I think, growing up during the Reagan/Bush years was a very interesting experience. Just being old enough to remember a period before, and seeing what happened in America. I personally think that when Reagan came in, America took a turn for the worse. We went from being the largest loaner nation to the largest debtor nation. The homeless problem was created. AIDS happened - and was not dealt with properly when it first happened. And it's still not being dealt with properly, but the delay was also very problematic. The military was built up while the infrastructure was allowed to collapse. Just seeing all of this was very disturbing. And there was this overall feeling of pessimism - this feeling that the '60s was bullshit, the spirit of peace and love was bullshit, that whole ethos of the '80s. I felt terrible. I went to Holland, traveling, and it really struck me as a society where the ethos of the '60s was an ethos on which the entire society was run. So, essentially the society was based on peace, love, and freedom. It was like a hippie society, although it also wasn't. It was also a very bustling and in many ways conservative society.

In what ways was it conservative?

Conservative in their view of conservative. I don't feel as if there is a true conservative movement in America. I think that there are reactionary people.

What is your definition of conservative?

Well, a conservative is someone who doesn't want drastic change. Reactionaries do want drastic change. Bush and Reagan were not conservative because they created drastic changes in our country. They were very active. They were more active than most liberals in trying to create their vision of a reality - in which the poor are desperate and the rich are few and very powerful. So, that was his (Reagan's) goal and he pursued it. But that was very radical. It was a big shift in income distribution. The Dutch conservatives are more about 'let's keep things in control'. So let's say you have a drug problem - a Dutch conservative will say "what's the best way to deal with this?" And if you tell them it's providing clean needles, it's providing methadone, it's having coffee shops where kids can go buy marijuana and hash and you show them that this in fact works, then they say OK. Not that they are in favor of the drug use, but they are in favor of the policy that's going to keep things in control as much as possible. In that way, to me, they are real traditional conservatives. And they value traditional conservative values like peace, a strong economy, and a stable economy, low inflation and just a general level of prosperity and harmony. Yet who we call conservatives in this country, are constantly creating more discord and hatred and violence. I don't view them as conservative at all.

It sounds like conservative and radical have opposite meanings in this country.

That's right. Everything is distorted in this country. No one really understands what's going on at all. That's why these people can be called conservative. That's why the word "liberal" can be used as a dirty word and used as an insult. Whereas if you told people, "well how'd you like it if there was no social security?" they'd be upset, and you'd point out that that is a very liberal program started by a very liberal president which is socialistic in tendency. In fact it was one of the first state sponsored socialist programs. Truman, following the war wanted to do the same thing in this country with the health care system that the Europeans were doing. And Truman got shot down.

Why did he get shot down?

He got shot down for the same reason that Nixon got shot down and that Bill Clinton's having so much trouble. It's just a money game. Many doctors don't want reform because they can make more money this way. The insurance companies don't want reform. That's why everything happens. It's not a conspiracy. There are no big conspiracies, there are merely greedy people trying to make as much money as possible.

So, do you think it's possible to change the system here or has it gotten to the point where the people in power who want their money are just completely in control?

Anything you visualize is possible. I think that America is a very great country. It has immense power and a very diverse and interesting population that's capable of amazing discoveries and achievements. Americans can do anything that we set our minds to. We are better off than most places in the world by far. So, we're starting off at a good level. You know we were moving there for awhile. In the '60s blacks got civil rights in this country for the first time ever. And the women's movement has gone from women seeing forty cents to the dollar to over seventy cents to the dollar. It's still not perfect but it's a vast improvement after twenty years of continuous hard work. And it's gone up steadily over those years.

Under Reagan and Bush there was no idealism whatsoever, so there was no direction to move in. They sold Americans on "the only thing worthwhile was self-enrichment and there was nothing else that could be viewed as worthwhile". There were no social goals that could be agreed on by the public at large, so we didn't do anything. Now we have a president who does have goals. And you can't get anywhere without goals. If we don't set up a goal of having everyone covered by universal health care insurance then you'll never get there. And we haven't set those goals in this country. When we set those goals we will get there. The trick is convincing people these are worthwhile goals. And there's a lot of brainwashing going on. What the Republicans have managed to do is sell people on the idea that government is evil, despite the fact that their salaries are paid for by the government. They still think it's evil. If anyone thinks the government is evil they shouldn't be taking their money. They're hypocrites. And hypocrisies are sustained at every level because people do not challenge the lies that are put forth. Bob Dole will say there is no health care crisis and no one will say, "Hey, Bob, you're a liar. There are 40 million people with no health care coverage in this country." If you don't call that a crisis, what do you call a crisis? At what point does it become a crisis? With going up to fifteen percent of GNP in health care costs in this country, whereas other countries that are providing universal coverage for ten percent or less.

When you pay your health care bills, like I do, and you see that four years ago it was twelve hundred a year and it went up to fifteen and then up to eighteen all the way to two thousand just to get bare bones coverage.. you see that it's gone up every year about twenty-five percent. You realize that hey, inflation isn't going up like this - what the Hell is going on? But there is no health care crisis? When the insurance companies take a huge amount to do practically nothing, and a quarter of the cost of your insurance goes towards administrative costs in order to have insurance. Then they say that a universal health care plan will cost billions and billions, yet we're spending more than anyone else, percentage-wise.

