The Book I Threw Away
A memory flashed through my mind the other day, and I was alert enough to catch it. That alone is such an accomplishment I should just end this post now while I'm ahead.
In the late 1990s I began exploring writing fiction as a form of therapy. Write what you know, so I wrote about a terrorist attack designed to force the US back into isolation. The title was Ascher to Ashes; the title character died on page two. The plot: Well-to-do young Muslims radicalized by a few hatred-dripping religious leaders come to the US, take flying lessons, then hijack large jetliners to crash them into the Statue of Liberty and the Washington Monument. Nobody ever connects the plot to a sitting US Vice President of unnamed political affiliation.
I sent the manuscript to several authors I knew, as well as a couple of former colleagues in the hidden arts. Every one of them told me it was preposterous, the plot had no credibility, I should just trash the manuscript. I did. Two years later, one fine September morning ...
Prophetic Fiction
I recently finished reading a fictional book, Rigged, by James Rosone. It was published May 18, 2019. It illustrated many ways in which a U.S. election could be subverted by a foreign power, including both ballot harvesting and recruitment of postal workers whose routes included nursing homes and similar. The use of violence leading up to the election and manipulation of software to alter votes by small amounts per precinct in key states. Adding voters to rolls that already have more registered voters than citizens. Actual collusion with a group of powerful globalists and one corrupt US politician of unnamed party. Interception of mail-in ballots sent to people who had moved or died. There was more. The commonality in all of the practices was that an audit trail was difficult or impossible to establish.No massive conspiracy nor army of millions was needed. The country was China.
The author appears to have a right-wing agenda, which will be others' first observation, so I may as well make it myself. I do not know how to assemble a cabal of globalists, but with the resources of a nation-state I could figure it out. Finding a corrupt US politician of either major party is an easy day's work. The individual actions undertaken are all realistically portrayed, and can be accomplished with fewer than twenty people to include inciting the violence.
Why
None of this proves anything. The novel is a work of fiction; it may be a roadmap to what I want, which isn't proof that the election was or was not fraudulent. It's identifying how fraud might enter the system, and why audit trails are so important in elections. We can then cover those leaks, and look for new ones. That should be a priority in restoring our country's faith in our elections.
That is quite stunning.
I think what people don't understand is that it just takes finding the people with stones enough to carry out the unimaginable. Someone imagined it and made it real. Story of civilization, for good and ill.
(Geez, Bill!)