In the fight for freedom, never sleep

Book Review: Henry Brown’s Radical Times

Radical Times is a short novella – only 45 pages – but it’s long on story. The story is that of Pick Garver and his return to his Arkansas home after the Civil War. The town of Tanner’s Grove had changed during his absence and he knew that, as a Southern boy who had fought for the Northern army, he could expect a chilly reception.

But not from everyone. Two people in particular are happy to have him back. Huddy and his sister Venus had been slaves – and Pick’s best friends – when the three of them were growing up on a plantation owned by Pick’s uncle. Now they were free and Pick would soon find out if that would change his friendship with Huddy – and whether his secret love affair with Venus could resume in a country that had emancipated its slaves, but still did not accept them as equals.

Indeed, many in Tanner’s Grove are determined that would never happen. The Confederate Army may have given up, but they had not. If necessary, they would use torches and pistols to guarantee that blacks remained second-class citizens.

Pick recognizes a difficult road ahead. He tells a meeting of (mostly black) Republicans:

Those who agree with me just won a war so that all Americans will be free.…But it’s not enough that we won a war with rifles and cannons. If we want freedom to last, we have to win a war with words, ideas, and ballots. I hope you don’t think it’s going to be easy.…Yes, we won this war. You can sigh; just don’t sleep.

It’s a message that is as clear and relevant in 2013 – when freedom is once again under attack - as it was in 1865.

Michael Isenberg is the author of Full Asylum, a novel about politics, freedom, and hospital gowns. Check it out on Amazon.com

Never Surrender - March 2013

On the surface, FrackNation is a straightforward documentary about fracking, a natural gas drilling technique that has the potential to unleash torrents of energy wealth, but has been heavily criticized by environmentalists. The film debunks environmentalists’ claims that fracking contaminates groundwater, releases carcinogenic chemicals, and causes earthquakes.

No such film would be complete without addressing the environmentalists’ spectacular demonstrations of methane-laced tap water bursting into flames. FrackNation argues that it’s a natural phenomenon that was observed long before fracking: as far back as 1783, George Washington set fire to the Millstone River. In the words of co-director Ann McElhinney, there’s a reason there are towns in the U.S. called Burning Springs.

At a deeper level, however, FrackNation demonstrates what conservative and libertarian authors and filmmakers are up against every day. FrackNation tells the story of two documentaries: FrackNation itself, and the anti-fracking GasLand.

The latter film was directed by Josh Fox, one of the beautiful people. He frequently appears at Hollywood parties dressed in black, with trendy glasses and carefully cultivated chin stubble. He has been showered with awards and even received an Oscar nomination. The critics love him: Dave Shifflet of Bloomberg News called him “the Paul Revere of fracking.”

Contrast Fox with FrackNation filmmaker Phelim McAleer. Traveling around Pennsylvania shale country in a baggy blue pullover, the soft-spoken McAleer is a regular guy who fits right in with the flannel-clad denizens. Neither Hollywood nor the gas industry funded him: he and the other directors raised what they needed from thousands of small donations on the crowdfunding site Kickstarter; the 2,000+ donors all have producer credits at the end of the film. During the course of the movie, McAleer is shoved, threatened with lawsuits and confiscation of equipment, thrown out of several buildings, and even interrogated by the police. The finished product has played in only a handful of theaters and has been largely ignored by the critics (although, to its credit, The New York Times printed a fair review).

Most conservative and libertarian artists don’t face quite the challenges McAleer did. But they all struggle to get their projects made, and then struggle even harder to get the results in front of the public. Unlike liberals, they don’t have ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, NPR, The Washington Post, and the Academy promoting their work. What they do have is you. Please give them your support.

The work of Phelim McAleer, along with many conservative and libertarian authors, is featured in the March edition of my free e-mail newsletter, Never Surrender. To subscribe, please e-mail subscribe@MonteferroPress.com.

And the Oscar goes to…

In honor of this weekend’s Academy Awards, here’s part II of the Oscars scene from my novel Full Asylum. In this excerpt, Consolidated Industries CEO Isaac Ross accepts the award for Most Socially Responsible Studio. Any resemblance between Isaac and George Soros is purely coincidental. The one thing you'll need to know about this part is that Jon Dunn is a movie spy, similar to James Bond.

