For some reason, the New Jersey Turnpike has become embedded in the consciousness of a small, but statistically significant group of Americans as the Symbol of the Predatory state. Never mind the fact that the Turnpike is built with about thirty lanes with only trees on either side so that you could easily be driving through Windhoek as New Jersey; and the problem is not easily reducable, either to the eerie carbon arc lighting from the refineries near Rahway or the BASF chemical plant. (How many people know that BASF was a division of IG Farben?) The most frightening part of the NJT are the New Jersey State Troopers. They know you're not from there. They know you're just trying to get the kids to Disney World and that you're either a low-class minority or a stinking upper class toff that just looks down on the working man. And so they wait for you, along the little greenery planted by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey on the side of the road. I'm from NY, and our cops are fat. And we like them that way; a fat cop is part of the community, for better or worse. But here on the NJT, some willowy Aryan stops you, six feet tall with a buzz cut, and you suddenly become uncomfortably aware that the US is not primarily composed of liberal cities where everyone is just doing their own things and the cops are happily munching donuts - No, the New Jersey Turnpike is your personal exposure to The Zone, that place you should never have gone to if the kids weren't whining that they want to see Mickey.
From the diary of a Black Panther who shall remain anonymous: " Dear Black Brothers and Sisters I betrayed you. How did I betray you? I betrayed you by foolishly driving along the New Jersey Turnpike although I knew that that was a racist trap where the man was just waiting to stop and search our cars and feed us to the system. I should have known better. I should never have taken the New Jersey Turnpike in the first place. But I did, and I was caught, and I betrayed the revolution. I apologize."