Most Revolutionary — Chapter Thirty
Final Gathering
MOST REVOLUTIONARY — A SERIALIZED NOVEL
During a killer Iowa blizzard, fearless DAPL militant and radical plant nursery grower Sabia Perez first saves then kidnaps the stranded President to ransom a better world.
Previously: Secret Service Director William Kingsley and new FBI Director Priama Steiner hold Sabia Perez and her schoolmates Roane, Gabe, and Avery for interrogation in Sabia’s farmhouse, along with her DAPL-bombing ally Jasmine Maldonado. Acting President Alecta O’Roura-Chavez delivers a revolutionary speech in the White House Press Room and answers questions from reporters. In the coal mine survival bunker far beneath the Perez farmhouse, captive President Kristen Silver and her re-election campaign manager Ellen Lin face the pressure of extended captivity with fugitive ex-FBI Director Maximilian Castelan. In the great room of the underground home beneath the farmhouse and above the coal mine, Roca, Jenna, and Tucker fear for Sabia detained in the farmhouse above.
Chapter Thirty — Final Gathering
“No pizza, no hot chocolate!” FBI Director Priama Steiner shouts at Jasmine who continues to stand by Roane, Gabe, and Avery by the couch where they’ve been ordered to stay, in the Perez farmhouse living room. “If I get no answers — you get no food, no drink.”
Secret Service Director William Kingsley guards the front door in case anyone gets the crazy idea of making a break for it.
Director Steiner points at Sabia sitting at the kitchen table. “Sabia Perez determines whether or not you eat or drink today. Your abuelo Roca is alive, Sabia, and I think he knows where President Silver is hidden. In fact, he's probably with her right now. You know where, don’t you. We have Roca on camera in the hospital in Des Moines days after the bombing, but that first night, when it all went to Hell in the blizzard and bombing by your orchard — Roca left with the kidnappers and the President, didn't he. Admit it, Sabia. Roca is in on the heist of President Silver. Or maybe Roca is the kidnapper.”
Most everyone is astonished. They look with disbelief, wonder, and surprise at Sabia.
A slow smile spreads on Jasmine's face.
Sabia shakes her head. “You got it all wrong, Steiner. Tell it to Roca's identical twin brother Javier who came all the way from Mexico to pay his respects, then suffered a heart attack while here.”
“There is no Javier. Gig’s up, Sabia. Roca’s alive,” says Director Steiner.
Jasmine shakes her head. “Wow. Gig’s on,” she says. “Damn you, Sabia. That’s good.”
“No one buys it anymore, Sabia. You can't get away with this forever. In fact, today is your last day of freedom,” says Director Steiner.
“She's hot for you, Girl. She wants you all to herself,” says Jasmine. “Maybe she should be careful what she asks for.”
“My abuelo would not hurt a fly,” says Sabia. “Everyone knows that. He's not political. He was not.”
“Roca’s alive?” says Avery.
“Go ahead, Sabia, keep lying to everyone. Your friends, everyone. Meanwhile, we’ll put out an arrest warrant for Roca Perez.”
“Roca died in the bombing. Prove me wrong,” says Sabia.
“There’s no DNA evidence of that. We found no so-called twin in Mexico, or Texas, or whatever make-believe—”
“I told you,” says Sabia. “I talk only to Alecta O’Roura-Chavez. No one else.”
“You talk to me now, or you go to prison now. Let’s take her, Bill.” Director Steiner unclips the pair of handcuffs that she used on Sabia in the snow of the orchard earlier in the day.
Sabia leans forward and pukes on the floor.
“Sabia!” says Jasmine.
“Let’s tie her up, Director Kingsley. Let’s move now.” Director Steiner steps toward Sabia.
Sabia stands and screams: “I will talk to Alecta O’Roura-Chavez and no one else! I will tell Alecta where President Silver is! No one else!”
Everyone is shocked. Even Sabia.
Vomit glistens on her lips.
There is complete silence in the winter-bound farmhouse.
Sabia sits back down. “Fuck,” she says.
“Sabia,” says Jasmine quietly.
Sabia speaks to the floor: “I talk only to Alecta. She will pardon me. I talk to her if she pardons me first, only then. But if you put me in prison, I will never talk. So go ahead. Put me in prison. It would be better that way.”
“No shit,” says Jasmine.
In the great room of the underground home, Roca continues to play cards with Jenna and Tucker. Finally, he throws down the cards in the middle of a hand. “I’m sorry. I need to know what's going on with Sabia.”
Roca goes into a back room and comes out with Sabia's shotgun and a box of shells. He loads the gun and pockets some shells.
“Jesus, Roca. Wait for me,” says Jenna. She hurries into the back room and grabs Director Castelan's handgun and stun gun. She checks the unused clip and the safety, then hurries after Roca.
“Use your heads!” Tucker calls after them. He remains bound and tied to the table. He pulls at the bindings but cannot free himself.
Too late for that, Jenna thinks. They’re in too far, now, way over their heads. It’s all hands on deck. All hands and weapons.
Jasmine steps toward Steiner and jabs a finger at her.
