Posted on 03/12/2006 11:19:13 AM PST by summer
Book review: CRUNCHY CONS
How Birkenstocked Burkeans, Gun-Loving Organic Gardeners, Evangelical Free-Range Farmers, Hip Homeschooling Mamas, Right-Wing Nature Lovers, and Their Diverse Tribe of Countercultural Conservatives Plan to Save America (or at Least the Republican Party).
By Rod Dreher.
259 pp. Crown Forum. $24.
THE upscale natural foods grocery chain Whole Foods now stocks a brand of cereal called Ezekiel 4:9. It could pass for any other gravelly, whole-grain, flour-free concoction on the shelves, but Ezekiel's box credits its inspiration to "the Holy Scriptures."
If this sounds like your kind of breakfast, you may be a crunchy con a new species of ecologically minded, religiously orthodox and socially traditionalist conservative that Rod Dreher speaks for. If not, take the market for Ezekiel 4:9 as evidence he may be onto something.
Dreher, a writer and editor at The Dallas Morning News, argues that a growing number of people are drawn to a kind of across-the-board rejection of modernity that he considers true conservatism but that makes them look a little like "right-wing hippies." Crunchy cons disapprove of abortion rights, same-sex marriage, illegal immigrants, public schools, secular liberals and mothers who work outside the home. But they don't like Wal-Mart, McMansions, suburbs, pollution, agribusiness or processed foods, either.
...Dreher calls "Crunchy Cons" a "handbook of the resistance" ...
...Still, Dreher's survey of crunchy-con lifestyles makes a convincing case that there is a market for his brand of half-hippie traditionalism, even if it is not exactly the conservatism we know today. "There are many mansions in the American conservative house," he writes, "and some of them are old and funky and smell like a pot of organic mustard greens cooking down on the stove."
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
"Crunchy Cons" do not "flock".
I think it's just a place for more "traditional values" (like the family is the only institution worth saving) without materialism (like following "Affluenza"- taking only what you need cause there's no need for greed) and promoting only "entitlements" that lead to SELF SUFFICIENCY. I know it sounds liberal to some but there is a deep underlying conviction not possessed by liberals that they are willing to do what it takes to keep everyone free.
Didja hear about the Donut Burger? It's a bacon cheeseburger with the bun replaced by two Krispy Kremes! 1100 calories! Yum!
Bump Ken Blackwell for Governor
Bump from another Crunchy Con!
As far as Orange County is concerned, I always thought of it as "cop land."
On the one hand, I eat alot of wild seafood and organic produce, HATE sprawl (whatever happenned to zoning laws?), love to hike, grow peppers and spices, cook for myself, shop at farmers markets, etc.
I do believe in proper environmental STEWARDSHIP. However, I have MAJOR PROBLEMS with the environmentalists when it comes to telling an INDIVIDUAL what to do with PROPERTY THEY ALREADY OWN, particularly if some pointy-headed judge tells them that the sump on their property is now a "wetland." I also have ZERO TOLERANCE for the "endangered species" crowd. I did not crawl to the top of the food chain to defer to spotted owls.
I guess you can say that the core of my philosophy is a "natural" diet, a love of nature without being dogmatic about it, a HATRED of sprawl, and a, most importantly, healthy disrespect for authority, whether it be for the cop telling me not to drink wine at the festival, the judge telling me that I can't drain the puddle in my backyard, or the closet case mayor who tells me that I can't smoke indoors. To all of those folks, I extend, a salute, with my LONG MIDDLE FINGER!
Just because I shop at Trader Joes, prefer walkable towns with character and strict zoning laws over McWorld, and like a "natural" woman, doesn't mean that I am part of Woodstock nation.
One more thing, being an agnostic and a capitalist pig negates all of the above in the eyes of Mr. Dreher, but I really don't give a damn.
Moosewood, btw, is a GREAT vegetarian restaurant in Ithaca, aka the City of Evil.
These are the scariest people on earth. They combine the moralistic religious fervor of Pat Robertson with the annoying self rightousness of Ralph Nader. So, basically, you get people who not only want to regulate what you eat, they want to regulate who you scr-w.
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