John Nirenberg Interview
February 26th, 20078

John Nirenberg Interview

February, 26th 2008

W.  You recently walked from Boston to Washington in the middle of winter to meet with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Can you tell me a little bit about your thinking, the motivation that led to your journey, and the journey itself?

John: I was preparing for a course on organizational behavior, and I was reviewing a book called the Lucifer Effect: How Good People Turn Evil. When I finished reading it I realized with horror that we as a nation were good people allowing evil to be committed in our name. It was something I couldn’t be a part of with a name that sounds like Nuremberg, site of the trials of German leaders at the close of WWII. I was very conscience of the questions that arose in Europe before that war and people’s so called ignorance of the reality all around them. So I thought I had to do something but the usual avenues for citizenship was terribly unsatisfying. The letters to the editor, the phone calls to my Congressman just didn’t seem to satisfy my conscience.

CRR: No results?

J: None. My Congressman, Peter Welch, was sympathetic but wasn’t willing to do the right thing in Congress and push for impeachment hearings that would get to the truth about the extent of the torture and other crimes. The democrats were suspiciously quiet. After a year in congress, they weren’t fulfilling their promises. The war, the lies, the torture continued; standing up to the law-breaking by this administration never seemed to be on their agenda. Not in a way that the public could understand, anyway. So, I had to do something. I decided to do something different, something dramatic. The walk started at historic Faneuil Hall in Boston where Sam Adams planned the Revolution and passed by the symbols of our liberty the statue of liberty, the liberty bell, Constitution Hall. I also thought it would be a reality test, and I’d see if I hadn’t gone off the deep end. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe the Constitution wasn’t in danger. Maybe the crimes I saw were merely policy differences, I thought by carrying my sign down the road I would talk to people and get a better understanding of my own belief system, whether or not I was right or just off in left field.

CRR: Comparatively.

J: Yes, and maybe I missed something; maybe these issues were being dealt with. But lo and behold, the entire way to DC all I got was reinforcement, and encouragement. In fact it was worse than I thought, there’s something rotten in DC. The fact is that all three branches of government are immobilized on this and not doing the right thing. So, I learned I was right, but it was shockingly silent on the issue in DC. It’s like another world; it’s an armed camp seemingly under security lockdown, Capitol Police everywhere. There’s this blanket of fear… a calm before the storm sort of thing that’s hard to understand. I walked into seventy-five Congressional offices and I would say that only three or four responded with knowledge of how their Congressman stood on the issues of impeachment, or torture and spying. There was this incredible ignorance or lack of interest in engaging with someone who just walked from the street.

CRR: Well, it’s a long street.

J: Yeah. No kidding, I walked 485 miles from Boston to speak to these people.

CRR : And Ms. Pelosi didn’t take you out for tea?

J: She wouldn’t see me, but I was in conversation with her office for over a week by phone to arrange a meeting. Finally they set up something with two of her advisors. It was pretty funny actually, because after all my interest in speaking with her for the purpose of being heard, the person who she set me up with was deaf. I mean, the irony! He was a perfect gentleman, an expert on the Constitution, a nice guy and he could understand me; he had hearing tools I guess. But my problem was finding it hard to understand his speech. I’ve lived over-seas so I’m pretty good with different forms of English. He was obviously very intelligent and had a lot to say, but it was very trying emotionally. I was already under a lot of stress just meeting with him, plus trying to find the right words – one’s that he would understand in the context of his political environment and to concentrate on what he was saying – it was very difficult. Fortunately, the person with him was the more senior and took the lead in our discussion. It’s just one of those ironies I guess, no reflection on him personally whatsoever, it’s just one of those things that’s quite amusing I suppose, I made the effort as a citizen to be heard and the person I am scheduled with was deaf.

CRR: Any particular tales from your hike? I’m thinking of the one I read about where you visited your alma mater, because that exemplifies what you said about Washington being rotten, and I’m wondering if it’s not everywhere, not just Washington?

J: I spent most of my senior year in Old Lyme, CT so I was delighted to walk right passed my old High School. I stopped in to see if I could give a first hand experience of citizenship to a social studies class. Without so much as a thank you but, they through me out of school as if I was contagious or had a bomb strapped to me. Just as Bush gets away with unprovoked pre-emptive strikes, every tin horn security guard now acts first. No discussion, just obey or else. Well it’s just concentrated there and it’s unavoidable, it’s in your face. The security machinery is everywhere and they want you know it, it’s not as if they’re passive or there to just protect and focus on security, though. In DC it’s aggressive; they want to be in your face so you know that they’re there and you better watch it.