“You can't torture Sabia like this. She doesn’t know what she’s saying right now. This is bullshit. Holding her captive in her own home, you can't hold her friends like this. Denying them food and water. It’s torture. None of this will stand in court. It will be thrown out. Sabia is clearly losing her mind right now. You made her insane. She’ll say anything to get you out of her face.”
“Shut up, Jasmine,” says Steiner. “No one cares about any of that. I will get President Silver back — and it will happen today.”
“If you fucking touch her—”
“Sabia knows where President Silver is?” says Avery.
“Avery, shut up,” says Gabe. Roane squeezes Avery's hand.
“Let my friends go,” says Sabia. “They know nothing. Alecta will pardon me. Until then, I admit nothing.”
Everyone is speechless. Even Steiner, for once.
It's as if the words they've heard and the implications of those words are too enormous to compute.
Little Sabia Perez. Isolated on a spindly wooden chair in her old farmhouse kitchen in remote Iowa. She all but admits to kidnapping President Silver. Or does she? How can this be?
Director Kingsley nods. “I would accept that deal, Priama.”
“You’re no one to talk, Bill. I will investigate you next.”
Kingsley freezes and stares at Steiner, who points her phone at Sabia.
“When I call the Acting President—” says Director Steiner “—you, Sabia, will tell her everything.”
“Face-to-face only. Bring Alecta here to me.”
“No way,” says Steiner.
“Take it or leave it,” says Sabia. “I'll never talk otherwise. Never ever. Throw me in prison. Leave me there forever. It will be your fault, Steiner, and you can burn, for all I care.”
“Sabia, don’t,” says Jasmine. “I don't care what you know. Or what you've done. Don't say anything. To anyone. Think now. I’ve got great lawyers, Sabia. So much is changing with Alecta in power. So much is at stake. Everything. People’s lives, the climate, the Revolution. What about the American Liberation Army?”
“It’s more of an Alliance really,” says Sabia.
“Sit down!” Director Steiner crosses the living room and grabs Jasmine by the shirt with both hands, drives her backward, and shoves her onto the couch. Gabe and Roane catch her.
Sabia leans forward and throws up on the floor again.
“You Asshole!” Jasmine wrestles to her feet.
Roane, Gabe, and Avery grab Director Steiner and pull her to the couch. Jasmine hurries to Sabia and kneels beside her.
Director Steiner breaks free of the couch. She and Director Kingsley converge on Jasmine and Sabia.
It’s a fight — though very brief. The Directors collide with Sabia and Jasmine and Sabia falls hard to the floor by her vomit, where she lies still.
Avery, Gabe, and Roane run over to Sabia and tend to her.
Sabia's eyes are closed. She feels herself being lifted, lifted, lifted. She opens her eyes. She is back on the chair.
“You did this to her!” Jasmine screams and shoves Director Steiner who pins Jasmine’s one arm behind her back while Director Kingsley pins the other. Roane and Gabe hold Sabia.
Director Steiner stares at Sabia’s puke on the floor and then at Kingsley and then at Sabia.
“It wasn't me who sickened Sabia,” says Director Steiner.
“Fuck you,” says Sabia.
“You hurt her. You did this,” says Jasmine.
Director Kingsley looks nervous.
“I'm not to blame,” says Director Steiner. She watches Director Kingsley. “The truth will come out. Literally.”
“We’re going upstairs to the bathroom,” says Jasmine. “Me and Sabia. And no one else.”
“You’re going nowhere. Clean her up. Right here. Kingsley, get these kids back on the coach. And cuff them in place.”
Everyone stands their ground, including Director Kingsley.
“We’re going upstairs. Me and Sabia,” says Jasmine.
“Kingsley, get her a towel,” says Steiner. “Do something.”
Kingsley releases Jasmine.
He holds up his hands. “This is your investigation now, Director Steiner, not mine. You said so yourself. So, you take care of it. I don’t answer to you. In fact you say you’re going to investigate me after all this.”
“Director Kingsley! I will arrest you, right now!”
“I will arrest you, Priama. I’m a Director, myself. And the original investigator. You seem a little out of control.”
Jasmine considers the knife block on the counter. Every slot full with long handles and strong blades. Her gaze lingers. Steiner sees.
“Fine,” says Jasmine. “I'll get the goddamn towel and clean up the puke myself.”
“No, stop!” Jasmine tears away as Roane and Gabe rush Steiner and block her all the way into the wall beside the refrigerator. Avery stands aside, panicked. Director Steiner breaks free and pursues Jasmine who takes a large knife from the block.
Director Steiner tries to simultaneously tackle Jasmine and reach for the knife, and when Jasmine spins with the knife, Steiner's own momentum throws her into the counter's edge. Her ribs crack at the shock, like a bat to a ball.
Director Steiner is helpless for a moment. She leans against the counter while Jasmine wraps one arm around her neck and locks her head by lifting up her chin. Jasmine then presses the tip of the knife against the base of Steiner's throat.
Gabe and Roane step in front of Director Kingsley, who throws them aside. Sabia stands and blocks Kingsley with her chair. Then she too grabs a large knife.
Kingsley sets aside the chair and faces Sabia. He holds out his hands. “Sabia,” he says.
Sabia flashes the knife. “Stand by the door,” she tells the others. “No one in. No one out. Lock it.”
Roane locks the door.
