"I really admire the people who have given us the truth, mostly over the Internet [capital “I”? I can never figure that out], in the Bush years. Lori Price at Citizens’ for Legitimate Government(m), Bartcop(n), Lisa Casey at All Hat No Cattle(o), Marc Ash at Truthout(p), and all those people in the 9/11 Truth Movement(q).
I think the big story, the big mystery, the big wonder of our time is 9/11 and the fact that our government did it.
Well, it’s not a fact, I guess. It’s a maybe, I guess. I saw Karl Rove on C-Span yesterday and I just stared at him and he is amazing.
He is so cool, so smart, so glib, so controlled — and to think that maybe-maybe, he was in on the stealing of elections, the murder of Wellstone, planning 9/11, all that.
And if that is true, what a supreme monster I am looking at, and what a wonder at the same time. To think that someone with that on his conscience could walk into a coffee shop and shake hands and smile as if he hasn’t a care in the world.
Wow. To me, that is just so interesting.
And so I watch it all unfold on my computer screen every day and sometimes I write about it in made-up stories. I’m writing one now.
And so maybe I admire Karl Rove, ha, that's interesting to be saying that."
13. Howard Zinn praised you for your “profound social conscience”. When did you first realize you had a social conscience and begin acting upon it?
"Howard Zinn has been kind to me. He has given me two nice blurbs. I think he gets bugged about blurbs by a lot of people. If he actually read The American Dream I appreciate it, but I suspect he was trying to do me a good deed.
Well, in the seminary, one day at announcements, before Mass, they asked who wants to go to Chicago for the arms bazaar protest. And my hand just shot up. I found out that I wanted to go. I had never gone to anything like that, did not even know what a “nuke” was. But I went to Chicago, sang hippie peace songs and carried a sign, something we almost never did on Friday nights in Norfolk, Nebraska.
And then on the way home somebody said Dan Berrigan was going to be in Minneapolis and I should meet him, and so I did."
14. Why did you serve time in a federal prison?
"During the 1980s Ruth and I lived in a “resistance community” called Greenfields [Irish anti-war song Greenfields of France] – founded by an Irishman from Wisner, Nebraska named Kevin McGuire. We “crossed the line” at Offutt Air Force Base, south of Omaha, many many times. I served 10 days, 30 days, 50 days, six months, six months. Lancaster County Jail, Douglas County Jail, Pottawatamie County Jail, MCC [Metropolitan Correctional Center – Chicago], Terre Haute, Leavenworth [overnight], El Reno, La Tuna [El Paso].
All were federal misdemeanors – stepping over a white line – trespass."
Jason Miller is a recovering US American middle class suburbanite who strives to remain intellectually free. He is Cyrano's Journal Online's associate editor (http://www.bestcyrano.org/) and publishes Thomas Paine's Corner within Cyrano's at http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/.
