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Date Posted: 11:28:25 05/29/06 Mon
Author: Kenny from South Park
Subject: David Duke Smells Like Teen SPirit Part III
In reply to: Mark Geragos 's message, "David Duke Smells Like Teen SPirit Part II" on 11:27:13 05/29/06 Mon

What's that?

To use a New Age term, I'm more aware. Now, I don't accept what I read in the newspapers. I say, "Is this true? I will find out the facts for myself." And if everybody did that in Canada, I think that your freedoms could possibly be preserved.

Okay. Mr. Marrs, I've taken up a great deal of your time. I just have one last question, and it's sort of a little different from what we've been talking about. If I was to come down and visit you in Austin, Texas, where would you take me? What do you like about living in Austin and what would you show me? The ministry, obviously, but what else is there that you would recommend in Austin, Texas to a visitor?

I would take you and just show you the beautiful hill country here.

Really?

Yeah. It is so, it is so -- it's a lot like Vancouver. When I drove into Vancouver, it was so beautiful. And I remember going out at night and driving back and I looked down and I could observe the city, if I can remember, all the lights, and everything there--

Yes.

Is that right?

Yeah. I've done that a couple times myself and it is gorgeous.

It is gorgeous. And, but it's very hilly here, beautiful, huge oak trees. It's just, it's just absolutely beautiful. And there's lakes all over the place, water. Green and clean, by the way. [laughter] And I don't mind being restricted, as long as you don't take a man's land from him. I don't want garbage to be thrown into those lakes, they're too beautiful. So, yeah, that's what I would do. I would show you the beautiful nature of Austin, Texas. It is absolutely gorgeous.

And we have, you know, our downtown. We have the state capitol building. It's the largest state capitol in the United States. Built by Masons, of course. [laughter] And of, it is, there's a big Masonic, you know, plaque sort of thing, you know. And many of the Canadian things, too, are that way. Buildings, different buildings.

In any case, it's just -- the nature of this place is absolutely beautiful. Most people think that Texas is all prairie and cactus and tumbleweed. But we don't have any of that stuff. Well, we do have cacti. But you'll observe cacti right in an oak tree forest. It's really strange, yeah, beautiful. Anyway that's what I'd show him.

Okay. Well, thank you again for your time. It's been a very, a very fascinating interview, and I've taken up a great deal more time than the half hour that was originally allotted. Now, one thing I wanted to ask. I'll be mentioning the website in the article.

Sure.

But your personal assistant had also asked if we could mention an 800 number that you had, and I was quite willing to do that.

They may not do that. You know, some of these magazines won't let you do that. But I would love for you to do that. You might let people know that again, judge for themselves. They can call that 1-800 number and get our newsletter. And you get our newsletter, Mayor Sullivan?

I do indeed. But I don't have the 800 number right by me.

Okay, I'll give that to you. And I want to mention to you, as you know, we have tapes and books in there. But -- you will attest to this, I'm sure -- I have never called you, no one has ever called you and said, "Buy this," or -- I have never sent a fund-raising thing.

Absolutely.

In all the years we've been here, no one's ever got that. We offer those things. I hope that people will order them, because, you know, we need to keep going. But we're going to send the newsletter anyway, and no one will ever call. I, and what I do is if people don't order anything after about a year or so, I'll put a little letter in there saying, you know, if you don't order anything, we're going to have to cut you. That's about all I do. Because we try to be good stewards. You know, we've given it a year to you, and please send us fifty cents, to keep you going a year, another year.

But in any case, it's absolutely free, we don't have any fundraising, no telemarketing, nobody will call. You don't have to worry about that. Our 1-800 number is 1-800 -- Oh wait, I'm sorry, it won't work in Canada.

Oh, will it not?

No, I, you know, we need to change that. We're destroying our good Canadian friends! You know, I've been thinking about -- I'm glad that came up. That's been in the back of my mind for a long time to get the phone company to change that. But right now, yeah, we don't. Folks can write us at our address.

Okay, yeah, we've got the address, and we'll probably put that in, but we'll certainly put in the website. I think most of the readers of the loop in the last survey had web browsers and computers and whatnot.

They do that. In there they can click and order automatically our newsletter. So, and our newsletter every month is posted there as well. Sometimes, I must admit, we're a couple weeks late, you know. I have to get my guy to go in there and design it, put it on the web, unfortunately. But anyway, it eventually gets into the, and they can access all my, at least eighteen months we've been on, all of those newsletters.

Okay. Well, thank you once again for your time. It's been a pleasure talking to you.

Recap

Thus the text of my interview with Texe Marrs on December 17, 1997. Conducted by phone, the interview lasted about an hour and forty-five minutes. The interview turned out pretty well, especially considering my near-complete lack of experience in this area. However, there are a number of things I would do differently if I were to interview Mr. Marrs again.
For one, I would be a little more active in directing the conversation. I was pretty content with sitting back and letting him ramble; he's quite comfortable talking, and I was nervous that I might run out of questions. However, the result was a lot of digressions that, while interesting to me, didn't help the article a lot. The transcript is about thirteen thousand words long, and it took a lot of painful editing to get it down to five hundred -- all the room I had been allotted for publications.

For two, I would call him on his apparent anti-Semitism. I can only describe my failure to do so as a gross oversight.

Lastly, I didn't lay the groundwork for this article very well in my interview questions. I've read a fair amount from both the American right and Christian fundamentalism, and while I'm certainly no expert there is a lot of background that I'm familiar with. Thus, I skipped over a lot of questions that other people might have had, such as, "Why do you think there is a conspiracy to take over the United States?" and, "How do your religious beliefs fit in with your politics?" I think a lot of the conversation was for my interest rather than for the purpose of getting a good introductory or explanatory article. In any case, five hundred words are not nearly enough to do justice to either this strain of political and religious belief or Mr. Marrs, even in a cursory fashion.

Ideally, I think, I would take the conversation I had with Mr. Marrs as, perhaps, a sort of pre-interview for something longer and more formal -- and as a way of obtaining some measure of the experience and skills necessary. There were a lot of questions I didn't ask, such as his stand on King-James Onlyism (though I'm not sure how wide an interest that would have anyway), and the sources of many of his allegations. A much longer article, or perhaps a book -- emerging from a more firmly directed interview -- would be an ideal setting to discuss these things. As well, it would be a great excuse to delve further into a subject that fascinates me, one that Mr. Marrs is right in the center of: the peculiarly American mixture of Christian fundamentalism and right-wing politics.

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