“Sabia—” says Avery.
“Stand by the door, Avery.”
Roane pulls Avery to the door.
“Everyone, stop,” says Director Kingsley. “That includes you, Director Steiner.”
Steiner can’t move anyway. Her ribs are contused at best, cracked or broken. She tries to breath lightly to reduce the pain. She tries to maintain as steady a balance as possible with the knife to her neck — in Jasmine's angry grip.
“That's right,” says Jasmine. “You’re not going anywhere, Director Steiner.”
“I could break both your arms any moment I like, Jasmine,” says Director Steiner.
“Okay, no,” says Director Kingsley. “Let's not make this any worse than it already is.” His right hand goes to his holster. “Drop the knife, Sabia. Jasmine, drop the knife.”
Roca holds the shotgun on the opposite side of the cellar door from the kitchen. He listens until he's heard enough.
He swings open the door. He steps through the doorway and aims the gun at Director Kingsley.
“That's not gonna happen,” says Roca.
“Roca!” says Avery. “Roca!”
“Okay, easy now.” Director Kingsley takes his hand off his gun.
“Hands to your ears!” says Roca
Kingsley complies.
The shotgun mere feet away, aimed at his gut, suddenly clarifies the tenuous nature of Kingsley’s existence. He’s seen this before, only not as target.
Jenna comes up the cellar stairs behind Roca with Castelan's handgun in her right hand and his stun gun in her left.
Jenna points the handgun at Steiner and the stun gun at Kingsley.
“Jenna! No shit! I knew it!” says Jasmine.
“Hi, Jasmine. How's the trial going?”
Jasmine’s hand trembles slightly as she presses the knife against Director Steiner’s throat. “Probably not so good now.”
“Sorry about that.”
“Roca!” says Avery again. “You're alive!”
Roca waggles the shotgun at Kingsley. “To present company only.”
Director Kingsley's phone rings.
“Give me that.” Sabia avoids the aim of Roca's shotgun, reaches into Kingsley's pocket, and takes his phone. She studies the phone, then sets her knife on the counter.
Sabia knows the caller.
“It's that fucking orange thief from Washington DC. Pilfered my greenhouse. Your second-in-command, Kingsley — Deputy Director Grace Lamont. What a pleasure. Let's tell her what she needs to know right now, Kingsley. Let’s tell her what she needs to do.”
Sabia eyes Director Steiner.
“Anyone yells for help, I hang up immediately. Clear?”
Director Steiner nods against the point of Jasmine's knife.
Sabia puts the phone to her ear.
“Hello, Grace Lamont, orange thief, this is Sabia Perez. What's up.”
A stunned silence. “Sabia? You have Director Kingsley's phone?”
“What a great detective you are, Lamont. Here, let met put you on speaker so you can show off to your boss.” Sabia taps the speaker button and extends the phone for everyone to hear. “Your partner in crime Kingsley is right here listening with me.”
Roca and Jenna maintain their aims with shotgun and handgun.
Avery keeps his eyes on Roca, who tries to reassure Avery with a nod. Avery is not reassured.
Everyone listens.
“Bill?” says Deputy Director Grace Lamont.
“Go ahead, Grace.”
“I'm not sure what I should tell you on speaker.”
“Tell me, Grace.”
“It's about the glove.”
Sabia thinks hard. She looks at Kingsley. He looks at her.
“Go ahead, Grace. Tell me.”
“New DNA was uploaded to the system today. A missing person. From rural Maryland. Last seen at a bar also in rural Maryland. Name — Tucker Gere.”
Roca and Jenna and Sabia each exchange looks. Jasmine notices. Director Steiner notices. As does Director Kingsley.
“What the fuck is she talking about,” says Director Steiner.
“Bill, who's that?” says Deputy Director Lamont.
“No one. I mean, never mind, Grace.”
Director Kingsley shakes his head at Director Steiner.
Then he aims his voice at the phone again. “State of Maryland. Local bar. Tucker Gere. You sure his DNA is a match to the glove?”
“According to Clarksburg.”
Director Kingsley looks at Sabia. “Who the fuck is Tucker Gere?”
“We're looking into that, Sir,” says Lamont. “Late twenties. Welder.”
“Rural Maryland,” says Jasmine. “He's from the South. Didn't Marylanders fight on both sides of the Civil War?”
“They did,” says Avery. “And Iowa fought for the Union.”
“How times change here in Iowa,” says Sabia.
“Tucker Gere was last seen in the bar with an unidentified older man,” says Lamont. “Much older. Possibly disguised. Possibly on the run. Understand? A fugitive maybe — with Tucker Gere whose car is missing also.”
Kingsley remembers the unknown car that Billy the Moto Kid told him he saw parked in Sabia’s drive one night. Kingsley looks hard at Sabia. Then Roca. Then Jenna.
Lamont continues: “You might have found your man, Director. We're trying to confirm that now, analyzing the bar camera recordings. You find Tucker Gere, you find your man, I think. You got the glove there in Iowa, right? Tucker Gere and your target must be close. Assuming Gere is still alive. Which—”
“Castelan,” says Kingsley. His eyes grind through Sabia.
Sabia feels everything slipping away. All her secret knowledge, all her control. She glances at the knife that she threw on the counter.
