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Rural Revolution book tour


oscar

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Is anyone else following Patrice's promotional trip to Portland, Oregon? It's the...weirdest thing.

When I think of Portland, I think of coffee shops, independently-run and secondhand bookstores, and a generally hands-on, DIY culture that influences cuisine, handcrafts, the performing arts and local media.

Patrice seems to be engaging with an ersatz, corporate version of the Portland I've visited.

rural-revolution.com/2011/07/traveling-to-portland.html

So she is "writing...from a coffee house in Portland." Is it Stumptown? Urban Grind? Rimsky-Korsakoffee? No. It is Panera Bread, with the same mediocre coffee and bland ambiance available at any strip mall in the US.

rural-revolution.com/2011/07/enjoying-portland.html

She visits a bookstore. Is it Powell's? Cameron's Books? Longfellow's? No, it is Barnes and Noble, the most corporate of chain bookstores still clinging to life in the US.

She does some retail browsing. Does she go to a pop-up craft market like little winter? Bee and Thistle? English Department? Seaplane? No. She goes to the mall and makes fun of some cheap-looking, generic plastic shoes.

I wonder if she wants to convince her readers - or herself - that these sanitized, homogenized mainstream experiences are the best that urban living has to offer, and that a creative, self-sufficient, rewarding handmade lifestyle is only available to those who buy into her particular right-wing flavor of "homesteading" and "simple living."

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Is anyone else following Patrice's promotional trip to Portland, Oregon? It's the...weirdest thing.

When I think of Portland, I think of coffee shops, independently-run and secondhand bookstores, and a generally hands-on, DIY culture that influences cuisine, handcrafts, the performing arts and local media.

Patrice seems to be engaging with an ersatz, corporate version of the Portland I've visited.

rural-revolution.com/2011/07/traveling-to-portland.html

So she is "writing...from a coffee house in Portland." Is it Stumptown? Urban Grind? Rimsky-Korsakoffee? No. It is Panera Bread, with the same mediocre coffee and bland ambiance available at any strip mall in the US.

rural-revolution.com/2011/07/enjoying-portland.html

She visits a bookstore. Is it Powell's? Cameron's Books? Longfellow's? No, it is Barnes and Noble, the most corporate of chain bookstores still clinging to life in the US.

She does some retail browsing. Does she go to a pop-up craft market like little winter? Bee and Thistle? English Department? Seaplane? No. She goes to the mall and makes fun of some cheap-looking, generic plastic shoes.

I wonder if she wants to convince her readers - or herself - that these sanitized, homogenized mainstream experiences are the best that urban living has to offer, and that a creative, self-sufficient, rewarding handmade lifestyle is only available to those who buy into her particular right-wing flavor of "homesteading" and "simple living."

For some reason, fundie/right wing types seem to love large corporate stores, restaurants, etc. So instead of going to a really cool local coffee shop they go to Starbucks. And I know Barbara Curtis has spoken highly of Wal-Mart; she thinks the people running Wal-Mart should run the United States. And I also believe Barbara is an affilliate with Amazon, which is why you see so many posts regarding completely useless crap from Amazon Barbara thinks you should buy.

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GolightlyGrrl, perhaps I was giving her too much credit - it never even occurred to me that she might genuinely like and prefer middle-of-the-road mass-marketed corporate crap.

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I think fundies are afraid of change on all kinds of levels. Better to go to Panera than a local place, because at least they know what Panera is like. If they go to a local coffee shop they might have to deal with something different or sit next to someone with green hair.

There's no arguing about taste, but it always depresses me to see people looking for the McDonald's in Berlin, for instance. The city has so much more to offer, and they're just going to MISS so much of it!

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I guess that Portland's hippie simplicity (I love that city) is too scary for her fundie "simplicity."

Local food, food carts, discussions with people who don't agree with you, staying in a youth hostel- all parts of my trips to Portland.

