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by Reid Fitzsimons

I have a friend who was raised in relative poverty but, through hard work and smart life decisions, became quite wealthy. A number of years ago his son, at perhaps the age of 13, went through an obnoxious spoiled period- very mouthy and said pretty vile things. If he had to be home by 9, or to bed by 10 on a school night, life was UNFAIR, and one of his refrains was “I HAVE RIGHTS!” Many of us can recall going through similar adolescent phases, and thankfully most of us grew up and out of this “it’s all about me” selfishness,”as did this young man.

"Toby" holds a sign with other demonstrators during a protest regarding evictions going on at the court, 6000 Chimney Rock Rd., Friday, Aug. 21, 2020, in Houston.
Privileged Yet Ignorant People Confusing "Rights" With Outcomes

It’s interesting that the term “rights” is so often invoked by privileged kids (in the years I spent do-gooding in impoverished countries I don’t recall ever hearing it). Of course, to them it’s an ill-defined generic word that essentially means, “I should get my way, I deserve whatever I want!” Unfortunately, this understanding and interpretation of “rights” is increasing in the US as we’ve become wealthier, more selfish, greedier, and more shallow: “rights” have become little more than political and cultural weapons and slogans, without regard for what they really are, and it is indeed pernicious to trivialize them. A “right” is not an argument for “I want what I want, and I want it now.”

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by Reid Fitzsimons

The Roxborough High School football team in a post-scrimmage huddle just before they were ambushed; two stills of the "coon hunters" taken from a video of the deadly incident (full video at bottom)

I would venture to say most Americans have never met an actual, true believer racist white supremacist. I am not talking about someone who doesn’t subscribe to “climate justice” or voted for Trump. I’m referring to white people who truly hate black people and find satisfaction in the oppression, maiming, and even killing of them. I have known, or at least met, a handful of dyed-in-the-wool white supremacists; they are people who don’t believe in the American ideals of equality, justice for all, and E. Pluribus Unum (out of many-one). More to the point, they are deranged losers. In the mid-80s I worked in a Federal prison where there were a few Aryan Brotherhood types, but they were much more violent criminal entrepreneurs than ideologues. When we (my wife and I) lived in South Alabama 2008-2012 our neighbor was a pathetic guy, a lifelong drunk in his 80s, who loved to talk of the KKK glory days of the 1960s (“When niggers knew their place!”).  But it is a recent and tragic event in Philadelphia where several black high school football players were hunted down and shot, killing a 14 year-old boy and wounding several others, that got me to thinking about an honest to goodness white supremacist I came to know a little in the late 1970s.

The fantasies of a true Jim Crow racist

This verifiable racist I met in the 1970s was, curiously, a lawyer in Mississippi. His uncle was a long-serving Democrat Congressman, which might explain his admittance to the Mississippi bar. I recall him wearing camouflage clothing and talking about the joys “coon hunting” and “black topping,” the former meaning hunting down and shooting black people and the latter running over them with a car. I am pretty sure he never engaged in his fantasies, thank goodness. He was simply a hate-filled cowardly ass who happened to be born into social and economic privilege.

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Joe Biden and the bizarre backdrop he used to give a speech accusing millions of Americans of being the enemy, by Reid Fitzsimons

Recently our president- Joe Biden- decreed that MAGA Republicans, without explaining what he meant, are semi-fascists. This kind of declaration, that 10s of millions of heretofore fellow citizens are now despicable, is pretty much unprecedented in American history, though has been widely used in other times and places (think of Rwanda in the mid-1990s, for example). The word "fascist" is, by definition, extreme, and not really amenable to modification: something more routine can be paired with "semi," such as a "semi-pro" athlete or "I 'semi-enjoy' cooking," but a "semi-fascist" is more akin to a "semi-serial killer" or "semi-child rapist," so let us interpret these oral ejaculations from our president as simply fascist without the "semi" preface. In other words, he accused 10s of millions of fellow Americans as being among the vilest people in history.

