Tag Archives: evil

Democracy, Fascism, Trump – and Evil

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Diana and I were back in Portland, with Lucien, Peter, Saul, and family – trying to avoid talking politics. I have been working in the Reed College Library, where so much of State Change was written more than a year ago. Lucien, Peter, and I had a lunch discussion in the Reed Student Commons.

 

“Did you see that full page ad, in today’s Times?” Peter asked.

“Not yet, go on,” I said.

“It’s by a group called refusefascism.org , arguing for a month of resistance, ‘reaching a crescendo by the Jan.20, 2017 Inauguration’.”

“Who’s behind it?”

“A few names I recognize: Cornell West, Bill Ayers, Alice Walker. It doesn’t seem to be connected with the Women’s March.”

“There’s been a lot on the web,” Lucien added, “saying don’t rationalize or give Trump the benefit of the doubt, don’t cooperate, don’t back off – protest, make noise, get involved.”

“Remember the poster on the door at Mississippi Pizza the other night?” I asked. “It defined the place as a safe house, a safe place – inclusive and welcoming all.”

“Yes, that’s going on all over Portland,” Peter added.

“And Seattle – all along the West Coast.”

“And Jerry Brown’s taken a very strong position on rights and the environment – California will ignore Federal actions against the environment and human rights.”

“The good news is Trump’s no Hitler,” I suggested. “Hitler wrote a real book, had a real philosophy, had a vision and plan – albeit demented and evil.”

“Didn’t Brooks have a good take on Trump the other day?” Lucien asked.

“Yes,” I said. “I captured his quotes – just a second.” I opened my new rose pink 2 pound MacBook and read:

“[Trump] has no experience being accountable to anybody. …His statements should probably be treated less like policy declarations and more like Snapchat. They exist to win attention at the moment, but then they disappear.”

“Hitler wasn’t accountable to anyone either – if someone got in his way, he just eliminated them,” Peter said.

“He could’ve been taken out,” I said. “I just read a book titled To Kill the Devil – on the many attempts to assassinate Hitler. He had several very close calls.”

“His death would have changed history in a very positive direction,” Peter said.

“Death is a very effective means,” I suggested, “if it’s accomplished early enough that the victim doesn’t become a martyr.”

“If the death is perceived as ‘accidental’ rather than as an assassination, then martyrdom is an unlikely outcome.”

We all nodded in agreement.

Lucien had to go to his soccer game. Peter and I walked through the Chemistry Building, looking for the box of chemical waste he deposited on the second floor now some 18 months ago. It was gone.

I went back to the library – there was work to do.

 

 

 

Treating Trump? State Change II?

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We needed to talk. We needed self-therapy. Jay was depressed. Bill was despondent. I was in tears thinking of my granddaughters and the billions of others who would need to survive on an increasingly destroyed planet.

Diana and I were in Monterey for several weeks, escaping Salt Lake City’s cold and its winter air inversions and polluted air. Thanks, gods, for Skype.

Bill and Jay were at the Roasting Company, in a second floor secluded corner. I was in a corner of Book Works Cafe in Pacific Grove. We decided earlier to give Trump the benefit of our doubts – for a few weeks. That time was now over.

 

“It’s all over the Net now,” Bill started. “Tillerson is the international oil dealmaker par excellence – and knows Putin well. As Trump’s new Secretary of State he could lift the economic sanctions on Russia, allowing a whole new level of deals for Siberian oil.”

“And thus for creaming the planet,” Jay groaned. “… our worst fears – the worst scenario imaginable.”

“Yes, horrible for the planet – both physically and humanistically,” I added. “Cheap Siberian oil, with the backing of Russia and the USA, could flood the market, economically devastating the Middle East, Nigeria, and Canada.”

“And the Secretary of State orchestrates the whole transformation – from deals to production, sales, and economic devastation.”

“A new world order,” Bill said. “Exactly what Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bolton, and Bush wanted – but via oil rather than war.”

“Dollars for ISIS and Al Qaeda dry up. Saudi Arabia goes under – or gets transformed via a new Arab ‘Spring’ – also Iran.”

“Another Nobel Peace Prize!” Jay noted.

“Not a bad plan,” I smiled, “were it not for the death of the Planet as a side effect.”

“But as global warming isn’t really real, it isn’t a concern for climate deniers and agnostics – certainly not for Trump, Putin, or even Tillerson.”

“The melting of the tundra, the massive release of ancient trapped methane, the leaks and fires due to tundra-disrupted oil pipelines – all collateral damage on the way to a new world order, controlled by powerful white guys, of European ancestry.”

“Hitler would have loved it, assuming Germany’s chemical industry played a leading role.”

 
We looked at each other, via Skype.

 
“I’m not sure Ananda’s Chocolates are up to the task,” Bill offered. “We tried that – and many of those we treated are back, their old ideologies and prejudices intact.”

“Agreed. We have to use more effective, more permanent, means – but perhaps we can use Ananda’s approach as a ‘cover’,” I suggested. “Not MDMA; something more powerful, more effective.”

“You do mean lethal, don’t you?” Jay asked. “Assassination?”

“That’s real exorcising of evil,” Bill smiled, “but without drones.”

