All posts by Machine Trooper

A Desert Called Peace

October 9, 2014 Machine Trooper 4 Comments

I haven’t read much science fiction in the last several years. I knew there must be some good sci-fi being published somewhere…I just hadn’t found any for quite a while. When I saw the cover for Tom Kratman’s The Rods and the Axe, I had to say, “Hmm…”

Someone advised me that I should read the Carrera series in sequence, and the first one in the series was free, so no risk, right?

Kratman sets out an alternate history post-9/11, but chose an interesting method to present it.

A space probe discovers a wormhole (or something like that) to another solar system, where there is a planet just as delicately balanced as Earth is (read that: able to sustain human life). Colonization begins. Then, partly by design, partly by accident (coincidence? Cosmic symmetry? The manipulation of Galactus?), the geopolitical landscape on Terra Nova turns out nearly identical to Earth’s in the 20th Century.

I think reading the series in sequence was good advice. By doing so it was easy to grasp that FSC=USA; Taurus=Europe; Volga=Russia; Balboa=Panama, the Great Global War=WWII, etc. I didn’t know whether to groan or to chuckle at references like “Operation Green Fork” and “Amnesty Interplanetary.”

Carrera (whose real name is Hennesey) is a veteran of Green Fork who remained in Balboa afterward. When his family is wiped out in the 9/11ish attacks, he is presented a unique opportunity for revenge. He builds a de facto private army in Balboa, and obtains a contract to assist the FSC in their War on Terror.

Much of the book focuses on the building of this army. The rank and unit structure is based on the Roman model–legions, cohorts, centuries, etc. The rest of the book illustrates a better way to have conducted the occupation of Iraq. This was interesting, and enough effort was put into Carrera’s character that it never devolved into a field manual.

While the average writer tends to highlight the use of torture to get information from terrorists, and use it to horrify the reader, a few writers take pains to justify the use of torture in interrogation. Kratman keeps justification to a minimum, but describes the methods just a bit too precisely for the more squeamish readers. Personally, I’ve never been remotely involved with a decision to torture or not; and I’m thankful for that.

The closest I came to irritation was with the sketch of future history on Earth. Specifically, the assumption that the USA as we know it will still exist into the late 21st Century, and will still be a superpower. If this was written soon after the 9/11 attacks, I guess the naive optimism among Neocons would lead to assumptions like this. But these days a person has to really be blind to make such a forecast.

Oh, and speaking of naivete`: the theatrical gimmick used to embarrass the bleeding-heart from Amnesty Interplanetary would have SOOOOOO backfired. I found the concept silly to begin with–like a plan hatched by the Little Rascals or something. And the success of the whole venture hinges on the integrity of the press. In other words: epic fail. Since when does the press let something as trivial as the truth keep them from pushing a narrative they endorse? And you just handed them video footage on a silver platter!

As a set-up to a series, Desert Called Peace was effective. I’ve already got the second book, Carniflex. I’ll see how things progress.

Action, Adventure, Non-Fiction/Documentary, Superhero

Action-Adventure and Feminism Part 2

October 7, 2014 Machine Trooper 1 Comment

We are currently inundated with Amazon superninjas in action-adventure, whether it be on the big screen, small screen, printed page or videogame. And not just action-adventure anymore, either. As mentioned in Part One, this feminist myth has obviously become a de facto requirement for any form of entertainment aimed at an ostensibly male audience.

Where did it all start?

It’s no mistake that I refer to these characters as “Amazon superninjas.” You can trace this fetish back to the Amazon stories in Greek mythology. A lot can be analyzed on this subject, but one aspect I’ll point out before moving on is that this mythical race of women warriors lived in an all-female civilization. The only men they allowed into their culture were male slaves, for breeding purposes.

Fast forward to the 20th Century, and along comes a psychologist in the early 1940s, by the name of William Moulton Marston. Though no state allowed such arrangements to be called “marriage” back during his time, he lived in a menage a trois with two women–one his legal wife; the other a former student.

The late ’30s and early ’40s are known as the Golden Age of comic books. Superman came on the scene in 1938, and inspired a boom in comic book heroes. Another cultural phenomenon had infested society during the Depression years, evidently (though far more surreptitiously): bondage and female domination.

