American Anarchist Page #7

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You know, every human being

is a complex individual,

and Bill is

a very complex person.

And I think that

the people who know Bill

would see past

the 19-year-old

into the person

who he is today.

I would hope that

people would see that.

In retrospect,

do you wish

that you had done more

to deal with

and to confront the book?

Charlie, I'm getting

the impression

that you want me to say

something I'm not saying.

I did what I thought

was appropriate.

I did not contact a lawyer,

I did not, um...

go to family friends

and then say,

"Do you have

any advice for me?"

I did what I did

and I didn't do

what I didn't do.

I mean, I...

If you're asking

do I wish I had done more, yes.

Absolutely.

What would you like me to say?

'Cause I really think you're

being deliberately provocative

and you want

me to say something

that I'm not saying.

I was thinking

about something else too.

You might have limited

influence with the publisher.

That may be limited there,

but I think that

once we start

thinking about this

and thinking it through,

there may be other avenues

that will open up for us.

I think what you're

suggesting is that...

there are times

and places that

it's worthy to fight

for a lost cause.

Well, there are times and places

where it's worthy to fight.

Yeah. Your voice could

also appeal to adolescents.

Mm.

I mean, there might

be other ways

to get the message across

is what I was thinking.

Hm. Maybe. Yeah.

Our conversation

yesterday afternoon

kind of disturbed me, and...

I spent some time

thinking about that

in the night.

I wrote to Dianne Feinstein

because she had

actually raised an issue

about the Cookbook

some months ago.

Uh, Ochan?

Mm-hmm?

Got a response

from Senator Feinstein

to the email that I sent

earlier today.

Um, it's basically

an out of office notice.

I think this is

a computer filter

that is blocking,

um, and I don't know

that any live, warm-body

is going to read

what I've sent.

Oh, she says...

Wait a minute, she says,

"Because of the volume

of email that's received

"by the office,

we can only respond

to email that includes

a California postal address."

I don't have a postal

address in California.

-So...

-Is this...

sounds like a dead end.

I mean, I remember

when your dad was alive,

he would call his congressman

on various issues.

Um, is that what you do

in California?

I don't know.

I really don't know. Um...

What time would

we have to call her?

I mean, if you want

to follow this.

Well...

Do you want to

find her phone number

and it's 6:
30,

we can call her?

I can do that, yeah.

Um, hm.

Give it a go.

Crank this guy up again.

What is the earliest

memory you have of school?

I suspect there were

some very good schools

in Britain in the 1950s.

I didn't go to one.

I went to

a pretty miserable school.

Students were motivated

through fear.

Fear of physical punishment,

fear of public humiliation.

I can remember

one particular time that

I must have been

maybe five or six

and we were learning

long division.

And in front of the class,

I just got so stressed out.

I couldn't do it.

And she announced,

"Now we're going to put

a problem on the board

that is so simple,

that even Bill can solve it."

And she wrote up

a three-digit addition problem,

straightforward,

which I could have

done in a snap.

But I was so stressed out

at that point that I couldn't.

I couldn't manage it.

I couldn't think straight.

I think I wet my pants.

I remember playing the fool

in a dance class

and being caned

in the headmaster's office

for that.

Bullying was rife.

People were looking

for opportunities to fight

and I was never

really good at fighting.

I guess I felt a sense

of being an outsider.

Not really fitting.

My dad was transferred

back to New York.

I came into a culture that I was

completely unfamiliar with.

Content in school

I knew nothing about,

people were talking

about Paul Bunyan,

I'd never heard

of Paul Bunyan.

The sports were different.

I didn't know

who Mickey Mantle was.

I had a broad,

upper-crust accent

people found very amusing.

My fifth grade teacher used to

mimic me in the classroom.

I was alienated in Britain

because I was an American

and now I came

to the United States

and I was perceived

as being British,

which I wasn't,

and I was increasingly angry.

I made a habit

of skipping school

'cause the consequences

in the United States

were mild

in comparison.

And at that point,

went up to Storm King School.

It was a boys prep school.

One of the classmates

described it as

a school for rich,

delinquent children.

There was a pretty unpopular boy

in the dormitory

and a group of boys,

myself included,

were engaged

in bullying him.

Tied him to his bunk bed

and then took Bengay

and smeared it

on his testicles.

The boy reported this

to the dorm master

and I was the only one

that was singled out

and I was taken to his room

late at night in my pajamas.

He said that he would

get me to experience

what the bullied boy

had experienced.

So, he told me to go

and get a jockstrap on

and then he got Bengay,

but instead of doing

what the other boys had done

to the bullied boys,

he fondled me.

At that point, I said,

"I need to go to the toilet."

I went to the toilet,

got my pajamas back on,

and left.

I didn't make it

through the year.

I was expelled.

I'm sure you've

given a fair amount of thought

to kids who turn

to acts of violence.

Real violence.

Who are those kids?

I think there is...

something in the human condition

that draws us to violence.

It doesn't mean that's the only

outcome that's possible,

but I think there is something

that is intoxicating

about violence

for many people.

Possibly for young people

who are angry,

alienated, who don't have

a sense of belonging.

It may represent

an endeavor

to be powerful,

to lash out

at a world

that is not providing

them with meaning.

I don't know. I mean,

I think understanding

what is going on

in the minds of those people

who have become

radically antisocial

or radicalized

in the sense that

they've gone off

to fight with ISIS,

that's a $64,000 question.

But it's very difficult to see

the world through their eyes.

I think the author of the book,

myself at 19,

thought that we were

living in an apocalypse.

The very late '60s,

the assassinations

that were taking place,

the tone of the book

has that sense to it.

You're either

part of the problem,

you're part

of the solution.

It's a very simplistic

vision of the world.

Weak or strong?

Well, strong.

Forcefully argued

or lacking confidence?

The book is supremely

self-confident

to the point of being

ludicrously self-confident.

It's forcefully presented,

there's no quali...

there's very little

qualification, if any at all.

Were you confident?

When I was alone

with a typewriter,

I was confident.

No, I don't think

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