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Question, Freepers, on Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser
self | 2/12/05 | LS

Posted on 02/12/2005 1:22:47 PM PST by LS

Freepers,

Like many universities, my school is REQUIRING incoming freshmen during "orientation" (read: "indoctrination") to read Eric Schlosser's book Fast Food Nation. Of course, the liberal newspaper reviews are all positive, and the interviews fawning.

Are any of you aware of any conservative sources that have looked at Schlosser or investigated him?

This is a man who said he was "fascinated" by the links between Walt Disney and "Nazi war criminals," meaning Werner von Braun (apparently to Schlosser anyone who fired a weapon on behalf of Germany is a "war criminal").

Thanks for the help.


TOPICS: Your Opinion/Questions
KEYWORDS: ericschlosser; fastfoodnation; fat; government; lawsuits; lawyers; mcdonalds; obesity; regulation

1 posted on 02/12/2005 1:22:48 PM PST by LS
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To: LS

I read Schlosser's book, "Fast Food Nation" PIECE OF LIBERAL, WHINY JUNK. If there is a way to work a Republican President into a role as villain, he finds it..."In Ronald Reagan's term as President..." Read it, but keep your head. He goes to great lengths to to paint all Conservatives as a bunch of eeeeeevillll Capitalists.


2 posted on 02/12/2005 1:34:55 PM PST by redhead (wellalrightythen)
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To: LS
Try here Freshman Indoctrination at Ball State
or here Heartland Invasion
3 posted on 02/12/2005 1:35:53 PM PST by Arnold Zephel
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To: LS
There is a review in Reason Magazine online that takes a more critical and objective view of the book than most I've seen: Chewing the Fat The misguided beef against fast food

Mind you, the reviewer is a professor of sociology at Northwestern University and is extremely unlikely to be a "conservative" source.

4 posted on 02/12/2005 1:39:08 PM PST by jpthomas
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To: LS

Actually "Fast Food Nation" is a good read, although it is pure demagoguery. It's interesting how Eric Schlosser begs for Big Government. Same goes for the lady (Barbara Ehrenreich) who wrote Nickel and Dimed in America. Overall I would recommend both books to Conservatives and Libertarians because it gives you a good insight on how well-educated Leftists reason.


5 posted on 02/12/2005 3:48:27 PM PST by Kurt_D
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To: LS

There are plenty on the right wing who loathe Wernher von Braun. It may have been expedient to use him and save ourselves years of work, but defending his character is a waste of breath.


6 posted on 02/12/2005 3:54:12 PM PST by Androcles
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To: Androcles

All may be true, but he was not, by any classic definition of the term, a "Nazi war criminal," and calling him that trivializes the term.


7 posted on 02/12/2005 4:26:09 PM PST by LS (CNN is the Amtrak of news (there is no c in Amtrak and no truth in MSM news))
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To: Kurt_D

I wrote a piece in "Ideas on Liberty" called "Nickel and Damned" that dissects Ehrenreich's book. Don't have it at the tip of my fingers, but if you do a search, you can find it pretty easily.


8 posted on 02/12/2005 4:27:03 PM PST by LS (CNN is the Amtrak of news (there is no c in Amtrak and no truth in MSM news))
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To: Arnold Zephel

Thanks.


9 posted on 02/12/2005 4:27:14 PM PST by LS (CNN is the Amtrak of news (there is no c in Amtrak and no truth in MSM news))
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To: LS

Much depends on what your definition of "..a Nazi war criminal" is. The fact remains that they presided over evil of such magnitude that exact borders are difficult to draw.

There are many who say he was aware of the sufferings of the slaves and their conditions as they were worked to death, amongst other abuses and that he signed documents requisitioning more unfortunates.

If true, I'd place him as a Nazi war criminal. Not of the same caliubre as a Mengele or a Hitler, of course, but a Nazia criminal nonetheless.


10 posted on 02/12/2005 5:05:17 PM PST by Androcles
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To: Androcles

If that's your definition, then every German alive in 1945 was a war criminal. Don't accept that.


11 posted on 02/12/2005 6:23:10 PM PST by LS (CNN is the Amtrak of news (there is no c in Amtrak and no truth in MSM news))
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To: LS

We're not going to agree and your reading of my vioews is completely at odds with the facts. Most Germans were cogs and functionaries who followed orders becasue those ave them in authority told them to.

von Braun was in authority and whilst he was the director aof a scientific project in a nation at war, the fact remains that he had greater influence than the vast majority of Germans and moved at higher levels. He knew the facts regarding the atrocities and benefited from the sufferings of others in ways that most germans did not and he had access to more information regarding the suffering than most normal Germans. For someone who always blew their own trumpet as a far-sighted visionary, he could have done better...

It's plain we won't agree, but don't let legitimate criticisms of an otherwise unrelated book get diverted by a subtopic on which many still have strong feelings.

von Braun was useful to us, but like many of the people we and the Russians rescued for our own ends, their reward was escaping punishment. Reinventing them as saints was not part of the deal.

He was not the worst of the Nazis to emerge from the war but he was no Mother Teresa either!


12 posted on 02/12/2005 6:53:37 PM PST by Androcles
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To: Androcles

NO, I certainly don't think he's mother Theresa.