Here’s something Marston wrote:

“The only hope for peace is to teach people who are full of pep and unbound force to enjoy being bound… Only when the control of self by others is more pleasant than the unbound assertion of self in human relationships can we hope for a stable, peaceful human society… Giving to others, being controlled by them, submitting to other people cannot possibly be enjoyable without a strong erotic element.”

Because he chose the word “people” instead of “men,” it’s probable that he didn’t just enjoy getting tied up by his live-in mistresses, but enjoyed watching them tie each other up, too.

Like many pied pipers before and since, Marston recognized pop culture as a potential tool for mass indoctrination. He published a couple articles, one of which was titled: “Don’t Laugh at the Comics,” and shortly thereafter was hired by the company which later became DC.

In a 1943 issue of “The American Scholar”, Marston would write:

“Not even girls want to be girls so long as our feminine archetype lacks force, strength, and power.”

Mistress Elizabeth Marston (his legal wife) told Bill to invent a female superhero.

“Women’s strong qualities have become despised because of their weakness. The obvious remedy is to create a feminine character with all the strength of Superman plus all the allure of a good and beautiful woman.”

Whatever else you can call a guy like William Moulton Marston, he was a mangina in his private life and a white knight in his public one. He obediently set forth, with all his psychological weaponry, to advance the cause of Team Womyn.

During the Depression and War years, superhero comic books were read by (and marketed to) primarily pre-adolescent boys. This was the target demographic for Marston’s psycho-cultural conditioning. Here’s a summary of his strategy, from Marston’s own typewriter:

“Give them an alluring woman stronger than themselves to submit to, and they’ll be proud to become her willing slaves!”

After all, Bill was obviously proud of his arrangement with Elizabeth Marston and Olive Byrne.

Marston developed a character he called “Suprema.” He dipped into mythology and pulled out the Amazons. Suprema was from an advanced Amazon civilization, but would become an agent of FDR’s federal government and fight it’s enemies. The name of the Amazon colony would be “Paradise Island.”

If you’ve ever been around a bunch of women living together for any length of time, then you know it’s anything BUT paradise.

Ahem.

Suprema was given a skimpy costume that was scandalous for its time. Though a corset/push-up bra, short-shorts (or a tiny-miniskirt) and tall boots would become fashion for some women half a century later, the only women who wore such an outfit in those days either performed in kinky stag films or posed for kinky stag mags. Bondage toys were added to Suprema’s utilities: slave shackles on her wrists that could deflect bullets, and a magic golden lasso that forced confessions from the person bound by it.

William Moulton Marston adopted the pseudonym Charles Moulton, and changed Suprema’s name, too. The same month that Imperial Japan surprised and devastated the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Wonder Woman was unleashed on the young boys of America.

(Actually, comic books were routinely distributed months before the publication date on the cover, but the significance of that date was too much to go unmentioned.)

There were obvious lesbian/bisexual implications from the beginning, and bondage was a consistent motif. Wonder Woman was regularly either a victim or perpetrator–sometimes both in the same story. Had people in the WWII generation been half as aware of kinky sexual fetishes as they are now, DC could never have gotten away with printing such material for minors.

Early on, a pilot (Steve Trevor) crashed on Paradise Island, and became an ostensible love interest for the butch super-babe. This presented opportunities for gender-role reversal in several comic stories. Trevor often played the part of dude-in-distress, in need of rescue from his dame-in-shining-girdle.

And, of course, each issue with the Amazon princess depicted her physically overpowering men. Even Roman gods were no match for her in combat.

There was an explosion of four-color Amazons during that time (though unlike WW, most weren’t literally Amazons). Writers and artists rushed to bring out Sun Girl, Miss Masque, the Black Cat, the Blonde Phantom, Phantom Lady and Miss America, to name a few. Heroines like Sheena and Rulah brought female domination fantasy to the jungle. Gender-role-reversal and female dominance were common themes with them, too.

But the impact of this character (and the ideology that spawned her) pushed far beyond her short-lived Golden Age comic book imitations. The baby boomers didn’t just embrace the conditioning from New Deal socialist writers in Hollywood and New York; they would grow to take this female supremacy concept to new levels.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Politics/Current Events

The Hypocrisy of the Police State Advocates

September 30, 2014 Machine Trooper 1 Comment

Ever notice how “gun control” advocates always pretend that they’re only violating the Constitution in order to reduce violent crime… yet their efforts are all centered around disarming NON-CRIMINAL American citizens?

