Fictional nightmare, or a prophecy about our future?

Sometimes normal analysis, nonfictional prose, cannot convey truth as effectively as can poetry or fiction or drama.  Today I want to introduce you to a example of a book that is disturbing, and which I urge you read precisely because it is disturbing.  And I hope you will not judge that I am overly histrionic when I say that reading this book might be one way that the possible future that it portrays will not come to happen.  That is, if it is not already too late.

The book is entitled Republic: A Novel of America?s Future and was written by Charles Sheehan-Miles, formerly executive director of Veterans for Common Sense.  If you will keep reading you will understand why I will urge you to read this book.
Before I get to the book, I want to lay out some predicate conditions.  Until the Military Commissions Act is repealed we exist in a nether world where the current administration claims the right to detain without access to the Courts anyone it deems as giving material aid to terrorists.  That includes American citizens.

  We have seen moves to roll back Posse Comitatus and thus to allow the use of the United State Military in law enforcement. 

We have had planning for government continuity which would allow the president to run the nation with no oversight from Courts or Congress. 

We have had exploration of using the Department of Homeland Security as an instrument of governmental control, ostensibly in the name of protection. 

We have had the former Chair of the Joint Chiefs, Hugh Shelton, opine that were there another 9-11 we might well see the Constitution and Bill of Rights suspended. 

We have seen the development of large forces of well-trained armed men not under government control that could deployed under contract, even at home, many in a company run by someone who could be described as a right-wing extremist. 

We have seen construction of sites that could be used to detain large numbers of people, including American citizens, without recourse to the courts.

We have an Attorney General who opines that habeas corpus is not guaranteed by the Constitution.

We have a Chief Executive whose administration expresses the belief in a theory of a unitary executive that means a Commander in Chief in a time of war is unrestrained in the actions he takes to ensure the safety of the nation at the same time it asserts that we are engaged in an ongoing global war on terror.

And we have already seen denial of rights, first for those seized overseas, then for those taken in the United States, including some who are US citizens.  We have had politicians who oppose the actions of this administration portrayed as coddling terrorists or hating America.  Military who have tried to tell the truth have seen their careers ended.  What attempts the Congress or Courts have attempted at oversight have been rejected by an administration which believes that opposition to or criticism of its action can be portrayed in the words used by former Attorney General Ashcroft who deemed criticism of the president in a time of war as giving aid and comfort to the enemy.  People can be denied the right to fly on a plane without being able to clear their names from a flawed no-fly list.  Electronic communication is monitored.  We don?t know all the government is already doing, but we know what they have wanted to do, such as Poindexter?s Total Information Awareness program, and we can have little confidence that the government is NOT treating many of us as potential enemies that is prepared to round up or worse.

Keep all of these in mind.  Also remember that there is no countervailing force that can for long oppose the application of the might of the Federal government - FBI, Secret Service, Military, etc.  Guard units have been placed under federal control for the debacle in Iraq, and the administration has sought the power to take guard units away from Governors largely on the say-so of the administration.  And at this point most guard units lack sufficient equipment even to respond to natural disasters, much less to provide any counterweight to the application of the full might of the Federal government.

I have deliberately portrayed a bleak picture.  That is the context you must have as I now turn to the book.

Imagine if you will a series of escalating incidents, occasioned by a nation at heightened alert because of series of terrorist incidents.  Now imagine a major attack, say blowing up a shopping Mall next to the Pentagon.  What do you think might happen?  Might everyone of Arab descent be rounded up on suspicion?  If that seems far-fetched, remember the reactions after Oklahoma City and since 9-11.  And suppose you had Federal agents with the power to seize whomever they wanted, using whatever force they deemed necessary, without having to inform local authorities of their intent. Suppose some of such incidents had some tragic consequences, including innocent people getting killed.  And suppose that at least to start the portrayal of the incidents in the media was sufficiently controlled by the Federal government that most people did not realize that it was the government whose actions were wrong.  Might those who had suffered begin to feel as if their government were out of control, not to be trusted?  Suppose this were compounded by a sense that the government clearly favored the rich, that the needs of ordinary people were being abandoned.  Might resentment build to a dangerous point?

That is the framework for this powerful novel.  It is set largely in West Virginia, a state with a strong tradition and history of government, including Federal troops, being used on behalf of powerful interests (such as coal barons) to suppress those opposing such interests (such as mineworkers). 

Sheehan-Miles, who has previously published a highly praised novel entitled Prayer at Rumyala derived from his experiences in the first Gulf War, was provoked to write this volume because of the destruction of the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City in 1995.  For years he wondered what would lead a man like McVeigh, who won a Bronze Star in the same conflict in which had he himself participated, to undertake such a terrorist action against the nation he had served.  And as as he writes:

From there the question naturally arose:  what circumstances in our modern era could bring about a massive domestic terror campaign, or an actual civil war?  This novel arises from those questions.

The passage of the Patriot Act, the rumors of a even stricter one which included provisions to strip Americans of the citizenship, domestic spying scandals, accusations of rigged voting machines and moves by Congress to consider repeal of Posse Comitatus have all provided ideas and fears which fed this book.

I want to offer a bit more from the author?s note, and I want to try not to give too much away of the novel itself, so that I do not diminish its power when you read it.  Please especially note what I place in bold

From the author:

  So, while this is a fictional world, perhaps ten years in our future, it is also the world we might one day live in.  In a civil war, all sides believe they are in the right.  The real danger we face, as individuals and as a nation, is that we all become so convinced that our own point of view is the correct one that we become unable to listen to anyone else?s.  It is not an accident that much of the rhetoric I read in blogs, from both the left and right, mirrors in tone and in some content the speeches, newspapers, and pamphlets of the early 1860?s, prior to the beginning of the Civil War that killed more than one million Americans.
  Now we talk about red and blue, fascists and traitors, but the words mean the same thing - those people. Those other people, who we don?t understand, and who we believe don?t have the best interest of our country in mind.
  This is a novel of people fighting a war against each other, all the while believing that they are the ones fighting for our liberty and our country.

