Your Vote Means Nothing

In a world that is dominated by a President, it is odd that we have turned away from our long-standing reliance on precedent. America is, if anything, a traditional country, one that adheres greatly to a concept of history, legality, and documentation. Even during that radical moment when some of the greatest minds of the time gathered together in Philadelphia, they were not attempting something so radical that it was, to them, necessarily treasonous. They were simply trying to come together to proclaim their rights as Englishmen, and, when that failed, proclaim their rights as humans. That is the American tradition, and that is the precedent I’m calling for today.

Just like the Declaration of Independence, what the American people is demanding for is not exactly a dissolution of ties, but rather a codification of grievances that make it clear exactly why we can no longer tolerate the current situation.

It is partially our own fault. Like it or not, we put this President into power. Oh, you might say “I didn’t vote for him,” but you also didn’t rally against him. Was John Kerry the banner to take into battle? No, of course not. How can you draw out voters if it looks like a non-decision? No, the ballot box has been a dismal failure in this regard. Just look to the results of the 2006 Congressional elections. The Democrats, riding the dissatisfaction, took both the House and Senate, only to sit on their hands. And I’m not talking about the war. Say what you will, but the war is almost a non-issue right now, because the war is a problem with no clear-cut solution. We have tied a Gordian Knot centered on Baghdad, and no legislative process will create a positive result.

That is not to say that the Democrats didn’t (don’t) have options. The House – the branch most directly connected with the populace (at least in theory) – has the powers it does because of that tie. The first, and essentially the most powerful, is the power of the purse. Cut off funding, end the war. It really would be as simple as that. But the problem is that this is portrayed as a political solution, which paints it as distasteful. It doesn’t take a genius to oppose such a plan with an “abandoning the troops” attack-campaign. What it does take is a genius – a leader – to do it anyway. To rally his troops in Congress to take control of what the Constitution gives them control over. But that person was no where to be found. Rhetoric gets you elected. Bold moves rarely get you re-elected.

The other power is even more stigmatized, and that is because it has only been used for purely political reasons. Both Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton were impeached not because they had committed “high crimes and misdemeanors,” but because the opposition saw an opportunity and used the system to try to exploit it. This is not the case today. Bush has broken the law. He has broken it knowingly – and flaunted it – or unknowingly, meaning he’s been criminally negligent. The NSA wire-tapping alone is a cut-and-dried example of him illegally suspending habeas corpus and violating both the Fourth and Fifth (and some might argue First) Amendments. And yet, because of the perceived political nature (and the unfortunate reality that “political” is almost entirely bereft of positive meaning today), no one is brave enough to put it to a vote. It’s not as if, like two years ago, the Republicans controlled the Ways and Means Committee, thus shelving any such call. It is the Democrat’s Congress, and they have failed us in their pledges from a year ago.

So what’s that leave? Precedent.

Just like the Continental Congress, or the militias at Lexington and Concord, or even the saboteurs of the Boston Tea Party, it is time for civil disobedience.

But not protesting. Protesting is simply standing and talking. It is not action. We are past talk. We are past petition and bargaining. We are past all that, because they are rusted weapons in our ever-depleting arsenal. If a political problem can not be solved in a political manner, then it is incumbent on the people – it is not only our right, but our duty – to secure what has been taken from us.

So what do I propose? After reading Garret Keizer’s essay “Specific Suggestion: General Strike” in the October issue of Harper’s, I was inspired. His call for a general strike – a power of the purse that we can actually effect – seemed both radical and yet beautiful in its simplicity. And yet, even Mr. Keizer seems to admit that to organize such a strike would be a logistical nightmare. It’s not so much that it would be painful to go through, but that to spread the word, and put it into effect just doesn’t seem feasible. I enjoy the sentiment, but I just can’t see it happening. It requires too much from too many people to all do the same thing, and for a country not inclined to vote, such a political action screams of idealism. Coupled with the mutterings of communism and socialism, and you might be surprised how those concepts still bring a rise out of people. What I’m offering is akin to the strike, but much easier to do.

All you have to do is nothing.

Or rather, a specific nothing: don’t pay your taxes.

