The Embarrassed Republican: Not in 'Our Town'

There is a “magazine” being offered for free in several local businesses, it’s called “Our Town”.  The latest version is called “Twilight’s Our town Zone.”  It is true to the principals of it’s editor and chief author, Robert Beierle, who implores us all to return to the wonderful days of yesteryear when men were men and women didn’t talk so much.

It is a thinly veiled personal propaganda circular containing  22 or so pages of basic stone-headed “everyone stinks but cool white guys like us” thinking.   Just leafing through it’s pages makes it very clear why people don’t tell jokes like the ones it contains anymore.  They’re offensive, the kind you wish your cousin would stop telling when he’s had a few too many at the picnic.  The kind that don’t get him invited back.

This edition is missing the usual stirring hate-filled front page editorial, instead it sports a story of a man and his family transported from an idyllic 1962 to the cruel government controlled present day.  He is beset immediately by police, who threaten to shoot his unlicensed dog, insult his family and truck and then arrest the entire family for not wearing seat belts and letting the kids ride in the truck bed of the family's broken down vehicle. Off to the "pokey" with them!

Once the family is incarcerated at the local police fortress they are grilled by a ruthless “government bureaucrat” who relentlessly demand permits and licenses for everything from having a bake sale to changing tires without a license.  His wife becomes despondent when her children are changed into zombies by a flat screen TV, but apparently she can’t do anything about that without talking to her husband first.  Eventually, after considerable incredulity on the sad state of the future, the man and his family escape the clutches of the “Government” police while they are busy suiting up in riot gear so they can persecute the innocent family some more.

Shots are fired, the family dog is rescued and they magically return to their own time where the local sheriff gladly repairs their flat tire.  Really.

Everyone is able to express their own opinion about everything, we even have an amendment to the constitution about it.  Unfortunately we left out the amendment where everyone else isn’t allowed to express their own opinion about what’s said. Cloaked in a grimy “community service” overcoat, “Our Town” is a hate-filled rag, from the nasty crude jokes to the ranting editorials.  It manages to be  anti-women, anti-hispanic, anti-government, homophobic, anti-jew, anti-muslim (and there about 20 other anti’s I’ve left out) all in one one package.  And yet, It purports itself to be “the most popular publication in Morris county”.  Really?  Did you take a look at the Daily Record’s distribution lately, or the New York Times? I just hope that’s as far from the truth as the rest of Mr. Beierle’s ranting.

This “magazine” has been called out by NJ’s Hall institute for public policy for “hate columns” and rampant intolerance and yet it still gets advertisers in Morris county to support it and stores to carry it.  They must not be reading it.  Just as the Chick-fil-a corporation divorced itself from it’s founder’s views almost immediately when it came to light that he was a major supporter of anti-gay organizations, businesses are usually very careful not to alienate customers.  It’s hard enough getting customers these days as it is without advertising in some hate-filled fish-wrapper. 

I’d never actually seen a copy until last week, but I’d heard about it from a friend who had it pulled out of Kings on South street by talking to the manager.  Good for her.  It’s important to speak out when you see something like this.  This is not a publication you want your children idly reading while you shop, or anywhere else for that matter.  Mr. Beierle, the seeming sole author except for jokes always “submitted by a faithful Our Town reader“  gets to have his own opinion,  but he doesn’t get to have it without consequences.  No one does.  It is impressive that he apparently sells franchises to distribute “Our Town”.  By that I mean impressive in a kind of frightening way.

Taking a look at the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “Hate map” we see that NJ has the most organized hate groups of all the 50 states.  You will also notice that Morris county is pleasantly free of such groups although they cluster around our edges.  I’d like to keep it that way.  “Our Town” is an insidious insertion of hate and fear propaganda right into the heart of the county.  Pick one up to share and see if you agree.  If you do, talk to the store manager, or even better email the advertisers.  Freedom of speech works both ways.