Ask one of them why they’re so intent on violating the rights of people who have committed no crimes and they’ll pontificate about how a legally-obtained firearm can find its way into the wrong hands. Therefore ban and confiscate.

Engage that same person in a conversation about how dictatorial powers are (unconstitutionally=illegally) being given to the executive branch of government, and watch their attitude spin 180 degrees.

“Oh, it’s perfectly harmless to consolidate all the powers of a police state into the hands of one person, because only responsible, benevolent, humble idealists will ever be in a position to use them, hence they will only be used for good.”

So as to not cause a coronary event, I’ll just bring up one topic tonight: The National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 (NDAA).

What this illegal legislation does is give the individual in the Oval Office the approval of fellow criminals in Congress and the Courts to indefinitely detain American citizens without trial. (If you don’t speak Legalese, read that: “throw your ass in prison until you die.”)

The wording of the NDAA was left deliberately vague so politicians can interpret it as they see fit. But one listed justification for the Storm Troopers hauling you away to never be seen again is if you’ve committed a “belligerent act.”

Under the rule of law, you’d have the benefit of a jury trial if accused, and a court would have to determine if you committed a “belligerent act.” In a police state, the dude with the power decides whether you’ve been naughty or nice.

Guess which system we have now?

Wanna guess who the globalists had in mind in pushing for this legislation? It wasn’t Islamic terrorists. When asked to define “belligerent act,” the politicians behind the NDAA balked, feigning ignorance. But after it was passed, our benevolent public servants released the START report, which on page 10 tells you who they consider the next terrorists:

Groups or individuals who are “reverent of individual liberty”, “suspicious of centralized federal authority”, who “pay with cash”, “travel illogical distances”, “stockpile food” and so on. 200 other such adjectives are listed that can define you as a suspected terrorist.

Why are militarized police not already kicking in doors and hauling “potential terrorists” away to detainment centers en masse? Because about three percent of the population is both armed and willing to fight the jackbooted goons when that happens.

Any mystery why the police state hypocrites are so worried about weapons in the hands of NON-CRIMINAL American citizens?

Action, Adventure, Politics/Current Events

Action-Adventure and Feminism Part 1

September 25, 2014 Machine Trooper 3 Comments

This year I discovered something called “the Manosphere.” Is it possible to discover something you’re already a part of? Because as near as I can tell, I’ve been part of the Manosphere since starting the Two-Fisted Blog a few years ago. Granted, the 2FB was never about game or gender relations, but it was written by a man, for men, and usually about men. Specifically red-blooded heterosexual men. I’ve never pandered to the feminists on my blog or in my books, nor will I ever. I was a manosphere poet and didn’t know it.

But now I know it.

My epiphany began after hearing the phrase “alpha male” for the umpteen-zillionth time, and deciding to find a definition for it. I got a lot more education than I bargained for. To summarize briefly, there are names for the phenomena and personalities I’ve observed; for the theories I’ve formulated and even some attitudes I’ve adopted. And yet there’s still a lot I had not discovered strictly on my own via the School of Hard Knocks, so other blogs in the Manosphere have been like a crack addiction to me lately. My vocabulary increased overnight to include terms like “white knight,” “mangina” and “NAWALT.”

NAWALT – Not All Women Are Like That. Frequently heard on Manosphere websites, usually used by intruding women or trolls who want to derail an assertion. If only one out of a million women “aren’t like that,” it’s still technically true (but Diogenes wouldn’t waste the lamp oil to go looking for her!).

White Knight – (1) a man who “comes to the rescue” of a woman, or of women, reflexively, emotionally-driven, without thought or even looking at the situation; (2) a man in authority who enables Team Womyn in his legislative actions, judgments, or rulings, reflexively, emotionally-driven, without thought or even looking at what’s right.

Mangina – an unfortunate (in all ways) combination of “man” and “vagina”. Generally used to describe a male person who has left his balls in some woman’s purse.