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Wolfie, isn't that funny? Patrice often writes about how the "simple life" is actually quite complicated and requires a special sort of grit and commonsense country know-how. Of course her readers have this strength of character, while the people they disagree with - the liberal, feminist strawmen - are sorely lacking it. She makes fun of clueless city dwellers who seek to "get back to the land," and the mistakes they make along the learning curve. I think she has a vested interest in portraying liberal, urban areas as places where people have been weakened and debased by a lifestyle of easy, mindless consumption, and her representation of Portland has been entirely consistent with that.

For those who don't follow the preppers, Patrice is a "homesteader" who writes for WND and other right-wing publications, and...well, I have mixed feelings about her. I think she often writes provocative things to garner hits and make money. Her writing is a not-insignificant source of income for her family. (They also make and sell wooden tankards.) It seems she will strategically take exaggerated or disingenuous positions for this reason. So if she followed FloraPoste's suggestion and visited the Red and Black, I think she'd be making a mental tally of things she could mock to her readers, or use to provoke outrage. A place where you can be evicted for expressing transphobia would be pure gold to her, because it is evidence of pc-run-amok liberal oppression against salt-of-the-earth folks who know a man's a man and a lady's a lady and aren't afraid to say so.

I think Patrice is carefully staying on-message when promoting her book. The world outside her "simplicity primer" has to be not only more degenerate, but also require less skill and be more crappy than the lifestyle she is selling. A dick-shaped donut that is also delicious and wonderful doesn't really fit into that framework.

tinuviel, my little brother always seeks out McDonald's wherever we travel. He finds it interesting to see how it differs from place to place, and if these differences seem to be catering to local tastes or if they are using some stereotype of the regional cuisine to appeal to tourists from elsewhere. He thinks this is interesting, but I think it is a waste of a meal when there are so many other things to try!

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For some reason, fundie/right wing types seem to love large corporate stores, restaurants, etc. So instead of going to a really cool local coffee shop they go to Starbucks. And I know Barbara Curtis has spoken highly of Wal-Mart; she thinks the people running Wal-Mart should run the United States. And I also believe Barbara is an affilliate with Amazon, which is why you see so many posts regarding completely useless crap from Amazon Barbara thinks you should buy.

Yes! Why is this? It seems so counter-intuitive.

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Yes! Why is this? It seems so counter-intuitive.

I have no idea why this is. My parents live in a really conservative area, and instead of relying on their own ingenuity to create local coffee shops, book stores, restaurants, boutiques, everyone relies on mass merchandisers like Wal-Mart and Home Depot. They eat at Pizza Hut, Applebees and McDonalds. There is no bookstore in sight. And the arts community is absolutely nil.

Now in my heathen, commie, anti-Jesus, urban elite, feminazi community we have several locally-owned coffee shops, a really great independent bookstore, awesome locally-owned restaurants that serve all kinds of food, specialty boutiques, bakeries, grocery stores, pubs and clubs, and other assorted businesses not connected with corporate behemoths. We also have a thriving arts community, wonderful street festivals and a beautiful movie theater that shows everything from blockbusters to independent cinema to documentaries to foreign flicks. This theater is also highly involved with our film festival.

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Yes! Why is this? It seems so counter-intuitive.

corporate america is something jesus would approve of. conservative Christians seems to love those big companies. Plus they want them to get lots of tax cuts or pay no taxes at all.

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Golightly girl, your town sounds freaking awesome!

I think there are several contributing factors at work here. One is that [in my experience] independent bookstores and coffee shops tend to be run by a more liberal crowd. That gives these places a different sort of aesthetic/style of in store advertising than a lot of the huge corporate places. Many of the independent places I know make a big deal of things being local, organic, fair trade, etc. This is often unappealing to fundies. If I tried to take my brother into some of the cafes in the town where he went to college he would half jokingly make a finger cross and complain about hippies.

