent are verboten, since bitter workers aren't
attractive to employers. So suppress those grievances, mask that
disenchantment, and hope Capital takes pity on you.
<http://www.villagevoice.com/books/0536,press1,67533,10.html>
Carl