CRR : “They” means . . . ?

J: The Capital Police, the security apparatus, the guards, the security check-points, the metal detectors, the dogs, it’s everywhere. It’s true that right from Fanuel Hall there was a security presence of some sort, that’s true. I bumped into it in many places, particularly because of my sign, as if exercising one’s Constitutional rights poses a threat, which is pretty scary in itself. If I were carrying a sign that said “Buy Coca-Cola,” it wouldn’t have created anywhere near that kind of response. But there I was carrying a sign about saving the Constitution and that’s the weird thing, and that’s unacceptable, it’s not allowed. It’s political and therefore threatening. I went into a restaurant in Princeton, NJ to take a break and have lunch. I was holding the sign at my side, not displaying it, and the cashier said “I hope you don’t plan to show the sign, we don’t want you to do that.” I said not to worry but thought to myself, “What would make her say that?” She could see I was in line like any customer holding a package but mine said “Impeach Bush/Cheney” and theirs said “ Saks Fifth Avenue” or Talbots. So what? It was at that same passive level, but something motivated her, fear? She wasn’t the owner, just the cashier, and she took it upon herself to assert this sense that what I was doing was wrong.

CRR: It seems awfully strange to say that “Impeach Bush/Cheney” is almost taken as a kick in the patriotic knee, but I don’t think that if you had had an “Impeach Clinton” sign 8-10 years ago that it would be taken with exactly the same defensive mechanism.

J: Maybe not. Bush and Cheney have so perverted our consciousness with their idea of fear, and that everything needs to be questioned. No one is above suspicion, as it were, in prosecution of the so-called War on Terror. This all suits their purpose. They can do what they please and abuse every power under the guise of “National Security.” People are so edgy in this environment that they probably don’t even realize what they’re doing when they reflexively squelch the free speech.

CRR: You wrote recently on your website, “I can’t imagine that Americans knowingly and willingly accept the fact that the government condones torture, can wage war at will, can elect a president who remains outside the law and is not held accountable through its constitutional systems, checks and balances, but they seem to have done so.” Don’t you think that the media is complicit in this acceptance and that everything appears differently depending on the way and the context in which it is framed? In other words, things are being presented in a certain way, different than the way that someone else might see it. When you look at torture as something to save your country it takes a very different outlook.

J: That’s the way it has always been presented. The church presented it as necessary during the Spanish Inquisition. Torture was a test. If you survived you were telling the truth. But of course you couldn’t possibly survive. Torture is a reflection on the people in power, it’s not about protecting the country. If $50 billion for the intelligence community boils down to waterboarding, we are doing something terribly wrong. The Bush idea of national security includes their demand for loyalty to the person of the President but none of our oaths, none of our pledges of allegiance, Star Spangled Banner, nothing in our documents or history requires to the president. There is no such thing as loyalty to the president unless, perhaps, you are a direct report. Everyone pledges loyalty to the constitution, but they want to turn that around and make it very personal. They want to make loyalty equate with patriotism. That’s a perversion of the whole idea.

CRR: The question, to rephrase it. Don’t you think that the media is somehow carrying a tremendous load of this responsibility for people’s acceptance of what’s going on and how can that be addressed?

J: Yeah, there’s been a convenient consolidation of the press, the corporate presses, as we refer to it. There are four or five major companies that own eighty percent of the media, especially television media, and the networks are all sympathetic to the Bush agenda because they promote corporate agendas and vice-versa. It works for them, and it’s no surprise to me that none of the major media is interested in my story or what I was doing, none of them. But lots of little, independent media were interested, no surprise. Who benefits from all this? The war profiteers of course. The Bush administration’s tax cuts for the wealthy and the corporate capital gains taxes, and all the rest. They don’t and haven’t, for I don’t know how long, challenged the government on anything. When was the last time? Do you seem to recall when the major media was in an uproar?

CRR: I think during the Nixon era, the media was pretty hot on the administration’s rear. Since then it’s been little more than a lap-dog.

J: Back to the media. The more frightened you are, the more you’re going to buy and divert your attention.

CRR: Well, Nader contends that the Republicans and Democrats both basically belong to the party of big business and their differences are basically talking points, though George Bush has set a new standard for disastrous leadership. Howard Zinn says he “only thinks about presidential candidates for two minutes when he votes, and after that real democracy begins with people demanding a change from their government.” Do you feel that George Bush is a sign of the times, or an anomaly?