A couple of months ago someone I cared about deeply and held in great esteem passed away. He was my age- mid-60s- and was a conservative Baptist pastor from Texas, complete with a thick redneck drawl. I first met him in Honduras in 2007 or 2008. My wife and I had recently established a tiny, non-residential charity project in a small village, a youth center where kids could be kids in a safe and nurturing environment, and get in some good eating as well. We had heard rumors of an American pastor and his wife running an orphanage several miles away and went to check it out. Note that we did not realize he was a fascist at the time, only someone committed to helping marginalized and impoverished children.

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On the left, John Fetterman, Democrat/hipster candidate for Senate from Pennsylvania; on the right, other white guys wearing the attire Fetterman emulates

If you encounter a young person- specifically a white male in the uniform and adornments of a radical hipster- do you stereotype? A shaved head, a roguish beard, tattoos, and a hoodie: is this some kind of tough guy? Maybe, but more likely he’s simply an insecure byproduct of the self-esteem generation where accomplishments are rare but accolades plentiful, a middle-class guy of some privilege who has yet to grow up, there being no need to do so. A befuddled young man whose very appearance is crying, “Look at me, pay attention, please fill the emptiness of my life!” To be fair and a little compassionate, it’s not his fault he attended lavish graduation ceremonies from day care to pre-school to kindergarten and so on, and was given trophies merely for being there.

Nevertheless, this fashion stereotype is also applicable to the political activist who, with or without a balaclava obscuring his face, is in the street protesting vigorously, perhaps violently, against the many things that outrage him. This especially applies to the “antifa” “social justice” warrior, but can just as well apply to the “pro-fa(scist),’’ neo-Nazi activist; they’re pretty much the same, except the latter exist mostly in the mind and fantasies of Joe Biden.

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By Reid Fitzsimons

I’ve posted a few commentaries previously about a financial and insurance company called USAA. It is a Fortune 500 enterprise that was founded 100 years ago to serve the insurance needs of military officers. In it’s day, USAA was perhaps the most respectable company of its kind: it was that prized auto mechanic, competent, always honest, and you never have to wonder if he’s trying to get over on you. Sadly, like so many corporate entities run by white and wealthy aristocrats, the CEO of USAA declared himself to have found “social justice” salvation, and became yet another tiresome former “sinner” who, were he a religious zealot, would have said he saw the light of Allah or Jesus or whatever and came to view non-coreligionists as soiled people, worthy of scorn and contempt: “I am so much more righteous than everyone else!”

Traditionally USAA was the financial and insurance ally of military service members and veterans, but as it moved to the extreme left they came to use abuse and exploit the prestige inherent to its member base to further their country club activism. Hence, when the integrity compromised CEO put out a Memorial Day message, I responded on the USAA member forum, then responded to a reply, as follows:

Empty Words From USAA

Black Lives Matter (BLM) is an amalgam of black racialist elites and the wealthy and largely white establishment aristocracy. BLM is a vocally and unapologetically anti-American organization. Its demands have been associated with the violent deaths of 1,000s of black people- this is not hyperbole but statistically evident- and the founders and leadership of BLM been repeatedly caught using donations to fund personal luxuries in crass forms of corruption. USAA unequivocally supports BLM and, as a representative of the USAA CEO (Wayne Peacock) told me in August 2020, USAA will never back away from that support.

Statistically, the majority of these increases were among black people
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by Reid Fitzsimons

The office of a Wisconsin pro-life organization firebombed
and vandalized

We respond to bad things, especially the suffering of others, in different ways, ways often meant to shield us from uncomfortable realities about ourselves. Ignorance, either woeful or willful, is effective, and denial and avoidance also work pretty well. There are those who thrive on the suffering of others, and indeed create it. Sometimes these people are referred to as evil. I guess there are degrees of evil, where at the extreme evil people view not just their victims as a hated enemy, but also those who stand up for those they prey upon.

One of the most profound and widely read books of the 19th century was an antebellum novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The author was abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe, and the legend is that when she met Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War, Lincoln said, “So you are the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war." I contend that people who consider themselves well educated and informed should read this book (though I was over 60 when I finally did, so I’m not sure how that reflects on me). The story is, of course, about slavery, but it’s not some monolithic sermon against slavery, but rather includes all the pitfalls of human nature mentioned above when people confront, or more correctly ignore, evil. The ultimate antagonist is the brutal slave owner Simon Legree, at whose hands Tom is ultimately beaten to death because he was protecting slaves who had run away from the plantation.