Was their system like this before? Did they have the same movement in the '60s that this country did?

Yes, a major movement.

Why did it take effect there, yet in our country, especially since Bush, it's almost like that never happened, and many people are trying to take things back to a 1950's value system?

Well, first of all, I don't think that the sixties had no impact. Because we live with the impact on a daily basis. Even growing up today we are in a different reality because of what happened then. Many black people are and many gay people are, growing up in a different reality than back then because these were issues that were brought up in the '60s.

There are certain pockets though, that don't seem to have changed at all for decades.

Well, yes, but they still can't have laws against races. It's legally not permissible now. And now they're fighting on legal rights for gays.

Although, they still have laws against gays in the Midwest and the South, especially. Laws where two single men or women cannot rent a one bedroom apartment together because of the implication they may be lovers.

Yes, and all over the country there are laws on the books against sodomy. But they were like that before the '60s and these things became ingrained in the thinking of the society. And they haven't changed yet. I go into that in the movie, with how the Dutch dealt with the water supply. They have all this water that they can't control, so they build dikes and then they can direct it. It's been ingrained in their thinking that they can't control many things but they can direct it to make their country what they want it to be.

And it creates this attitude that each neighbor helps each other despite any differences. If my land gets flooded and I go to you and ask you to help me, you're more likely to because the next thing you know it may happen to you. You aren't going to say "Oh no, I'm Protestant and you're Catholic" because the next thing you know, your land gets flooded and you drown.

That attitude works for anyone who's not grown up very well off, or who has had to struggle at any time in their life. But how would you convince someone who's always been in the upper middle-class or higher of that attitude? Say, someone whose family has always been well-off, and they are sent to an expensive school and immediately after graduation placed in a high paying job? For that person capitalism works very well and they don't believe they have anything to gain in empathy for people in the lower class. And they aren't going to want to give 60% of their income for taxes.

Well, that's the greed-based mentality. But you know there's a lot of costs of living in this society. And sometimes we'll just add up our rent and utility bills and health care payments and say "Well, this is what it costs me to live." And then you forget about a lot of other things. What does it cost you to have homeless people coming and begging to you on the street? Just in terms of your quality of life? What does it cost you in your health care insurance premiums because there are forty million uninsured Americans who go to the emergency room when something goes wrong, and who are being paid for one way or the other? Somebody else is paying that money. What are the costs of having desperate people around? How nice is it to have a BMW when there are carjackings going on? How nice is it if you can't let your girlfriend or wife go out alone without worrying about her being raped? How nice is it when your gay friends are being bashed, when no money is being spent educating people in schools to be tolerant?

You know, there are enormous costs for the way we do things in our society that people do not consider actual costs. We're paying a very high price for policies in this country. And everybody is paying that price, no matter who they are. And I think that ultimately the Dutch don't have it perfectly, but I think that a society based on tolerance and pragmatism and democracy - starting with that as your base - that you're going to end up with a society where, with enlightened self-interest, you realize that's the most practical way of living. Think about it - if you knew you could spend your time in clean parks, that you could drive on smooth roads without potholes - because your tax dollars are paying for it, and if you could send your kids to quality public schools and send them to play in the playground and you know it's safe because there aren't that many desperate people and your tax dollars are paying for it - if you take that into consideration then it's worth it for the improvement in the quality of life.

To walk down the street and not be afraid, and to eliminate the feeling that at any instant you could lose your job because of a lay-off or emergency, or that you could suddenly get sick and lose it all, that would make the quality of life worth it. At any point that could happen to anyone in this country no matter how much money they make. And how free are you when that fear is always hanging over your head? I think many people in this society are looking at things with a very short-sighted perspective. If people were able to step back, they may realize that giving up a good portion of their income for a safe and peaceful society as opposed to a hostile society was well worth it.

Have you considered doing some sort of project involving the media to show people why they should change? Such as a documentary comparing life in the U.S.?

Well, when we started doing this we considered comparing and contrasting. But I rejected that idea for a number of reasons. For one thing, Americans turn off really quickly to criticism of their country and are not open to it. And I didn't want them to lose sight of all the good things I was trying to show them by just saying, "Hey, this guy's raggin' on America!" That wasn't really the main point. Another point that was really important is that you'll find all sorts of people here. You'll find people here who say they want a system, the way the people in Holland want a system but they are really rare. But the point is that if you show some right wing loser they'd say, "Well, so and so said this and they're real liberal ... so there!" I just felt it was difficult to compare the two. You know people see the downside of America on the news every night and if that's not getting through to them then nothing will. I would like to do something, or see someone do something, where it's just simply put out there and explained to people what's going on with our system without the bullshit, but I'm not sure I'd want to devote a whole `nother two years of my life to that. I would like this film to stimulate people to change their own country, not to move to Holland.

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Contents on this page were published in the August/September, 1994 edition of the Washington Free Press.
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