America Divided: “We, the sheeple…”

Posted on December 7, 2015 by Sean T. Smith

I mourn for my country as it tears itself apart. We are better than this, and seem to have forgotten. Not since the Civil War has the United States been so torn, and it’s along similar geographic lines. In the wake of the California, Paris, and Planned Parenthood shootings, the vitriolic rhetoric is nastier than ever.

We are under attack

America is under attack from enemies foreign and domestic. ISIS is no joke, no J.V. team, and they are not contained, despite what President Obama has said. The war on terror, and ISIS in particular needs to be swift and brutal and waged without mercy. Before it’s over, there will be thousands of troops on the ground again because airstrikes will not stop ISIS. Unfortunately, this is only a temporary solution to a problem with roots more than a thousand years old.

The only way to truly stop ISIS and other violent, nasty terror groups long-term is for the Arab nations, and the Imams that dictate religious policy decisions in particular, to put an end to the cries for Jihad and reign in the fundamentalist interpretations of the Koran. Because while there are violent verses, there is also a message of peace in the mix. It’s a question of what people choose to focus on and believe.

Violent fundamentalism is a cancer, and it is spreading. Unfortunately, the U.S. plays into ISIS’s hands by turning a war on terror into a war on Islam. It’s what they want, both by making recruitment easier, and by undermining our collective values as a nation. That’s how terrorists win.

The threat within

Our own citizens are far more likely to kill us than someone who sneaks into this country. Worse, they are more likely to destroy us as a nation.

Social media makes this worse. Reporting so slanted that it cannot rightfully be called news pours gasoline on the fire. Misinformation and lies abound, with memes designed to incite hatred and violence. People are inspired by fear, and fear sometimes leads to action. The fact that the leading GOP candidates are completely insane illustrates this.

Donald Trump Speaks To GOP Women's Groups

LAS VEGAS, NV – APRIL 28: Chairman and President of the Trump Organization Donald Trump yells ‘you’re fired’ after speaking to several GOP women’s group at the Treasure Island Hotel & Casino April 28, 2011 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Trump has been testing the waters with stops across the nation in recent weeks and has created media waves by questioning whether President Barack Obama was born in the United States. (Photo by David Becker/Getty Images)

Trump is woefully incompetent to lead the nation, his main attraction that he is willing to say anything, whether it is true or not, in order to get media attention. He seems bulletproof, in that he can get away with spouting absurdities and insults; people like this about him. “He says what we’re thinking, but afraid to say.” He is a dick, and people actually respect that about him.

It’s not just Trump, obviously, but his astonishing popularity is indicative of the greater problem: we’ve turned into a hateful people. There is virtually no reasoned discourse, no ability to look at issues from both sides. Whether it’s the Second Amendment, women’s rights, the war on terror, immigration, or health care, each issue is framed in black and white by the media. And people eat it up.

Gun control

I’m a strong supporter of the 2nd Amendment. That said, the word “regulated” is right there. I fail to see how supporting thorough back ground checks or better enforcement of existing laws is an infringement of this right. No one is coming to get our guns. That’s fear-based paranoia, and it works out well for the multi-billion dollar industry that manufactures firearms and ammunition. Every time there is a mass-shooting, stocks and profits see a huge spike.

This is an American issue, not one of left or right. Yet it’s framed in such a way that the very idea of restrictions on firearms becomes jackboots and Nazis confiscating our guns. Gun restrictions have not led to dramatic drops in gun violence, that’s true. But, the areas with the most guns have the most gun violence. Something needs to be done beyond more people walking around armed.

The looming Civil War

I routinely see people calling for a revolution or secession on social media. My next book, Tears of Abraham, which releases from Post Hill Press in March, is about this very thing. People call themselves patriots with one breath, and demand a revolution with the next. It’s despicable, unpatriotic, and in the end, evil.

The first page of Tears of Abraham:

Often, that which is done cannot be undone. Sometimes a pebble unleashes a landslide; a small object becomes unstoppable, smashing and sliding and gathering momentum until chaos pulverizes everything. When the dust settles, there is a new landscape, crushed and snapped and desolate, which surely the pebble did not intend. The illusion of control can be more destructive than nature itself, when hubris convinces men to believe the lies they tell themselves.

It began with a few powerful men, tinkering and arrogant, manipulating and prodding. Wealth and power, unfettered by wisdom and conscience, smashed the United States of America. History now remembers the conflict as the second American Civil War, although there were many citizens who then fervently believed they were fighting a Revolution.

The first Civil War cost the lives of more than 600,000 people, and was the bloodiest conflict in our country’s history. The second war was worse.

We, the people, are too easily led by fear and hate. We need to talk to each other, not at one another. Listen, and work together to fix what has become broken. I shudder at the world my children will inherit, and can only pray that we find a way beyond the consuming darkness

.http://www.amazon.com/Tears-Abraham-Sean-T-Smith/dp/1618688197

TEARS OF ABRAHAM, cover reveal and signing announcement!

Posted on July 20, 2015 by Sean T. Smith

The first Civil War was the bloodiest conflict in American history. The second war is worse.

While the nation tears itself apart, a soldier with a deadly secret fights his way home to his family.

Freedom is worth dying for, and love is a reason to live…but a house divided cannot stand.

Can Henry, Suzanne and the United States survive? Often the things we love we hurt the most.

Bestselling author Steve Konkoly says:

“Tears of Abraham delivers a frightening look at a nation torn apart by a not so distant civil war. In classic Smith style, the conflict unfolds on a deeply personal level, delivering a guy punch of authentic military style action, sleek conspiracy undertones, and gripping family drama. I was hooked from the start by this uniquely dystopian military thriller.”