Slavery, regardless of where it existed is one of too many examples in history where life was devalued so as to allow malevolence to be tolerated, and where those who refused to accept the inhumanity of it were marginalized and essentially became the enemy of the institutional powers: slavery is evil in its own right, but to justify hatred of those opposed to it took evil to higher level.

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by Reid Fitzsimons

The Heretic

Imagine yourself living perhaps 400 years ago in a culture controlled by a Puritanical church, where the established powers had a very personal interest in determining the rules, language, behavior, and even thoughts of the citizens. You were that rare person who observed not only contradictions in the church doctrine and hypocrisy in the actions of the leadership, but actually expressed your concerns. You put yourself in a precarious position, subjecting yourself to accusations of blasphemy, heresy, and witchcraft, often leading to social ruin, banishment, and even death. Certainly you were the exception, as most people would conform to the demands of the powerful to avoid being called such things: look straight ahead, mindlessly repeat the catechism, and hope to be left alone.

The Employee Who Thought Management Was Out To Get Him

Centuries later…For many years I was a NY State civil service employee, and for much of that era had the good fortune to be pretty much left alone to do my job, one I felt was truly meaningful. During that time I worked with and came to know a fellow employee who seemed like a decent guy, competent in his job, reliable, caring, mature. Nevertheless, there was always suggestion of taint about him, as if he had done something really bad in the past; the implication that if you want to get ahead, get those promotions, don’t get too friendly with him.

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by Reid Fitzsimons (note: below are images of 12 very wealthy and powerful people who embrace "racial justice" and "diversity, equity, inclusion," yet all have a distinctive demographic quality).

The summer of 2020 was an intoxicating time for the elite and affluent: politicians, academics, celebrities, and corporate CEO’s. George Floyd had recently been killed and urban areas were filled with rioting and violence, and privileged liberals, those who lived in a world of materialism and money, could find meaning, and even adulation, in their otherwise superficial and vacuous lives. They could make grandiloquent pronouncements that they- especially those who never ventured outside their white privilege- were not just opposed to racism, but outraged by it, contrasting themselves with the ignorant masses who, whether realized or not, were all bigots and racists. Yes, the gilded members of the elite class would hop on that bandwagon, declaring Black Lives Matter! and, like the titled aristocrats and feudal lords of centuries ago, believed they could obtain salvation by words and gestures: even better than the of corrupt class of centuries ago, they didn’t actually have to pay for indulgences to pave their way to heaven. The acolytes of this new enlightenment- that America and tens of millions of its citizens were vile and disgusting racists- merely had to repeat trite and predictable slogans, and their white privilege could remain intact at no cost to them.

  • Adam Silver, NBA Commissioner
  • Jeff Bezos, CEO Amazon
  • Bob Chapek, Disney CEO

Going on two years later, what exactly did they get for their sophomoric and pandering rhetoric and support of BLM? First, BLM vilified the police and demanded they be “defunded.” So how did that work out? From 2019 to 2020 we witnessed the largest single increase in the murder rate in all the years it’s been recorded, about 30%, and it apparently didn’t level off in 2021. As always, a hugely disproportionate number of victims were black people and, contrary to the coveted narrative that police enjoy hunting down and killing black people, or that some nefarious “white supremacists” were responsible, the overwhelming majority of the killers were black, and they put an awful lot- 100’s- of truly innocent and beautiful black children caught in the cross-fire in the grave. A price the insulated virtue signalers were more than willing to pay for feeling warm and fuzzy and meaningful.