Let April 15 roll around, and don’t send in your W-2’s or your 1040’s. Don’t gather your receipts and don’t stress out about being audited. Simply don’t.

Because here’s the thing: it’s not so much the cutting off of funds (although there is a bit of that, most of us get our taxes taken out of our paychecks already). It’s more the logistical nightmare it creates for the government. Think of the economic chaos the potential of not receiving the taxes the government planned on (banked on) collecting. Do you think China, which holds a great deal of our debt in their banks, would not rumble about calling in the loans? Do you think the stock markets wouldn’t shudder at the possibility? This is pure supply-and-demand. In its beautiful irony, it is a free-market solution to a problem predicated on free markets.

The best part about it is that it is the threat that works. And it doesn’t rely on the entire population, either. If one percent of the population didn’t send in their taxes, the problems would be enormous. If ten percent didn’t, it would be catastrophic. Now imagine the entire Democratic Party got their act together? Or the cities of San Francisco, New York, Seattle, Los Angeles, and Portland? There’s simply no way they could possibly muster the man-power to do anything about it. The reason it's feasible, too, is because people don't want to pay their taxes in the first place. By relieving them of a chore they don't want to do, you make it easy for them to act on it. During the Civil Rights movements, they boycotted racist businesses.

I say lets boycott our criminal government.

Sure, they could say that we are only hurting ourselves, that they will have to cut funds from education and health care. But that is a lie. Because all they need to do is sell one of our fighter jets to whatever lovely dictator we want to keep in power (Saudi Arabia has a nice, poetic feel, doesn’t it), and we can keep our programs going. Or we could call in all those no-bid contracts that don’t seem to producing what our tax money (our tax money) is paying for.
In the end, though, it doesn’t matter. Yes, there might be hardship. Civil disobedience is not about comfort. But it is about results. The fact of the matter is that, although it’s wonderful to look towards the future and say “One more year and he’s gone,” it’s the same as saying “I’m going to just going to let this disease run its course.” Does that make sense, when you can, with a little effort, take some medicine? Moreover, is it prudent to think the disease will run its course? I’m not sure about you, but I’m not willing to bet my future on it.

I also think we don’t have to.

My Political Manifesto

They fell down, and the world went numb.

It’s strange when you grow up with so much going on. The Chinese have their infamously mis-translated quote about growing up in “interesting times,” and for most of my life I had been blessedly able to avoid that curse. But those ubiquitous planes, those no-longer towers made life interesting, much like the Holocaust made Europe “interesting” sixty years ago.

This was all after the fact, though. Before all the excitement, my life was the product of a political dichotomy that too often plagues the over-informed. Or, rather, those with delusions of knowledge. When I was little, I had been pegged as gifted, and although unaware such a peg would fit, I nevertheless accepted the title. It’s a nice feeling, being singled out for something good. Also, how else could I explain how emotionally disturbed I was? Insomnia and nightmares, hallucinations and daymares.

Sensitive, I believe they called it. They did tests to find answers, but I was never privy to the actual results. Odd, crying, and alone, I wondered why I wasn’t a normal kid, all the while never considering myself abnormal. Yet there I was, absorbing facts without context, formulas without theory. As most precocious youth are wont to do, I disseminated my knowledge with aplomb, startling (or amusing – you can never be quite sure with adults) those around me. More often than no, it wasn’t “How do you know that?” but “Why do you know that?” Because it was fascinating. And, because the delight of thinking you “know” is a powerful narcotic. Huge ego and low self-esteem is an odd combination, and yet it somehow found a home in me. It was unsettling and appealing.

That’s how politics struck me – not as in that’s how I perceived politics, but how I was brought into that world. In my first, great moment with politics, I was a seven-year-old trying to choose between Bush and Dukakis. Never mind the fact that I had no idea why I would take on such an endeavor: it was simply something we were doing in our second-grade class. Sure, I vaguely comprehended the importance of the President. He was the big guy, the most important man in the country. As far as I knew, he created the laws and ran the government. As far as I knew, Reagan was a great man, and Bush or Dukakis would be the next great man. The more I think about it, second-grade is probably the perfect moment to enter politics, because the decisions are arbitrary, much like how elections seem to work today.

