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Chaos Angel Spanner
Interlude 12: The Crisis
Interlude 12: The Crisis
If our nation is ever taken over,
it will be taken over from within.
James Madison
it will be taken over from within.
James Madison
the conservative revolution: 25 august 2012. On 25 August 2012, America was murdered by God.
Four years before, the voters of the old Union did the unthinkable: they elected a black man to the position of Great White Father. He was a man of the Christian Left and moderately liberal. President Barack Obama came into office riding the crest of the Democratic tsunami that liberal Americans believed would sweep away the Cold War ancien régime, most recently spearheaded by his openly imperialist, corporatist, and antidemocratic predecessor George W. Bush.
The rest of the world let out a collective sigh of relief. They thought the American Empire would finally be put to an end. They thought wrong.
Even before Election Day 2008, the death plots against him raged. The corporate media bombarded the infosphere with conspiracy theories that claimed that he was not an American but a Kenyan, not an Evangelical Christian but a Muslim, not the Chicago machine politician he actually was but a Satan-worshipping terrorist with no other purpose than to carry out the will of Antichrist Osama bin Laden and destroy America. Dictel Corporation, the world’s largest military conglomerate and the American military’s top contractor in Iraq and Afghanistan, the corporation that served as President Bush’s personal Praetorian Guard, declared war against America.
For an entire month, America waged war against itself. Dictel assembled an army of mercenaries, soldiers, police, and right-wing militiamen to overthrow a United States government that its chairman, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Drake Becket, believed had finally gone too far and now had to be destroyed. The remaining soldiers and police needed the help of millions of armed citizens, liberal as well as conservative, to defeat the threat to America’s freedom. At last, the coup attempt collapsed in time to allow the newly elected Obama to take the oath of office and become President of the United States.
The Corporate and Christian Right went berserk. They refused to accept that a black man could be the Great White Father. They insisted the election was stolen. The liberals, they believed, had stabbed America in the back. To them, America was not a democratic republic, but an empire destined to conquer the world and which was incarnate in a master race. To save America, the “humanistic blasphemy” of democracy had to be destroyed.
As re-election loomed, the New Right unleashed an escalating series of terrorist assaults against their own country. They herded illegal immigrants and dark-skinned citizens into concentration camps. They blew up city halls and public gathering places, assassinated politicians and activists and celebrities, took over the Police Guild by force, seized control of the armed forces for Dictel. Finally, on the fourth anniversary of President Obama’s historic nomination by the Democratic Party, while he presided over a session of Congress during a huge rally on the Mall, Dictel Corporation carpet-bombed the city of Washington. Hundreds of thousands of people were massacred, most of them civilians. The entire Federal Government of the United States of America was destroyed.
Barack Obama would be the last President of the United States.
The next day, the Becket brothers of Dictel announced the official establishment of the American Empire in the Holy City of Colorado Springs. They proclaimed Goldman Sachs & Company the Empire’s President and dictator for life. Dictel Corporation would assimilate the former Union armed forces and the nation’s law enforcement agencies. America would be reorganized on the most sacrosanct of American principles: profits over people.
The name of the system: Corporatism.
To ensure that no nonwhite would ever again become Great White Father, they banned all nonwhites from political participation and stripped them of their citizenship. The Becket brothers proclaimed the cult of Anglo-Israelism to be its official ideology. They established the Eugenics Institute and gave it total control over all human mating activities in order to enforce the racial purity of the new Establishment. They absorbed all white Evangelical Christian churches into a new religion called Americanism, or the Church of America, whose central tenet is that the American government is the literal Second Coming of Christ; where “American” used to mean a citizen of the old Union, now it was redefined to mean a white member of the Confederate-American tribe. To impose the political domination of giant corporations onto the whole world, they established the United Corporations (a.k.a. the Cartel) and declared that the UC had now replaced the United Nations; Richard Becket, vice chairman of Dictel, became its first Chairman and the president of the World Bank.
The war cry of the Cartel: The Public Be Damned!