This is a deeply patriotic novel, my love letter to America. Should our differences lead to open war, the results will be beyond anything we can imagine, yet even now people clamor for secession without understanding what that would mean. While politics forms a backdrop to this book, it is essentially apolitical, a look at a conflict more than a hundred years in the making through the eyes of heroes, villains, and the innocent.

TEARS OF ABRAHAM will be released in March 2016, published by Post Hill Press and distributed by Simon & Schuster.

Altering the cycle… Love and Hate in America

Posted on May 1, 2015 by Sean T. Smith

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

Martin Luther King, Jr

Baltimore burns and the nation cringes. We see the non-stop coverage on CNN, the same inflammatory images repeating on an endless loop. Hate is like that, too. It doesn’t stop until we turn it off; unfortunately many people are turning it up, until rhetoric is a scream which drowns out any sort of hope to solve the underlying problems. The racial problems in this country, from economic disparities and police violence, to political disenfranchisement must be addressed. The nation is hurting and the rage seethes just beneath the surface, spilling out into the streets with increasing ferocity.

I’ve seen a staggering number of internet posts claiming that our current racial tensions are President Obama’s fault. The people who believe that are deluded. When Obama was elected the racists kicked into high gear, really putting their backs into it, finding ways to sow fear and cruelty and divisiveness. Hate-mongers with microphones and laptops have done their best to frame issues in the meanest, most lopsided ways possible, worsening a greater problem.

So the cycle continues something like this: poverty, lack of opportunity, and a toxic environment lead to a feeling of powerless, gut-wrenching anger. When racial profiling and police brutality are not only systemic, but systematically denied by governments, those same people get even angrier. They protest. Most of them are peaceful, but violence erupts, gasoline on the fire. While the news spends 90% of its time playing the inflammatory images of police getting hit by bricks or of stores burning, the media misses the greater story. The country misses the truth, and the truth is not black and white. The greater story, the real one, is more complicated… it’s more than one story. The one where blacks and whites are working together for positive change. The story of children handing out water bottles to police officers, cops risking their lives to save teenagers, grandmothers and fathers marching for justice that has thus far been elusive. The story that black teenagers know all too well, of the conversation their parents had with them when they first got their driver’s license. “If you get pulled over, keep your hands in sight at all time. Say ‘yes, sir,’ and don’t make any sudden moves.” White kids don’t get that talk.

White people and black people alike are appalled by this violence in Baltimore. It’s counter-productive. It only serves to confirm racist suspicions coiled around the back of many people’s minds, triggering otherwise sane and seemingly decent people to spout bile like Linda Blair in The Exorcist. Rather than stepping back for a moment and asking why these people are so angry, it’s easier to say “what kind of people burn their own city?”

And there it is, couched in what passes for discourse and news coverage. Words like us and them…Those people. There is an “otherness” about the dialogue, rather than a togetherness. Hate, rather than love.

Racism and bigotry are a choice. If this nation is to heal, each of us must do some collective soul-searching. We’ve got to choose love over hate. We must place a priority on our nation’s future, and that means creating more jobs and educational opportunities, putting an end to the bloodbath taking place every day in our inner cities. It means voting for leaders who recognize the severity of the problem and who offer realistic ways to address it, regardless of what party they happen to be affiliated with.

Rather than be outraged at the violence we’re seeing on the news, we should be shocked for the reasons it is happening. We must come together as one people in the spirit of unity and love, for that is the only way to end this cycle of hate.

America At War… The Enemy is Us.

Posted on February 17, 2014 by Sean T. Smith

A ranty, political post…

Thomas Jefferson wrote that “the sheep are happier unto themselves than under the care of the wolves.” America is under attack, and while China is scary, they are not the greatest threat to our way of life, nor are terrorists or Russia. We have become our own worst enemy. Political, economic and racial rifts within the United States are like tectonic plates, storing up pressure and eagerly awaiting an earthquake. Unless the tension is relived, the ensuing chaos could consume us all.

Politics touches on the economic and racial problems. Politics touch a raw nerve, but the solution to the nation’s problems are less about politics than about community, common sense, and communication. I have many friends who are liberal and many who are conservative, and most of them don’t get nasty when it comes to discussing politics because they are able to see beyond the virulent rhetoric spewed in the media and by extremists on both sides. Compromise, not polarization is the solution.

The battle between conservatives and liberals has been waged since before the Constitution was ratified, and is not inherently destructive. There is a natural pendulum which swings back and forth, and our leaders should reflect the will of the people. The problem now is that politicians are so entrenched within party positions and dogma, compromise is almost impossible. We now have the most statistically ineffective Congress in U.S. history, and this is a reflection of the deeper problems within a divided nation.

The top 1% has turned the nation against itself with a genius Jedi Mind Trick. They have convinced the middle class that a class war is being waged against them by the lower class, and therefore the middle class should side with the jet set. Meanwhile CEOs write themselves million dollar bonus checks, ship jobs overseas, and manage to pay almost nothing in taxes. Some of the wealthiest international corporations are posting profits of more than a billion dollars, and have zero tax liability. Yet plenty of hard working, middle class people side with the yacht class. Go figure. It’s all a sleight of hand.

To distract us from the real issues, the corporate cabal zeros in on gun rights, abortion, entitlements, and a flagging economy while at the same time counting their money over cigars and Scotch on private jets. Meanwhile, the middle class battles against itself in between episodes of American Idol and Desperate Housewives. If indeed there is class warfare being waged, there is no doubt about who is winning and who is losing.

Reasoned, intelligent debate has been replaced by personal attacks, knee-jerk reactions, and sensationalized news which is designed to manipulate rather than inform.

The wolves are among us, and we need to open our eyes. Otherwise, we will eat ourselves.