And in my talks I want to talk about “The American Dream”, the idea that we don’t really know where we live. We think we live in a country that has done this and this and this, because we have been told those things are so.
But do you really want to base your life, your day, on what you were told in an American high school history class? Think about it.
And so I want to talk about, for example 9/11, landing on the moon, Waco, Gulf of Tonkin, anthrax, weapons of mass destruction, Iran, stolen elections, Pearl Harbor, Iran-Contra, Wellstone … so many times when we may have been lied to.
We don’t ask questions. Maybe we don’t want to know the answer, maybe that’s why.
It surely is easier to just change the channel, that’s for sure.
Calling someone a conspiracy theorist is how Americans send their dissidents to Siberia."
7. How many books have you written and had published?
"KGB(f), Joe Coffee’s Revolution, Twins(g), The Truth(h), The Last Liberal Outlaw(i), Looking For Bigfoot(j), Terror Nation, The American Dream(k).
These are the novels.
Prophets Without Honor(l) is non-fiction, written with Bill Strabala, actually Bill wrote pretty much the whole thing. I was along for the ride."
8. Having read three and reviewed two of your books, I know your work to be quite unorthodox, hyperbolic, intriguing, and critical of the status quo in the United States. What has inspired you to write in this manner?
"Anger. Hate. Growing up in America. Looking out my window and seeing America. Watching the news on TV while working the stair-stepper in America.
I guess anger really does fuel much of my writing. I just look around and see people mowing their lawns on the same day we start to bomb Iraq and it drives me wild.
I used to - in the ‘80s – go out and hold signs, cross the line, civil disobedience – picket the Catholic Church – now I write. And writing seems to be such a vague, weak response to some of the things going on. I often think that a more honest response might be a rifle or pounding on a missile silo with a hammer. I’m not willing to kill and killing is wrong, I know that, so it’s not hard for me to dismiss that option for myself. But hammering on a missile silo … but then again, I choose to write … maybe I’m just lazy. That could be it.
I know that when Bush was “elected” the first time, I was so dejected. My thought was, of course they killed Kennedy, they can do anything they want.
I thought about tossing a concrete block through the windows of the military recruiters offices in Sioux City as some form of resistance to all this. I even drove there several times, about an hour away, to see how I might do it and try to get away. I even asked others if they wanted to join me, none did.