“He must be almost in your grasp,” says Lamont.
“Castelan,” Kingsley says again.
“Kingsley, explain this shit,” says Director Steiner.
Director Kingsley’s voice drips with disdain: “Who’s leading the investigation now, Director Steiner?”
Steiner breathes with difficulty. She swallows hard against the knife at her throat.
“Deputy Director Grace Lamont,” says Director Kingsley, '“I think we found more than we might — uhh — more than we might know.”
“How’s that, Sir?”
“Grace, I think we found—”
Sabia ends the call. She considers throwing the phone at Kingsley but hangs onto it instead. “You fucking spy,” she says.
Kingsley must have stolen one of Tucker Gere’s forgotten gloves from her truck. She wonders what else Kingsley stole. And was it before or after their drunken night together.
“You fucking spy,” she says again. “I should have fucking—”
Thrown you in the goddamned pit with Silver and Lin and Castelan.
Maybe it’s not too late, Sabia thinks. Maybe Kingsley and Steiner can go into the pit today.
Sabia looks at Jasmine with the knife, and at Avery, Roane, and Gabe at the ready. Sabia considers Roca’s shotgun and Jenna’s handgun. She thinks of the guards that Jasmine said she saw outside today. Maybe they can all be lured into the farmhouse and then meet their fate deep in the stone of the Earth.
She should have dealt with the shock troops of Empire a long time ago, Sabia thinks, if only she knew how. Maybe she can deal with them today.
Some days it’s a good day to grow pawpaws and figs. Some days it’s a good day for Revolution.
The White House Press Room is howling. Everyone wants to question Acting President Alecta O’Roura-Chavez after her radical speech.
A reporter from legacy media screams over the others: “It’s anti-American!" She commands the floor. “It’s anti-American! This is not some backwater socialist country with a totalitarian regime. It’s not supposed to be. This is America. We do things differently here. We are the land of the free, the home of the brave. Not socialists. We are capitalists. It’s money that makes us strong. Free enterprise. That’s what America is all about. Anything else is anti-American. You can’t nationalize industry and banking! It’s not Constitutional. It’s not legal. It’s not moral.”
“Thank you for your speech,” says Alecta. “A pity you were not elected by anyone.”
Alecta points to the ceiling, as if to the sky, as if to higher authority.
“The idea of ‘Anti-American’ — it’s a bigoted term. It has always been a bigoted idea. What is America, what is American after all? Originally, to be American was to genocide the Native Americans. Then to be American in the South was to enslave African Americans, and to be American in the North was to submit to industrial tyranny, to wage-slave, and to deny women and people of color the right to vote. That was America and American — all-American. Next to be American was to conquer by bloody massacres the Philippines, hundreds of thousands of Filipino civilians dead, and then to kill and enable the massacres of socialists and communists and students and peasants in Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Chile, Guatemala, El Salvador, and on and on, and then to kill hundreds of thousands more civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan and all across western Asia, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and many other places around the globe. That is what it has meant to be America and American.”
Alecta stands tall, much taller than she physically is. She takes the microphone and steps out from behind the lectern.
In further response to the question, the challenge, the accusation and intended smear of anti-Americanism, Alecta O’Roura-Chavez delivers more of the great speech of her life—
—Traditionally to be American has meant to be supremacist — to lord man over woman, rich over poor, white over brown and black, guns and dollars over flesh and blood.
America has always been an imperialist, genocidal nation from its founding. “Manifest Destiny.” Unfortunately, historically, continental and international genocide is what has been practiced by America and Americans. America the supremacist. It’s a terrible ideology — Americanism — a horrific brainwashing that the term anti-American defends. Because what actually is America? What has “American” been throughout history. Ask Native Americans. Ask Black Americans. Ask the impoverished. Ask the imprisoned. Ask the conquered peoples crushed by American dollars and guns.
What was Jim Crow but fascism against Black Americans in the 1950s. What was slavery? And what of the multi-continental American genocides against peoples in Africa and Asia and America itself?
But America need not be, must no longer be genocidal, bigoted, plutocratic, and supremacist. America and the world desperately need another American Revolution, a better one. With equality and justice, liberty and human rights for all. A healthy and whole revolution of spirit and body, mind and action.
America must overthrow its supremacist ways and build and embrace the libertarian socialism that is real democracy.
America can have its civil war — rage between the people — or it can have a civil revolution — the people’s overthrow of plutocracy, financial tyranny — by creating a true democracy of human rights.
As Americans, we have gained the benefits and seen the limits of identity politics. And now we need to go beyond all that. We need progressive populist and revolutionary politics now.
It’s amazing how consumed the world is by gendered identity politics — masculine supremacy not least.
Identity politics. The better to keep from focusing on class issues that crush people across the entire spectrum of identity.
The better to keep people from abolishing the police state that points more guns than ever at the most vulnerable.
The better to keep people from preventing atrocities, like the US-Israeli genocide of Palestinians.
The better to keep people from ending the terminal threats of climate collapse and militarism.
The better to keep people from outlawing the plutarchy — militarized capitalism — aka fascism — the militant financial tyranny that pillages and preys like the ultimate predator on the most vulnerable and on the guts of the planet itself.