“And the Oscar for Most Socially Responsible Studio goes to…Isaac Ross, Consolidated Studios!”         With great dignity, Isaac rose from his chair and walked slowly up to the stage. He accepted the award and parked himself at the speaker’s podium. He removed several printed pages from the breast pocket of his tuxedo, smoothed them on the podium, and adjusted his glasses.         “As the CEO of Consolidated Studios, I thank you for this prestigious and important award. By honoring social responsibility, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences demonstrates its recognition of the values of the cooperative society. These values inform every production released by Consolidated Studios. I seek, through the media of film, television, and the Internet, to demonstrate the role that every individual is to play in the world—whether by chronicling the struggles of interspecies couples in Consolidated’s documentary, My Stepmother is a Goldfish, or using the bully pulpit of the Universal Wrestling League to publicize the benefits of recycling. Later this year Consolidated will release Error of the Moon, the thirtieth installment in the Jon Dunn saga.”         At the mention of Jon Dunn, a rope dropped from the catwalk above the stage. A man in a black commando sweater rappelled down the rope and landed stealthily behind the decorative fence. Unable to see the alpinist behind him, Isaac continued his speech.         “Without giving anything away, I can tell you that this will be the most socially responsible Dunn to date. Grant Casey is the first Jon Dunn who has never used tobacco products in any of his appearances. In Error of the Moon we will push the envelope. We will see much more responsible attitudes towards the consumption of alcoholic beverages along with a newfound respect for women. Don’t worry, though, there will still be plenty of swashbuckling and derring-do.”         The audience laughed. Isaac smiled as if the laughter was intended for his little joke and not the antics of the commando behind him. The man in black crouched behind the decorative fence. Although he could see clearly through the grillwork, he used a portable periscope to peer over the top. Completing his reconnaissance, he set the periscope down and vaulted over the barrier, landing right behind one of the life-size Oscar statues. He grabbed the statue from behind and clasped his hand over its mouth to prevent it from crying out. Removing a knife from his belt, the commando stabbed the statue through its non-existent kidney. The knife slid easily into the gold-painted Styrofoam. The man guided the statue noiselessly to the floor before sneaking up on the second statue and slitting its throat.         “It is my fervent hope,” Isaac went on, “that by transforming Jon Dunn into a role model for the cooperative society, we can give back to the community that has done so much for Consolidated Studios and the motion picture industry.” Suddenly he felt an arm flung across his throat and the point of a knife pressed against his neck. Standing behind Isaac, the man in the commando sweater whispered something in his ear and began guiding him off the stage. The camera zoomed to a close-up, just the heads of the two men. Isaac looked genuinely terrified, as if he thought the man with the knife would really use it.

Michael Isenberg is the author of Full Asylum, a novel about politics, hospital gowns, and the movies. Check it out on Amazon.com

I’d like to thank the Academy…

Photo source: Wikipedia

The Academy Awards are upon us once again. So it seemed like a good time to post this excerpt from my novel Full Asylum. It's mostly self-explanatory; the one thing that you'll need to know is sabo is short for economic saboteur. Economic sabotage is a new category of crime created in the wake of the Third Financial Crisis.

“And the Oscar for Best Gaffer goes to…Guy Smith, Three Koala Studios.”         Guy walked down the aisle to the stage accompanied by the Three Koala theme song and the audience’s applause. His denim vest, tool belt, and work boots were out of place among men in tuxedos and women in evening gowns. Accepting the gold statuette, he stepped up to the podium. Behind him, two life-size replicas of the trophy in his hand guarded an ornamental art deco fence. “You know,” he said with an Australian accent, “a few years ago, nobody thought there’d be an award for us gaffers.”         On the TV at the foot of the bed, Guy Smith explained that this wasn’t just his victory; all gaffers were winners. Lacey rested her head on Gimbel’s bare chest as he poured out the last of the Volta Cola. Her hair was tousled, as were the bedcovers. On the floor, silk pajamas mingled with Gimbel’s pants and the broken pieces of his clock radio. “What’s a gaffer?” she asked.         “Lighting,” said Gimbel as he handed her a half-filled glass. “The gaffer takes care of all the lighting for a movie.”         “They give an award for that?” Lacey asked skeptically.         “Well, there’s skill involved. But in any case, it’s Everyone Wins a Prize Night.”         On the television, the presentation of awards paused for a musical number. Men in top hats and tails twirled their canes as they sang “Hurrah for Hollywood.”         “Are they still doing that old song?” Lacey asked.         “They updated the lyrics,” Gimbel replied. “In the mind of Hollywood, that makes it practically avant-garde.” He turned up the volume so she could hear better. Hurrah for Hollywood. We’re always doing good in Hollywood. We lecture you on global warming While we’re performing, And sabos better beware…         The Oscars went to commercial. Gimbel flipped through the channels. He paused when he saw Bulldozer and the Coroner facing each other across a wrestling ring.         “WHEN I’M FINISHED WITH YOU,” the Coroner said, “THEY WON’T BE ABLE TO TELL YOU FROM A DEAD FISH AT PIKE’S PLACE MARKET.” The Seattle audience cheered the mention of a local landmark. Hearing someone sneak up behind him, the Coroner turned just in time to see Titan swing a folding chair at his midsection. The Coroner went down like he had been dropped from the Space Needle.         “You don’t really watch this wrestling show, do you?” Lacey asked.         “Just for the soliloquies,” Gimbel assured her. He tapped the control pad and the scene returned to Masonic Hall. A split screen appeared. Six people waited eagerly to see which one of them would win the next award. “Hey,” said Gimbel. “What’s Isaac Ross doing there?”

Tomorrow: the abduction of Isaac

Michael Isenberg is the author of Full Asylum, a novel about politics, hospital gowns, and the movies. Check it out on Amazon.com

Never Surrender - Special Washington's Birthday Edition

Try to remember the coldest you’ve ever been. Maybe you were out skiing or shoveling snow. Your toes felt like they were on fire inside your winter boots and you pulled the fur-trimmed hood of your down jacket over your head to warm your frigid ears until you could make it back inside for a cup of cocoa and a hot meal.

Now imagine the same cold – but you have a thin blanket instead of a down jacket, “inside” is a small, drafty log hut, and your meal is a fire cake of flour and water cooked on a rock. And you’re barefoot.

Photo source: Wikipedia

Those were the conditions at Valley Forge, PA, when American rebels under the leadership of George Washington made their encampment during the winter of 1777-78. Badly outnumbered by the British - who were warm and safe in Philadelphia - the Continental soldiers were willing to endure pain, cold, hunger, and disease for two reasons: they believed in freedom – and they believed in George Washington.

