The Truth on Tour Report: Spirit of History Sighted in the Red States
By Sander Hicks
I just got back from the so-called “Red States.” I went out supporting my controversial new book on 9/11. I was supported by my feminist folk-singer wife, Holley Anderson, who opened up our show. For two weeks, we lived out of a van, from New Mexico, through Colorado, Kansas, & Missouri, all the way to Baltimore; from the SouthWest, to the MidWest and back home through the MidAtlantic. I thought for sure we’d get some resistance, a few hecklers here and there, at least some tough skeptics who would defend the best-selling 9/11 Commission Report.
I was wrong.
Not one person cared enough to defend the official story about 9/11. After two weeks of gigs, speeches and discussions, I am impressed with the average intelligence of the American people. From left, right, and center, people packed the venues we played. Thanks to the internet and the nascent 9/11 Truth Movement, people are already skeptical about 9/11, that horror constantly invoked to justify our new era of permanent war, legal torture, and downsized civil liberties. The American people are aware of the basics: the neo-conservatives have squandered the US’s role in the world. 9/11 was either allowed to, or made to happen. But people we met already sensed this and were eager to hear more.
With little advertising, Holley and I played to decent-sized groups of about 20-30. In Lawrence, Kansas it was to a young crowd on used couches at the Solidarity Revolutionary Center and Radical Library. In Madison, Wisconsin, it was a packed bookstore cooperative called Rainbow, where the audience was almost all sharp baby-boomer academics. Back at 123 Pleasant Street nightclub, in mountainous Morgantown, West Virginia I returned to a stage I once played with my old political rock band. But this time I did a spontaneous two-hour rant modeled a little after Chris Rock’s comedy assault (which I had caught the night before on cable in a motel in Indiana.)
I didn’t read from the book, I tried instead to “rock out” my material in a new way every night. After two weeks on the road, my message is whetted like a blade. Spontaneously making the argument anew every night burned all the fat right out of my talk. The question and answer periods inevitably turned into discussions. The audience became my editor. Their feedback helped mold and hone the improvisational drive through history, the next night in the next town. (Back home, I found at an open mike in Brooklyn that I can now give a super-condensed 40 second version of the entire two hour speech.)
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Originally Posted by reprehensor
