Author Archives: conserveprolet

•

bernie ben jerry

by Reid Fitzsimons

Back in the early to mid-70s, flowing in on the social/political/economic tides of what recently preceded it, there was a TV ad I recall these 40-odd years later. Some casually dressed middle-aged white guy was sharing his angst and anger over the state of breakfast cereal, something like, “Do you know what most cereal tastes like these days? I’ll tell you what- CARDBOARD!” His feigned outrage was almost palpable. The post-Earth Day product he was hyping was a granola cereal, which was becoming quite the thing at the time. Every once in a while, when I see Bernie Sanders, I think of this ad.

“You don’t necessarily need a choice of 23 underarm spray deodorants when children are hungry in this country,” Sanders said during CNBC interview in late May 2015 in the early days of his run at the Democratic nomination. This intellectually callow statement appropriately garnered some scornful commentary, but I enjoy the image of some Sanders contemporary, a baby-boomer 60s radical who pleasured himself with dope a little longer than he should have, thinking “Like, wow man, that’s so profound, like rich people putting money in their arm pits when, like, kids are starving, it’s like a bummer.” Like many people, I’m not sure what the proper number of spray deodorants in society should be but I do worry a little about a potential president who suggests he has such knowledge. I also question the hungry children component of his declaration. ...continue reading →

•

islam peace

by Reid Fitzsimons

The neighbor up the road, a guy also born in 1958, stopped by while walking his dog the other week. We stood outside for quite a while discussing things big and small, personal and global. When the subject became ISIS, the San Bernardino shootings, etc he related a disquieting anecdote from the late 1970s. He was working at a gas station and engaged a customer in conversation, this being a time when intelligent young people were curious about the world and didn’t just accept the ramblings of their sociology professor as incontrovertible truth. Our neighbor recounted saying something such as humans cause so much conflict and war, shouldn’t religion serve as a way to counteract violent instincts. This customer turned out to be a Muslim of South-Eastern European origin, I think he said Albanian, and agreed that religion should be a means to achieve peace. He then added, in a conversational tone, once all non-believers were eradicated and only Muslims populated the earth, there would finally be peace. Not unexpectedly, this sentiment impressed our neighbor.

...continue reading →

•

immigration article foto

by Reid Fitzsimons

Note: the following article began as a brief e-mail to my brother (explaining some of the syntax), which somehow grew into 5 pages. Despite being too long and somewhat rambling, it makes points and arguments rarely, if ever, seen elsewhere.

I was going to add a few comments in regards to our discussion/argument about what you called immigration reform, though I think you were being a bit disingenuous and really meant support of an open border type policy (in theory Donald Trump rounding up anyone with a Hispanic sounding name and placing them in Mexico-bound boxcars could be deemed immigration reform). However this touches on a related topic of interest to me- the significant similarities between progressive liberals and Evangelical Christians, so I’m going to go ahead and write an excruciatingly long article for posting on an internet blog. I hope you are inclined to read what follows, which includes some outside the lines ideas in regards to immigration reform.

...continue reading →

•

state

by Barry King, November 28 2015

Thanks to Reid's son Forest for introducing me to this book. If you buy it, or buy anything else from amazon.com, please shop at smile.amazon.com instead of www.amazon.com, and select The Virunga Fund as your beneficiary. It won't increase your price, but amazon will make a donation to Virunga.

http://smile.amazon.com/Seeing-like-State-Certain-Condit…/…/

Book review: Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed, by James C. Scott.

Prototypical scheme: A wild forest was designed by God, or by Darwinian evolution, to "succeed" as an ecosystem capable of sustaining a bio-diverse assortment of plant, animal, insect and bird species (and many other kinds). Modern "scientific" forestry, on the other hand, in its early stages, focused on maximizing board-feet of lumber produced, and chose mono-culture: a whole forest of trees of a single species, planted in rows. Many such projects worked for a few years, then failed as the whole forest ecosystem collapsed for unforeseen reasons involving complex interdependencies. The key insight is: these projects, and many others like them, were promoted as "modern", "scientific" and "rational", but were nevertheless unsustainable.

...continue reading →

•

dont

by Barry King, 28 November 2015

After the recent terror attacks in France, the instinctive response of people of faith all over the world was to pray for Paris, and to encourage others to do so. For others, who consider religious faith problematic, the response was different: “Don’t pray for Paris”. The subtext to those opinions was clearly: religion is part of the problem, so it can’t be part of the solution.

The first of those responses (prayer) has deep historical roots. Thoughtful people will wonder about the second: is it a new idea, or has it been tried before? If it has been tried before, what were the results of the earlier trials? Hearing news of the Paris attacks, many of us remembered John Lennon, who wrote 40 years ago: “Imagine…no hell below us, above us only sky.” John identified the objective of that dream as “..all the people living life in peace.” Clearly, if John were still among us, he would have been among those saying, “Don’t Pray for Paris”.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfbph4VCVtk

...continue reading →

•

jmes tylor john kerry

by Reid Fitzsimons

In response to the horrific terror attacks in France last night, President Obama has announced a two-pronged approach. First, in a reprise of the enormously meaningful show of solidarity with the French people following the Charlie Hebdo attacks this past January, he has dispatched Sec. of State John Kerry to France along with has-been soft rock star from the 1970s, James Taylor, to croon to the French people “You’ve Got a Friend.”

Second, President Obama has initiated an offensive plan code-named “Tunes Against Terror.”  The centerpiece of this strategy involves positioning audio-equipped drones above ISIS strongholds and blasting in a continuous loop a compilation of James Taylor’s greatest hits, including Sweet Baby James, Fire and Rain, and Oh Susanna. Additionally, the 1972 Carly Simon song, “You’re So Vain,” written about James Taylor, will be included.