In the winter of 2013, the weapons may have changed from musket balls to words, but Americans are still fighting for freedom. President Obama's State of the Union Address was a laundry list of proposals for additional government intrusion in our lives - including new restrictions on the right to bear arms and new taxes on the productive. As Obama criss-crosses the country, trying to foist his noxious agenda on the public, he can count on the support of the mainstream media and the education establishment: once again, those of us on the side of liberty are outnumbered. But we are fortunate to be able to conduct the fight under infinitely better conditions than our forbearers at Valley Forge. The life of George Washington in general, and the winter at Valley Forge in particular, help us gain both perspective and inspiration for what lies ahead.

The special Washington’s Birthday edition of my free newsletter, Never Surrender, discusses some of the best books and movies about our first president – books and movies filled with stories of what freedom is all about, and the high price that every generation must pay to secure it. Subscribe by February 28 and automatically be entered in a drawing to win a copy of your choice of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged or Glenn Beck's The Overton Window. To subscribe, please e-mail subscribe@MonteferroPress.com.

Michael Isenberg is the author of Full Asylum, a novel about hospital gowns, freedom, and never surrendering. Check it out on Amazon.com

We can all be George Washington

Book Review: Glenn Beck's Being George Washington: The Indispensable Man, as You’ve Never Seen Him

I confess I have mixed feelings about Glenn Beck. Sometimes when I listen to him – for example during his recent interview with Penn Jillette – I say, “Yes! This is what rational discourse sounds like.” Other times, I have absolutely no idea what he’s talking about. My mixed feelings extend to his written work. I thought Common Sensewas rambling and dull: it failed to deliver the inspiration from Thomas Paine that it promised. In contrast, The Overton Windowwas a hugely entertaining novel with a serious message about how the liberals keep managing to win.

Being George Washingtonfalls into the second category. The book occupies the boundary between fiction and non-fiction. Beck braids history, legend, and imagination into dramatized accounts of incidents from Washington’s life: the French and Indian Wars, Valley Forge, the Constitutional Convention, and so on. These narratives contain lush descriptions of the settings and even tell us Washington's innermost thoughts: the accounts read like a novel. They appear in alternating chapters with short essays that separate the history from the legend – apparently Betsy Ross probably didn’t use her feminine wiles to distract the Hessian Colonel Carl Emilius von Donop on the eve of Washington crossing the Delaware.

The other function of the essay chapters is to draw lessons from the life of the Indispensable Man. The bottom line: We can’t all be indispensable. We can’t all lead an army or start a new nation. But we can all be virtuous, brave, civil, and persistent. We can all defend freedom when it’s under attack – and it is under attack. And if we do that, we will make a difference. In that sense, we can all be George Washington.

Michael Isenberg is the author of Full Asylum, a novel about a young engineer who defends freedom when it's under attack. Check it out on Amazon.com

The Land of Oz meets the Book of Genesis

Book Review: The Lost Dragoneer (The Chronicles of Susah, Book Two)

The Bible doesn’t tell us much about the centuries that span from Adam to Noah. Adam’s surviving sons, Seth and Cain, go their separate ways and then, in the words of Spencer Tracy’s character in Inherit the Wind, the book “goes into a lot of ‘begats.’ ‘And Aphraxad begat Salah; and Salah begat Eber’ and so on.” Lamech begets Noah, but before we get to the ark and the Flood, we're told (Genesis 6.4): "There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God come in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown."

It's an intriguing passage, but sadly lacking in detail. Recently, author C.D. Sutherland has stepped in to fill the gaps. The Chronicles of Susah transports us to a world with all the elements of other magical lands like Oz or the Harry Potter universe: a gifted protagonist, a dangerous journey, a wise old mentor, and of course, giants in the earth.

The Lost Dragoneer is the second and most recent installment in the series. Susah, the daughter of Noah, has little interest in her father’s insane boat building project. She has left home and put her ability to control animals with her mind in the service of the Dragoneer Corps, a sort of dragon-powered air force for the nation of Sethica. As The Lost Dragoneer opens, the Sethicans have just won an epic battle against an army of ogres. It is a bittersweet victory for Susah, however. Most of the dragons are dead or dying and Susah must rebuild the corps. Locating and taming wild dragons is the easy part, though. Susah must also confront vicious ogres, bloodsucking trolls, temptation by Satan, and her own vanity.

Politically, Susah’s world has much that is familiar. The story takes place in a time of transition. The old system of tribal government has given way to a Council of Elders, which spends most of its time taxing and regulating – and undermining the military. Much of what we learn about the political situation comes from the hotel owner Keenan. When Susah tells him how lovely his hotel is, he replies proudly, in a pointed reference to President Obama, “I built it.”

But it’s the way Sutherland intertwines his tale with the Bible that is the unique feature of The Lost Dragoneer. “I began with the Scriptures,” he explained to me. “Anything in black in white must remain and is off-limits to alterations in my story telling. Using that approach, everything between those gaps are gray-areas and by definition free-game for my extreme fiction. After some of my fans started calling my first book Antediluvian Steampunk, I agreed the term is more descriptive than just ‘Religious Sci/Fi Fantasy'”

Sutherland says that some religious traditionalists have chafed at the technology that he injects into Biblical times: there are blasters as well as swords, skyscrapers as well as castles. Nevertheless, I think most Jews and Christians will appreciate the familiar people and places from the core of their faith. Everyone, even jaded atheists such as myself, will appreciate the captivating story.

