American Phoenix: Chapter Two

He had slept on it. He had talked with his mentor, the now old british financier Boxlieter. He had acquired his mentor during his years at Oxford, as a Rhodes Scholar. He knew that this man had formed most his political moral concepts, had helped him see the need to be part of the great power structure of wealth, to see that without a strong hand from these sources governments could not endure. The people could not be trusted. Only this brotherhood of the powerful could see wide and far enough. The people were too emotional, too reactive. They had to be guided, at whatever the cost.

So he signed the order. The Army was to interveen, and the cities were to be restored to order. Without order, without the given lawfulness, everything that had been gained would be lost. Such a course was too terrible to contemplate.

Unfortunately, he didn't understand anything at all. Like his wealthy friends, he lived in an illusion, one that was about to rise up and bite him in the ass.

Emma and Ace sat side by side, backs against a cold, but painted, concrete wall. Yet, as their clothes were many layered, they were well insulated. They watched Jumbo and Hex move about the room, although they didn't know the names of these gang leaders, they knew they represented a kind of power. So far, the best part of sitting in on this meeting was the fresh hot food that had been passed around on paper plates.

An odd kind of silence descended on the room, as some shadow warriors, with a couple new faces, walked into the former restuarant. One of them Emma had seen before. He was a story teller, the one she liked so much. He sat crossed legged on an old table to one side of the room, and everyone turned toward him.

"My name is Madrid", he said, "Jonathon Cornelius Madrid. People call me JC for short, its kind of a joke. I don't mind. Jesus Christ is central to my life. But don't worry. I don't preach. That's not what this is about."

He smiled and laughed a little. So did others. Everyone relaxed. People understood things were not going to be heavy. Life was too short.

"One of the things I've learned in this life, is that matters are seldom what they seem. Take what we call 'the collapse'. Wise people are not surprised. Our culture has been very arrogant in its economics, in what we call economic theory and science. We've made all kinds of assumptions, and many, as is frequently the case in human history, have been wrong.

"Our economics has been more a belief system, a kind of false religion, than an appreciation of the truth of things. So hard times come, big changes come, and those of us at the bottom, or apparently at the bottom, have to muddle through. Hopefully we'll learn a few things, and do some things better on the other side of this time of chaos.

"Let's take an example. One of the things that our culture has done is call certain people 'the homeless'. This is a truth, of a sort. But it is based on a vocabulary of status - status in this case being a kind of myth. It is more true to see these people as casualties in a war. Moreoever, they are that odd thing we call today 'colateral damage'. They haven't been participants in this war. that is they didn't take one side or the other. The 'war' was between others, between various elements of an aristocracy of wealth, and their political lackys. So, out of this conflict, this vicious struggle for dominance and control of wealth, there are casualties - among them the so-called 'homeless'.

"Well, thank you no, but we don't want to play this game. We do not want to be 'homeless' and we do not want to be casualties in this war of others, of greedy selfish profit-worshiping idiots. Except they don't care, and here we are, 'colateral damage'.

"So what can we do? Or better yet, what do we do now that we are forced to do something? Well, we have done a few things haven't we. First off, we did a very important thing. Probably the most important thing of all. We refused to accept the name they gave us. So if there is a war, then we are warriors. So if we live in the darkest, most terrible parts of the cities, then we will be warriors of the shadows, shadow warriors.

"Now some people think this is silly. But let me tell you it isn't. Not by a long shot. There is enormous power in words, or better still, enormous power in ideas. We don't have to accept the idea of homeless failures, and rejects from the higher spheres of life. We don't have to believe the self serving myths of the rich and the arrogant. We are casualties of a war among competing members of an aristocracy of wealth, and we are not going to consent any more to their bullshit. We are warriors of the shadows, shadow warriors, and we are fighting back."

This last was said with a certain rising passion, and brought forth some cheers. Emma looked at Ace with a kind of love in her eyes. He looked away, embarrassed to accept her feelings. But just sort of. He reached a hand out and covered one of her's. She got all warm inside. Warm and happy. This is why she liked JC so much. He made you feel good, made you feel important, made you think of yourself has having some worth.

"Now, this isn't just about the homeless. It's is also about race, and poverty and family and injustice and many other things. Here we are at this meeting, the outcast homeless, and members of gangs, drug dealers and killers, or so others say.

"But is that reality. Is that the true name of things. If the homeless are shadow warriors, what are gang members, what is their true idea?