The President expressed his confidence that this unprecedented dual strategy will reassure the French people of US support of their progressive social policies while either making the ISIS terrorists feel mellow and embrace Western progressive ideals or desert their posts to escape excruciating James Taylor covers of songs such as Wichita Lineman, Hound Dog, and Handy Man.

•

obama.boehner

by Reid Fitzsimons

(Warning: this article includes gender stereotypes, which might be viewed as microaggressive)

One day, 30 plus years ago, a guy I worked with (we were friendly if not exactly friends) kind of blurted out, “We do IT once a week, straight missionary, over in five minutes.” Obviously he needed to express some frustrations pertaining to this aspect of his marriage. Often marriage is described as a series of compromises, which is probably true in many cases, and doesn’t necessarily imply problems beyond resolution. In regards to intimacy, typically or perhaps stereotypically, the husband wants IT more frequently or adventurously while the wife is looking for more cuddling and romance. Neither is wrong, and within the foundational concept of marriage, compromise may well enhance the relationship for both. True compromise, however, requires working within a mutual framework.

Say a husband is a selfish ass who read one Penthouse Forum (is that still around?) too many, you know- “You might not believe it, but my wife caught me looking at the hot young divorcee who moved in next door. Instead of being angry she told me to go ahead, as long as she could watch!” He’s not thinking of trying to be more affectionate if maybe his wife would be willing to experiment with this or that. Rather he pictures himself as some swinging orgy guy, which inconveniently falls outside the bounds of marriage, even if he begins to convince himself otherwise. Compromise becomes coercion, though he still presents it as the former. “Come on honey, why can’t you be reasonable- if I’m satisfied I’ll be a better husband to you.” Perhaps the wife is strong and deftly disabuses him of his fantasy or tells him to get lost, but perhaps she is not. For some reason she is capable of submitting herself to humiliation: maybe being with him offers her a desired social standing, or she can’t overcome deep personal insecurities, or she has evolved some less-than-healthy concept of love. She’s grasping for anything to justify an acceptance of this situation she knows is wrong and unfair to her. If he says, “I may be having sex with a lot of different girls, but you’re the only one I truly love,” it is enough. It has to be enough, because it’s the best he’s going to give.

...continue reading →

•

white-house-forum-harvey-weinstein-whoopi-goldberg-blake-lively-naomie-harris-618x400

by Reid Fitzsimons

Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others- Winston Churchill

Clothes and courage have much to do with each other- Sara Jeannette Duncan

Up until today I could have searched the recesses of my cultural knowledge and concluded there is a person named Blake Lively and associated the word celebrity with the name. For some reason I happened to notice a trending now headline stating, “Blake Lively Shuts Down Preserve.” My initial assumption was that this Blake Lively person is one of those PETA-type celebrities who pose nude under the banner of “I’d rather go naked than wear fur,” and had been operating some kind of animal rescue organization. Being tangentially simpatico as a philosophical vegetarian for over nine years, my first thought was it is kind of a shame- so many celebrities offer grandiose statements or make ridiculous symbolic gestures pertaining to the progressive cause of the moment, but here was one that actually did something. Sadly, in the realm of “say it isn’t so,” I discovered Preserve is a largely commercial website featuring the “Stories and Creations of Artisans.”

...continue reading →

•

sen csey

by Reid Fitzsimons

Note: The following appeared as a Letter to the Editor in the Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania Times-Leader newspaper on Sep 17, 2015 with the title "Sen. Bob Casey Parrots Planned Parenthood's Dubious Statistics."  Below that (“Follow-up”) reflects a discussion subsequent to when the letter was written (early August 2015) with one of Sen. Casey’s policy staffers in his Washington office on Sept. 10, 2015.

A majority in the US Senate recently voted to terminate Federal funding of Planned Parenthood (PP), but a “supermajority” was not obtained, hence the motion failed. Among those voting in support of the half billion dollar plus subsidy of PP was Sen. Robert Casey, Jr. Those who follow such things know that Sen. Casey frequently declares himself to be “pro-life,” but of course he is not- his obsequiousness when it comes to the severe progressive liberalism of Barak Obama disallows whatever independent thought he might possess. Perhaps claiming to be “pro-life” buys him few votes or, less cynically, it helps assuage a sense of inadequacy in his inability to live up to his father’s moral standard.

...continue reading →

•

by Barry King

Cuban refugees in the USA, who fled Communist violence in Cuba via boats headed for the Florida coast, are emphatically not Communists. Most of them are strongly anti-Communist, and its not hard to see why, if you pay attention to their stories. Something similar may be said of those who managed to climb the Berlin Wall from East to West, and survived. That dynamic helps explain why, during the proxy version of the Cold War fought in Congo during the 60s, there were Cubans on both sides. Cuban-Cubans and Argentinean-Cubans (like Che, though his ancestors were Catalan and Irish) fought on the rebel side as Soviet proxies, while Cuban-Americans fought as proxies of the west. And of course, most of the suffering and dying was done by Congolese people caught in the crossfire, or as proxy victims of the proxy warriors.

On the other hand, refugees now fleeing to Europe from Islamic-State-sponsored violence in the Middle East, appear to be, predominantly, still Muslims.

It wonders me: why is there that difference in how that dynamic works in different cases? I suppose it might have to do with different malleability of religious world-views v. political world-views. But then, Communism was / is quasi-religious, and ISIS-variety Islam is profoundly political. Anybody have any ideas about this?

Here's a link to some stories, photos, and videos about Cuban-American pilots in Congo:

http://www.t28trojanfoundation.com/congo.html

hqdefault