From
Lawn-Boys To B-2’s: America’s Penchant For Mowing ‘em
Down
Mike Palecek interviewed by Jason Miller
15 March, 2007
Countercurrents.org
“I just look around and see people mowing their lawns on the
same day we start to bomb Iraq and it drives me wild.”
Mike Palecek
Having
read and thoroughly enjoyed three of Mike Palecek’s novels, I
felt particularly fortunate that he agreed to engage in a cyber-interview
with me. His irreverent satirization of the myriad of ills plaguing
the United States is unparalleled amongst current authors of sociopolitical
fiction. Palecek may hyperbolize, but his fertile imagination has afforded
US Americans a priceless opportunity to stop and examine what we are
becoming as a nation. And he has done so in a fashion that is both absorbing
and entertaining.
In some ways Palecek’s offerings are analogous with Sinclair Lewis’s
It Can’t Happen Here. Though in Lewis’s case, he was prognosticating.
Palecek is documenting what has already transpired.
Without further adieu, I give you the interview with Mike Palecek:
1 Readers will note with interest that you went from being a
seminarian to being incarcerated in federal prison. How would you explain
this ostensibly glaring contradiction?
Well, first off, I would
say being a seminarian isn’t actually so great and being a federal
prisoner isn’t actually so bad.
And going from one to the
other is perhaps a natural progression, that is, if you are paying attention.
If not, then, the progression is to parish priest and bishop, I suppose.
That’s all very cocky
and vague, sorry.
Well, I went first on a long
drive in my dad’s ’59 Chevrolet and my dog, and a cowboy
hat I bought in Fort Collins, after graduating from college, suppose
it was everybody’s big journey to find themselves on a truth-seeking
adventure. I ended up sitting in a monastery in Oregon. I suppose I
just drove past and went up and started asking question. They said I
couldn’t keep my dog, so I went home, back to Nebraska. I later
parked the car on the curb and walked up to the rectory at our church
and turned myself in, to the church, said I wanted to go to seminary.
I mean, I remember being feverishly trying to find out what to do with
my life, maybe it was for years, months, I don’t remember. And
maybe I came to the point that this is where it all lead. I do remember
the thought crossing my mind that I thought the priesthood was going
“all the way”. My mother was very Catholic, going to Mass
every day. I think my dad just went along. I’m sure part of it
was that I knew I would be making my parents happy.
Okay, then I went to seminary
up in Saint Paul, again with dad’s car, dog stayed at home, cowboy
hat, too.
And, well, Fr. Dan Berrigan(a)
came to speak at Macalaster, a college in the same neighborhood as St.
Thomas. I went over there, met him, he came over to speak at St. Thomas,
and the things he said about the church, the United States, the gospel,
all lit a fire inside of me. I’m sure I also fell for what I perceived
as the glory of being a religious outlaw.
I went to Washington, D.C.
over Holy Week break, the Berrigans were there, lots of relatively famous
people that I didn’t know were famous at the time. I saw Fr. Carl
Kabat(b) pour blood on the White House of Jimmy Carter, started reading,
asking questions, finally left seminary, went to prison, went crazy,
went home.
Anyway, I surely would not
have had to leave the seminary to do these things. I don’t think
I would have anyway, so it was not really a progression, but for me
personally I see it as coming from learning, studying, maybe grace,
who knows, to go from the seminary to prison.
2. Given your obvious disgust with many aspects of the fascist
nation in which we live, how did you reconcile representing the Democratic
Party in your bid for US Congress in 2000?
I don’t see the contradiction.
Okay, I’m trying to
be clever again. I really do. Let me try to explain.
I was more of the anti-Democrat
candidate.
As a child I remember asking
my parents in the kitchen one day what we were. I knew we were American,
Catholic, but were we Democrat or Republican? This was during Nixon,
Kennedy, I think, but that would put me in kindergarten. Well, maybe
kids talked about those things then. Anyway, we were Democrats, I learned.
As a protester in the 1980s
in Omaha I despised the Democratic Party. Actually, I also despised
other protesters, the ones who did not “risk all”, go to
jail, kept their liberal ideas and their lives intact, while I was losing
mine.
Anyway, I lost my mind in
prison. We left Omaha, came to Iowa. One reason was that Ruth and I
wanted to find a good, nice place to raise our two children. Well, we
went to Minnesota for that first, then Iowa. And for many years I did
mostly nothing as far as protesting. I was a stay at home dad, trying
to write novels, and had an early morning paper route. I would read
about the local congressman and one day I thought, I can do this.