"The thing is I'm not going to answer that question. It is not mine to answer. It belongs to the gangs, it belongs to your own understanding of yourselves, of the realities which shape your lives, of the truths you want to stand for, and of the star you want to steer your future course by. I can't give you that which you have to give yourself."

He stopped then. Looking around the room at each one. No judgment in his face, just a kind of compassion, a kind of love, an offer of freedom, and an offer of responsiblity. The room was quiet. What could be said? It was time to think, and to feel too. What was important, what did we care about? These questions lived in the very air now.

Emma watched Jumbo and Hex walk out the door. Saying little to each other, just a glance or two. She could see that they were thinking about possiblities, deep possibilities.

Jason sat back, tired and happy. He was finally finished. He glanced at a clock and discovered he had been at his computer for almost 12 hours. In a little while he would check out Slashdot and Kuro5hin and see what was up.

It had been a good run. The most fun was getting into ABC.com and posting the bill of information rights on their index page. Until the webmaster there caught on, everyone who logged on to the ABC site was going to find the home page that Jason had placed there - a home page with the bill on it plus links to a whole bunch of privacy and encryption sites.

All over the internet was the same page, in hundreds, perhaps thousands of places. He'd heard one of the dreadlords was going to hack the Playboy site, a place that got 10 million hits a day. Or, he should have thought to himself, one of the other dreadlords, because as of today he had earned his bones.

    Being a priest had become more than just a simple calling. The world had changed drastically since he was first inspired by old Bing Crosby movies or a film like Song of Bernadette. The moral clarity his conservative breatheren believed in was an illusion, and the Church was too emeshed in the earthly spheres to find a moral center. The sex scandles of a few years back had shown that.

    He thought about going to Father Charmichael again in confession, but after several weeks his agony had not abateded. Inwardly he still felt that same pain, the sense of Mother Church's secrets weighing on his soul, an indigestible mass.

    He sat down at the typewriter, trying again to compose a press release that might make some sense, and salve his conscience. But how to say it - his mind was a fractured mirror. It was the kind of thing that was unbelievable to many, and certainly the press with its calculated jaundiced attitudes was unlikely to appreciate the necessary nuances.

    He glanced at the scattered and crumpled up pages next to the desk - the floor littered with failed tries. He let a big sigh out, and set his hands to the keys and tried again.

    Major Agustus put down the phone. He wondered if he was committing treason. Certainly he was in violation of orders. He'd just called Sargent Jones, and set up a meeting - a meeting that could well place him with the resisters.    He looked again at the orders on his desk, the ones that directed his intelligence unit to prepare assessments regarding his old neighborhood, and to access certain data bases regarding gang membership and other aspects of criminal activity there. He was to have a week, and then join the planning group as they got ready to make their strategy and tactics for invading and conquoring part of their own country. The orders didn't say invade and conquor, but it was all the same in any event.

    He'd asked General Gordon about Possie Commitatus, the law that forbade the armed forces of the United States from being involved in domestic strife. He was told not to worry. The President was making a finding that placed this activity in one of the exceptions. Leave that stuff to the politicians the General said. Of course, what wasn't said was what was going to happen if their own forces refused orders. Or at least he, Major Agustus, wasn't involved in that.   But he'd seen Coronel Arthur going in General Gordon's office after the briefing. Coronel Arthur being the head of a very large military police unit that had just recently been doubled in size on the base. Didn't take a rocket scientist to figure that one out. The Army was going to arrest anyone who refused orders, and by that means coerce anyone on the fence, anyone who hadn't figured it out yet.

    So he'd called Jones, and set up a meeting. The Sargent would probably know, but Agustus knew he had to choose, and he choose not to go along with this madness. Yes, there was a lot of chaos, but using the Army to enforce order, that didn't seem necessary. Whatever had happened in the cities, it was over. Territory once held by big city politicians and their police forces was now held by gangs, and others, perhaps even some militias. The original three of four months of fighting in certain segments of our nation's major cities was over. Lines had been drawn on maps. Fighting had stopped. Fires were out. Somehow the gangs, and this strange group called the shadow warriors had stopped the initial rioting. That was new, and it implied a lot to someone used to thinking the way Agustus had been trained to think.

    Something intelligent and organized was involved in this. The real question to Agustus was, do we root them out and make more chaos and war and riot, or do we negotiate and make peace. Some folks likened what was happening to civil war, but that seemed false as well. As an intelligence officer he knew what he didn't know, and he knew mostly that he didn't know what he needed to know.