13 posted on 02/13/2005 5:30:17 AM PST by LS (CNN is the Amtrak of news (there is no c in Amtrak and no truth in MSM news))
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To: LS

Eric Schlosser will be at Newport Beach public library 4/12. Any Freeper chapters out there? My son lives in Newport Beach.

Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 17:47:16 -700
From: noreplydls@worldprofitemail.com
Subject: Brushfire Alert - March 31, 2005

_______________________

BRUSHFIRE ALERT
MARCH 31, 2005
_______________________


* * * * * * * * * * * * *
LIBERAL MENTORING PROGRAM
March 31, 2005

If you're like most people, you've probably never heard of Eric Schlosser. No, he's not one of those psychotic killers. He's an anti-business liberal, an author and one of those Bush-hating leftists who needed psychiatric help after the president's re-election. "Three weeks ago," he told the Wisconsin State Journal in November, "I went into a real funk. I really went into a depression. A really dark place."

OK, so maybe he DOES sound like one of those psychotic killers after all.

Anyway, Schlosser has written two books: The first calls for more government regulation of the fast-food industry ("Fast Food Nation") and the second calls for less government regulation of marijuana ("Reefer Madness").

Huh? Leave it to a liberal to want to get the government OUT of smoking pot...but IN to regulating the things you most want to eat after smoking pot. Does last year's keynote speaker at the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) not know about "the munchies"?

But I digress. Truth be told, Schlosser has a point when he writes in the New York Times that "The war on marijuana is a monumental waste of money and a source of pointless misery." But that's pretty much where the realm of rational thought ends. For example, he maintains that prisons in America aren't really for keeping violent criminals off the street. "This is our form of low-income housing," he told the State Journal in November. How fashionably cute.

When Schlosser isn't depressed and in his "dark place," he sees Darth Vader on every street corner...in the form of a fast-food restaurant. To hear Schlosser tell it, fast food is responsible for everything bad in America...from obesity to Yankee imperialism; from "the malling of America" to the destruction of the rain forests; from the exploitation of migrant workers to Athlete's foot and the heartbreak of psoriasis.

Cloaked in the soft rhetoric of protecting "the children" (of course), Schlosser is nevertheless an anti-business zealot who wants the government to treat grown adults as if we were ALL children.

For example, in his book he complains that half the money Americans spend on food is spent in restaurants. So what? It's their money.

He also complains that 90 percent of kids aged 3 to 9 go to McDonald's. So what? It's a free country.

He complains that the serving size for Mickey D's fries has grown to three times the size it was a generation ago...and that the serving size of a Coke has increased from 8 ounces in the 50s to up to 32 ounces today. So what? Is anybody holding a gun to any customer's head forcing them to eat every last fry or drink every last drop in the super-sized servings?

The fact is, fast food restaurants are as American as apple pie. "Fast food is, certainly, a choice, and one's food choices ought to be personal matters," writes Prof. Gary Alan Fine in Reason magazine. "There seems to be no market as open and accessible with as many options as the restaurant industry, with thousands of choices in any mid-sized city."

But this is decidedly not the message Eric Schlosser delivers these days on the lecture circuit. The liberal author, instead, calls for government bans on advertising for certain foods, especially marketing to "children" (of course). For example, Schlosser says Burger King shouldn't be allowed to sell chicken tenders in the shape of Teletubbies.

Indeed, at a recent lecture at Bucknell University, Schlosser reportedly told the crowd that it would be better to give kids a beer every day than the "salty, fatty stuff." He also said that more poor people eat at fast food restaurants because they're basically too stupid to know anything about nutrition. And that if adults want to smoke or drink, that's fine...but the government should be able to tell you if you're allowed to go to McDonald's.

Why am I telling you all this about this unknown left-wing author/lecturer? Because the Newport Beach (CA) Public Library is hosting Mr. Schlosser for a "lecture and Q&A for local high school students" on April 16 as part of their "mentoring program." And a lot of folks are none to happy with the library about it.

"Certainly this guy is entitled to his free speech," Irvine school board member Carolyn McInerney told the Orange County Register, "But I think to promote it as a mentoring program to students is off base."

BRUSHFIRE ALERT: Is it really a good idea to be using a publicly-financed library facility to "mentor" high school students on the virtues of marijuana drug use coupled with government regulation of fast-food restaurants. I have no problem with Mr. Schlosser's right to his opinions and free speech; however, taxpayers shouldn't be subsidizing the propagation of such liberal dogma to impressionable high school students.

If you'd like to "light up the phones" and urge the Newport Beach Public Library to cancel the "mentoring" lecture featuring Eric Schlosser at 11:30 a.m. on Saturday, April 16th, call (949) 717-3800. It's an automated system, so as soon as you hear the recording, push "0" to reach a living, breathing human being.

= = = = = = = = = = = = =

Distributed by Chuck Muth
1315 Wilson Point Road
Middle River, MD 21220
(410) 391-7408
E-mail: chuck@chuckmuth.com


14 posted on 04/01/2005 5:22:35 AM PST by bocagrant
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To: bocagrant

I don't know about Freeper chapters. But this book is being "force fed" so to speak to ALL college freshmen.


15 posted on 04/01/2005 5:42:17 AM PST by LS (CNN is the Amtrak of news)
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