Today, few believe anymore that humanity has a future. A new species has risen, the Corporations, to replace us. In them, the Gods have taken flesh; to them, their creator race, the species that once hailed themselves as the lords of all creation, are little more than puny hairless monkeys. The Gods have returned in power, and their destiny is the conquest of the universe. They are the Gods of Power, and their will is dominion without limit.
But some shamans, seers, and magicians claim that not all the gods have taken Corporate form. They believe that the more enlightened deities have incarnated in human form. These, they say, are the Gods of Light, whose will is enlightenment and the evolution of the human species.
When America was destroyed, Lya Cassir, a onetime government agent who had turned against the Empire, vanished in the devastation. During the short age of Wikileaks, she cofounded with her young wife Alex de Lacey the hacker activist group that became known as the Wrecking Krewe. With them on the Mall that horrific day were the twins Shira and Kira Thomas, whom they loved so much that they wanted to adopt them away from their own parents. Alex and Shira survived; Lya and Kira perished.
Or did they? No remains that could be identified even by DNA analysis were ever found...
Let us not establish a tyranny.
That promotes rebellion.
Alexander Hamilton
That promotes rebellion.
Alexander Hamilton
the monkeywrench cometh: 1 april 2014. Nightfall on the suburban western fringe of Metropolitan Seattle, the farthest distance across Puget Sound from the heart of the city. Bremerton, one of the oldest towns on the Westside, has been developing a heart of its own. But that heart has a disease at its core. Construction of the long-derelict forty-floor Dictel Tower, tallest building in the city, is now complete. Tonight, it opens.
Camdrones swarm the city center like killer bees waiting to strike; black helicopters flock overhead like savage rocs hunting human prey. For Dictel Corporation is the most hated of all the world’s predatory Corporations: it is the world’s largest military-defense-security conglomerate. If the World Bank is the cold black heart of the United Corporations cartel, Dictel is its brutal fist. Dictel’s presence, poised to strike at the heart of Metropolitan Seattle like a giant viper, threatens the very existence of the City. Dictel is everywhere, and it’s out to get you.
Spotlights scour the night from the fortieth floor, reaching out over the naval base it overlooks. Inside the secure capsule atop the building, the Corporatist lords of Cascadia ceremonially open the citadel of the fist of the Conservative Revolution. Their enemies, the people, call these men the Fearsome Foursome:
- Prince James Walter Brinkman of Dictel, Incorporated: chairman, chief executive officer, and sole owner of the Cascadia Public Management Corporation (CPMC), which was personally appointed governor of Cascadia by President Goldman Sachs & Company
- Admiral Alan James Fleer: Fleet Admiral of the Imperial American Navy appointed supreme commander of the North Cascadia Fleet headquartered at Naval Base Bremerton for his personal, financial, and criminal contributions to the Conservative Revolution
- Shepherd-Mayor Ward Tremayne: ordained minister of the Church of America, appointed Mayor of Metropolitan Seattle by President Goldman Sachs & Company
- Prince John Cameron Becket of Dictel, Incorporated: vice president in charge of the Cascadia section of the Consolidated Police Corporation (COPCO), appointed regional Inquisitor by his aunt, Princess Drusilla Ann Becket Thorndyke Thomas Wilkinson Brinkman Draper Pernell, Incorporated, Supreme Shepherd of the Church of America in Cascadia
- Col. Thomas Drake Becket: retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, architect of the Conservative Revolution that overthrew American democracy, and Chief Executive Officer of Dictel
- Richard Astor Becket: chairman of the World Bank and Chief Financial Officer of Dictel
- Dr. Charles Henry Becket: founder and director of the federal Department of Homeland Security’s experimental Crime Prevention Division, codeveloper (with his mentor, Dr. Henry A. Murray) of the infamous American torture-interrogation system, and Chief Officer in Charge of Human Resources at Dictel
Brinkman, a large and brutish-looking man with a thick black beard, bows before the King and holds out his wand bearing the insignia of his office: “Hail to Your Imperial Highness, Lord of Light and Dispeller of Darkness!”