See, this is an overwhelmingly
Republican district, so not many Democrats even want to run. I thought
that by running, getting on the ballot, I could get the things that
I thought were important on the table.
And so, I need to start cutting
these answers down, that’s what I did. I got on the ballot and
tried to talk about prisons, military, immigration, which I saw as the
most important things. The Democratic Party did not embrace me, not
at all. I think I embarrassed them. At least, I hope I did. They did
and still do wish to put their ear out the window to find out what others
are thinking and talking about and then make that their issues, rather
than searching their hearts and making that their issue.
When I first ran, well, my
mother had just died, I had some money from that, and I used part of
it to buy a full-page, back cover, full-color ad on Easter Sunday in
the Sioux City Journal. It said something like, Iowa’s Democrats
say, shut down the 185th [Iowa’s National Guard unit in Sioux
City], kill the death penalty, welcome Mexicans, shut down prisons.
That’s what I thought
Democrats should say, so I said it for them.
I was a registered Democrat,
still am, and my campaign was a model for what a Democratic campaign
should be, that was my belief.
Also, I felt strongly that
my whole campaign was a model for American democracy. I was very much
a nobody, someone who got up off the couch and tried to run for Congress.
I wrote about it in my novel,
“Joe Coffee’s Revolution.”
3. What would you say to those who might assert that you hold
an “anti-American” viewpoint simply because you have an
axe to grind against the federal criminal justice system?
Great questions by the way.
I love ‘em.
Yes, I do. I have an anti-this
neighborhood out my window viewpoint.
I don’t love America.
I just don’t get that concept. I loved my dog. I love some people.
I loved a 1956 Chevrolet station wagon, black and white. But I don’t
understand loving a country. Maybe that would occur to me if I ever
went to another country to live, maybe then I would understand. Right
now I do not.
Okay. Well, they call lots
of things anti-American and I just see that as stupidity, really. Lack
of education, reading, perspective, whatever, too much TV.
Well, anyone who doesn’t
hate the federal prison system just simply has never been to federal
prison. You see it as benign because you don’t understand. Same
with America. You see it as benign because you don’t understand
it.
It was the way I was as a
high school senior. I would have gone to Vietnam, would have done anything
anybody told me to do. I was eager to please, to fit in, to be liked.
I did not question.
And so, I see most Americans
as still being tourists in America. They run around in groups taking
pictures of this and that, of the tinsel put up for photo ops, but they
have not really been to America. I have been to America.
I have walked down the side
streets.
That’s not really true.
I have not lived in real poverty. There is so much I do not know or
have not experienced.
But even my tiny bit is more
than those who run around with yellow ribbons from their antennas and
call that being American.
4. How do you respond
to critics who contend that you write fiction because reality does not
support your beliefs about our “great nation”?
Actually, I wish there were
critics who said this. I wish my books were discussed to this extent.
In reality they are not read by anyone, not really.
This question would never
come up, but it is a good one. I’m not sure I’m qualified
to answer actually. It might be too deep.
I can try to answer by saying
why I write fiction. There are lots of ways to answer this and none
that I really feel I have command of yet, a real understanding of why
I write fiction, but I’ll say whatever comes to mind as I type.
I write fiction because when
I started in 1994, well, I wanted a way to tell my story, my personal
story, and also to tell the truth about America, to bring about justice
and peace, and I wanted to do it in the way the great writers did.
I was never a real reader,
and at that time I started to read, sat out on the back porch with Moby
Dick and dug in.
That was after our small
newspaper failed [same year it won newspaper of the year in MN] and
just before we moved to Iowa when I got a job as an editor at a small
daily.
I wanted to do great things.
Be a great priest, great protester, great writer, great novelist.
I don’t think that
feeling is so uncommon actually. I hope it isn’t.
And now, after much failure,
I find writing fiction as being fun. After you go through all the crap
about finding something to write about, and you are in the middle of
something that seems to be working, it’s fun.
When I read Harry Potter
for the first time my reaction was, how great it would have been to
write this, what great fun to have been able to “live” in
the writing of this school, this forest, this story.
And, I think a good novel
is what is needed to bring down George W. Bush, or to bring down fascist
or hometown National Guard hero America. I think a good novel would
be better than a non-fiction book. And by the way there are so many
great non-fiction books out today. They do not need me, that’s
for sure.
Do you remember Grapes of
Wrath or a non-fiction article from a national magazine from that time?
Of course, writing Grapes
of Wrath, that’s the trick, but that’s the goal.
I see I did not answer the
question.