For some reason, I took a flyer on Bush. It might have had something to do with my parents’ politics, but if so, the message must have came to me subliminally. I can’t recall my parents being excessively or overtly political during that election – or really any election throughout my childhood – so I have a feeling it was more a matter of having to make a choice and going with Bush. Far more likely than my parents influence was the fact that my best friend at the time – a boy significantly more “gifted” than myself – found his allegiance sitting with Dukakis. Well, as we were not only friends but friendly rivals, my opposition to the Governor from Massachusetts seemed inevitable.

Besides, I had read Bush’s lips and was pretty sure “no new taxes” was a good thing, even at the age of seven.

Is that how one becomes political? Is that how one sets their flag on Right or the Left? I remember my decision to root for the Yankees was directly tied to my older brother’s belief in the Mets. But are politics and sports the same thing? Can one simply flip a coin and adhere to a platform, like choosing a sports team to support. It seems ridiculous.

Four years later, though, my mind more developed (sixth grade!) and my understanding slightly improved, I was once again barking “Bush!” What’s the economy to a sixth-grader? “Recession” is a buzz-word you hear in passing and although you know it is a negative, compared to the subtle patriotism, the ingrained respect for the Presidency, there was no contest. How could it be? At that age, when questioning authority is still at odds with a conservative Catholic upbringing, wasn’t the man who stopped Saddam Hussein worth much more than a governor from a state whose chief industry is poultry farming? It was around this time that I could see a pattern emerging and my decisions, if not consciously Republican, were certainly find themselves pointing in that direction.

As I grew older and information came – and was understood – more readily, my politics definitely coalesced to the point where I didn’t think it would be possible for me to not identify as Republican. Foremost in this was probably the emergence of my father’s political opinions. As I got more interested in the process and policy, dinner-table discussions brought out a pragmatic Republican: a card-carrying NRA member who wanted little government interference in daily affairs, lower taxes, and a social welfare program based on need but doled out for merit. As a young person, despite the apparent trappings of a Long Island suburbanite, I could still realize that we were a working-class, lower middle-class family. Both my parents didn’t go to college – not for lack of opportunity or ability, but rather for the desire to begin a family.

Did that one decision radically change how I was to perceive the political situation in our country? My father was too young to worry too much about being drafted into Vietnam, so his was the first generation who almost universally lived without war-experience. A generation that was learning that high school no longer guaranteed a great job; that college was slowly making itself known as a way to reach middle class – if not upper classes – that produced results much quicker than simple hard work. It wasn’t that one couldn’t find work, or even a good job, out of high school, but the world was definitely moving progressively towards a college-based work-force, coinciding quite nicely with the export of manufacturing jobs in favor of a service-based economy.

College also exposed the sons and daughters of the World War II and Korean War veterans to an experience almost universally dedicated to a liberal education. College had long been an “out” for those against the war, and many professors were active in establishing minds that id not simply adhere to a status quo: the government was not placed on a pedestal; the First Amendment was regaining its primacy. (Please realize that I am not denigrating those who went to college instead of war – or feel I’m suggesting that all students went to college to avoid the war. This is just a common conception of the time period by those of my generation, for good or for ill).

If this meant opportunity for those exposed to that mindset, it also was an exposure to a guilt-complex so inherent in liberal policies: Why should we retain our wealth when others go without? Yes, we worked hard, but do our efforts equate to being well-off, when others are in poverty?

This is a noble sentiment, but it seems to be a natural off-shoot of a specific lifestyle. Take, for example, the other side of the coin: The working class man who feels he has done what was necessary to achieve what he has. Through labor, through the Puritan work-ethic, he has been able to carve out a slice of the American dream. Who, then, is the government to tell me I have to give my money to someone who hasn’t worked as hard? Nothing was handed to me, and now you want me to give away my efforts, to the detriment of my own family?

Is that greed? Or is that a logical rationale? Is it cold and compassionless, as it seems Conservatives are so often called?