Based on some internal chronology, I reckon that The Lost Dragoneer takes place 80 years before the rains start to fall and the animals come on by twosies-twosies. That affords ample opportunities for sequels: I look forward to many more installments in The Chronicles of Susah.

Michael Isenberg is the author of Full Asylum, a novel about politics, freedom, and hospital gowns. Check it out on Amazon.com

The Front Lines of the Culture Wars...

I was trying to find a good quote about the culture wars. As I slogged through what seemed like the hundredth post-election article with the words conservative despair in the headline, I found this gem in the comments:

Stories are important. Storytellers have a specific type of power. They shape memories and impressions. The victors write history – but anyone can write a story, and those who write the best and most popular stories win the culture wars. Don’t just give it up to them. Fight back. – Jamie W.

As one of the characters in The Fountainhead said, “Do you think I picked the things in my art gallery by their signatures?” I didn’t have to follow the link to know who “Jamie W.” is. Jamie Wilson runs conservativefiction.com and is a senior editor at Liberty Island Magazine. So she knows about storytelling, and she’s right, of course. Before our fellow citizens will vote for liberty, they need to understand it and believe in it – and stories are an effective way to connect with them on a gut level.

But stories can't change hearts and minds if no one reads them. This is especially problematic for writers of conservative and libertarian fiction: they're mostly indie authors who do not have the publicity department of Random House or the sales force of Simon and Schuster to promote their life's work.

With that end in mind, I’m pleased to announce the first issue of my new e-mail newsletter, Never Surrender, will be released on Friday, February 1. The title, of course, is taken from the advice Winston Churchill gave to the British people when the Nazi hordes were consolidating their takeover of France and the Battle of Britain was imminent.

In Never Surrender, I will share the latest from novelists whose characters take responsibility for their own lives and live traditional values; comedians who laugh at the absurdity of political correctness; and filmmakers who use the power of cinema to tell tales of liberty overcoming tyranny, and, along the way, give us a sense that there are things in life that are sacred. Issue 1 will feature capsule reviews of works by Kia Heavey and Christopher Bunn and news from FrackNation, Loren Spivack, and (speak of the devil) Jamie Wilson.

In a shameless effort to build circulation, I’m going to commit marketing. Subscribe to my free newsletter, Never Surrender, by February 28 and automatically be entered in a drawing to win a copy of your choice of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged or Glenn Beck's The Overton Window.

To begin your free subscription to Never Surrender, and be entered into the drawing, email subscribe@MonteferroPress.com.

Michael Isenberg is the author of Full Asylum, a novel about hospital gowns, freedom, and never surrendering. Check it out on Amazon.com

The Tea Party Show

Here are some highlights from my interview with Terry Reiber. Terry talked to me about my novel, Full Asylum on his program, The Tea Party Show.

“There’s always the scene in the James Bond movies where Bond goes back to his hotel room and there’s a beautiful woman in his bed. Now, I’ve stayed at a lot of hotels, and this never happened to me, not once, but I thought, wouldn’t it be cool if it did? Wouldn’t it be fun to have this story about a young engineer, which is what I was when I first thought of this, who keeps getting himself into these kind of James Bond situations – he gets in a shootout or a car chase or he comes back to his apartment and his beautiful upstairs neighbor is in his bed?”

“A lot of it has to do with political correctness. Bond sleeps around, he shoots things, he blows stuff up, he used to smoke, he drinks heavily, and none of that is politically correct anymore.”

“One of the things I did try to do in this book is kind of capture the spirit of the early James Bond movies.”

“Who doesn’t want to be James Bond?”

“I wanted to have the heroine of the book be a lady wrestler. I thought that would be a fun thing to have.”

“When you don’t have freedom in your society, you lose the opportunities to excel.”

“If [Dinesh d’Souza’s movie] is about 2016, Full Asylum is ten years after that. What I project is continued loss of freedom, continued economic stagnation, a nanny state absolutely out of control, cameras in the cafeteria checking to make sure you don’t eat anything unhealthy, and I’m not even going to go into what I did with airport security, but it involves a privacy curtain and a rubber glove.”

Terry: Did you see some parallels between the future in your book and Atlas Shrugged II?
Mike: It’s very different because my book is a comedy.

“You cannot have a modern technological society with a high standard of living if you don’t have freedom.”

“If you look at history, capitalism, freedom, and the technological flowering that we’ve had in the last two centuries have all gone hand in hand.”

“The founding fathers that created this country were pretty smart guys and they designed a system that’s very difficult to destroy.”

“The years ahead are going to be rough. It’s definitely a good time for me to be starting a career as a dystopian novelist, but I do think that truth is on our side.”

“The reason that authors get so many rejection letters is they don’t do their homework: they don’t look for a publisher that’s a good match for their book.”

“The publishing world is run by liberals…nobody’s doing conservative and libertarian fiction…I decided I wanted to be the one that fills that niche, so I started the Monteferro Press.”

Terry: I notice your writing style is very visual…
Mike: That’s ‘cause I grew up watching television.

“I didn’t sit down and say that I’m going to write a conservative book or a Tea Party book, I sat down and said I’m going to write a book that I want to read.”

“Some of my characters, Cheri Tarte in particular, are far less polite than I am, so I can say things that I would never say in my own voice.”