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Sometimes there is little diversity among diversity-equity-inclusion activists

Note: The previous posting discussed the Salvation Army jumping on the “woke” train, so to speak. I sent the link to the heads of the Salvation Army administrative office closest to us, that being in Scranton, PA. I quickly received a friendly and brief reply (below at bottom) from Major Bob Schmig (they use military ranks in the Salvation Army hierarchy. Maj. Schmig offered no comment regarding the topic at hand, and I composed and sent him a follow-up e-mail/letter, which is the main text of this posting. Note that the term Pharisees is used, which defies simple definition but were basically a group of learned Jews around the time of Jesus that formed somewhat of a social/political class and emphasized adherence to the Laws of Moses and oral tradition. They tended to be privileged and numbered perhaps in the 1,000s. They received the animosity of Jesus because he perceived then as hypocrites in the “do as I say, not as I do” realm. In today’s terms, they might be referred in the political world as the Establishment, or more invectively, “the Swamp.”

Greetings Major Schmig:

Thank you for your prompt reply to my e-mail from several days ago, and I appreciate your taking the time to read my article, “The Salvation Army: Let’s Talk About Elitism.” You might have noted I mentioned a time as a volunteer medical director at a remote clinic in Kenya- this was in the early 2000’s and at the peak of the African AIDS crisis. It was a rare day in which a tragedy did not present itself, and I want to describe one so that you might better understand my perspective.

One horrible day we received word that 3 or 4 children were ill because they had eaten rotten fish that had been laced with insecticide and laid about in hopes of poisoning rabid dogs. I dispatched a vehicle but by the time it arrived all but one of the children had died. The one girl that returned, perhaps 7-years-old, was terrified, having witnessed truly miserable deaths of her younger siblings, and we couldn’t determine if she too had consumed the poisoned rotten fish. Nevertheless, though there was no protocol on how to treat such a thing, I empirically induced vomiting (if I recall) and had her drink slurry of charcoal through her tears and sobbing. Ultimately I assumed she hadn’t consumed the insecticide because I don’t think she would have survived regardless of treatment, and thankfully she was okay. Maybe you’ve witnessed and experienced similar events, but having seen so many children die during my time there, I developed a particular revulsion to children dying, perhaps especially black kids.

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The current Salvation Army leadership, with the heads of their "International Social Justice" commission on the right

by Reid Fitzsimons

An interesting thing happened to the venerable and widely respected Salvation Army (SA): they were caught, so to speak, in the ether of political “wokeness,” and a lot of disappointment followed. Specifically, they posted on their website a “guide” entitled “Let’s Talk About Racism,” sometime in the Spring of 2021. This was outed, so to speak, by non-traditional media, specifically a group called Color Us United, in October 2021; the resulting publicity led the SA to delete the document in November. As part of their defense, they referred to it as a “study guide…for internal use,” and issued a rather acerbic and juvenile preamble on Nov. 25th: “This statement is in response to a politically motivated group that is trying to force The Salvation Army to conform to the group’s ideology of choice.” Here is a link to the full SA statement: https://www.salvationarmyusa.org/usn/story/the-salvation-armys-response-to-false-claims-on-the-topic-of-racism/

It’s never a good idea to take grandiloquent positions based on snippets from others so, after some difficulty, I did track down the deleted “Let’s Talk About Racism” document, and an associated study guide; it can be found at an internet archiving site called Wayback Machine (https://web.archive.org/). After reviewing the materials I, as a heretofore enthusiastic supporter of the SA, concluded the critics were correct, and that the apologetics issued by the SA were misleading and even self-righteous, and one of the terribly frustrating things about this controversy is that it was entirely unnecessary. So... Let’s Talk About Racism Elitism. 

To be a bit acerbic myself, Let’s Talk About Racism is less a thoughtful and serious paper than one written for extra credit by a sophomore college student in a sociology class (minus the Biblical references), a class where the professor is an ageing hippie who yearns to be pertinent while dreaming of the halcyon days from the 60’s of “free love,” i.e. easy sex without responsibility or consequence, days long before “#MeToo.” It is rife with the vocabulary of the progressive word salad, and indeed begins with a specious argument, presented as established fact, that “Race is a social construct.” For anyone unfamiliar with the phrase “social construct,” it a means to diminish or deny what until now has been generally accepted, and is often used in a pejorative, disdainful manner; it is most commonly seen in the world of “transgender” polemics: gender is merely a social construct, and to believe there is a factual or biologic basis for male and female means you are an ignorant moron.

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