{"id":15612,"date":"2012-09-21T05:45:02","date_gmt":"2012-09-21T04:45:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=15612"},"modified":"2012-09-21T05:45:02","modified_gmt":"2012-09-21T04:45:02","slug":"jon-ronson-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/special-guest-interviews\/jon-ronson-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Jon Ronson Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jon Ronson Books:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Them: Adventures with Extremists<\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n

The Men Who Stare at Goats<\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n

Out of the Ordinary: True Tales of Everyday Craziness<\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n

Jon Ronson Interview with RINF News<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>Rinf.com:<\/strong>\u00a0Hi Jon, thanks for joining us today. We have some questions from RINF members for you here. Lately you\u2019ve been investigating conspiracy theories, mainly the \u2018New World Order\u2019. Did you have prior knowledge of these conspiracies connecting the groups you\u2019ve met through your research before you started work on the book?<\/p>\n

Jon Ronson:<\/strong>\u00a0I had a vague idea. I remember \u2014 when I was writing Them: Adventures with Extremists \u2014 I was in a car park in Michigan with the KKK and they started talking about some shadowy cabal ruling the world. And then some of Omar Bakri\u2019s friends said the same thing. I hadn\u2019t really anticipated much of an ideological link between the KKK and the radical Islamists. Then, when I was editing the documentary I was making about the KKK (New Klan \u2014 about a politically correct Grand Wizard who wouldn\u2019t let his members use \u201cthe N-Word\u201d) my producer Fenton Bailey, who has just made the Deep Throat documentary by the way, said I should do something on conspiracy theories. I think he was anticipating me doing \u201cWho Killed Diana?\u201d and \u201cWho Killed Kennedy?\u201d But it gave me a different idea. What if I joined forces with the conspiracy theorists and tried to get into the secret room? So I imagined a kind of shaggy dog travel story. Of course it ended up not quite so shaggy dog.<\/p>\n

Sixy:<\/strong>\u00a0What do you make of the new world order and other conspiracies?<\/p>\n

Jon Ronson:\u00a0<\/strong>There\u2019s a line in Them where I say, \u201cThank God I don\u2019t believe in the secret rulers of the world. Imagine what the secret rulers of the world might do to me if I did believe in them.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s basically my view.<\/p>\n

They don\u2019t exist, they do exist, but they exist in a different way to how some people imagine. I think The Men Who Stare At Goats shows that insane conspiracies happen, but quite often in slightly buffoonish human ways (like Major Generals trying to walk through walls).<\/p>\n

Jon Ronson:<\/strong>\u00a0Sometimes these ideas trickle down and influence us in ways we don\u2019t quite conceive.<\/p>\n

Remember that line in Jonathan Coe\u2019s What A Carve Up! when the lead character, Michael Owen, realises that his father died young because he ate too much junk food. The junk food was manufactured by a member of the evil, fictional Winshaw family. Michael Owen asks, \u201cDoes this mean the Winshaws killed my father?\u201d A question mark.<\/p>\n

Eric:<\/strong>\u00a0Most of the people you study seem, for the most part, disenfranchised. However, one example of an extremist group which has actually come to power is the right-wing Christians of the United States (http:\/\/shock-awe.info\/archive\/001248.php). What is your opinion as to how these now enfranchised extremists change their rhetoric to accommodate the new reality that it is they who are now in power and no longer outsiders persecuted by an elite liberal cabal?<\/p>\n

Jon Ronson:<\/strong>\u00a0It is fascinating to me how the dynamic has changed. When Clinton was President, the liberals thought it was nuts that the right wingers believed the UN were about to swoop down, funded by Bilderberg, or whatever, to destroy the lives of simple folk who wanted to live free.<\/p>\n

The left often ignored the occasions when this kind of stuff really did happen (Ruby Ridge, Waco). But now, under Bush, the left are the conspiracy theorists, and the right think they\u2019re just as nuts (see, for example, the neo-con response to The Power of Nightmares). Maybe in the end it is just that: the disenfranchised \u2014 whoever they are \u2014 see conspiracies and the enfranchised \u2014 whoever they are \u2014 reply \u201cthat\u2019s just the way things are done.\u201d<\/p>\n

ABTS:\u00a0<\/strong>What\u2019s your vice?<\/p>\n

Jon Ronson:<\/strong>\u00a0Smoking, online poker, worrying myself into an early grave.<\/p>\n