“And it shouldn’t be instantaneous. It should play out over several days, perhaps appear like a bad pathogen,” Jay suggested. “That way there might be publicity, incitement of fear, concern for God’s wrath, etc.”

“Diana and I saw another Sherlock Holmes video the other night, where he was apparently afflicted with Sumatran River Virus – death in three days.”

“Viral chocolates, with a little LSD thrown in – to facilitate visions, hallucinations.”

“I think we have a plan,” I concluded. “Treating Trump – Exorcizing Evil.”

 

 

Midwest Book Review, Diane Donovan, Aug., 2016

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Reviewed by D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer

Midwest Book Review (Aug., 2016)

 

State Change – A Chemical Fantasy

Joe Andrade

Andrade Self-Publishing

978-1-4951-9851-9

Price: $0.00 (Free) – only available online. Bound book copies available from author, for free, to qualified reviewers and libraries.

Website: www.statechange.us

 

Novels typically do not contain manifestos – but State Change incorporates both. In a future world gone mad (a world akin to our own), the very boundaries of social and political process are tested as humanity’s trials and errors demand that traditional leadership be rebuilt and replaced.

 

But how do rulers and leaders evolve beyond preset assumptions which are contributing to the fall of mankind? Replacements take time and are likely to arrive contaminated by the same perceptions as their predecessors. There’s only one quick solution: change the mindsets of existing world leaders through chemistry. This approach is not only in the public interest. It’s in the interest of humanity’s survival.

 

This is the basic concept of this quasi-novel, in a nutshell. It’s time to sit back and enjoy the ride through the process (and ultimately, the call to action) that blends the forms of a novel and a social statement in State Change.

 

In the opening act, the state of the nation is deteriorating, the planet is falling apart, and change must happen if humanity is to survive. “The Challenge” opens with the narrator’s introduction to political interests and the basic foundations of the concept of “State Change”, which are built and explored throughout the events that transpire.

 

How can revolutions be engineered? How do belief systems evolve, and how do social and political circles support them? What are the failings of education and awareness when faced with entrenched dogma and blind ideologies?

 

Even though the word ‘fantasy’ is in this book’s subtitle, readers shouldn’t expect work of traditional fantasy or entertainment here. State Change is about how real change occurs at its most fundamental levels, the barriers to realization and effective evolution, and the efforts of individuals to transcend the juggernaut of political ineffectiveness. As such, it’s a serious work that blends ideology with a dose of fiction that revolves around Utah protagonists and their daring attempts to not just change, but transform the world into something better.

 

State Change is no light production. It demands a higher level of thought, political and social interest from its readers, and not a little acceptance of some radical ideas about chemistry’s applications in the name of lasting solutions that belays the usual intention of a novel to entertain in some manner.

 

There’s a solid coverage of history along the way, analysis of political process, and the growing conviction of a myriad of characters who envision a new world evolving from the virtual end of civilization as we know it. As chapters rush through a mix of familiar-sounding modern dilemmas and futuristic concerns, they come steeped in much research and explanation and thus require slow reading and time for contemplation as they present a satisfying blend of complex activist and scientific concerns with characters concerned about changing the world in the best possible way.

 

There is no competitor to State Change. It stands in a class by itself (one perhaps occupied by Huxley, Vonnegut, and other authors of classics on social change) in presenting a different kind of futuristic possibility that rises from the ashes of the Koch Brothers and other political special interests familiar in today’s world.

 

Discriminating fiction readers with a penchant for more than entertainment will relish its approach, diversity, and complex observations on the processes and challenges of mental enhancement.

 

Coal Reality Anxiety Evil Witches

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More coffee talk – this time in the cafe at The Leonardo.

“You made it to the BLM coal lease moratorium hearing?” Bill asked.

“Yes – over 500 people – standing room only,” I answered.

“And most of them were yellow t-shirted miners from Utah’s coal country,” Jay added.

“Yes, miners, drivers, family, local business people. The mining-impacted communities were well represented.”

“The picture I saw in the paper had some 400 or so of the total in yellow t-shirts.”

“That’s about right,” I said. “And perhaps 2/3 of the over 100 three minute talks were to release the moratorium on coal leases – and to blame Obama, Interior, and the BLM for their ‘war on coal’.”

“The Governor and his team – and the Congressmen – still don’t realize that the entire fossil fuel economy is changing,” Bill said. “Rather than do anything to help those impacted by the change, they look for excuses and scapegoats.”

“They look for – and invent – witches,” Jay said. “And their patriarchal, self-righteous, arrogant attitude convinces those impacted miners to also seek witches: Obama, Sally Jewel.”

“All that patriarchy breeds arrogance, which fuels ignorance – and denial,” I said.

“That sounds like a great title for an op-ed,” Bill said, smiling.

“I think I’d add EVIL to the title. Their ignorance and denial really does make them evil, in my estimation. They sit there collecting their salaries and donations, and the poor miners and drivers in Central and Eastern Utah become more afflicted with anxiety, fear – even depression.”

“That makes them – the Governor, Legislature, Congressional do-nothing delegation – evil in my book.”

“Mine, too,” Bill concluded.