These are excellent and valid questions. I would have to think race certainly plays its role – you get a job at the factory (or these days, office) where you old man worked, because they think his good traits run true. It probably just so happens being white led to that situation in the first place. I would also say that starting-social status also plays a role. Poor people aren’t necessarily poor because they don’t work hard; they are poor because of a confluence of factors that all add to a lack of opportunity and inability to find a way out.

But try explaining that to someone who went from working two crap jobs so that he could support his family. To him, there is a pride in his ability, as well as the idea that, Hey, if I can do it, can’t everyone? This may seem illogical, but I’m sure you can name at least one person you know like this: a self-made man or someone who lifted himself up by his bootstraps.

Does that a conservative make? While I’m not convinced it’s the only factor, I’m fairly certain it was that philosophy which aided my affiliation with the Right.

But then I went to college. And I found myself in a situation where as much as it pained me to listen to, I heard the liberalism nonetheless. The anti-Bush rhetoric. The anti-American sentiment. The anti-Imperialist project. It seriously irked me. For starters, I was at a public university. I also found it ironic to be asked to approach things like literature and history objectively when clearly what I was hearing was not. As this progressed, I found myself being that guy who questioned professors – and amazingly learned something because of it.

As I started to really get into politics (the end of high school; beginning of college), I had always found myself arguing with my friends on their decidedly liberal ideas. In that manner, I thought it was obvious that I was conservative. But when I started to grapple with my professors (who, for all their “faults” politically, were incredibly smart), I started to understand that maybe it wasn’t so much that I was conservative, but rather that I was predisposed to want to challenge concrete opinions. And that’s when I realized: politics are opinions. Again, a simple idea, but one I don’t think too many of us are consciously aware of. We see politics as a black-and-white thing, and that was bothersome. It wasn’t that my friends were arguing for liberal policies, but that they were positive that said policies were absolute.

In the end, I did receive a liberal education, but in the sense that I learned so much and in variety. With my friends, I was Conservative, but with my father, I was most certainly Liberal. Together, I was using the adherence of those around me to hone my own opinions (politics) to try to figure out which policies actually made sense. With my friends, I tried to point out that their notions about Red Staters were usually built around stereo-types – and generally false. I was amazed by how often supposedly open-minded people were so narrow in their ideas and use of generalizations. With my father (and brother), it was the opposite. I was perplexed by their adherence to policies that didn’t seem to mesh with the morals that he has always espoused. He isn’t cold or compassionless in any sense. But his politics are based on a rationality, a common-sense approach that indicates that big government doesn’t work.

Which is what I’ve always thought, myself. But I’ve learned that while on a whole it probably isn’t a good thing, large government can have positive effects, as long as kept reasonable (a requirement almost impossible to attain, I’ve noticed).

What I never thought, though, was that one should disrespect our elected leaders. Naïve, I know – and quite probably hypocritical, considering the way Republicans treated (and I might add, to a degree, rightly) Clinton – but I always had a strong aversion to the way people railed against Bush, Jr. It just seemed wrong to me that someone could actively take shots at the President of the United States. So when I recently read someone who compared Bush to Stalin, Hitler, and (ironically) Saddam, my immediate response was to scoff. But was I right?

I think, all-in-all, I was. And yet there are many similarities that are worth pointing out: a highly charismatic, almost ego-maniacally obsessed leader who ignores public opinion to run roughshod over civil liberties, both home and abroad. But he’s never engaged in an active campaign of genocide, and so, despite the similarities, I find it a little egregious to compare him (faults and all) with those three despicable people. This, in turn, makes me have to side with someone I don’t necessarily want to be associated with. As I recently pointed out to one of my friends: “Why do you make me have to defend these people?!”

I am certainly not (I’m not sure if I ever was, but I’d be willing to say “no longer”) a fan of Bush. I will say this: He sent Colin Powell to the U.N., and we all thought Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. However poorly he managed 9/11, however poorly he spoke (speaks) in public, as long as I thought he was telling the truth (and come on – it was Colin Powell!), I was willing to respect the office. It is only after-the-fact, where everything that emanated from that office was tainted, did my mind change. But the fact is: my mind changed. And it changed because the facts (literally) changed.

