A State of Disobedience

Tom Kratman

Riverdale: Baen, 2003. ISBN: 0-7434-9920-4. Pp. 435

This is a difficult book to review. On one hand, one has to come to grips with some basic issues the author rises even if his take on them sometimes leaves a lot to be desired. Next, one has to relate the premise of the story to reality because even though this is not something one usually does with science fiction, this book demands it. Then, one has to ask if the author has managed to accomplish what he set out to in a stylistically satisfying manner. This is an unabashedly political novel with an overt right-wing, mostly libertarian, agenda, with none too subtle references to real political figures (mostly alive), written by a former military guy who is worried about the direction the country seems to be going to. Wow, that's a mouthful.

Before even thinking of reading a review of a book like this, one has to demand a full revelation of the reviewer's political agenda. A quick glimpse at Amazon comments shows that, as a rule, readers who disagree with the author's political views found everything in the book terrible, from writing style down to the usual rant about "simplistic characters" and such. And that's without analyzing the worth of the ideas they dismiss either. So here's my quick profile. I grew up behind the Iron Curtain and now live in the US. I abhor any government that purports to know what's best for me and in this I tend strongly toward the libertarian side of the social values spectrum. On the other hand, I am a hard-nosed realist who has very little illusions about the use of force to achieve national objectives, and as such I tend to be rather pro-military and hawkish on foreign policy. This means I have to support a government that is a lot larger than libertarians are prepared to concede. Finally, economically I am a strong believer in markets but I also recognize the regulatory role a government must play to correct for its failures. Hence, somewhere right of center, but not too far. And finally, I do believe we have a moral duty to the less fortunate even if I absolutely oppose government-mandated redistribution to fulfill it (I prefer private charity). Anyway, with this very rough sketch in mind, let's turn to the book.

The author reveals his stance on the dedication page, which reads "To Hillary, Janet, and Lon." As in "Hillary Clinton," "Janet Reno," and "Lon Horiuchi." Everyone knows who the first is, but people outside the US may not be familiar with Janet Reno, the Attorney General who presided over two of the most controversial domestic uses of force by the feds in recent memory: the attack on the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas and the killing of Vicki Weaver at Ruby Ridge, Idaho. Lon Horiuchi was the FBI sniper who shot Vicky Weaver in the head during the standoff while she had her baby in her hands. Regardless of the conspiracy theories alleging all sorts of evil government misdeeds in these cases, these two events encapsulate a growing worry among many Americans about the ever more intrusive powers of a distant federal government with its own agenda. Add to this the so-called HillaryCare, the plan for universal health care that Clinton proposed during her husband's term in office, and suddenly you have a focus for all anti-communist and anti-socialist feeling in this country.

Kratman essentially takes Hillary Clinton and transforms her into a raging pro-communist lesbian man-hater who claws her way to the Presidency with bribes, extortion, and murder. Wilhelmina Rottemeyer loathes the military, despises men, and passionately believes on one thing and one thing only: personal power. What she wants to do with it is simple: force the United States to conform to her vision of a just and perfect society, one where political correctness has become law, where one can be charged with "emotional terrorism" for protesting in front of abortion clinics, where the Surgeon General and the EPA have police forces to ensure compliance with the no-smoking and save-the-whales laws. At the same time, Rottemeyer is cynical beyond belief, she would stop at nothing to achieve her goals even though she sneers at the pathetic gullibility of many who support her. When her cabal is in the Oval Office, she loses no time to initiate her sweeping reforms: federally controlled health care, education, and whatnot.

One should not take Kratman too seriously here in the sense that this sort of thing is clearly a stretch. Oh, I have no doubt about the political clout of the PC clout (I am an academic, after all) but I just doubt that it can get that bad. Really. Kratman describes officers from law enforcement agencies like the FBI, BATF and such blindly following orders, firing on civilians, murdering hundreds, perhaps thousands of fellow Americans. I don't know about that. I know the suspicion comes from the notion that since these are feds, they have no local roots (like cops, for example) and they can be counted on to act like the Waffen-SS, at the very least. But Kratman cannot simply transplant what worked in Germany with its strong tradition of authoritarian rule where a desperate population might support a racist agenda and think that it will work in a fundamentally liberal society like this one without some coercion. But the US is at peace, it is relatively prosperous, and so the only reason is ideological fervor, which the PC movement may generate but not to that massive murderous extent required to support tactics like these.

Kratman then pictures the military as a noble but politically besieged organization which is torn between following dubious federal orders and siding with people who embrace most of its own values. As a career military professional, Kratman has justifiable pride in the service and I've no doubt that mutiny is what a government should expect if it ever attempts to sic it on its own citizens. Well, unless they are raging lesbians perhaps. However, this contrast between the basically good army and the fundamentally evil special federal police troops reminds me very much of the whitewash that the Germans indulged in after the Second World War when they exonerated the Wehrmacht and claimed that it was only the SS that perpetrated genocide and atrocities. (We now know this was not the case. Unfortunately, the Army also took part, often with great enthusiasm.) If one believes Kratman that the feds would be capable of such actions, then one must be a lot less sanguine about what the military would do too. On the other hand, some (like me) believe that in both cases most officers and soldiers would do the right thing.