In politics and literature, in the media and culture there is so much identity fixation and ego stroking and relationship navel gazing, not least of our own selves.
Meanwhile, the world burns, and the most vulnerable are cut down and cut up and thrown as logs onto the terminal fire.
White male identity politics and often even white straight male identity politics is the oldest and by far the most powerful form of identity politics in America and in Europe and beyond continuing through today.
The monied establishment loves identity politics. Especially when it’s used to cut the People to pieces — to divide and conquer. The establishment feeds it and uses it to break people apart to keep them from uniting and turning on the financial and military elite who rule the world, and who gut the world to their enormous profit.
Establishment Democrats and Republicans, the plutarchy and their enablers, burn the world and entire Peoples to a crisp who bear identities of all kinds but especially people of color and women and children. There’s gold to be had in having identities for enemies.
So go the All-Americans with their identity apocalypse, the traditional gendered identity warriors of masculinity bravely skirmishing the traditionally oppressed while perpetrating the big wars that gut the survival, let alone the prosperity, of humankind.
The “Trump era” did not start the “masculinity discourse” nor the “toxic masculinity discourse” in America. Ask Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and law professor Anita Hill. Ask the once prominent author Norman Mailer.
Mailer and his like skirmished with “Libbies,” as he called feminists, more than a half century ago. And he was very far from the first so engaged.
Mailer wrote some great books. He also said some very stupid things about gender and race and other forms of identity. Stupid things die off in the literary, cultural, and political world, when and if they do, for good reason.
Anita Hill challenged workplace sexual harassment by her elitist boss when it mattered most, despite being smeared and demonized in the national spotlight. We are in her debt. Her courage immediately led to the election of a significant number of women to Congress.
More sweepingly, nor did the “Trump era” start the “fascism discourse.” Ask George Bush and Dick Cheney and Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Ask the Jim Crow state Governors and the military backed plutocrats who opposed FDR and the New Deal. We can ask these officials even if dead, as history lives on.
And we can ask some of today’s prominent People’s fighters who paid big prices for opposing the totalitarian capitalist police and spy state: Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, and many others. And water protectors Jessica Reznicek and Ruby Montoya. And countless more.
I hereby pardon them all.
Nor did the Biden-Trump Era, still more profoundly, start the “genocide discourse.” Ask Native Americans. Ask Black Americans. Ask the Vietnamese and Koreans. Ever wonder why North Korea hates America so intensely? America obliterated North Korea in the 1950s. People remember their own obliteration.
Ask the Jews. And now of course ask the Palestinians, among others.
These are among the greatest problems that we must correct — the genocidal problems of the day that strike at the fundamental realities of human consciousness and well-being and what it means to be fully human, or inhuman — the vast societal problems that threaten the existence of all of us and everything else on this planet.
What we need is a revolutionary politics and culture and society, not a race back through the murk of time to a supremacist identity politics that persists in a world lucky still to exist.
Overcoming Americanism must be our great national discussion. And if we do not discuss this, if we do not act on it, then what again are we talking about and doing as a public? We are consumed by internecine skirmishes, civil war, sometimes life and death on a retail level — while on a macro level the train of humanity and Earth goes unattended to the death camp.
By the people, of the people, for the people. America must become revolutionary for human rights, if America is to mean anything good at all. If America and the world is even to continue to exist.
Masculine identity politics raging against identities formerly conquered — bravo — you sit grotesquely on the sideline, very far from the great wars for the species and the planet. Or you are a genocidal Earth-killer yourself. The final winter is coming — nuclear winter or otherwise, it’s statistically inevitable — if it is not stopped in advance — if conditions are not changed as soon as possible. We must abolish nukes and militarism, genocide and plutocracy. We must create a real democracy of human rights.
We must exercise and develop a much greater realm of human consciousness rather than flex on the bloody supremacist panoramas of the past and the present.
There is a place for the identity battles, no doubt and absolutely. But when that place becomes the whole, or most or much of the whole, then what goes wanting condemns us.
There’s a reason that establishment ideology essentially bans explicit and direct revolutionary consciousness — from thought and talk as much as possible let alone from act and policy.
It’s not a great reason.
And there’s a reason the establishment embraces identity politics — gendered and otherwise.
It’s not entirely a great reason either. It’s a kind of concession in place of far more whole solutions.
Give something of value with one hand. Divide the people. Then take the rest. This, alas, is Americanism. It might even be said that there is little more anti-American than Americanism — little more anti-people than supremacy — bigoted financial and gun supremacy.
Identity exploration is of great value because it’s important to correct and to keep correcting malignant consciousness in society, but when reigning ideology pushes all of our identities into civil war — into battle against each other rather than against the oppressive class of guns and money — then all hope for humanity and consciousness is lost.
Identity politics are weaponized at the highest levels by the establishment — the better to smash the progressive populists working to gain power for the people. Progressive populists are gaslit to death by bludgeons of identity smashing class. That’s how the elite of the opportunistic establishment like Hillary Clinton beat the principled progressive populist Bernie Sanders in the 2016 primary for President. And that’s how the financially rapacious and genocidal elite like Joe Biden beat Bernie in the 2020 primary.