Well, I think my fiction
represents our nation pretty close to accurately.
5. I understand that you, Andre Vltchek, and Tony Christini
founded Mainstay Press as a publishing company “dedicated to social
change”. Please tell us more about Mainstay, your partners, and
your mission.
Well, actually I’m
not with Mainstay anymore. My newest book, “The American Dream”,
is with CWG Press(c).
But Mainstay(d) was founded
in the hope of bringing out some anti-war fiction in America. Books
by Andre, Tony and me are available on the website.
We got into a disagreement
and I got kicked out of the band. But my book "Terror Nation"(e)
is available with Mainstay through June, then it will be cut loose,
floating in space.
6. You are in the process of embarking upon a cross-country
tour to, in your words, “read from my books, and try to fight
the Bush government.” What do you hope to accomplish?
It’s a way to tell
people about my books, for one thing. I'll be quitting my job, losing
my health insurance, trying to nurse a '90 Honda around 50 states, trying
to learn how to read a map. Marketing the Unknown Novelist 101.
Maybe I’m obsessive,
but I just can’t give up on these books because I think they have
merit, value. And it’s almost impossible for a small-time writer
of anti-American fiction to make millions of dollars these days.
I’ll also be sending
in a crossed-out tax form and letter to the IRS before I leave, as a
protest against Bush.
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.
And so, to be overly poetic,
I kind of weighed the weight of a concrete block against a piece of
paper and chose the paper.
9. Which of your books is your favorite and why?
Would be hard for me to choose.
I like KGB because it tells
the story of prisoners and conspiracy theorists and people slaughtered
by Bush Sr. in Panama and women and children in jail visiting rooms
and other stuff. I like Joe Coffee because it tells the truth about
the Democratic Party and about farmer revolutionaries and farm kitchen
tables. I like Twins because it talks about a prison burning and about
the Twin Cities, which I love, and about robbing Twin Cities banks to
give the money to the poor on Hennepin Ave. I like Outlaw because it
talks about a reporter in a small town doing what a reporter in a small
town should do, pay attention to the commas and oppose the construction
of the prison near town. I like The Truth because it was written in
the run-up to the current war and was written in a rage against pre-war
stupidity in Iowa. I like Bigfoot because I think there is a Bigfoot
and I think Bush did 9/11 and I think the CIA killed the Kennedy's,
and I like baseball, a lot. I like Terror Nation because I think it
would be cool to be a small town sports reporter who was put into the
local mental institution for writing anti-Bush letters to the editor.
And a dream of mine would be to cover Iowa sports or coach baseball
and have that be good enough. I like The American Dream because it's
like punching America in the nose, it's like punching George W. Bush
in the nose and Karl Rove in the nose. And I think those two pussies
need to be punched in the nose.
10. Which of your books do you believe has had the greatest
impact?
None.
At this point in my “career”
I don’t think I have had any impact whatsoever.
I have received some very
kind reviews/responses, and I have appreciated those. They have given
me the hope to keep going, but as for impact, I don’t see any.
Not enough people know about
me at this point.
And, I believe in my books,
so I’m going on tour.
“Sabu must tour or
forever rest.” - John Prine.
11. In your most recent book, The American Dream, you write
of a United States which has immersed itself almost completely in the
ills of fascism, corporatism, consumerism, militarism, racism, and virtually
all of the ills plaguing our country to one degree or another. Was this
a cautionary tale? Your notion of the inevitable future of the United
States? Or was it something else?
It was just me crying out against what I see out my window.
It was me throwing a concrete
block through my neighbor’s window, the windows of the local church,
the city hall, the National Guard unit.
That’s what it was
meant to be.
12. Please name some of the people whom you admire most and
tell us why.
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.
15. Why did you leave
the seminary?
Well, becoming radicalized
about war and the poor was one reason. I pinned a manifesto on the bulletin
board by the elevators when I left talking about the seminary being
on a rich Catholic campus and how I needed to be with the poor, right
now. I went to the New York City Catholic Worker for a short time after
leaving.
Another reason was that on
summer break I got my teeth cleaned back home in Norfolk, Nebraska and
I wanted to marry the dental hygienist who did such a great job. I guess
I just liked clean teeth.
She's at work now, as I sit
here drinking coffee.
16. Given the fact that Bush, Cheney, et al are simply pathological
symptoms of a deeply diseased socioeconomic and political system which
enables their egregious crimes, what do you see as a potential “cure”?
I have no idea.
Public funding for elections?
A viable third party? Ralph Nader?
That’s a good one.
I really don’t know.