The author?s note makes clear that there will be a war before the book ends.  That discloses nothing. 

Let me offer some snippets.  In an interchange between an agent of DHS and a man who is a Lt. Colonel in the National Guard as well as the co-director of a chip plant that will later be closed by its owner, an interchange that occurs when the family of his child care provider sees its males taken into custody after a bombing in Arlington because they are Arab:

  Murphy recoiled.  ?Are you threatening me??
  ?What do you think is going to happen with that boy if you?re in jail?  A widower like you?  I think they call it child abandonment when a single parent goes to jail.?
  Murphy felt his face heat, and he clenched his fists.
  Hagarty looked down at the shaking boy, then met Murphy?s eyes.  ?You know, a boy in his condition - he wouldn?t do well in foster care.?
  ?Let?s go,? he called to the other men, and they led Ahmed and Hayder toward the door.? 
  As Hagarty reached the door, Murphy called out, ?Hagarty!?
  When the agent turned around and looked back, Murphy went on.  ?How do you know my son?s condition?  And that I??m  a widower??
  Hagarty looked back and smiled.
  ?That?s my job, Colonel Murphy.  To keep an eye on things.?
  He left, and the bell chimed as the door closed behind him.

At least for me, the passage I have just quoted raised serious concerns.  A Lt. Col. in the WV National guard has information about him known in detail by a Homeland Security official who is rounding up males merely because they are Arab after an explosion a state away.  It is an example of how the book will connect with things that should concern us.

Another quote from early in the book:

The current speaker on the radio was hysterically calling for a national database to track everyone, so people could be profiled based on their movements, their purchases, their religious affiliations.  Valerie grimaced.  Didn?t they know the Defense Department had had that set up for years now?

Valerie is the chief of staff to the local Congressman, and also the daughter of Lt. Col. Ken Murphy.  The book will largely be built around their family.  Later we find her boss, Congressman Clark saying

?We don?t have a lot of oversight authority over DHS.  IF the president did authorize the operation, all the machinery of our government will be flying to back him up.?

One key player will be a man named Whitt, a perpetual gadfly and rabble rouser, but one who speaks the words that often connect with the fears of the people.  In the following quote he is speaking to Col. Murphy after the force of the Federal government has been used to enforce the shutdown of a plant at which much of the community had worked, and while profitable was being moved to Indonesia so a close buddy of the President could make even higher profits. Richardson is the president, and Barclay owns the plant.

Whitt responded, ?No, he?s not.  Colonel, think about what you said the other day.  Is this what you fought two wars for?  How about having your tax money used against you right here in Highview, not halfway around the word on some peace-keeping operation, enforcing corporate policies for the oil companies, or subsidizing sons of bitches like Nelson Barclay. Ken, you probably paid more taxes than Richardson did last year.  Not to mention the Purple Heart you earned protecting our oil supply?

We will see the evolution of the thinking of the main character, Ken Murphy, as he sees the ever-present agents of DHS, taking pictures, watching.

These are the men who are supposed to be protecting us, Murphy thought.  They twisted that beyond all recognition. Instead of protecting Americans, they watched them.  Instead of guarding the nation?s liberties, they were steadily eliminating them.

You will in the book read things for which you understand the references, whether it is of lawyer prosecuted because of helping a not so nice Muslim client, or this passage, about someone who did violence:

?Exactly my reaction.  You remember about fifteen years ago, that Baptist church that was going around picketing soldiers? funerals during Iraq?  God hates fags? This guy was one of their converts, and he decided to go a little further than insulting people.?

I don?t  want to spoil the book, so I will not quote further.  The cover of the paperback has  picture of America?s oldest military decoration, the Purple Heart.  For those who have never seen it, there is a purple ribbon from which hangs a heart, the outlines of which and image on it are in gold against a purple background.  That image is the profile of George Washington.  It is worth remembering that Washington was considered a traitor by the British military, and he and the civil leaders of our breakaway republic could all have been hung, had the War of Independence failed, as it so often came close to doing.

By contrast, at the end of the Civil War we were far more generous - we may have stripped some rights from Confederate leaders, civil and military, in the 14th Amendment.  But by and large there was no violent retribution.  The only Confederate executed whose name immediately comes to mind was Capt. Henry Wirz, commander of the prison camp at Andersonville, Georgia. 

We live in a time where we have seen people resort to domestic violence because of their grievances.  We have had the assassination of abortion providers, the bombing of clinics.  We have seen groups establish themselves as ?militias.?  Timothy McVeigh was moved to his terrorist act because of what had happened in Waco.  We had a shooting at Ruby Ridge.  We have had lynchings of people because of their race, their sexual orientation, their appearance.  We do not live in a nation where the level of trust - of our government or of each other - is something that inspires confidence in our personal security.

I am going to urge you to read the book.  It flows, it will not take you all that long to go through the 331 pages.  It will disturb you.  It should. 

Perhaps the image Sheehan-Miles offers us may seem extreme, unlikely.  But in a time when we have seen our basic beliefs about our nation, our rights, our government, challenged and undercut, perhaps we need to at least contemplate the consequences if we do not challenge the erosion of our basic liberties even in the name of security.  And if we do not understand how deep some grievances can be, how disconnected some people may become from our society, then this novel of America?s future may be far more prophetic than we might otherwise imagine.

Thanks for reading this.

Peace.

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