The supremacist notion of Americanism is an anti-revolutionary fixation at a time when revolutionary changes are needed like never — literally never — before. Even a moderate figure like Bernie Sanders has cried out for decades that revolution is needed now.
Identity politics. That’s how fascist wannabe Republican Donald Trump beat both establishment Democrats Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris — by using traditional supremacist identity politics — though Trump also faked part of Bernie’s popular antiwar and class platform to winning effect.
Identity politics! Americanism! Used by the establishment to divide the people and to gang up with the big donors, the financial elite — to pillage and profiteer, to prey and plutocrat the planet into oblivion.
We need a politics and literature, a culture and society to fight that oblivion.
If we are not a revolutionary people, then who are we? What are we?
If we do not have revolutionary human consciousness, then what have we become?
What will we become?
What will our public policy be? What will our consciousness be? It’s a choice every bit as real as poverty is a policy choice — set by the plutarchy and enforced by the plutarchy when we fail to determine it ourselves.
Poverty in politics, culture, and society is neither a choice we should be willing to make — nor an imposition we should be willing to accept.
A People’s America is not what Americanists defend as they rally around their antique and outmoded flag — their flags of genocide and slavery — and their retrograde identity politics — the oldest most destructive form of identity warfare in the world. A People’s America is what the Americanists attack. A People’s America and a People’s world is what they try to crush. Supremacist Americanists attack the People everywhere and the planet itself.
What these retrograde identity warriors defend is division among the People, fake righteousness, and civil war to fend off progressive populism and a revolution of real and humane democracy.
The civil war of identity politics, in one way and another, continues to pave the way for the next even more oppressive and supremacist Trump or Biden — a militant family and pluto-dictatorship in America — the infernal triumph of traditional identity politics — white, male, gun and dollar supremacy.
There is another way for politics, culture, and society to go. A revolutionary way. To open the path of life for people and the planet.
Progressive populism and libertarian socialism as “anti-American”? Please. Americanism is a toxic menace to a People’s America.
Real democracy in this country and world requires revolution in mind and heart and gut. In policy, law, and action.
The People’s future awaits our revolution. This is our revolution — us not the plutocrats. Us not the gun and dollar death cult. Our revolution is pro People and anti-supremacist above all. As must be.
“Don't let these fuckers move,” says Jasmine Maldonado to Roca and Jenna in the Perez farmhouse kitchen.
With a nod she indicates Secret Service Director William Kingsley and FBI Director Priama Steiner as she holds a knife tight to her throat.
“Jenna take over for me,” says Jasmine. “I need to get with Sabia.”
Jenna presses the stun gun to the neck of Director Steiner who is slumped on the kitchen counter.
Then Jasmine grabs Sabia by the arm and pulls her to the stairs.
Director Kingsley stares at Jenna’s handgun on the counter. “Where'd you get that gun, Jenna? And where'd you get the stun gun?”
“Nowhere you need to know about.”
Director Kingsley thinks he knows. Castelan. Somehow Castelan. Has Castelan gone over to the side of the revolutionaries? Or been captured? Or killed?
“I'm keeping my knife,” says Jasmine. She points it at Kingsley and Steiner. Then Jasmine helps Sabia up the stairs. “We’re not escaping, don’t you worry, Director,” Jasmine tells Steiner. “We wouldn't know how. And we’re not committing suicide. We're not that desperate. We’re going upstairs to the bathroom where Sabia can clean up and recover. You got that, Steiner? You keep watch down here, will you?”
“Go,” says Roca. “Take care of Sabia. These two cops need to rest anyway. They’ve had a big day. They've done too much already.”
Jasmine and Sabia go upstairs to the bathroom, where Jasmine locks them in.
“On the floor, both of you. Face first.” Roca indicates with the shotgun to Kingsley and Steiner. “Sorry, I don’t like what's going on here. In fact, I’m offended. I’m old and I’m fucking cranky. And we will all wait for Sabia to decide what happens next.”
“I'm not getting on the floor,” says Director Steiner.
“Move, or I shoot your partner in crime,” says Roca.
“You can't win this,” says Director Steiner.
Jenna punches the stun gun onto the exposed skin at the base of Steiner’s neck. She screams and glitches sideways into the counter and then slides to the floor.
“Thank you, Jenna,” says Roca. “You see, Directors? We too can be reasonable.”
“Priama?” says Kingsley.
He dares not move toward her, held in place by Roca's unwavering aim.
“Sit on the floor, Director Kingsley,” says Roca.
Kingsley sits. Though by now he would rather lie face down and not look at anything.
He has totally fucked up again.
Jasmine sets her knife behind the old porcelain sink faucet handles.
She cleans Sabia’s face with soap and water and bath towels.
Then Sabia rinses her mouth, brushes her teeth.
“You know where Silver is, don't you, Kid,” says Jasmine. “That's what Kingsley was going to say on the phone to his Deputy Director. You're too young for this, Girl. I’m telling you. You still are.”
Jasmine finds a hair brush in the cabinet drawer. She repeatedly draws it through the long black lines of Sabia's hair as Sabia continues to clean her teeth.
“It was you who took Silver, wasn’t it.”
Sabia stares in the mirror. She nods.
“Hot damn, Girl,” says Jasmine. “You're a fucking wizard.”