I’m not going to start blogging sex or dating advice here. But some very astute observations have been made in the manosphere and some of them have helped me put something into perspective. For lack of a better subject heading, I’ll call that something “GENDER BIAS IN POP CULTURE (IN GENERAL) AND ACTION-ADVENTURE MOVIES (IN PARTICULAR).”

Action-adventure has been a predominantly male genre, and marketing gurus will tell you it still is.

In literature it was once labelled “men’s fiction.” This genre disappeared from traditional publishing circa 1990. A handful of authors (including myself) have done our best to resurrect men’s fiction (in various sub-genres) for the last few years. In fact, that was one goal of the Two-Fisted Blog and, now, Virtual Pulp Press.

The obstacles have been large and numerous. One is the astronomical volume of available books in the online age, now that anyone/everyone can get a book published. And does. So just getting a reader to discover a particular book is a significant hurdle. And with so much garbage being published by the aforementioned anyone/everyone, indie authors suffer guilt by association, rendering odds of discovery even worse. There’s an assumption that if the New York Publishing Cartel (NYPC) didn’t publish it, it’s not worth browsing/sampling. And finally, the target audience for the genre (red-blooded heterosexual men), by-and-large, just doesn’t read much anymore… besides Twitter posts and videogame subtitles, anyway.

Men still pay to see action movies, though.

And despite the wives or girlfriends who accompany them to the theater on occasion, nobody disputes the audience for this genre being male at its core.

The genre appeals to traditionally masculine impulses. It was designed to be escapism for males, giving them heroic, masculine role models that, at least subconsciously, men and boys aspire to be. Why then is it absolutely obligatory (so far as film makers are concerned) to have at least one woman in every action movie who is at least as masculine, if not more so, than the hero? (This certainly isn’t limited to the big screen, BTW–you find the same fetish in comic books, videogames and other media, but movies have the largest audience, and this fetish is apparently a requirement in film.)

The motives and reasons behind this are too numerous to document here. What it boils down to is that this convention is one symptom of a feminized culture, in which worldview, opinions and thought patterns are conditioned by pop culture and mass media.

In my aforementioned ~~crack spree~~ intensive research, I discovered two counterculture (or perhaps anti-establishment is a better description) websites: The Rational Male and Return of Kings. If the latter was an automobile, there’s no doubt in my mind it would be festooned with “No Fat Chicks in Bikinis” bumper stickers. But despite the frequent superficiality, and what seems to be a conscious effort on the part of the writers at times to resemble the “sexist pig” stereotype, there are some interesting conclusions reached there. Here’s an excerpt from one of their articles about the myth of “male privelege:”

Women…see media as a source of therapy. …They expect to be able to turn on any media outlet and have their egos massaged. …Of course, ferocity, independence and intelligence are always assumed on the part of the woman. Think about that – female egos are not even worried about actually being smart or tough, as they assume that they are that just by existing.

This assumption is regurgitated in action movies.

The hero in an action movie is nearly always an exceptional man. Often he has undergone extensive training to achieve his level of physical prowess; or sometimes he towers above other men due to superpowers. Traditionally, only the villain mastermind approaches equality with him in unarmed combat…

With the exception of female characters.

A woman can be a waitress, or receptionist, or welfare queen–it doesn’t matter. There’s no necessity of rigorous training or superpowers–the very fact that she has a vagina automatically makes her equal (or superior) to the action hero. Look at the TV portrayals of Lois Lane for the last 20 years, just for one example. She’s such a badass you just know she’d thrash Superman back on Krypton. Bet you didn’t know reporters were one-woman armies, dijja?

In this case it’s not even necessarily women who are dogmatically inserting this female dominance fantasy into action movies. More often it is feminized males (white knights and manginas) behind this overused canard.

Generalship of the Martyr

August 31, 2014 Machine Trooper Leave a comment

It doesn’t take that much military science savvy to look back at Vietnam and decide LBJ was either an incompetent buffoon, or acting on behalf of someone who wanted to give a sterroid shot to the military-industrial complex without actually “halting the spread of Communism” (but simultaneously using that as the excuse).

What a lot of people assume is that, had JFK not been assassinated, Vietnam would have turned out much differently—maybe he would have never even sent combat troops. I used to go along with this assumption.