Terry: I kind of like the hippie character a lot.
Mike: If you’re going to have any kind of stock character like a hippie, you have to have a twist, and in this case, he’s a hippie, but he’s a hippie for the Right.

And here’s the full interview…

Michael Isenberg is the author of Full Asylum, a novel about politics, hospital gowns, and freedom. Check it out on Amazon.com.

The time is now near at hand...

Photo source: Harry E. Walker via Mother Jones

Last in my series of election commentary from the characters of Full Asylum. Tina Lee is the founder and CEO of Byte Yourself Software:

Yesterday, my competitor Isaac Ross threw in his one-fiftieth of a dollar’s worth about the election. He told us that Mitt Romney just doesn’t understand that most people aren’t enlightened enough to make their own decisions. They need the government to make them for them. I used to work for Isaac. Back then I had an idea for the first operating system designed specifically for the networked home. I put together some slides and pitched the idea. He rewarded me with a lecture on how I was thinking like a programmer instead of a businesswoman. “You’re going to have to offer more enticing bait than that if you expect me to bite, missy,” he said. “Bite yourself, Isaac Ross!” I replied angrily. I walked out of his conference room—and out of his company. Two weeks later, I incorporated Byte Yourself Software. I lured the best engineers with technical challenges and stock grants. Inspired by dreams of wealth, we dove into our task. We begged forgiveness from family members for missed Little League games, forgotten birthdays, and in the case of one programmer, late arrival at her own wedding. After eleven intense months, we surfaced with Byte Yourself IROSS—the Intranet Ready Operating System Software—Version 1.0. Within five years, IROSS became the world’s most popular operating system. We built it. The core issue in this election is the same as it was in 1964. That was the year Ronald Reagan asked us “whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.” Isaac Ross and Barack Obama definitely have their money – excuse me, our money – on the little intellectual elite. During the past four years the elite has been in overdrive, planning us into poverty. It told us what health insurance we had to buy. It told us how much we had to pay our employees. It told us how much we had to spend on charity. It told us what industries to invest in. It told us what the gas mileage had to be in the cars we manufacture. It told us what banking practices are too risky. It even told us what we may order when we go out for a bite to eat. Byte yourself, Mr. President. What Obama doesn’t understand, and the reason economic performance has been so lackluster during his administration, is that prosperity requires excellence and excellence requires freedom. Unlike the president, Gov. Romney has actually built a business or two. He gets it. He understands that you can’t excel by doing the same thing as everybody else. You have to have the freedom to do something different. You have to have the freedom to take the risk that something that hasn’t been tried before will work. Sometimes you have to have the freedom to be the fool that rushes in where angels fear to tread. Excellence isn’t just risky, though. It’s also time-consuming. You better have the freedom to put in long hours developing your product instead of filling out compliance paperwork for a bureaucrat. I’d like to leave you with this thought – it’s something George Washington said to the troops during the summer of 1776: “The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves.” It really is.

Tina Lee is a character in Full Asylum, a novel about politics, freedom, and hospital gowns. Her views do not necessarily reflect those of author Michael Isenberg. Check out Full Asylum on Amazon.com.

Obama Knows Best

Photo source: Human Events

Continuing my series of election commentary from the characters of my novel Full Asylum. Today we hear from one of the villains, Isaac Ross, CEO of Consolidated Industries. Isaac is a crony capitalist who spends his spare time writing second rate philosophy books. Any resemblance to George Soros is purely coincidental.

Since the time of the ancient Greeks, philosophers have identified two types of social structure: the cooperative society and the competitive society. Through most of history, the competitive society has predominated. But a competitive society is like a sick body. A body would not survive if the lungs and the heart competed with each other to pump blood or provide oxygen. Similarly, a society would not survive if those best suited to drive trucks competed with programmers to write software, or those best suited to write software competed with philosophers to make decisions. We saw the end game, the final illness of the competitive society, in the excesses that led to Bush’s 2008 Financial Meltdown. The poverty, homelessness, and psychological stress that we now see all around us are the inevitable result when society is run by those who put profit and gain above enlightenment and compassion. If a competitive society is a sick body, then a cooperative society is a healthy one. Although a true cooperative society has never existed, we know from Plato’s Republic what it would look like. Each member of the cooperative society knows his or her place and has a role to play that is suited to his or her natural abilities. In a healthy body, all the parts work in harmony. Similarly, in a healthy society, all citizens work in harmony. In a healthy body, all operations are coordinated under the control of the brain. Similarly, in a healthy society, all operations are coordinated under the control of the government. The enlightened and compassionate people who staff the various departments are able to make the decisions that are beyond the ability of the lesser citizens. Mitt Romney might think, for example, that a truck driver has the enlightenment to decide the best health care plan. Fortunately, Barack Obama knows better and passed the Affordable Care Act so HHS could tell the truck driver what to buy. Mitt Romney might think that private businessmen are enlightened enough to know what technologies in which to invest. Fortunately, Barack Obama knows better and put $90 billion for green energy in the stimulus bill. Mitt Romney might think that a software engineer has the compassion to help the poor through private charity. Fortunately, Barack Obama knows better and increased welfare spending 32%. The president has been under some criticism lately. His critics say that he has not been entirely honest about his agenda. They say that his justice department hasn’t done enough to combat voter fraud. They say the he tried to cover up his own incompetence by arresting Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, the filmmaker whose Islamophobic video enraged the demonstrators that attacked the US consulate at Benghazi. What the critics would realize if they were more educated is that, since the government makes the rules for society, the existence of rules presupposes the existence of government. It is therefore illogical for the president and other government officials to be constrained by the rules set down for lesser people. Illogical, and also unnecessary. Regardless of the rules, Barack Obama is an enlightened and compassionate leader, and will always act in the best interests of the cooperative society. If those interests require him to arrest an innocent man, rig an election, or conceal his true intentions behind a mask of falsehood, then it is not only permitted for him to do so, it is a moral imperative.