17. Do you believe that Israel and the United States will launch
some sort of military strike against Iran? If so, what form do you think
it will take?
I suspect that we will.
Though I heard maybe yesterday
that there were some talks scheduled, but this reminds me so much of
the time leading up to the attack on Iraq, it was already planned, but
they went through the motions.
That’s part of why
I’m going on my trip. I told Ruth, they are going to attack Iran,
maybe use nuclear weapons, we have to at least do something.
18. Chalmers Johnson and numerous others have asserted that
imperial overstretch and bankruptcy will cause the collapse of the American
Empire. Assuming this prediction is accurate, what are some of the things
you would anticipate happening as a result?
I think that is beyond me.
Maybe I should think about that, but I don’t.
19. Considering that both Nixon’s and Clinton’s
crimes paled in comparison to those of George Bush (and Dick Cheney
for that matter) and that the Democrats now control Congress, how do
you account for the stagnation of the movement to impeach Bush and Cheney?
I think the Democrats suck,
that’s why.
They are frightened. Look
on Bartcop.com and see the Democrats in pink tutus, that’s why.
Hillary and Obama are no cure. They are the same damn thing.
That’s why when I was
the Democratic candidate in 2000 I endorsed Nader over Gore. The Democrats
weakened welfare, kept the sanctions against Iraq, attacked Iraq, attacked
Yugoslavia, NAFTA, all that – and you want me to endorse that?
I just think the Democratic
Party, the individuals in the Democratic Party, don’t have any
guts, any fire, and they want to protect their own comfortable lifestyles,
and so they do just the little bit that won’t piss anybody off
and gets them elected.
And that is a crime against
humanity.
20. As a fellow writer (and publisher) who shares your deep
desire for social justice, I often receive correspondence from frustrated
readers who recognize how corrupt and badly broken our system is, but
feel powerless to make a difference. So I ask you what I am often asked:
What can an individual do to help spur an evolution toward peace, humanity,
and respect for the Earth?
Well, maybe I don’t
think about that enough, either.
And I don’t think anybody
should be told what to do, should have to be told what to do. I wouldn’t
give an answer to that if someone asked me. I’d say something
like, I dunno, and then try to change the subject.
And if you take the time
to give a measured response, that person is not going to remember a
thing you said.
I probably asked Berrigan
way back when, what should I do.
I don’t remember that
he answered or gave an answer that I recall. I do know that he burned
draft files, escaped the FBI, went to prison, and wrote.
I think you can only do what
you can do. People have eyes, ears, they should be able to figure it
out for themselves, what they should do.
Jesus said, come follow me.
And then he healed the sick, gave money away, overturned the money tables
in the temple. That's pretty good stuff. I don't think I can improve
on that. I'll just say — what he said.
Thank you, Mike, for ending on that powerful note. It would indeed be
quite difficult to top the example set by Jesus. I wrote a piece examining
the teachings of Christ and their potential applicability toward healing
our very sick nation(r). How perverse that we have the audacity to call
ourselves a “Christian nation” as we rape, pillage, and
plunder the rest of the world via military and economic weapons.
It has been my privilege
to further acquaint readers with a truly unique and inspiring author
and activist, Mike Palecek. His efforts for peace and social justice
provide a brilliant illumination in a world which is growing quite dim.
Mike Palecek
is an activist for peace and social justice. He served time in federal
prison for civil disobedience and has run for US Congress. He has authored
a number of books on behalf of the cause.
Jason Miller
is a wage slave of the American Empire who has freed himself intellectually
and spiritually. He writes prolifically, his essays have appeared widely
on the Internet, and he volunteers at homeless shelters. He welcomes
constructive correspondence at [email protected]
or via his blog, Thomas Paine's Corner, at http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Berrigan
http://www.findarticles.com/p/
articles/mi_m1141/is_42_36/ai_66680680
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http://www.mainstaypress.org/
http://www.amazon.com/Terror-Nation-
perimeter-Mike-Palecek/dp/0977459055
http://www.amazon.com/KGB-Mike-Palecek/dp/1588516989
http://www.buy.com/prod/twins/q/loc/106/33951763.html
http://www.amazon.com/Truth-Mike-Palecek/dp/1930149263
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booksearch/isbninquiry.asp?r=1&ean=9781930076020
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Nov05/Miler1126.htm
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http://www.amazon.com/Prophets-Without-
Honor-Requiem-Patriotism/dp/1892941996
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http://www.bartcop.com/
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http://www.truthout.org/
http://www.911truth.org/
http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/4369/1/50/