Now I believe differently.

When you look at the Bay of Pigs debacle honestly and in detail, it’s easy to identify the same kind of decision making that guided our involvement in Vietnam.

Originally the plan to oust Castro from Cuba involved a quiet infiltration in an area where, should the infiltration be discovered, the anti-Castro forces could easily slip into the mountains, from which they could conduct guerrilla operations. This site was also in close proximity to an area with a large population of anti-Castro Cubans who would likely join the guerrillas as they became aware of a resistance movement. In fact, guerrillas were already hiding in the mountains, but without the arms and supplies needed to pose much of a threat to the new dictator.

This plan had a high probability of success, and with little chance of exposure of US involvement. But for some unspecified reason, the plan was radically altered to a WWII-style amphibious assault. And the location chosen for the landing was a beach closer to Castro’s center of power, where the dictator could quickly deploy enough units from his army–including heavy armor–to smash the 1500-man invasion force. The landing area was wedged between the ocean and an unnavigable swamp.

In other words, it was a near-perfect trap. And probability of success had been reduced to less than ten percent.

With this shift to a conventional amphibious invasion by unconventional forces (a recipe for disaster perhaps all by itself), success for the initial stage of the operation would be impossible without complete air superiority. All of Castro’s combat aircraft had to be destroyed on the ground prior to the invasion for there to be any chance for “Brigade 2506” to fight its way out of the Bay of Pigs. Not only that, but they would need their own air cover when Castro’s tanks blocked the only causeways from the landing area through the swamps.

The CIA had trained pilots to fly a squadron of old WWII surplus B-26 bombers to provide the air support needed for the invasion. The entire operation now hinged on the preemptive bombing. So Kennedy reduced the number of bombers to four and limited the targets that could be engaged. Why? Because applying the necessary force for success would be “too noisy” (high profile).

It’s plain to see that, going in, Kennedy was more concerned with the image of his administration than with achieving victory. He also forbid US commanders to support Brigado 2506 with any of the considerable air or naval assets the US had in-theater.

Kennedy’s ludicrous rationale was nothing short of Johnsonesque: The ships transporting the free Cubans were escorted by a flotilla of American destroyers, cruisers, battleships and aircraft carriers. Yet by forbidding those warships to fire a shot Kennedy believed the ships would magically turn invisible and therefore not implicate US involvement?

The only feasible way to keep the operation low-profile with plausible deniability, yet with any hope of success, would have been to stick with the original plan of quiet infiltration.

The Bay of Pigs plan was not one to approve if you truly wanted to stay low-profile. But it was the plan—especially once Kennedy began tampering with it—to sabotage a Cuban-led liberation and ensure there would never again be a serious American effort to oust the Communists on our back door.

There was just too much insanity in too many aspects on too many levels to address in a blog post, but the intelligence failure is noteworthy. About 17 years before this, the greatest amphibious invasion ever attempted, by the greatest armada the world had ever seen, was planned, staged, and executed. Multiple armies from three nations were landed, achieving the element of surprise. Despite the months of planning and the number of people in on the secret, and highly motivated German spies working tirelessly to discover its timing and location, Operation Overlord maintained OPSEC (operational security).

But this little podunk covert op involving not even a full strength brigade–much less a division–was compromised before ever being greenlighted. No less than the New York Times warned the Cubans, Soviets, and the rest of the world about the mission while Brigada 2506 was still training in Guatemala. Other Communist assets filled in the details of the operation for Castro so completely that just prior to the invasion he knew exactly where to find his would-be assassin. (This would be the first of many alleged CIA-backed assassination attempts on Castro so inept as to be suspect.)

Despite the mission being compromised in the preparation stage, JFK said go. The four B-26s attempted the preemptive strike on Castro’s air force. At least three of Castro’s warplanes were relocated to other airfields just prior to the raid, and survived.

Instead of landing on an invasion beach, the landing craft carried Brigado 2506 into a rocky deathtrap where coral reefs ripped open their hulls. Those not injured or killed had to swim, then wade, ashore, losing most of their equipment and ammunition before their feet even touched land. Only a lucky few were on boats that made it to shore intact.

