Posted on 02/04/2012 9:10:25 AM PST by Travis McGee
Over the last two weeks I've totally overhauled and revamped my website, especially the home page and author page.
The last step was adding this bit, which I hope you will find worthwhile reading.
What the books are about, and why I wrote them:
I began writing Enemies Foreign And Domestic in 2000, after too many years of watching our constitutional republic morphing into a police state. These novels, based upon nearly a half century of carefully studying historical patterns, are my attempt to shine a light forward in time. My goal is to warn my compatriots that we are inescapably losing our freedom, one step at a time.
The Muslim terror attacks on 9-11 kicked the process into high gear. But instead of new laws targeting our actual enemies--radical Islamists bent on the global spread of their Sharia Law nightmare--the new police powers were aimed equally at all Americans. Projecting forward, the inevitable outcome will be to turn the United States into a dictatorship--the USSA, if you will.
The federal government, under the rubric of fighting a generalized terror threat, has for many years been providing local police departments with high-grade military weapons, equipment and training. The quid-pro-quo for this federal largesse is unquestioning local cooperation with federal law enforcement agencies, turning thousands of local police SWAT teams into force multipliers for burgeoning federal police power. In the name of fighting a murky and undefined "war on terror," we have allowed the creation of a militarized national police force, something which our Founding Fathers explicitly warned us against and tried their best to prevent.
During the same period, our debt-based economy has nearly reached the bitter end of the road. It is only a matter of time until America experiences an economic crisis on the level of what is currently taking place in Greece, or even far worse. If and when federal entitlements, food stamp payments, housing allotments and all the rest are curtailed, I believe our major urban areas will explode in riots beyond anything America experienced in the 1960s. This will cause a breakdown in the national distribution of food, fuel and other commodities necessary to sustain life. At that point, some form of martial law will be put into effect, and our newly-militarized national police forces, along with active-duty military units, will be called upon to "restore order." In so doing, the last nails will be hammered into the coffin containing our legacy of American freedom.
Obviously, I don't desire to see this happen, but if such an outcome is preordained, I want at least to provide a beacon into the future. My goal is to provide my readers with some alternatives that will be less horrible than the worst-case scenarios, which otherwise shall be arrived at by chance and happenstance.
This is why I prefer to write what I call semi-dystopian novels, set in the near future. The post-apocalyptic genre has been beaten to death, and life in the rubble at a bare survival level provides few practical lessons. To me, the slide is more instructive than the post-collapse period. The often-repeated historical process of economic collapse and the loss of freedom is what interests me the most, and that is why I am driven to write these novels. I hope that you enjoy them, and that you gain some insights which might prove of value during the tumultuous years ahead.
Looks like you posted your answer while I was posting mine after checking for responses to the original question. :-P
Yep, the Aztlaners have been busy little termites, winning the Long March through the institutions.
Including judges, congressmen, and big-city mayors.
As per usual around here!
keep up the necessary work Brother...
He most certainly is a minion, a marionette dancing on somebody else's strings.
Why do you think he refused to give up his Blackberry?
Once his manipulators determine he's more valuable as a martyr than as a teleprompter reader, he's dead. Literally.
Hey Matt,
Great series and I enjoyed them all. Finally started Castigo and blew through that, awesome as usual.
You keep writing, I’ll keep reading!
Many years ago while in grad school, I had a friend who was a Communist. He was sort of likeable and despite his political views was a gun enthusiast. I also liked the idea that he would tell me the truth, at least for the most part about the left.
I knew he didn’t believe much of the stuff he espoused with one exception. He really hated the wealthy.
I’m going to be ordering another set, for the fire station this time. Will freepmail details when I get it organized.
BTW my County Sheriff (you remember I sent a set to his office) is on the Board of Directors of this Sheriff’s organization, they just finished a big meeting in Nevada.
http://www.countysheriffproject.org/
Hey Matt! I’ve enjoyed all four of your books and agree with you concerning the genre. Your books were far more entertaining and full of thought-provoking lines. Too bad we can’t get everyone to read them, maybe some more would wake up.
Keep up the good work. I check your website now and then for the status of #5 because I’m looking forward to it. Wrtie faster!! LOL
They sound interesting, I will have to try and find them when I get caught up.
Thanks for heads up.
Would only add that the War on Drugs helped fuel the fire.
Envy is the source of much evil. When envy is fed by more and more propaganda, those succumbing to its lures will kill and torture the demonized group.
Your friend who didn’t believe much of what he espoused probably does now.
Envy is a poison.
Thanks for the Ping! Great timing in a way. I had wanted to download another book to my Kindle so I used this prompting to get “Foreign Enemies And Traitors” which I haven’t read yet. Thanks again, and keep up the good fight!
First editions of Harry Reid’s book are languishing in the window display at the local Dollar Store.
I bought your books for my Kindle, and have enjoyed them very much. I am now on book three of the (trilogy) and boy is it scaring me. I am hoping for a good ending, but don’t have much hope there as I think our country has gone over the edge, and the book will have to tell that.
I wish everyone would read your books, and recognize just how far we’ve already come to losing this great country of ours. Looking forward to the next books! :)
Whatever is easiest for you is fine for me. I do sell signed copies, but if the hassle isn’t worth it, don’t worry about it.
This one will be set between Ireland and Morocco, with a jihad and piracy theme.
Bttt.
Thanks, my FRiend! Between you and Jeff and our other FR authors, the prescience that’s been on this site is not unexpected ... but still chilling. (And for my own nonfiction foray with Tigerized, I wish we had been wrong, too.)
Bless us all. Liberty, always.
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