Isaac Ross is a character in Full Asylum, a novel about politics, freedom, and hospital gowns. His views are satirical and most definitely do not reflect those of author Michael Isenberg. Check out Full Asylum on Amazon.com.

Who the hell wants to be the 99 percent?

Continuing my series of election commentary from the characters of my novel Full Asylum. Today's installment: lady wrestler Cheri Tarte does some trash talking.

HEY, OCCUPY WALL STREET: YOU SAY YOU’RE THE 99 PERCENT…WELL I SAY IT'S NOTHING TO BRAG ABOUT! DON’T YOU WANT TO BE SOMEONE SUCCESSFUL?! I’m Cheri Tarte: rising star of the Universal Wrestling League’s Women’s Division and PROUD 1 PERCENTER. Before I tried out for the UWL, I worked in the administrator’s office at a government hospital. The hospital was overrunning its budget and we were supposed to contain costs. We did a lot of unnecessary testing—MRIs that were unlikely to find anything and so on. At the same time, we had patients dying while they waited for operations they really needed, like coronary bypasses. I went to my boss with some ideas to improve things, but he said, “Don’t worry about it. You get paid either way.” I realized that I would never be allowed to excel working in a bureaucracy. The whole structure rewarded mediocrity, and that’s not what I’m about. It sure is what Obama’s about, though. Do you know the mark of mediocrity? Excuses instead of results. The economy limps along at less than 2% growth and Obama says, “It’s Bush’s fault.” “Worst economy since the Great Depression.” “The Republicans in Congress were mean to me.” Obama keeps telling us this election is a choice between two fundamental visions for America. SO, B.O.: WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO BE HONEST ABOUT YOURS? The closest he ever came was when he told Joe the Plumber he wanted to “spread the wealth around.” That’s the polite way of saying he wants to rob the successful to pay for handouts for the mediocre. But when you punish success and reward mediocrity, mediocrity is what you get. No wonder the losers flock to him. Like the Obamaphone Lady. Or Sandra Fluke, who’s the poster child for Obama’s America: thirty years old, still in school, and looking for a handout. Did you hear her convention speech? Six minutes of whining about what a victim she is. She even complained that Mitt Romney didn’t stand up for her when Rush Limbaugh called her a slut. Ignoring for the moment that Mitt did stand up for her, WHY DON’T YOU STAND UP FOR YOURSELF INSTEAD OF BEGGING A MAN TO DO IT? THAT’S WHY YOU’RE A VICTIM! AND BY THE WAY, YOU OUGHT TO SEND RUSH A PRESENT. IF HE HADN'T CALLED YOU A SLUT, NO ONE EVER WOULD HAVE HEARD OF YOU! The trouble with Sandra isn’t that she’s a slut, of course; the trouble is that she’s a freeloader. She wants someone else to pay for her birth control. She calls that “access.” AND TAKE A BIOLOGY CLASS, BITCH. YOU CAN’T GET PREGNANT FROM OTHER WOMEN! The Democrat narrative as to why Romney doesn’t stand up for the Flukes of the world is that he’s out of touch because he’s rich. WELL, I SAY IF TO BE RICH IS TO BE OUT OF TOUCH, THEN WE NEED MORE OUT OF TOUCH PEOPLE! Romney got to be rich because he worked hard and excelled at what he did. He competed in an open market and made the tough choices to build Staples and a bunch of other companies. He deserves every penny he got, and we’re all better off for it. Obama is right about one thing. This election is about two fundamentally different visions of America. Obama’s America, where second-rate morons fight over handouts carved from an ever-shrinking pie. Or Romney’s America, where those who would compete and excel and succeed are free to do so. The only thing I can’t figure out is why the polls are so close. I know there's not that much mediocrity in America.

Cheri Tarte is the heroine of Full Asylum, a novel about mediocrity, excellence, and professional wrestling. Her views are satirical and do not necessarily reflect those of author Michael Isenberg. Check out Full Asylum on Amazon.com.

Romney, Obama, and Weed

As the 2012 election enters its final weeks, I decided to give the characters from my novel Full Asylum a chance to weigh in. First up is Brownie McCoy, sysadmin for the Byte Yourself Software corporation and infamous hippie for capitalism:

Ronald Reagan, man. He used to tell this story about a Republican politician who was campaigning down south, back in the days when Dixie was still Democrat. Arriving at a farm, the politician asked the farmer if he could, like, talk to him. When the farmer heard that the politician was a Republican, he was juiced. “Wait right here ‘til I go get Ma,” he said, “She’s never seen a Republican before.” When the farmer returned with his wife, the politician looked for a podium, but all he could find was a “a pile of that stuff that Bess Truman took 35 years trying to get Harry to call ‘fertilizer.’” The candidate climbed up on the mound and gave his speech. When he finished the farmer said, “That’s the first time I’ve ever heard a Republican speech.” The politician replied, “That’s the first time I’ve ever given a Republican speech from a Democratic platform.” It’s a primo joke, man, but this year the Republican platform got as much fertilizer as the Democrat one. Obama and Romney are both fascizoids. They’re like Republicrats. Neither one of them is serious about getting government under control. They’re both beaucoup with the spending. Romney’s amigo Ryan got a plan to balance the budget — in the year 2040. As for Obama, his budget never balances. Also, neither of these hosers is going to legalize weed. That’s a bummer; Cheech Marin — or was it Tommy Chong? — said marijuana is the friendliest drug there is. Puff on a joint and your first instinct is to hand it to someone else. And those government CREEPS could stand to be friendlier. This one time, one of them was trying to take my brownies away and I said, “I got rights, man” and he hit me with the butt of his rifle. If he got a little baked, he wouldn’t be so hostile. Speaking of weed, did anyone see this from Family Guy? Fox is pretty ruthless about preventing bootlegging, but this guy rebelled and got it on YouTube by adding a bogus intro. Start about 35 seconds in: Oh, I almost forgot. The election. The only candidate for president who can spell freedom is Gary Johnson from the Libertarian Party. He says he’s going to balance the budget next year, repeal the Patriot Act, audit the Fed, and put limits on TSA pat-downs. He’s the only one that gets that free enterprise means no bailouts, no corporate welfare, and no protectionism. Also he wants to legalize weed. ‘Cause it’s important to legalize weed. I know, Johnson’s probably not going to win. But if the Federales try to come after my weed, I’ll be ready. I’m building something in the basement that’ll make them think twice. Love and Greed, Brownie

Brownie McCoy is a character in Full Asylum, a novel about politics, freedom, and chocolaty baked goods. His views do not necessarily reflect those of author Michael Isenberg. Check out Full Asylum on Amazon.com.

How Liberty is Lost

Some of my friends are skeptical. When I tell them that the 2012 presidential election will determine whether the United States of America continues to be a free country, they tell me our freedom isn’t even threatened.

I explain the threat in my novel, Full Asylum, in which I portray a future where America is no longer free. Government has become involved in every corner of our lives, and storm troopers called “CREEPS” are standing by to kick in our doors if we don’t fall in line. In this excerpt, I describe how we got to that point. It shows what happens when an economy fails to recover and politicians look for someone to blame. The setting is familiar to fans of the James Bond series — it’s the scene where the secret agent goes to his boss to get his orders:

“Good morning, sir,” said Dunn.         “Good morning, Beta Eleven,” said Alpha One. He sat at his massive oak desk in front of a painting of a fox hunt. “Sit down.”         Dunn sat in one of the leather wingback chairs in front of the desk. A small gentleman moldered in the other one. “You know Sir Brandon Pringle, Chancellor of the Exchequer,” Alpha One said.         “Chancellor,” said Dunn. Sir Brandon grunted.         “What do you know about economic sabotage?” Alpha One asked Dunn.         “It’s a new category of crime since the Financial Crises,” Dunn replied. “The Americans call it E.S. Individual saboteurs are referred to as sabos. After the Third Financial Meltdown, the G-20 powers responded with appropriate measures to expand the money supply and re-regulate out-of-control markets. Although there were some initial signs of their effectiveness, in the long run, the global economy did not improve. Eventually, governments around the world realized the reason. Their political opponents deliberately harmed their efforts: scared off investors, cut jobs, and even committed acts of vandalism.         “The sabo threat is particularly severe in the United States, where Congress responded by passing the Federal Economic Sabotage Act. The act, also called FESA, gave the government the powers necessary to combat the problem. One provision of the act prohibited criticism of government economic policy. There was a constitutional challenge to this, but the Supreme Court upheld the provision on the basis of the governmental interest in safeguarding the integrity of interstate commerce.         “To enforce the law, the government created an elite civilian military unit. The Coordinated Response Emergency Economic Protection Squad reports directly to the attorney general. Although its acronym should be pronounced CREE-TWO-P-S, certain elements of the public have taken to calling the unit members CREEPS, and this pronunciation has, regrettably, caught on. This new force has made significant inroads against the sabos; however, it has not been able to eradicate them entirely. I think that’s all, sir.”         “Yesterday afternoon,” said Sir Brandon, “the Advanced Missile Corporation filed for bankruptcy. Seventy-eight thousand people around the world are filing for unemployment compensation as we speak, fifteen thousand of them in England.”         Alpha One pressed a button on his desk. The fox hunt painting slid into the wall, revealing a large flat panel display. On the screen a photo sprang into view. It depicted a short, middle-aged woman in a fashionable red and black business suit. She had short dark hair and large dark eyes and was smoking a cigarette in a long black holder. Sir Brandon continued, “Iona Klimt, head of Klimt Defensive Software Corporation—KDS. Born in Soviet Russia, 1967. Emigrated to the US in the 1980s during the last days of the Cold War. Estimated net worth: 12.6 billion dollars.”         The picture morphed to an office park. There was a pond with a fountain and two green glass buildings. “KDS headquarters. Just outside Washington, DC. The company is…was…Advanced Missile’s largest competitor.”         “Iona Klimt is one of the leaders of the information revolution,” said Dunn. “Do we suspect she is engaged in economic sabotage?”         “That’s for you to find out,” said Alpha One. “You leave for America as soon as you draw your equipment from Double-G Branch. That’s all, Beta Eleven.”

To find out what happens when Dunn comes face-to-face with Iona Klimt, check out Full Asylum on Amazon.com.