J: No, he unfortunately has demonstrated something that we’re going to end up living with for thirty or forty more years. His the arrogance and bullying defending his complete disregard of the Constitution without Congressional checks is unprecedented. Re-establishing the balance will take at least a generation no matter who’s in the White House. Bush has basically said, “I dare you to do something about it.” He has violated the law through signing statements and claiming to have the Constitutional right to make decisions that are not spelled out in the Constitution or in law. He basically says “Yes, I spied on Americans, it was for National Security, and I’ll do it again.” This is against the law. Nixon paid for it. The Congress is basically intimidated by him (Bush) because their majority is frail. The Democrats have a majority but a significant number of them are from districts with strong Republican sentiments. So, those democrats are actually more aligned with the republican scare machine to play it safe. This makes Pelosi a very weak Speaker of the House. We’ve never seen this before, the President claims the unitary executive theory, which they literally made up out of thin air, gives him and Cheney the right to basically be above the law and to keep everything secret from congress.

CRR: So, do you have a hope that in another election cycle it might . . .

J: No. (laughs)

CRR: . . . change? (laughs)

J: No, I have no hope at all. Why haven’t they (any of the remaining Presidential candidates) disavowed these practices? Republicans and Democrats, none of them have disavowed these practices. They’ve all thrown out the paean of “Oh, well, we’ll restore practices,” but they haven’t pledged to sign the American Freedom Agenda.

CRR: Kucinich has.

J: Kucinich, who’s no longer, and Ron Paul who has also dropped out. But yeah, the rest haven’t signed it, why would they? It gives them great powers, this is an elixir, this is what it’s all about and that’s why I’m worried about it.

Sixty some odd percent of people in this country agree that there have been impeachable offenses committed by this administration, and that suggests a deep understanding of the constitution and so on. And yet, I would contend that probably most people in this country haven’t got a clue of what’s in the constitution. They intuitively know that something is wrong with the way Bush has been behaving. Some of the things that have been reported in the press about him misleading congress into war are clear. There are some obvious things like the absence of WMD, and the absence of the capacity to really threaten the U.S.. There was just no basis for the attack on Iraq, I mean we understand that and even hear it from the corporate press. But what we don’t understand is just what this means constitutionally. That this great shift of power from Congress to the President was not made according to the amending process as spelled out in the Constitution. Congress has the power to declare war. Any threat made by Cheney to go into Iran, for example, is not only irresponsible, it is unconstitutional. This is the most unheard of thing in our history, this is why the constitution was written the way it was written - to prevent the abuse of executive power from happening. We don’t have a clue and how would we? Most of us, if we get a unit on the constitution in high school, are distracted and uninterested and for many of us that’s the last time we’ll get that information. It’s amazing to me that the Constitution has survived this long given our shallow exposure to it and why it was created. When you visit Constitution Hall in Philadelphia, PA, they tell you two things; and, by the way, this is the official story. It shows you that for the first time in human history, a people could change their government through a peaceful transfer of power based on an election. The second thing is that even with elections, separation of powers, checks and balances, staggered election cycles, the framers believed we still needed to put impeachment in the Constitution. It’s mentioned six times. This is because they knew the tendency of the executive would be to abuse power.

CRR: So is that why, at this late stage of the Bush tenure, you feel that impeachment is a necessity? Democrats at this point; seem to be saying “let’s just wait it out.” But you are saying that he shouldn’t be let out of the box so easily -- grab him before he disappears into the sunset -- and shrink the power of the executive branch back to a third of the government as opposed to four fifths?

J: Let’s put it this way, there’s two major issues here. Whether he should be held accountable for the abuse of powers in office or personally prosecuted and held accountable as an individual; that’s another way. And maybe he can be pursued for crimes after he leaves office; say for war crimes. Of course, I would like Bush and Cheney, to be impeached, prosecuted, and removed from office. That’s not the most important thing, though. The most important thing is that Congress hold impeachment hearings because then all those administration officials have to testify, under oath, and cannot use executive privilege to avoid doing so. Right now, Bush just says, “I’m not going to testify.” Until the contempt citations ten days ago, he’s gotten away with it, and he may still get away with it yet by playing the procedural cards and delaying it for who knows how long. What I’m interested in personally, is that Congress has these hearings to establish what the truth is. If they don’t do that then it’s all going to be politics and it’s your opinion vs. my opinion about what happened. And as long as we have that state of affairs, this whole idea of constitutional significance is lost because once again, it’s just your opinion and my opinion. You know? How do you establish the truth of it? If you have these hearings, you can establish a truthful, documented record of abuse and lawlessness of this administration. And what that does, whether they get impeached or not, is establish congressional intent because that’s what the courts and history look for when they do decide, down the road, what precedent counts or don’t. So even if Bush and Cheney aren’t held accountable, the congress will be on record as saying what this administration did was wrong, was inappropriate, and constitutionally out of balance.