Kennedy cancelled B-26 airstrikes after only two. He was told some of the Cuban warplanes were still operational, but he refused to budge. The logic being, one must assume, that the first two bombings must have gone unnoticed (explosions being so quiet and stealthy, you see), but a third airstrike might tip off the world that something was happening in Cuba.

Incredibly, the bulk of the Brigade’s supplies and ammunition were loaded on a freighter that also carried the troops. One of those Cuban planes, saved from the air strikes, bombed the ship and sank it.

Castro’s forces were ready for Brigado 2506. Mortars and heavy Soviet artillery moved up to cover the only avenues out of the swamp, and tanks were on the way.

Outnumbered 20-to-1, with no food or water, no air cover, and trapped on a pathetic excuse of a beachhead by an enemy with artillery, armor, and fighter-bombers, who knew as much about the invasion as the invaders did, Brigado 2506 managed to fight on for three days before running out of ammo.

American commanders pleaded desperately for permission to lend support from the moment the crap hit the fan, but the fix was in. Kennedy did finally approve one sortie to intercept a Cuban T-33, but at a time when Castro’s planes were refueling/rearming inland, and not present to engage.

In trying to “keep a low profile” for the operation, JFK guaranteed the exposure and national embarrassment he supposedly wanted to avoid. And of course he doomed the people of Cuba to Communist rule, and the Cuban freedom fighters to death or capture. JFK’s reputation was only tarnished briefly, as the news media had built his public image back up within a year.

Obviously he still managed to piss somebody off, and theories abound as to how, who, and why. I have problems with all of them. Most of all with the official story casting Lee Harvey Oswald as the deranged culprit acting alone.

Castro’s finest celebrating the anniversary of their heroic triumph over enemies of the state.

Linked below are a couple books I’ve not yet read, but are rare in that they don’t appear to come from the typical anti-American/JFK apologist cookie cutter. Might be worth a look.

Espionage, Reviews

Operation Perfida–Len Levinson’s Take on the JFK Plot

August 30, 2014 Machine Trooper Leave a comment

Since I began blogging, I’ve been fortunate to meet some of the authors of my favorite books, including Jim Morris and the late Jerry Ahern. It should be no surprise that high on that list is Len Levinson, one of the best action adventure authors from the 1970s and ’80s. I’m very familiar with his work in the war genre, but hadn’t delved into his other dabblings until recently.

Since I’ve long been fascinated with the JFK assassination, and Piccadilly Publishing has released a Levinson novel with a connection to that historic turning point, I just had to get this book on my Kindle.

A strong main character makes this one too engaging to put down.

True to Levinson form, Operation Perfidia is a really fast read and hard to put down. He is a master storyteller and the first two thirds of the novel just crackles along. Last year I read two novels of cold war intrigue–Ken Follett’s Code to Zero and Ian Fleming’s Moonraker. There are many similarities between this story and Follett’s, but to me this was the most enjoyable of the three books and I attribute this to the main character, David Brockman. The CIA field agent is tough, smart, and good at his job. His Achilles’ heel is the mile-wide blind spot he has for the woman he loves.

This book supports the most popular spin on the facts and rumors surrounding the mystery of the JFK snuff–the “vast right-wing conspiracy” theory. It is fairly obvious just from reading the blurb that the culprits will turn out to be anti-Castro Cubans. Of course anti-Kennedy CIA good ol’ boys collaborate. Nothing new here, but then this book was originally published in 1975, 16 years before the Oliver Stone film would make this hypothesis a household assumption.

But it does leave room for improvement…

The most disappointing aspect of the book was in the climax and ending. I don’t want to ruin it for anyone, but I read the last words wishing there was more to it. Not that the reader needs more concrete plans for the hero’s future–best to leave it uncertain as-is. I guess I wanted a little bit more expose` on Brockman’s wife Mirallia. Flesh out that angle a bit more. After all, Brockman only stumbles upon the JFK plot as a side-effect of chasing his wife, anyway. She’s his primary motivation through the bulk of the novel; then when he finally tracks her down, it unfolds a touch on the anti-climactic side.

All in all, this is a nice espionage thriller to cuddle up with. You can get it for your Kindle here or by clicking the cover image at the top of this post.