    The politician, who sometimes thought of his speaking as singing, spoke to a small group of citizens. He told them things they didn't like to hear.

    "Government", he said, "isn't going to do what you want. It isn't really designed to do what you want, or what you need. We've been living under an illusion - an illusion part of which we ourselves our responsible for ourselves. Think about it.

    "The fact is what you want is for it to do what is right, to do what is moral. But the reality is that wasn't and isn't the role of government - or at least a central government or a constitutional government. At the same time there is a force, a power even, that is better, more honest, less compromised, and really in the end more capable. It's the government on which the constitutional government rests. Its you.

    "When it really comes to doing what is right to do, you're the best people to do it. Central governments, like our federal constituitonal government, or our state and municiple goverments can do certain things, but there are limits. There are things that can be done, in a kind of confused and problematic way, and with a certain natural degree of corruption. People in and around government want to have certain things for themselves, whether it is power or wealth or both. Government attracts such souls much the same way the honey collected by bees attracts a bear.   Governments become collections of wealth and power and this treasure trove attracts those who want to have some or all for themselves.

    "We know the current crisis is rooted in this very fact. Those seeking power and wealth came to government and corrupted it, so that it became incapable of doing what we really needed it to do, so it failed, and then the social systems needing a wise governance also failed, with the result we have what we are now calling the collapse.

    "We have to not be surprised at this.

    "If you are old enough, you saw this coming for a long time.

    "Now we are where we are, and certain necessities flow from this. Clearly we need to rewrite the Constitution. We've learned certain things, and we ought to become wiser through this time of crisis, just like we do as individuals in life. With this new wisdom we can again exercise our fundamental power, which is superior to any sitting government, and set new rules and new standards. All the same, we need to recognize that the more powers we give to a central government, the more this will attract those who hunger to exercise it for their own benefit. So we need to think carefully about these issues, about fundamental matters of power and human nature and governance.   We also need to take the time to do this right. Don't expect to do this in a couple of years - more likely we are looking at a decade of work, at least. Hard work too, deep thought, lots of conversations, and much compromise.

    "We also have to recognize that a lot of what we asked government to do, and a lot of what we hoped private enterprise would do, was not done well by either. Those things they didn't do well, we will be right to take upon ourselves. For example, we will have to ourselves see to certain kinds of care of those individuals in need of special attention. Before, we gave this over to government bureaucracies and to various corporations, and frankly they didn't do that well with these tasks. At one point, they threw a lot of the so-called mentally ill out on the streets, and left it to Divine Providence to care for them. They ended up caring for each other, but clearly as we go into the future, we are going to need to find another way to do this, and not leave it to the natural weaknesses of governments and corporations to provide what we know as the true moral response to these needs.

    "This is just an example of course, but these things need to be said. We've been co-dependent with a social institutions that really didn't perform well at all, and we need to take more power and tasks to ourselves, and give less to them, and expect less from them.

    "For example, we can still have them collect taxes, but maybe when it comes to spending that money, at least that portion we want to share equally among ourselves for the care of those in need, and which is why we tax ourselves, we need to have it distributed directly to where it is needed, right into our local neighborhoods, and skipping right past any levels of government or business interest. We need to keep right beside us those in need of our care, for these are our own mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, and sons and daughters, and we all know we really want to oversee this care, whether we have the time or the skill to do it ourselves.   So we use the central government to collect the funds in some way, and then distribute them equally, no one getting more, no one getting less.

    "Now maybe this isn't the best solution. I just wanted to flesh out the situation with a kind of example, and to show how we have the power to redefine matters anyway we want in these situations. The fact is that we have an opportunity to recreate our social order from the bottom up, in the ways that we decide are wise. We make the rules, and we keep the power and we take the responsibility; and, that is what Lincoln meant with his idea of a government of the people and for the people and by the people.

    "Of course, those still clinging to power will resist. But whatever they claim or assert, the fact is that it is we who hold the moral high ground, and from who any grant of power to a sitting government must flow. They can insist, twist, jump, shout, demand and have any kind of tantrum they want. As was stated in the Declaration of Indepence - just power only comes from the consent of the governed. Any other assertion of power is unjust and wrong.

    "All this said, now I'd like you to turn your chairs into a circle and talk to each other about what you are going to do with that just power, and that responsibility. Thank you."