Fleer, a large and intimidating former weightlifting champion, kneels and holds out his wand. “Hail to Your Imperial Majesty, Protector of the Dominion of Light!”
Tremayne, a middling and mediocre man possessed by holy hatred, kneels and holds out his wand. “Hail to Your Imperial Holiness, Lord of the World and establisher of the Millennium of the Dominion of Jesus America, the one and only God!”
Becket, a thuggish Dictel ex-mercenary sporting an eyepatch, kneels and holds out his wand. “Hail to Your Imperial Highness, Lord of Order and Conqueror of the Nations of the World!”
The Corporate and Confederate elite attending the ceremony hail King Patriot with a collective shout.
In the streets below, screaming police cars screech off Burwell Street onto Park Avenue. Watching them from the overlook on the twenty-third floor, the wife of a Dictel executive not elite enough to attend the ritual within the citadel above tells her husband, “I wonder what they’re all worked up about.”
The executive replies confidently, “Have faith in our police, love. Whatever it is, they’ll take care of it.”
“You sound awfully confident about that.”
Behind the group of middle-management revellers, Lieutenant Commander Prince William Jay Becket of Dictel, Incorporated, Navy SEAL and Delta Force commander for the event, suddenly appears as if out of nowhere. “I wouldn’t count on that if I were you.”
His appearance shocks the guests. “You’re Prince William Becket!” cries out one executive.
“We are protected!” exclaims another.
“Jesus America is watching over us! America bless God!” squeals another. He bows down and kisses Will’s feet in worship.
“I’m afraid,” sighs Will, “that those local police types could never stand a chance against a real threat.”
The first executive’s wife wonders, “Commander, what would you define as a ‘real’ threat?”
Will replies sarcastically, “I’m astonished you cannot tell the difference.”
In the alley up the hill, past Pacific Avenue and closer to the waterfront, a helmeted figure with a hoverboard slung over his shoulder tags the back of a building with his insignia, a badge-shield shape overlaid with crossed wrenches and an Old English “S”. The helmet’s heads-up display shows the tagger the locations of all the surveillance cameras and RFID spychips in the city. An analytical says, “Warning, camdrones approching at nine o’clock.”
“Thank you, Option,” says the tagger in a low female voice. “Switch cloak on.”
His (or her?) view changes subtly. The words “CLOAKING ON” appear on the HUD.
A camdrone approaches. It does not notice the cloaked figure as it descends. When it gets too close, it gets a dose of spray paint in its lens. Blinded, it flies erratically into a wall; it takes damage as it pinballs off the buildings.
The police cars speed into the alley and skid loudly to a stop, barely avoiding a pileup. Uniformed local police and men-in-black FBI counterterror specialists swarm out of their cars and up the alley. Last to leave is Agent Diana Shockley, who casually leaves the back seat of a police cruiser wearing FBI windbreaker and cap. She is really Princess Diana Andrea Becket of Dictel, Incorporated, but she hides her royal name behind the long-bearded Patriot Country singer and Confederate League baseball player she married.
The tagger appears down the alley just so the cops can see him. One local cop points at him and shouts, “There he is! That’s him!” He runs up the alley toward the waterfront; a crowd of cops armed with tasers and sonic disruptors follow in pursuit. Then as suddenly as he appears, he vanishes. The cops gasp together in collective shock.
One cop points to the wall near one of the squad cars. “Hey! Take a look at this!” He aims his flashlight at the tag. The cops rush toward the flashlight and surround the tag. The three FBI agents push their way through.
Agent Ogden strokes his chin. “That’s one tag we haven’t seen before.”
Agent Kowalczyk crosses his arms and smirks. “Oughta add it to my collection.”
“A tagger with a cloaking device?”
“Must be the hot new thing in the underworld these days.”
Agent Shockley studies the tag carefully. “Crossed monkeywrenches, of course.”
“Then why the ‘S’?” asks Ogden.
“I’m guessing it’s what he wants us to call him. ‘S’ is the first letter of ‘Spanner.’”
A nation which does not know what it was yesterday,
does not know what it is today.
