OCCUPY OPENED THE DOOR

A friend and I went to Bowdoin College today at noon to hear author/activist Barbara Ehrenreich speak. Bowdoin College and the town of Brunswick are doing a "community read" of her book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America.

We got there early so we could hand out the above flyer as folks arrived. Another one of our local Occupy Brunswick activists helped us so we had three of us passing out the 250 copies I brought. It wasn't enough though as a huge crowd packed the hall.

Ehrenreich is an engaging storyteller with a good sense of humor. She went undercover to write Nickel and Dimed and worked as a house cleaner in Portland, Maine and at a WalMart in Minnesota among many other working class jobs across the country. Her descriptions of trying to live on $7.00 an hour touched many hearts in the audience - I imagined that many Bowdoin students (who come predominately from wealthy families) had never heard such stories before.

Ehrenreich didn't have much earth shaking advice about what could be done other than suggesting people vote for Obama. She began the talk by scolding Obama for never using the word "poverty" in his recent State of the Union address. Then she went on to trash Bill Clinton for his administration's "welfare reform" that furthered Ronald Reagan's assault on social progress.

But Ehrenreich left a hungry audience hanging as she never once addressed the structural reality of the "corporate domination" of our economy and political system. Her liberal reforms calling for more public housing, education funding, and the like fell far short of possible solutions to the problem of corporate dismantling of the social fabric.

During the 10-minute question period Ehrenreich did regain some stature in my eyes as she, on her own, mentioned the need for people to get engaged in the Occupy movement. One disheartened woman asked a question about what could be done and Ehrenreich strongly reminded her that the Occupy movement had changed the national discussion - had brought the issue of class back into the public square.

I looked around the audience after Ehrenreich's third reference to the Occupy movement and felt good that we had handed out those 250 flyers. I guess we should now plan to have a big crowd turn out for our February 12 Occupy Brunswick Public Meeting. After all, Barbara Ehrenreich told everyone they should go join Occupy.