Military, Non-Fiction/Documentary

Loose Lips: Pink Slips

August 15, 2014 Machine Trooper Leave a comment

70 years ago this June…

FDR TRADES FIVE TOP GERMAN P.O.W.S FOR ONE ENLISTED NAZI-SYMPATHIZING DESERTER.

Just kidding. Even FDR couldn’t have gotten away with this kind of crap. Not in 1944 and not even by 1991.

Some soldiers who served in the unit Bergdahl deserted from have spoken up, and the regime in Washington doesn’t like it. Doubleplus-ungood is the fact that they’re trying to sell a book about it.

It is hardly news that the media and entertainment industry carefully craft their propaganda to reflect positively on the current administration, nor that they conspire to censor what doesn’t. What is surprising is that the cultural thought cops are so impudent about their chokehold on the flow of information that some of them hang their true colors right out on the clothesline for all to see:

“I thought about this all weekend, and basically, I’m not sure we can publish this book without the Right using it to their ends,” Sarah Durand, a senior editor at Atria Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, wrote in an email to one of the soldiers’ agents.

“[T]he Conservatives are all over Bergdahl and using it against Obama,” Durand wrote, “and my concern is that this book will have to become a kind of ‘Swift Boat Veterans for Truth’” — a reference to the group behind a controversial book that raised questions about John Kerry’s Vietnam War record in the midst of his 2004 presidential campaign. (Durand did not respond to requests for comment. “We do not comment about our editorial process,” said Paul Olsewski, vice president and director of publicity at Atria.)

Evidently, Durand’s masters don’t believe she should be so transparent about their agenda-enforcement-by-censorship. She was let go quickly after word got out.

Action, Adventure, Reviews, TEOTWAWKI

Castigo Cay by Matt Bracken

August 12, 2014 Machine Trooper Leave a comment

Matt Bracken is a former SEAL with what seems to me an obsession about sailing. You’d think, when someone like this becomes a novelist, he’d try his hand at writing high seas thrillers after the manner of Clive Cussler’s Dirk Pitt.

That’s not quite what he does.

Like a lot of us, Bracken is bothered by a government that views as it’s primary enemy the very citizens whose rights it was established to protect. Up until Castigo Cay the backdrop of his stories was almost entirely comprised of the efforts of renegade public servants hell-bent on violating a specific article of the Bill of Rights they swore to uphold. I’ve read and reviewed the first novel in his Enemies series.

Castigo Cay is a bit of an adjustment from his previous work–more of a straight-up adventure–with a point of view decidedly unorthodox, as you might imagine.

Dan Kilmer is a USMC veteran of the Iraq deployment who escaped the near-future dystopia in a 60-foot schooner, making a living as a sort of modern day privateer. His gorgeous, sexy girlfriend leaves him in the first act to chase her ambitions inside the economically ruined USA; specifically in the de facto fiefdom of Miami. Dan is sorry to see her go, but prepared to move on with his life, when another expatriate sailor brings him news about the shady billionaire who enticed Cori (the ex-girlfriend) away.

The billionaire is one of the amoral corporatists who has profited from the dismantling of the republic. He’s a real sicko, and has hired a crew of fellow sickos. On his private island in the Carribbean (ostensibly a “game preserve”) he brings young attractive women to be raped, tortured, then hunted and killed as if big game.

Dan spends a lot of his private savings (in the form of gold krugerands–the universal barter currency in the wake of the US Dollar’s obliterated facade of worth) and spends most of the novel on a sort of goose chase, but meets some helpful friends along the way.

Bracken really hooked me at the beginning with the strong characterizations. The story did bog down a bit, however, during the second act in the Miami area. The third act poured on the juice, though, with a return to the eponymous locale and a showdown between Dan and the sickos.

As apparently is SOP with Bracken’s novels, this one is packed with a lot of information, most of it about sailing. I didn’t always know what the names of different equipment referred to, but it was never so thick that I got lost, either. It reminded me a bit of The Sand Pebbles in that regard. I got the gist of it enough to follow the flow of the story weaved through this maritime universe.

Regardless of how right or wrong the worldview behind an adventure story is, or the technical details, what makes it sink or swim are the characters. Bracken batted it out of the park in that regard. Dan Kilmer is flawed to be sure, but he kind of knows it, can admit when he’s wrong, and when given the chance to redeem himself he charges straight for it at flank speed.