Woodrow Wilson
does not know what it is today.
Woodrow Wilson
the fearsome foursome: 5 november 2014. After the Conservative Revolution of 2012 overthrew the American government and forcibly annexed Canada to the Union, the new régime established the new state of Cascadia out of western Washington and Oregon and southwestern British Columbia, as an Indian reservation for liberals.
As a safeguard against democratic restoration, the Conservative Revolutionary Party instituted a new restricted citizenship policy. Citizenship no longer belongs to individuals, but to clans, defined as absolute monarchies whose leader is officially designated “patriarch.” Shortly after the coup, a Cascadian clan named Richter-Thomas democratically voted to abolish the patriarchy the Party had imposed on it and grant equal status to all family members of legal age. In response, the Party revoked the Richter-Thomases’ citizenship and voting rights — which is to say, they were denied Party membership, which they fought against in the first place. A majority of Cascadian and Californian families followed suit, so that most citizens of the States of Cascadia and California are not citizens of the United States and vice versa. Corporations of sufficient size and Social Darwinist ruthlessness to join the United Corporations cartel, of course, get automatic Party membership and therefore American citizenship.
The ruling Corporate caste had a new federal law passed redefining marriage as an agreement between two patriarchs and the Party in which one patriarch sells his daughters to the highest bidding patriarch so that the high bidder can take ownership of the bride on behalf of one of his male descendants, or for himself, for the sole purpose of eugenically correct procreation; to this end, the Cartel and the Party established the Eugenics Institute, which performs the acquisitions, as they are called in Corporate caste jargon, and supervise all subsequent procreation. The law
To consolidate its hold on the minds of its subjects, the Party abolished Christianity and declared the national civil religion to be its successor. According to the new established state church, the Church of America, the Second Coming occurred when Jesus made the United States Federal Government its body on July 4, 1776. Its position as official religion is mercilessly enforced by its terrorist religious police, the Church’s own Minuteman Patriotic Crusade and the Eugenics Institute’s Moral Enforcement Crusade. Party membership and Church membership are the same. Non-membership is defined as “treason,” Party jargon for heresy. Infidels and the eugenically incorrect are not tolerated.
Technically, the State of Cascadia and its subsidiary corporations, the counties and municipalities, are public corporations in which any person of legal age can buy one voting share, but organizations (such as corporations and clans) can’t. In practice, the federal government controls it through a martial-law dictatorship contracted out to the privately owned Cascadia Public Management Corporation (contemptuously called “out-of-state management” by the resentful locals), which in turn contracts out enforcement of federal laws and CPMC regulations to another out-of-state enterprise, the private law enforcement corporation COPCO. Against CPMC’s explicit ban, the State of Cascadia recently held an election in which the voting shareholders fired CPMC and COPCO and elected new public officials, democratically and therefore by federal law illegally. The two corporations refused to leave power, so newly elected attorney general Angela Coyne immediately instituted a “poison pill” policy to drive out CPMC, COPCO, and other out-of-state entities such as the Standard Oil Company (Esso), weapons and mercenary corporations such as Dictel and the formerly local Boeing, and the House of Brinkman to which CPMC’s chief executive officer, J. Walter Brinkman, belongs (and which he rules as acting patriarch).
Federal law mandates absolute drug prohibition on the same principles of Social Hygiene as the Corporate-biased eugenics policy. This serves to empower several underground corporations, called Syndicates, which use violence as a standard business practice. On the West Coast, the largest of these is the most violent, the Klownz led by the humorless Jokester, which control the market in methamphetamine and its more noxious derivatives, androgenic steroids, and PCP. Their main market rivals are the foreign Syndicate known as Los Punkz. Al-Qaeda, the ruling party of the enemy Islamist Caliphate, has a lock on the world heroin trade. The people know the Syndicates by the evil word “gangs” and use ethnic slurs to identify them by tribe.