Book Review: The Alphabet Challenge

Summer is in the home stretch; now’s a good time to kick back in the backyard or on the beach and indulge in some light reading.

Photo source: ENC Press

Olga Gardner Galvin’s novel The Alphabet Challenge fits the bill admirably. Its depiction of mid-twenty-first-century Manhattan is both hilarious and touching. It’s a world where political correctness has run amok. Euphemisms have replaced all potentially offensive terms related to race, gender, or behavior. Smoking is confined to a single cube-shaped cement building (“Tobacco Road Smoking Area – proudly serving New York and New Jersey since 2015”). Children still argue with their parents about table manners well into their twenties (“Manners are a cultural concept.”)

Enter Howell Langston Toland. After completing a seven-year stint in prison for failing to recycle glass bottles, Howell starts the No Kinks escort service. As one of the characters explains it, “If you’re homsexu…I mean your-own-sex-centric, and chickenshit to tell your stuffy reactionary parents, you can bring someone of the opposite sex with you to fool them. And if you’re opposite-sex-centric but want to look more hip, you can rent someone your own sex to bring to a cool party with you. Works real good for everybody this way.”

Everybody except PeopleCare, the umbrella organization and source of government grants for hundred of anti-discrimination groups: Individuals of Different Abilities, People for the Right to Practice Voodoo, Androcentrically Focused Mature Male Individuals (formerly the North American Man-Boy Love Association), etc. Horrified by an agency that, not only “discourages people from being who they really are and proud of it,” but also makes a profit, PeopleCare sends a team of thugs (“People with Different Moral and Ethical Values”) to trash the No Kinks offices.

His business in ruins, Howell has a brainstorm: the real money is in the grievance industry. With help from his former in-laws Hazel and Filbert (get it?), he starts The Alphabet Challenge®. This organization is dedicated to restoring pride to those whose last names begin with the letters N through Z, who throughout history have suffered coming at the end of any alphabetical list. It’s time for the alphabetically challenged to be first. See Matthew 20:16.

The new cause is a huge success. PeopleCare is pissed. Not only is Howell horning in on its monopoly on compassion, but he’s doing it wrong. Still an entrepreneur at heart, Howell teaches his followers to stand up for themselves instead of waiting for help from a government program. The battle lines are drawn.

The strongest point of the The Alphabet Challenge is definitely its endearing characters. My favorite is Loveridge Weatherstonehaugh. The perfect liberal nitwit, Loveridge “came from money so old it had been all squandered away even before her mother was born.” A documentary filmmaker with many awards but, thanks to the “uninformed public,” little commercial success, she swings between congratulating herself on her strong opinions and living in terror that someone might consider her judgmental. And yet her story takes a surprising turn at the end.

I was also partial to Mikey, the head of a group that PeopleCare wanted to call “Individuals of Alternative Wisdom.” Mikey would have none of it; he insisted on “Just Plain Stoopid.”

The Alphabet Challenge is available from ENC Press, publisher of fun libertarian satires like Mean Martin Manning and Junk, as well as a recent translation of “the first dystopia ever,” Yevgheniy Zamyatin’s We. ENC’s books may be purchased at www.encpress.com.

Michael Isenberg is the author of Full Asylum, a novel about politics, freedom, and hospital gowns. Check it out on Amazon.com.

Ayn Rand answers Barack Obama – again

It’s been 55 years since Ayn Rand published Atlas Shrugged – and yet the 1957 epic seems to have anticipated every argument that Barack Obama is using in the presidential campaign of 2012. Which just goes to show how stale his arguments are.

Photo sources: Wikipedia, White House

Rand’s answer to “You didn’t build that” has already been making the rounds of the Internet. Now the president has brought Robin Hood into the debate, accusing “Romney Hood” of reversing the usual formula by stealing from the poor and giving to the rich. There was a character in Atlas Shrugged who did exactly that. The pirate Ragnar Danneskjöld become the terror of the seas by capturing government aid ships. Here’s what Danneskjöld had to say about Robin Hood in a conversation with steel magnate Hank Rearden:

“I’m after a man whom I want to destroy. He died many centuries ago, but until the last trace of him is wiped out of men’s minds, we will not have a decent world to live in.”         “What man?”         “Robin Hood.”         Rearden looked at him blankly, not understanding.         “He was the man who robbed the rich and gave to the poor. Well, I’m the man who robs the poor and gives to the rich—or, to be exact, the man who robs the thieving poor and gives back to the productive rich.”         “What in blazes do you mean?…”         “It is said that [Robin Hood] fought against the looting rulers and returned the loot to those who had been robbed, but that is not the meaning of the legend which has survived. He is remembered, not as a champion of property, but as a champion of need, not as a defender of the robbed, but as a provider of the poor. He is held to be the first man who assumed a halo of virtue by practicing charity with wealth which he did not own, by giving away goods which he had not produced, by making others pay for the luxury of his pity. He is the man who became the symbol of the idea that need, not achievement, is the source of rights, that we don’t have to produce, only to want, that the earned does not belong to us, but the unearned does. He became a justification for every mediocrity who, unable to make his own living, has demanded the power to dispose of the property of his betters.”

A “mediocrity who, unable to make his own living, has demanded the power to dispose of the property of his betters?” And to think Rand never even met Obama.

Michael Isenberg is the author of Full Asylum, a novel about politics, freedom, and hospital gowns. Check it out on Amazon.com.