Sabia sets the toothbrush aside. “Jenna was right, Jasmine. At the pipeline. We're all too young for this. Even if we're older now. In every way.”
“We didn't pick this fight, Kid. They did. You know that. The fight came to us. It always does.”
“Jasmine, I’m pregnant.”
Jasmine freezes. Her eyebrows go up. The hairbrush is paused in the middle of a long downstroke. Then she continues brushing steadily, patiently.
“Girl. With Avery?”
Sabia shrugs noncommittally. She stands in front of the sink and mirror, cleaning her face. Over-cleaning. Soap and water, washcloth.
Jasmine sits down and below Sabia on the closed toilet lid so she can look up into Sabia’s face. She taps the brush in her hand. “Do you want to be pregnant?”
“It happened so fast.”
“Well, that’s how it goes, Girl. It doesn’t take much. Your ultra-blued-eyed blond boyfriend couldn’t contain himself? Is that your weakness?”
“I don’t have a weakness, Jasmine.”
“Okay. But you’re human. And so is Avery.”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s probably not Avery. I don't want to talk about it right now. Don't say anything to anyone. Jenna knows. Only her.”
“I'm glad Jenna knows. If not Avery, who?”
“Jenna's my rock. A real one.”
“I know it. And so are you. You’re your own rock.”
“I fucked it all up, Jasmine.”
“No.” Jasmine looks to the door of the bathroom. “It’s a lot, Kid. Whatever this is. Even life on a slow day is too big for most of us, most of the time. It’s these crazy times. Blame that. We’re living the crazy. Everyone is completely fucking nuts. Crazy stories, crazy world. This country is psycho. And always has been.”
“Fucking Aristotle, Jasmine. Did you study that shit in high school, or college, how Aristotle talked about story? Unity of time, place, and action. You know — what makes for a powerful work of art.”
“Sure — and I teach that shit.”
“It makes for a killer story. It can. I mean look at us. Someone here in this house is going to get killed if we keep going like this. Probably me. I wouldn't mind that. But it would kill me if it was anyone but me. It could be all of us. We’re all gathered here together today. We’re under threat of the unities of time, place, and action. The unities of the the universe. Of story. Our story. The world’s story. The Revolution.”
“Don’t go epic on me, Girl. There's people dead already. All across the lands. All across the world. We can’t expect to be special. When we attacked those pipelines, Girl, that was dangerous shit.”
“I don’t want anyone here to die because of me, Jasmine. I want the story to be an epic triumph, not an epic tragedy.”
“We don’t always get to choose our endings. To try is all. But let's think, now, what does Aristotle say? We need to be true to our characters, as demonstrated in our actions, and thoughts, and words. Action is life. And the structure of incidents matters above all. The sequence of events. What we do. And what is done to us. We go from action to action to action, forever. And the action should be causal for big impact, not episodic and meandering. The action should be surprising and loaded, and full of recognitions and reversals to give the most life, to create great meaning and to fulfill story, our story, our destinies, the story of life.”
“But how much must we give, Jasmine? Everything? Must we? Should we give everything? It’s not our place to risk the lives of others.”
“I don’t know about ‘everything’, Sabia.”
“We need to give it all.”
“Everything is too much, Sab. Come on.” Jasmine repositions herself and begins brushing Sabia’s hair again. “I'm already going to prison. That’s enough for me. Can't thought and speech be action too? How much more can we give, how much more can we be expected to give? People can only take so much—”
“You acted, Jasmine. That's why you’re going to prison. Some are killed for thought and speech. That’s giving everything. You said it yourself. Action is life. It’s required, for story. Our story. Our Revolution.”
“Aristotle said that not me, Sabia. Don't put that shit on me. Stories are action and lead to action, to life. Aristotle did not say to give everything to any one story. He did not say to give away your life. Don’t justify suicide to me, Sabia. I think one Christ figure is enough in this world.”
“I don’t know, Jasmine. It’s life or death out there.”
“You're in too deep, Kid. You need to pull back.”
“You didn’t pull back.”
“I didn’t die.”
“You were lucky. We were lucky. We were giving everything. We must keep going, Jasmine. There’s only one real question to me — Will we be an epic success or an epic failure?”
Jasmine takes a deep breath and exhales. She considers the locked door of the bathroom and wonders if it should stay locked, not to keep the others out, but to keep Sabia in.
“Sabia — we don’t need to die. Not us. Not here. Not now.”
“Unless we do. We need to win. We need the Revolution. The world needs it. That's when it's over. That’s when our epic journey ends — when we win. Unless we die first. I guess we will. Then it's a tragedy. Unless our death leads to victory.”
Sabia pushes her hair back from her face. She tries to find something bright and cheerful in the mirror.
“Any chance we could make our story of revolution into a funny comedy with a happy ending, Jasmine?”
Jasmine points the brush at Sabia. “We could always pretend.”
“I don’t think so,” says Sabia. “Someone else will need to come up with that story.”
“Girl, tell me where President Silver is. You know exactly where, don’t you.”
Sabia holds up her hands in mock surrender. “You got me.”
“I thought blowing up pipelines was badass. I thought it was epic. And it was. But this shit is next level.”
“Truly epic.”
“Fuck Aristotle.”