After Cascadia was established, the cultures of Cascadia and America began to diverge so radically that the Cascadians began to consider their state a colony ruled by aliens. Chief among these aliens are the men who constitute the Synarchy of Cascadia, called the Quadrumvirate but better known as the Fearsome Foursome. Their current lineup:
J. Walter Brinkman, Chairman and CEO of CPMC. He strives to carry out the American ideal of privately owned government in a hostile land which prefers the un-American heresy of democracy. Naturally, when CPMC was officially fired by the democratic vote of the State of Cascadia’s shareholders, Brinkman brushed it off and continues to rule as if no election was ever held, which officially (i.e., according to CPMC management) it did not. However, his life is now complicated by a granddaughter of his, Leila Renata Shelley, who reacted to his agreement with Biotron chairman Lars Thorwald to marry her to his son Oliver by publicly murdering both Thorwald and his son, and vowing to murder Brinkman himself. To further her apostasy and crime, she has illegally and immorally taken a lesbian lover, Shira Thomas, who has vowed to destroy CPMC itself, and who recently led the biggest run on CPMC stock in the company’s history.
John Cameron Becket, COPCO Cascadia Division vice president, major shareholder, and board member. Cousin to the CPMC CEO, he serves as CPMC liaison and strives to impose CPMC’s will upon the state. His role is complicated by the presence in Seattle of his mortal enemies (mutual cousins to him and Brinkman), Charlotte and Desiree Richter-Thomas, who personally vowed long before the coup to make his life a living hell, and their younger sister Shira Thomas (not a cousin), who has vowed to drive COPCO out of Cascadia altogether.
Randolph G. Litton, CPMC’s new Chief Operating Officer and Vice President for Public Relations. His place in the Foursome is normally reserved for the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces Cascadia Command; but Admiral Alan J. Fleer is dead, murdered in a sex scandal involving the sexcrimes of adultery and incest, and whose aspiring successors are currently engaging in vicious infighting. Litton is the master of propaganda, but he recently met his match in none other than Shira Thomas and her cousin (and lover) Jennifer Blair, who just happens to be trained stage magicians.
Peter Q. Ross, CEO of the former Seattle Public Education Corporation, and now of the Seattle Urban Management Corporation (SUMC) that has taken it over. President Goldman Sachs is about to appoint SUMC as permanent mayor, making Ross the successor to deceased Shepherd-Mayors Ward Tremayne and Luke Everson in the Quadrumvirate. His mission: keep power out of the hands of the “filthy rabble” by any means necessary. The great obstacles in his way: Hope Maureen Reston, whom he personally fired as president of the Teachers Guild’s Seattle local and who now intends to replace SUMC as Mayor herself; her cousin, that most formidable of anti-Party lawyers, Angela Coyne; and her daughter, none other than Shira Thomas, the destroyer of SPEC.
The man who is not here intends to overthrow the Quadrumvirate by force and make himself sole dictator: Byron Herbert Scofield, Prophet of the Church of America in Cascadia. The Prophet’s role is to enforce the will of the Church on all. In this case, the will of the Church is the whim of its notoriously narcissistic Chief Shepherd, Drusilla Becket AMERICA! (the aunt of Walter Brinkman and John Becket, and mother of the Richter-Thomas sisters). Unlike his deceased predecessors, Ward Tremayne and Luke Everson, he does not have control over the Metropolitan City of Seattle, yet unlike them he holds the title of Prophet. He developed his power base by building a megachurch within the City of Seattle itself and parlayed it into political power. Problem is, the more powerful he gets, the more the predominantly (and ever more militantly) secular people of that notoriously liberal city hate him. And since his accession to power, a certain sex-warrior camgirl who calls herself Rebel Styles has gone out of her way to torment him...
Four dangerous, ruthless, and misanthropic men. Behind them, a narcissistic and power-hungry high priestess and the power of the Royal House of Cromwell Becket. Allied with them, the Kingdoms of Texas and New Israel in the American South. Against them, countless men of ambition. Against them all, the democratic people of the State of Cascadia, and of California south of it. The situation cannot hold for long. Sooner or later, things are bound to explode...
None are more hopelessly enslaved than those
who falsely believe that they are free.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
who falsely believe that they are free.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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