Action, Adventure, Military, Reviews

Pirates Be Advised: Yer A$$ is Mine!

July 12, 2014 Machine Trooper Leave a comment

Thanks yet again to David in Sausalito, California for a nice review of the Tier Zero audio book. This is the sequel to Hell & Gone and an unabashed throwback to the glory days of men’s fiction–as the cover suggests.

Here’s what David said:

Great sequel! The badass band of homicidal misfits are back together for another testosterone-feuled adventure through the pirate infested oceans, cities and jungles of Indonesia. In this sequel to “Hell and Gone” Henry Brown really sharpens his writing with a much improved “flow” and a much improved story arc. “Tier Zero” is much more character driven (and developed) than its predecessor, focusing a little more on the people rather than the action but don’t worry, this is a Henry Brown book–there’s still enough blood, bullets and guts to keep even the most hardcore action junkies drooling – just look at the cover art. These books have a kinda old-school “pulpy’ feel to them that I really like but don’t see (or hear) that much of anymore. The narrator did another outstanding job with the characters both male and female. Don’t worry if you haven’t read “Hell and Gone”, this book can easily be read as a stand alone. Awesome book overall!

Recorded books are a godsend for me, as my time to sit and actually read anything is pretty scarce. But there’s still a lot of times I can listen to something without breaking stride. And Audible downloads to your listening device are painless.

Military, Non-Fiction/Documentary

SOF Over-Representation in Pop Culture

July 3, 2014 Machine Trooper 2 Comments

Don Pendleton’s “Executioner” character, Mack Bolan, may have been one of the first Special Forces veterans to undertake fictional adventures for public consumption.

In the movies, Billy Jack was the first such character I can think of.

Eventually comic books got in the act. Marvel was “inspired” by The Executioner to create The Punisher. (Anyone who’s read both probably suspects that Frank Castle is really just Mack Bolan with a jones for skintight costumes.)

But the trend didn’t stop there. It seems like every Vietnam veteran character in a film or novel up to the early 1990s was also ex-Special Forces. To judge by popular culture, you’d think the entire conflict in Vietnam was fought exclusively by “Green Berets.”

It got so ridiculous that in Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One Lieutenant James Gordon (Before he becomes Commissioner Gordon), observing a crooked cop on the Gotham PD decides, “He moves like he’s had Green Beret training. It’s been a long time since I had to take down a Green Beret…”

I probably need to emphasize that I’m not just talking about action heroes (or villains) here, or characters in other genre work who might need the skills they picked up in SOF in a given storyline. I’m talking about characters (sometimes secondary, sometimes who the readers/viewers never even “meet”) who could just as easily have been a clerk/jerk in Saigon, a supply sergeant in DaNang or a motor pool mechanic at Fort Ord. Nope–SF soldiers were the only ones writers had heard anything about, so by Barry Saddler’s Ghost, everybody gets a green beret.

Finally this trend has changed. Now, it seems, (judging by novels and movies) every swinging richard deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan was a Navy SEAL. Or fought with the Recon Marines.

True, I stacked my military thrillers with Special Operations Force vets, but I had good reason to. Some missions require such men.

Most don’t.

I could probably dissect this subject at length, but in a nutshell I chalk it up to writers’ laziness.

What makes elite forces elite is that not every combatant is asked to do what they do, and not every combatant could, if asked. Having spent most of my active duty at Fort Bragg, NC (the Special Forces Mecca), I’ve probably seen more green beenies than 99% of writers out there, but I’ve decided to make a conscious effort to represent regular soldiers (and sailors, marines, etc.) more in my fiction from now on, unless special missions are necessary. Special Operations play a crucial role, but it’s regular GIs who win wars and I’m gonna try to remember that, despite what everyone else is doing.

BTW, I can’t help wondering if this pop culture conditioning played a part in the US Army’s decision to let every swinging richard (and split-tail) wear bloused jump boots with their Class As and the black beret of a Ranger.

The younger guys probably aren’t even bothered by the Everyone-Is-Elite image because it’s been this way for a while now, but to me this is like letting every athlete in every league call themselves an All-Star, every recording artist have a platinum album and (closer to home) every author claim to be a best-seller.