I've also noticed that many of the fundies in my acquaintance associate Wal-Mart and Olive Garden and similar places with The Real America . These corporate places are cheap, easy, and consistent, and at least Wal-Mart puts American flags on every damn thing in sight. Criticizing Wal-Mart's labor practices (for instance), would probably strike a fundy as socialist union talk. Not to mention the fact that Wal-Mart and places like it really are the only practical, affordable shopping options for a lot of poor, rural families. If someone tells rural fundies that they should shop elsewhere for social, political and environmental reasons, that's just going to further convince most of them that liberals are out of touch and trying to control the lives of real Americans with their environmental do-goodism.

Besides that, real fundies know that the environment isn't an issue anyway. Global warming was made up by liberals so that they could control everyone's lives, and Jesus is going to rapture us before all the oil is gone.

Another part of this story might have something to do with urban planning. Many fundamentalists live in rural areas. This means driving everywhere and often means strip malls as well. When I'm going 50 mph down a three lane road and I have to make a weird ass left turn into a maze of strip malls to get something to eat, then I'm probably going to head to the big name place with the big name sign. It might not be good, but at least I'll know in advance how good or bad it will be and how much it will cost. I'm definitely less motivated to do the weird careening turns needed for a totally unfamiliar place. If I do, and I discover that I don't like the looks of the place, then I usually have to get back in the car and do more weird turns and find another parking spot.

Walkable cities make it much easier to check out unfamiliar places, IMO. Plus living in a city gets you into the habit of checking out new places just because it's easier and becomes more normal.

All of that being said, I think one of the biggest reasons why I am not at all surprised that this fundy woman went big box all the way is that fundies have a general fear of anything new and unfamiliar. Think about it. Parents have to pre-consume all of their kids media to check for evil influences. Strangers are considered unsaved and immoral until proven otherwise. Kids can't go to public school because it's the evil scary world. If a family like this is out and about in an unfamiliar city, they're already surrounded by a bunch of scary heathens and spiritual darkness. Why add to the stress by going into their worldly coffee dens? I can see this as a real motivation to stick with the familiar even if it's crappy.

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Local food, shops and artistry positively reek of *shush!* free thinking! The horror!!

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Local food, shops and artistry positively reek of *shush!* free thinking! The horror!!

Exactly!

[cartman]goddamm HIPPIES!![/cartman]

Which is crazy, since fundies supposedly love freedom, independence, and small business owners. I guess they only like the "right" kind of businesses and owners...

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tinuviel-I live in Milwaukee's east side, just north of downtown. It's a pretty cool place. I like it.

Yesterday, Milwaukee had it's four-times a year Gallery Night. Galleries from all over Milwaukee stay open late and show their latest exhibits. My friend Nora came up to join me, and we had so much fun touring Milwaukee's Third Ward looking at the various exhibits and galleries.

On-Topic: Fundie types are always bragging about being entrepreneurs but they seem to loathe supporting other entrepreneurs. It's straight to Amazon.com, Wal-Mart, Olive Garden, etc. Then again, fundie types are pretty much well-known for being "I got mine; fuck the rest of you."

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  • 3 months later...

rural-revolution.com/2011/11/difference-between-fantasy-and-reality.html

Now she's afraid that the world is about to end, or that TEOTWAWKI is about to happen. How do people live like this- thinking that everything is going to fall into chaos at any time?

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All this talk about awesome Portland things has me wanting a dragon bowl, a stop at Voodoo and everything on the menu at Portobello, followed by a few hours at the Bye and Bye.

And carts. Food from ALL THE CARTS.

This is why I pack my fat pants when I go up there.

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All this talk about awesome Portland things has me wanting a dragon bowl, a stop at Voodoo and everything on the menu at Portobello, followed by a few hours at the Bye and Bye.

And carts. Food from ALL THE CARTS.

This is why I pack my fat pants when I go up there.

Portlandia is a very special place. But now that we have Voodoo in the Valley, I can get my donut jones filled with a short drive south.

I think the fundies like predictable places, kinda like why Holiday Inns got popular in their early days. Some folks wobble when it comes to change or different experiences. But, why travel to merely visit a chain experience, they could stay home and have the same.

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