CRR: In the movie Why We Fight (which is about the tremendous amount of money being made by the war machine, and that is not only driving the economy, but the gears of the government as well) one of the conservative think tank speakers in the film came on and said, “There are a lot of the liberal school who think that if we change the administration, then things will return to a pre-9/11 state, and I’m here to tell you that that will never happen. The power has shifted substantially and it won’t go back.” Dennis Kucinich and other candidates that have a different than main-stream opinion have demonstrated that unless you go with the military/economic program, you don’t go anywhere. Do you think that a change in leadership could change our direction and do you think an impeachment trial would help us stand against the tide of economic and military pressures?

J: It looks like that tide has already negated the possibility of impeachment. You know, Nancy Pelosi took it off the table before she was sworn in as Speaker of the House.

CRR: What happened to Dennis Kucinich’s Dick Cheney impeachment resolution?

J: It’s in the committee. It’s virtually dead.

CRR: It’s dead?

J: Well, it’s not dead yet, but it’s not breathing either. It’s languishing in the committee. Congressman Wexler has started to revive interest in it, and he’s got six or eight members of the committee signed on. It’s not enough. And Chairman John Conyers, who wrote a book on why Bush should be impeached before 2006, has gone mysteriously quiet on the issue. He wrote a three hundred page book on why Bush/Cheney should be impeached, and this was when the democrats were the minority. Now he’s the chair of the committee and he squashed it. Why? They give you all kinds of reasons. They say it’s divisive. As if the war isn’t? As if signing statements aren’t? As if Cheney’s secrecy and bullying aren’t divisive?

CRR: I had never really heard about signing statements until this administration, but everyone seems to accept them as natural, almost as if it were just like a line item veto. So you get signing statements instead, which basically means that he can sign a bill and then do exactly the opposite of what the bill requires. When did signing statements become part of the president’s power?

J: Basically, no one has done this before. The signing statements before Bush have been ceremonial kinds of things to add some sentiment or one’s approval of such a measure, not to alter its fundamental meaning. That’s a Bush innovation, and that’s part of the unitary executive theory, where they define their role under the constitution in a way that isn’t defined by the constitution. Congress hasn’t done anything, and the courts aren’t going to do anything unless it goes to them. And if it does go to them, Bush and Cheney have appointed the last two judges, one of which is the Chief Justice, who are believers in their philosophy. So, it looks pretty bleak.

CRR: So, what is the alternative for progressive-thinking folk besides going out and voting for Ralph Nader?

J: I struggle with this one myself. Some say it should collapse; the system is so out of control that it needs to fall apart, maybe like the Soviet Union did.

CRR: You don’t think that Barack Obama is going to be the change that he’s been talking about?

J: I think that he may do some cosmetic things, and I certainly hope he does. The cynical side of me says that he’ll never be allowed to do what we’re hoping he’ll do. Like you said, it’s a great tide of defense interests through war profiteers.

CRR: You’re involved in academia, and must be aware of the firing of Ward Churchill? Are you aware of The Critical Art Ensemble?

J: No, I'm not.

CRR: Steve Kurtz, an artist/scientist and a member of The Critical Art Ensemble, was arrested two years ago on a charge of bio-terrorism. The artwork “explores the intersections between art, technology, radical politics and critical thinking.” One of their art exhibits was called ‘Free Range Grain’ that helped people identify genetically modified food. I’m wondering in regards to these people who are on the edges of academia, who are being kind of silenced, if you have seen this kind of thing?

J: It only takes one or two examples to be made of people to silence the whole lot. We’re basically sheep here, and they’ve shown how they’ll go after people who question that too seriously. I can’t even imagine the threats.

CRR: Do you feel that here up here in Brattleboro and at S.I.T., here in the heart of the liberal northeast and at S.I.T.?

J: No, I don’t feel that up here much. Do you know that incident in Florida when John Kerry was talking and this kid was asking a question who was rambling on a little too long?  