That’s what has been so frustrating, though (yes, the lies have been frustrating, but I’d say that’s a given). No, what has bothered me so much is that I’ve always felt I’m arguing against brick walls. Politics has become a faith for so many people, that to question their beliefs is not an intelligent discussion, but a personal affront. Just as Christians can not stand alternate theories about Jesus (or the dissemination of alternate gospels), both Liberals and Conservatives cling to their ideals with a zeal approaching dogma. You hear about a separation of church and state: well, for so many, the state is the church.

Am I a Conservative? Probably not. But I’m also certainly not a Liberal. I’m sure one could call me a moderate, but what would such a label mean? In the end, I hope that I can eschew these kinds of labels. Like most, I wish to be open-minded – although I know that most of my open-mindedness can only occur in hindsight. Shouldn’t that be the way, though? Doesn’t it make more sense to “sleep on it” or “let cooler minds prevail?” I think so. That’s why, if I had to label myself, I’d say I am a pragmatist. A realist. Because I like to explore the options, play Devil’s advocate, and then discuss solutions. To me, any other approach is the equivalent of dream-talking. I’m pretty sure that wasn’t what our system was designed to do.

I began this essay talking about the Twin Towers. I’m going to end it with them too: Go beyond Ground Zero. I’m not saying forget the day – I would never (could never) suggest that. But we have allowed a single moment in time stagnate our society. Name a single major policy that has come about that isn’t tied to 9/11 in one way or the other. Moreover, consider that all the inaction is similarly tied in. If individual people can be narrow-minded in their person politics, and that’s harmful, then what is the result of a political system that has narrow-mindedly adhered to a single notion? If you allow me the hyperbole, our political parties have been co-opted by the terrorists. I’m not sure if that will open up any minds, but I do hope it will open some eyes.

Of course, I could be wrong.

Correcting my friends (Politically)

Last weekend, I got into a “friendly” (because we always remember, eventually, that we are friends, despite the heat and disgust we might feel towards each other at the time) argument about the formation of images and the crafting of messages.

Or, at least, I think that’s what we were talking about. These things tend to spin wildly out of control.

What it came down to was a discussion of why I would never see Borat. My friends, who know me quite well, insisted it was my kind of humor. I insisted it was America-bashing, and that while satire is fine, it is the custom of satire to bring the king down to our level.

As Chase, in the beautiful piece of cinema Drive Me Crazy, points out: “We laugh when the debutante slips on the banana peel, not Tiny Tim.”

While the people in these movies may deserve our ridicule, it is because (at least in my opinion) the people were set-up to be suckers. I don’t care that Sascha Baron Cohen and his lawyers provided waivers – they were counting on human nature to overcome that hurdle. These people were not fully aware of the situation, and thus conned into revealing things they probably (and I acknowledge the “probably”) would not have, and ultimately made to look like fools by a professional clown (which isn’t a disparagement, but rather a way of identifying what Baron-Cohen does for a living).

We argued about that.

At some point we got to Fahrenheit 9/11, and once again I proclaimed I would never see that movie. Oddly enough, despite its clearly anti-Bush rhetoric (which I don’t necessarily disagree with, just despise for its simplicity – in my mind at least; you may wish to question me on that), my dislike of the movie stems from a dislike of Michael Moore and his blatant subjectivity (he said ironically). Baron Cohen, who I think can be genuinely funny and insightful, has a movie I won’t watch for specific reasons. Moore, who I find thoroughly detestable, has a movie I won’t see because of what amounts to strict irrationality.

It should be noted that this dynamic isn’t surprising, and yet I feel I’m not always conscious of it, and that is not really a good thing for someone who aspires towards objectivity, even in my opinions. In other words, I’m trying to be open-minded, but too often my fingers are in my ears, and I’m shouting “LA LA LA LA LA!!!”

-- This condescending description of how opinions work brought to you by David --

Moore, who was both attacked and defended through the invocation of such inflammatory names as Coulter and Limbaugh, led to my friend asking if I ever read Al Franken’s latest book. I scoffed.