Sixy:<\/strong>\u00a0How did you really feel when looking into and meeting (i.e. being followed) the Bilderberg group?<\/p>\n

Jon Ronson:\u00a0<\/strong>Literally as terrified as I made out in Them. I had never been chased by shadowy henchmen before. I couldn\u2019t say, \u201cOh this is just like the time I was chased by shadowy henchmen back in \u201986.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rinf.com:\u00a0<\/strong>While meeting Ian Paisley and his entourage, what was your opinion of his role in the Northern Ireland peace process and do see him as part of the problem or part of the solution?<\/p>\n

Jon Ronson:<\/strong>\u00a0A difficult question. Obviously the liberal in me thinks he\u2019s part of the problem \u2014 much of the problem, in fact \u2014 but I didn\u2019t live through the troubles. The troubles were clearly insane and awful for everyone. And a lot of baggage was accumulated on every side.<\/p>\n

Paul:<\/strong>\u00a0Do you think David Icke is a lizard?<\/p>\n

Jon Ronson:<\/strong>\u00a0I think David Icke is a mystery.<\/p>\n

Stuart:\u00a0<\/strong>What happened in your life, that took you on this crusade to expose the things you have ?<\/p>\n

Jon Ronson:<\/strong>\u00a0I was interviewed by The Times recently, and Caitlin Moran, who interviewed me, wrote: \u201cIt\u2019s to reassure himself that behind every fringe element bent on world domination, there are people doing foolish things. Reading plant auras. Buying choc-ices. Thinking they can kill a goat with their mind. Being human. It\u2019s his way of coping with the awful, pitching terror of life.\u201d<\/p>\n

I think she\u2019s spot on. Nothing uniquely bad has happened to me in my personal life, but all the regular little bad things have accumulated to make me a neurotic person. And these adventures are my way of trying to make sense of that.<\/p>\n

Sixy:\u00a0<\/strong>How did you feel meeting certain individuals (such as the Muslim leader and the Klanspeople) being Jewish? Did this make him feel uncomfortable, etc?<\/p>\n

Jon Ronson:<\/strong>\u00a0Not on a conscious level because I feel so assimilated. But when I was doing the KKK I had constant nightmares of being exposed as a Jew and lynched by the Klan. So it was hitting me on a subconscious level.<\/p>\n

Rinf.com:<\/strong>\u00a0We\u2019ve seen you in some understandably scared and paranoid states of mind. When did the paranoia end?<\/p>\n

Jon Ronson:<\/strong>\u00a0My paranoia never ends, but I haven\u2019t been paranoid about being spied on my shadowy forces for some time now. When I was writing The Men Who Stare At Goats my producer John Sergeant and I were told that Homeland Security or possibly Military Intelligence were interested in us. For a while we thought we should email each other in code, like, \u201cWednesday is the day of the big wedding\u201d, or whatever, but that we decided that that sounds worse. Right now I am paranoid just about dull domestic matters.<\/p>\n

Rinf.com:<\/strong>\u00a0Finally, you\u2019ve just sold the movie rights for THEM and The Men Who Stare at Goats, what can you tell us about that (if anything) \u2014 and future projects you\u2019re going to or would like to work on.<\/p>\n

Jon Ronson:<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019m sworn to secrecy. But I am writing something about junk mail at the moment that I think is very interesting. And another film company is developing the stuff I\u2019ve written about my family life \u2014 a short memoir I wrote called A Fantastic Life, about taking my son to Lapland, and my Out Of The Ordinary column in The Guardian \u2014 into a movie.<\/p>\n

Rinf.com:<\/strong>\u00a0Thank you for taking time out to speak to us Jon.<\/p>\n

Jon Ronson:<\/strong>\u00a0Okay, thanks for being interested, and bye.<\/p>\n

Jon Ronson Books:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Them: Adventures with Extremists<\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n

The Men Who Stare at Goats<\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n

Out of the Ordinary: True Tales of Everyday Craziness<\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jon Ronson Books: Them: Adventures with Extremists The Men Who Stare at Goats Out of the Ordinary: True Tales of Everyday Craziness Jon Ronson Interview with RINF News Rinf.com:\u00a0Hi Jon, thanks for joining us today. We have some questions from RINF members for you here. Lately you\u2019ve been investigating conspiracy theories, mainly the \u2018New World […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[429],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15612","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-special-guest-interviews"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15612\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}