Author: Thomas Fleming

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Fleming / Free Content

27 Feb, 2019

Ideology and Unfaith, Part III: Conclusion

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The wealth of information and the power of prejudice would make it more difficult, though hardly impossible, to trace the degeneration of the United States from the limited republic of Adams and Jefferson to the imperial plutocracy of Lincoln and Grant to the national socialism of Franklin Roosevelt and his successors to our own miserable and degraded condition today, when conservatives have abandoned even the fig leaves of law that used to protect us, in theory at least, from our rulers in Washington.  Is there a single moral, social, economic, constitutional, or even environmental principle that would deter people like….Feel...

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Feature / Fleming

18 Feb, 2019

Ideology: Unreason, Antifaith, Part Two

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When people vote their pocketbooks, as they often do, they are giving some color to Marx’s more down-to-earth definition of ideology as a set of ideas concocted to advance the interests of a social class.  The creed of classical liberalism—low taxes, free trade, individual liberty–is the ideology of the well-to-do bourgeoisie, while socialism is the ideology of those who expect to be dependent upon government largesse: schoolteachers, promiscuous young women, and the politicians and public servants, who have so nobly given up brilliant careers in the private sector because they wished to serve the people.  No one claims the ideal...

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Feature / Fleming

16 Feb, 2019

Ideology: Unreason and Anti-Faith, Part One

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What the GOP needs, “Conservatives” tell us, is a sharper ideological focus that will give greater prominence to the vast reservoir of “Conservative”  “ideas.”  If only the “Conservatives” were simply joking, if only they were entirely cynical about the war of words between the two parties, one might have some hope for a restoration of political sanity in this poor country.

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Feature

11 Feb, 2019

Interview With Anthony V. Bukoski, Part Two

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TJF: I’ve mentioned to you my Uncle Dan who once lived in New Orleans and was a leading expert on port facilities. You’ve been to New Orleans and have spent time in Louisiana. On the one hand, no two places could be more different than Northern Wisconsin and Southern Louisiana. On the other hand, your Southern experiences seem to have been fruitful. . . AVB: I’ve set stories in Superior and Natchitoches, Louisiana, where my wife and I lived when I taught at Northwestern State. One Superior-Natchitoches story appeared in the South Carolina Review, one in New Orleans Review. The...

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Fleming / Free Content

5 Feb, 2019

Governor Northam and His Critics

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I posted this brief comment on Facebook: I have read some “conservatives” on FB calling for support or sympathy for Gov. Northam. This is almost as pathetic as the conservatives who are denouncing him for racism. Red Phillips strikes the right balance–Northam is not worthy either of defense or offense. Since when does an advocate of infanticide deserve sympathy or support from normal human beings? Of course no one in his right mind would join the pile-on (and isn’t it interesting how few conservatives these days are in their right minds!), but imagine Pol Pot or Mao were attacked for...

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Free Content

31 Jan, 2019

Interview With Anthony V. Bukoski, Part One

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TJF: You are a fictional chronicler of the Polish-American experience, but you have chosen to localize your stories, most of which either take place in Superior, Wisconsin, or have a character from Superior’s East End. Tell me a little about the Superior you grew up in. AVB: I was born in a port city at the western terminus of the Great Lakes. When I was in grade school and high school in the 1950’s and early ’60s, Superior had the world’s largest ore docks, huge grain terminals, shipyards, mills, railroad yards, and a stinking oil refinery, still the only one...

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Fleming / Free Content

31 Jan, 2019

Is the Pope Catholic?

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Once upon a time, the Yankees “always” won the American League pennant.  Halfway through the season, if someone foolishly asked if the Yankees were going to do it again, some wise guy would answer the foolish question by asking another, “Is the Pope Italian?”  In later years, during the unending pontificate of John Paul II, the Yankees were no longer dominating the American League, and, if anyone asked some foolish question such as, “You think Sammy Sosa is taking steroids?,”  the responding question was, “Is the Pope Catholic?”  Today, I wonder how the wise guy would respond to a question...

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Feature / Fleming

30 Jan, 2019

An Interview with Anthony Bukoski, Introduction

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Anthony Bukoski is one of the finest living fiction writers in America.  Born and reared in Superior (Wisconsin)—a town often considered the cultural nadir of the Upper Midwest—he is the opposite of the mouse, which in the Latin tale emerged from a mountain:  He is the lion that came out of the molehill of rusting grain elevators and abandoned trainyards, the city with the greatest number of bars per capita probably in the world and a house of ill fame known across the world. He attended Superior State University (which is what everyone called it before they started putting on...