The reasoning behind my scoff was because I’m oddly allegiant to conservatives, in spite of some of my overwhelming liberal tendencies (you try to shut down political evolution with six years of university under your belt). I believed (and still believe) that it is one thing to criticize the talking-head morons on the Right, but it is another to do so in a way that, in turn, creates the perception that you are making fun of the beliefs of half the country.

Remember that word: “perception.” It is important because what I tried to argue (in other words, I argued and tried to get across) was that it would ever matter what Franken’s message was, because of the medium in which he chose to convey it. This had pretty much always been my position regarding avoidance of inflammatory (seeming) Liberal rhetoric, but having recently been inundated with copious amounts of Marshall McLuhan, I think I finally localized my argument into a semblance of coherent, rational thought.

As such, I was very proud of myself and equally bewildered by my friends’ inability to not only grasp my argument, but to not bow to the magnificence of my logic. It’s very bothersome.

My contention was that by framing his argument via the humorous essay (in book-length form), Franken is producing a text that is automatically abhorrent to the very people he’s trying to convince. His arguments could be sound and irrefutable, but if the idea is to convince the Right that their unelected spokesmen are full of it, he chose exactly the wrong medium. His proposals are preaching to the choir, because they are the only ones who would ever be inclined to read it.

At some point during this argument, someone (me) brought up An Inconvenient Truth. To set this up, it must be noted that I saw this movie because I was a global warming skeptic, having just read Michael Crichton’s State of Fear. My friends thought I was an idiot (and I’m man enough to admit that they were right. . .to a point, but that’s a whole other conversation), so I suggested I’d watch the movie if they read the book. I saw the movie, but my “friends” (yeah, those lying bastards are in quotes for the rest of this paragraph), didn’t read the book. But that’s not really super-important right now.

What is relevant is that the movie was not only about Al Gore’s ideas, but starred Al Gore. This is where my problem lied (lie? lay? laid? Goddamn verb tenses!), because to me, Al Gore is such a polarizing figure. This may surprise some people, as it surprised my friends, because to many, Gore is practically a harmless figure in the political arena, but to Conservatives, there is no person more heinous than William Jefferson Clinton, unless that person is Hillary Rodham Clinton. After that, though, there is hatred by proxy, and Gore, through association with the Clintons, is a figure that brings out irrationality in a lot of normally level-headed folk. My thought was how this affected his message. Because by making a movie that appears to be Al Gore talking about global warming, instead of a movie about global warming, he effectively alienates a segment of the population that needs not be alienated.

This is not about skepticism. I’m sure there were/are skeptics in both parties, and no movie is going to be strong enough to shake someone with a solid belief. But there were people on the fence from the right who could have been convinced, but were repelled by Gore. Repelled by Gore and his antagonistic title. Repelled by a politician at a politically-charged time.

Despite the fact that the movie is not political, per se (obviously it’s political, but it’s not about national, Red versus Blue politics), it comes off as being political by people who want to see it as political. Al Gore on the screen makes it electorally political. The problem with that is that the movie is supposed to be about global warming. It is a universal issue that needs universal (and immediate) coverage, but instead looks like an overt attempt to re-enter the political arena. It plays as political, and not as scientific, especially to people who haven’t (and because of the reason stated above, won’t) seen the movie.

My suggestion, then, was for Al Gore to have stepped aside and allowed a less politicizing figure to narrate the story. At the time, I was advocating a “neutral” movie star (personally, I was gunning for Will Smith, because that guy is box-office gold!), but I’ve started to realize that although that might have brought slightly more people to the theatre, it might have provided fodder (as my friend argued) for the movie’s critics. So instead, I think perhaps a no-name actor, or better yet, a Conservative scientist, using Al Gore’s script and slides, could have done a better job at selling the movie. If the idea is to spark action against global warming, then why does it matter that Al Gore did the work putting this together? What’s more important: Al Gore getting all the credit, or global warming being exposed to a mass audience? I know which side of the fence I’m on, and I’m pretty sure which side of the fence my friends are on. I think it’s just harder for them because they don’t see how distasteful Al Gore can be to some people.

Remember, though: It doesn’t matter if you understand the reason, it matters that you are prepared to act on it.