CRR : No.

J: It must have been back in September, this is on YouTube; the video that is startling to watch. There was a spate of these things around that time where students exercising their freedom of speech were mightily shut down. Another was at Colorado state, for example where a college newspaper editor criticized Bush. So here was a kid who was asking John Kerry a question, and you know how it is sometimes when a questioner will give a little speech and go on a little too long. So, he was asking excellent questions, he asked three of them, and taking his time. All of a sudden there were six cops dragging him away and tasering him. This is where the expression “Don’t tase me bro,” comes from. He’s on the ground and five or six cops are about taser him. Look up University of Florida Taser Incident on YouTube.

CRR: When was this?

J: Last October.

CRR: And did John Kerry have anything to say about this?

J: No, he was in shock. He said he wanted to deal with his questions, but he should have done something. He should have told the cops to leave the student alone; what were they doing there dragging him away like that? It’s those kinds of incidents in the name of “security” where someone wearing a T-shirt with a message gets hauled off. It happened to my wife and I when we tried to go into the National Archives wearing a poncho that said “Impeach Bush/Cheney” and a base-ball cap that said the same. They said “You can’t wear that in here.” They said we couldn’t enter unless we took that off. What’s that about? We were peaceful and in line like everyone else.

CRR: Wrong logo. If it said Nike, you probably would have been all right.

J: Absolutely, no question. I think a couple of weeks later when the pro-lifers were in town, they could walk in with their pro-life t-shirts… no problem. So, we got stopped. My wife was wearing the poncho and I was wearing the cap, this was before we heard from Pelosi’s office, and I didn’t want to get us arrested, otherwise I would have had my rights read to me, because they had no policy. It was all arbitrary. To this day we haven’t seen the policy. We sent a certified letter under the Freedom of Information Act, requesting their policy but heard nothing. About such things, there is no policy. Again, these guards exert their power and take it upon themselves to decide what’s right and wrong. They’re not only worried about security. Now they’re censors, judges, juries and executioners I suppose. So, she decided I will not take this off and give up my rights to free speech to go observe the very document that has given me those rights, and the whole scene, it was outrageous.

CRR: Boy, the irony there.

J: So, these little things build up, getting thrown out of my old high school for no reason whatsoever. I asked the cop “What exact kind of threat am I posing here?” Immediately, he said “You have no right to ask questions. You will leave this building.” That’s true, when we deny Habeas Corpus to terrorists in Guantanamo Bay, we are also telling each other that we no longer have the right to ask questions. We are guilty until we prove ourselves innocent.

CRR: That’s a public high school?

J: Yes, but the policeman was very careful to tell me that it was private property. The law of Connecticut somehow has made public property considered private under certain circumstances for security reasons. I took a picture of the high school and he said “You can’t take a picture, this is private property.” Since when can you not take a picture of private property? It’s all private property, of course you can take pictures. But now they’re manufacturing these pseudo-reasons to stop anything that you’re attempting to do that they don’t like. In fact, Photography magazine had a series on this once, that the authorities were indiscriminately using this idea of security and private property to prevent people from taking pictures. They always have reasons when they want to get rid of you. These incidents send messages to whole lots of people and we all end up afraid to exercise our rights. You know, one person is irrelevant but the message goes out.

CRR: You can’t just say, “No way, Jose” to the cop, or you'll get arrested.

J: Yeah, and maybe physically abused. You know, the five kids and that guy in Illinois University, or the thirty from Virginia Tech.

CRR: Seems like a regular occurrence these days.

J: It does, but the myth is that we can protect you from these things, well they can’t, and they never can, how can they? It doesn’t matter how much security they have, they don’t get it. They have armed forces in Iraq, where has it gotten them? It has worsened the security of individuals living in Iraq.

CRR: What was the line you had about “If you have to do such and such to protect your security, your security is already . . . ?”

J: Oh yeah. There’s an old Ben Franklin quote about those who sacrifice their liberty for security deserve neither. I say, He who tortures another human being to obtain security has already lost security and the ability to ever have it.” But yeah, this is all phony. Before 9/11 they had in place the apparatus they needed to know what was going to happen. They were given reports that something was planned, they knew that the World Trade Center was a target because it had been twice before. They had field agents from the FBI report suspicious activity, and named eleven of the hijackers in different circumstances as being active and needing surveillance. But they blew it. So now we have a virtual police state and still millions of the poorest among us, illegal aliens, can get through our security. Makes you wonder what the real intention of all the so-called need for wiretapping, spying, and cops is all about.