To move the plot, Kratman imagines a federal attack on a Catholic mission in Texas after its head priest (and Vietnam veteran) refuses to turn over a fellow priest to the murderous agents after him. The attempted arrest turns bloody and the mission ends up getting besieged by the feds. Problem is, there are nearly a hundred children trapped inside. When the attack leads to the death of all besieged, the female governor of Texas essentially declares a state of rebellion. The legislature overturns the federal income tax (pocketing it instead) and seizes the money-printing office in Fort Worth. The White House overreacts and the country moves inexorably toward a new civil war. Unfortunately, Texas stands alone.

As a military man, Kratman's description of the tactical situation is utterly believable. (There's a stab at the recent reforms initiated by the Secretary of Defense, by the way, that were designed to gut the army and turn it into a mobile response force rather than the massive organization that can fight a conventional war with the Red Army. Kratman notes several times, with considerable glee I might add, that the Army cannot handle the Texas National Guard easily because the latter has lots of tanks while the former, having been "modernized," does not.) The Texans fall back, blowing up bridges as they go, trying to draw the advancing Marine and Army units deep into the vast state until their supply lines are so stretched that they can be cut. Simultaneously, the Texans appeal for support to the neighboring states even though only New Mexico responds, the others choosing to see which way the confrontation goes first.

I lived in Texas for four years but as anyone would tell you, once you've been there, it changes you forever. I have also lived in New York and now I am in California, so I have a lot to compare it to as well. I laughed at the Alamo the first time I saw it but I did not really understand what it meant at the time. So the description of the Lone Star state standing, well, alone against the wrath of the federal government resonated deeply with me. The notion of its residents taking to their previously buried guns (to escape high pro gun-control taxes) is not far-fetched at all, no matter what someone from a communist state on the East or West coasts might think. Kratman's multi-POV chronicle simply cannot be put down, as he switches from the governor, to her military men, to the White House, to the advancing troops, and so on. On the other hand, there are some ill-advised "innovations". I am not even going to comment on the political commissars the feds sent the Army to ensure the reliability of the officers (this he borrowed from the Soviets, by the way, and it was disastrous there as well).

And yet the narrative is often very weak, marred by the desire to make sure that everyone understands who the good guys are and who their enemies must be. He gives absolutely no redeeming values to anyone in Rottemeyer's circle, including the President herself. They sneer at the simple folk (I am sure that's what many think politicians do anyway), they are so utterly ruthless and manipulative that Machiavelli to them is what Mother Theresa is to Stalin. Kratman is at pains to show that many of the left-wing platitudes they spout are nothing to them. This caricature makes the novel very hard to swallow at times (unfortunately, most rabid left-wingers I know actually sincerely believe their dogma). This is not helped by the truly awful writing in which these descriptions are usually couched.

Examples? How about "To Ms. Wilhelmina Rottemeyer, President-Elect of the United States of America, the sound [of her adulating supporters] was orgasm. Never in her life had a thrusting man entering her body given her such a glorious feeling" (p.7). I could write a fascinating neo-Freudian analysis of Kratman's choice of words here but I won't. Let's just say that it goes downhill from here, with the President banging her Chairperson (!) of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with the director of the FBI (another woman) shouting "I don't care about the kids... I don't care about any outmoded, patriarchal Catholic church" (57), with the President's "flush of indignation—not at McCreavy [her lover], no never!—but at the narrow-minded, patriarchal men who ran her armed forces and failed to recognize their place in the world... and her own" (60), and so on. Really. Bad. Fucking. Writing. And I ain't no patriarch either.

In the end, Kratman's vision summarizes what might happen if every conservative's nightmares came true: women, preferably lesbians, running the country, demolishing the military, putting everyone on the dole (which, of course, does not work and just creates misery for honest working stiffs), then running amok implementing their idea of government-mandated uniform morality and ethics, a perverse system of values where the gay community trumps god-fearing patriots. All of this should be taken as the meat of a futuristic novel. The point is not that it will come to pass, not even that extrapolating current trends would get us there. The point is to exaggerate and thereby help people focus on some pernicious aspects of some ideas currently guiding the left here. Unfortunately, to be truly effective, a political manifesto has to have some ring of truth to it. By making the conservatives universally good, Kratman glosses over many of the problems their vision of a just society would create. Ultimately, this dooms the novel: he substitutes the tyranny of the individual state for the tyranny of Washington. I am not sure that's a relief. Unless you live in New Hampshire, that is.

May 24, 2006