Of course, last Wednesday, Gore was on television, testifying to Congress, so maybe this is a moot point. Still, in a world where our lives are practically dictated by Madison Avenue, wouldn’t a sounder marketing strategy have created a better opportunity to get the facts out in the open? I just think that the idea wasn’t even considered.

Don’t get me wrong, either. I’m using Gore’s movie here because that’s what I talked about with my friends, but this goes for almost all political texts (texts as in movies, books, essays, columns, and radio shows), in which the end result is not to truly create change, but to sell a product. It is politics as commodity, where you preach to the choir knowing full well that they will lap it up, even though it means cutting off the opposition, and often-times antagonizing them (inadvertently or not). Limbaugh is loathsome to the Left because he plays the game so well. Franken is loathsome to the Right because he tries to play the game.

And Gore is bothersome, because he didn’t realize that he was still in the game.

Dealer, I'd Like a New Card

I’ve already written about Orson Scott Card, and I still believe he wrote one of the best pieces of literature, let alone science fiction, of the Twentieth Century. That being said, is latest work is not only not one of the greatest pieces of literature of the Twenty-first Century, I would venture to say that Card has lost contact with what has made him a great writer in the first place; or, perhaps more accurately, has bastardized what he does so well into a story that is not well suited for it.

Empire is disjointed from the beginning, and very little is done to alleviate this. Set in the “near future” (almost literally “tomorrow”), it is a political drama centered on the idea that the next armed conflict that American’s will likely face is that between the ideological extremes that make up our political landscape.

In other words, a civil war between Red Staters and Blue Staters.

That in and of itself is problematic, a point that Card is quick to point out: These labels are constructs of political analysts looking for a way to reduce the country into easily identifiable groups. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a universally Red or Blue state, even those states that seem to be swayed one way or the other. For example, my own state, New York, is a dead-zone for Republican Presidential hopefuls. Nevertheless, the state is almost evenly split in its liberal and conservative sentiments, constituting a geographical dichotomy between downstate and upstate (and I apologize if my language is overly “academic,” but I’ve been reading a lot of critical theory recently, and it’s hard to get that bad taste out of my pen). Thus, Card correctly points out that the division in our country is more centered on urban and rural than anything else. However, this does not preclude him from making jabs at obvious “liberal hotbeds,” such as Vermont, Washington, Oregon, and of course, New York City.

And here’s where a major problem lies: Card does not hide his political ideals. That alone is no cause for dislike; many of the greatest stories ever told have strong thoughts about the politics they are writing about (think George Orwell). Those stories, though, are overt in there declarations. Card tries to mask his contempt for liberal thought by making his characters so smart and well-versed in all political theory that they seem to be coming from an objective view-point. Except, it really doesn’t fly. From the outset, he tries to mask who the real perpetrators of conflict are, but his red herrings regarding the Right Wing are so obvious that they seem almost laughable. Sure, there are power-hungry conservatives, but it is truly the moderates who are in control of the party during the crisis, and that is supposed to portray the nature of our country. And while I feel this is actually true, personally, it is still a hard pill to swallow in the context of what happens next. Because when you find out it is in fact a liberal conspiracy, it’s a diabolical left-wing conspiracy.

I would go out to say that if you are not conservative, especially in the sense of the word as it applies to our current political climate, you are not going to like this book.

But I would also say that if you are a conservative, but enjoy good literature, you will also not enjoy this book, and here’s why: it’s not well written. As I mentioned before, it’s disjointed. In the first couple of chapters you are jolted from places and times very rapidly, all essentially to get an idea of the main character, Reuben Malich. We know, for example, that he fought in Afghanistan with the Special Ops. Then we know he went to Princeton to earn a doctorate on the government’s dime. Then we know him to be a mysterious Major at the Pentagon, and BAM! the President is being assassinated by terrorists and the world is turned upside down. Through all this, we are shown that Malich is antagonistic towards liberal sentiment (although he “really isn’t,” because he married a Democrat – a Democrat who was an assistant to the most conservative Congressman and, if she is a Democrat, has no spine regarding any of those issues that would make her consider herself one) and that, because he now has a doctorate, is smart enough to hold the ridiculous “I learned history” discussions of which Card is so fond. In this regard, you will recognize similar ideas from any of the Ender books, but it must be remembered: Ender and all the other kids in those books, were geniuses. Not smart, not gifted: GENIUSES. And, even remembering that Malich has a doctorate, no one else he speaks to, except for his professor, Torrent, does. But, since one-sided dialogues don’t really move plot along, everyone else is also extraordinarily talented.