CRR: It’s funny because we, well, you almost can’t mention in polite company the fact that the towers did not go down the way that they’d have us believe. My wife is Japanese and she was recently back in Japan, and she says “It’s just basically accepted in Japan that it was an inside job.” And that was like a fulcrum that has led us to our present state. That was the point when all of a sudden things suddenly radically changed, but many moderate people in Japan seem to believe that it was an inside job.

J: L ike the Reichstag fire, or whatever. That’s the incident that Hitler manufactured to consolidate his executive power and build his police state.

CRR: There’s been the Maine incident, the Mexican border incident that Lincoln was irate about, the Gulf of Tonkin . . . just countless incidents that have been fabricated to lead us where we don’t want to go.

J: And we never learn, do we?

CRR: Who was it who said, “The bigger lies are best?”

J: Hitler, I think. See, that’s the whole thing, we’ve become truly believers of the saying “Ignorance is Bliss.” If we know these things, it’s painful. If we accept that it’s an inside job, that it was part of a neo-con plan, how do we deal with that? How do we deal with the whole psychological mythology of what America is? If we accept the fact of our genocide of the Indians, slavery, and the denial of civil rights, and to this day the oppression of minorities and those on the outer edges of our system, or that maybe the President is crazy, how do we accept these things? We have to believe that it is not the case in order to keep those myths alive, for that larger self image of who we are.

CRR: I think the numbness is even deeper than that though. I was on the phone the other night, and the question came up was that if Bush suddenly declared martial law, and decided that he was going to remain president indefinitely, would anyone get off their couch?

J: Would they? Good question.

CRR: And I think that twenty years ago they would have, but as long as their utilities are paid for and they still have heat and food, they’re hunkering down.

J: I would love to see what would happen. You know, people nonchalantly talk about creating another one of those 9/11 events. They’re already blaming the Democrats now because they haven’t extended the surveillance act, for some bigger incident. It’s like they’re getting us ready. We the sophisticated and the cynical are all sort of ready for this to happen, and nobody will talk about what happens if… what happens if that is the case?

CRR: Before the elections?

J: Yeah, and Bush says, “We’ll have to postpone the elections.”

CRR: It’s out there in everyone’s imagination that it might occur.

J: So, we’ve already accepted it, we’re getting ourselves ready for it. Not to fight it, but to accept it. Come on, what would you do?

CRR: I'd gear up the presses! My wife fears is that if something like that were to happen I would get myself in trouble. Maybe trouble would be worth making..

J: How many can they lock up? They can lock up lots. How many would it take?

CRR: I don’t know if there are that many who would want to be locked up. I mean, the people in the Soviet Union seem to be happy with more sausage. Putin is much more popular than Gorbachev was. Though he's leading them in another direction and most of the Russians don’t seem to mind. Lose a little here and there, and it’s all right. As many people think, “I’m not doing anything wrong, so if they are reading my e-mail, it's okay with me.”

Another thing I’d be interested in hearing is your opinion on is the relationship between consumerism and where we find ourselves politically. Don’t you think that the most radical action is to stop (and Dick Cheney’s answer for everything is to continue) shopping? Shopping quiets the senses like a rich meal in a fancy resturaunt and by buying something you feed the consumer/disposer/imperial economy. That one of the antidotes for the milatarism might be to not shop. I mean, most of the liberal people I know, and Jim Merkel said it very well -- the “alternativos” is what he calls them -- most of the “alternativos” he knows still have all the implements and toys of their lifestyle even though they grow their peas.

J: We are addicted, as surely as to any drug, and television is the dealer. That in itself is the opiate of the masses, who was it who said that? Marx said that about religion, but that is our religion, consumerism that is. That’s our opiate, and it works. Why is it that we get all bent out of shape for the American Idol? We care more about that and we’ll fight over it, but who cares about politics? People don’t understand, so they don’t care. It’s like nerds worry about politics… “cool” people worry about American Idol. Why do we have fifty-seven varieties of ketchup, but only two political parties? We love it too, we have user groups that volunteer to tell people online their thoughts about products at a much greater rate than we do our politics sitting in our town meetings and doing all those things. That is aggravating. It makes for no sense whatsoever. But products… that’s cool. I mean, why do we people go insane and wait online for twenty-four hours for the new iPod, but they’re not demonstrating for the Constitution? We are buried in our goods.

CRR: That’s a good place to leave it.