Even Malich’s kids.

But that is possibly just quibbling. I know I’ve had ridiculous discussions with my friends about politics and history, and they must have seemed just as pretentious to others as Card’s dialogue seems to me. So let me talk about the plot: it just doesn’t fly.

The assassination of the President, okay. I can take that as a “plausible” premise (here I’m talking about the actual plan that was used, not just the idea of killing the President). I can even, to an extent, understand the idea of using Malich as a scapegoat. What I can’t condone is how fast and convenient the action occurs.

Malich, who had come up with the warning report that the terrorists use to kill the President, happens to witness it before his eyes on the same day he meets Cole, his new number 2. Then he happens to be in New York City when the liberals (Progressives, can’t let that word-choice go untold), attack with their secretly built futuristic weaponry. He does an okay job of explaining how the weapons were developed (except for the EMP ray, which gets used once, and then is forgotten for the rest of the book). He gets shot by his secretary (which means they must have been setting him up for so long that it seems someone must have been prescient – more on this later) midway through the book, and so all of a sudden you are left without the protagonist. This here deserves a closer look.

The shock, or twist, is a literary staple, and in science fiction, it is almost necessary. However, to invest so much time in one character, to the complete detriment of all other characters, only to kill him off halfway through the novel is jarring and discombobulating. The reader has certain expectations, and one of those is to understand that the protagonist will be developed. Therefore, when you have only developed one character enough to claim that role, and you kill him off, it will be upsetting. I’m granting this is exactly what Card wanted. But he doesn’t then produce another protagonist for the reader to identify with. Instead, he just goes on with the characters he has, and expects that his brief characterization earlier was enough to give you enough sense of how to interact with the story. In this, he fails. When Cole takes over the lead role (in conjunction with Cecily, Malich’s wife), you never learn anything more about how they tick. And this just seems like bad or lazy writing.

And possibly that’s my problem: it was too short. The idea is there – clearly politics in America are at a point where violence is not implausible. You need a bad guy, you have two sides, so you pick the one you already think to be the bad guy. Again, fine, I have no real beef with that, from a reader’s perspective. But to have this all be resolved so quickly, with what seems to be a minimum of fuss, is preposterous. Throughout the book, both sides talk about how it won’t be military maneuvers, but public perception that changes the tides. And yet, in the end, it is exactly a military maneuver (in order to gather “information ammo”), that resolves the crisis. And it is the impeccably clean Torrent, who eschews political parties, who ends up ushering America towards the very thing he had warned against: an Empire.

This is supposed to be ominous, but it reeks of Revelations. If you are unfamiliar with this book of the bible, or if you have not read the Left Behind series (which you should not, by any means, do – also because it is disappointing in the end), then I will explain: Revelations tells of a man who will come, speaking of peace and prosperity, but will in fact bring these things at the price of the people selling their souls to a false idol. He will be charismatic and seemingly rise from humble beginnings.

His name: The Anti-Christ.

I don’t know if this is what Card is alluding to, but I find it hard for someone with his religious background and beliefs to be unaware that this is almost overly coincidental.

Oh yeah, his portrayal of Cecily will no doubt be read as being highly misogynistic by some, and by being the epitome of family values by others. Personally, I don’t think Card is being misogynistic, but I do want to point out how those two things appear to be diametrically opposed.

Do yourself a favor: Read Ender’s Game. Read the sequels and parallel novels. But do not read Empire. You’ll recognize the voice, but not the writer. I think Card has forgotten what it means to write fiction, at least with this as his latest example. I hope he can recover, because it’s always disenchanting to see an idol fall. I understand how hard it is to maintain excellence with every piece you write, so I am not done with him yet.

I’m sure that relieves him to no end.