Sabia looks in the mirror. “I just want to grow more nuts and fruits. And build everything solar. Meanwhile Alecta is kicking ass on the People’s behalf in DC. Kicking ass and taking names.”
“You’re smack in the eye of the hurricane, Sab, making it all possible. You’re the People’s hurricane of revolution tearing up plutocracy. You survived the blizzard and the bombing. Roca survived. What else should you tell me before we go downstairs and get blown to bits by the psycho police state?”
Sabia is apologetic. “A few things maybe.”
Jasmine nods. “This isn't the day I imagined it would be when I was hyped for Alecta's speech.”
Sabia looks into the sink. She puts her hands on the cool ceramic. “It's all poisonous, Jasmine. Everything smells bad. I puke all over the place. I didn't mean for so much to happen. Except for what I did.”
“It’s okay, Girl.”
Sabia turns on and off the faucets of the sink. “Last night is when it happened, Jasmine. I think then. Director Kingsley. It was him.”
Jasmine squints at the mirror and Sabia in it. “The fucking Director of the Secret Service? Did he rape you?”
Sabia shakes her head. “No. That’s the thing. He was bored, I guess. An easy target. Or maybe he tried to use me — like I tried to use him.”
“Oh, Jesus, Sabia.”
“I invited him over for dinner — keep your enemies closer and all. It was me. I was drinking. He was drinking. I brought the alcohol. I offered it to him.”
“That doesn't mean—”
“I initiated the whole thing. He was going to leave. I stopped him. I took him upstairs.”
“Oh, shit, Kid.”
“I was tired.”
“So, maybe he did rape you.”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“It was a setup, really. I tried to set him up, and I did. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
Or do you. “Did it work, Sab?”
“It's not about what you want sometimes, is it, Jasmine. I didn't try to— I didn’t mean—”
Jasmine holds up her hands with the hairbrush clasped in one. “I'm on your side, Girl. You know that. We can can handle this together. You can do it. You know what to do.”
“I was trying to save everything. First Castelan broke in — and that was horrible. Then we found Tucker Gere locked in the trunk of his own car. What could we do after that?”
“Tucker Gere was alive? He’s still alive?”
“Far as I know.”
“It's okay, Honey.” Jasmine hugs Sabia. “Maybe you've done too much saving of everyone else and not enough saving of yourself.”
“No, it’s for me too, Jasmine. It’s for everyone. It’s for—”
“The Revolution.” Jasmine begins again to brush Sabia's hair. “Tell me plain, Sabia. What do you need now, today?”
Sabia looks at the floor and through it. “Avery thinks I'm his girlfriend. It could be his.”
Jasmine rolls with it. “That would be better?”
“It could be someone else too.”
“Fuck, Sabia. How many are in the running?”
“Three. Total.”
Okay. Three. “That's manageable. That's a good number.” Jasmine scratches her head briefly with the hairbrush.
“And I’m holding the President hostage and all the others. It’s just me. And now Roca and Jenna. I had to hold Roca hostage too at first. Then he suffered a heart attack. Steiner figured it out. And shit got tricky.”
“Jesus Christ.” Jasmine sets the hairbrush on the sink. “It’s you. All you. You’re the American Liberation Army? Alliance. It’s just you?”
“No, it’s far more than me now, Jasmine. It’s the whole country. The boycotts and strikes and people demanding to get their rights at last.”
Jasmine steps back and presses each of her fingertips together around the handle of the hairbrush. “Sabia — how many people are you holding hostage total?”
Sabia glances in the mirror. “I'm not sure anymore. Four, I guess. I mean — not counting Steiner and Kingsley. So — six.”
“Jesus Fuck.” Jasmine sits on the closed toilet lid. “My prison sentence is definitely going to get maximized. Where are they?”
Sabia points down. “Underground.” To Jasmine is looks like she’s pointing into her belly.
“You're pregnant with hostages.”
Sabia nods. “And if Billy the fucking Moto Kid doesn’t watch his ass around me — that spy-boy will be next. Then there will be seven.”
“Okay, Girl. Let’s hold off on Billy. And any other neighbors. Go through the hostages for me.”
“President Silver. Her Campaign Manager, Ellen Lin. And fugitive ex-FBI Director Maximilian Castelan. He beat me, Jasmine, he raped me, before Roca shot him. And Tucker Gere from Maryland. Castelan used Tucker and his car to get here covertly. Tucker is alive only by accident.”
“Sabia, I’m so sorry. Are you okay?” Jasmine hugs Sabia and strokes her hair with her hand.
Sabia lays the side of her head against Jasmine’s chest. So much more soft and gentle than a man. “Nothing is okay anymore, Jasmine.”
They are quiet for long moments.
Finally, Sabia pushes away. She rubs her eyes. She would cry but what good would it do now?
“So Roca shot Castelan, Sabia? He didn’t die?” say Jasmine.
“With the shotgun. Winged him. Jenna operated, picked the pellets out of his shoulder. Jenna’s a rock. I’m not. This pregnancy is killing me. Like there's a monster in there.”
“The Fifth Child. Ever read that novel? By Doris Lessing. Scary.”
“What’s the fifth child?”
“It’s a real problem, Sabia. But we’ll take care of you. Is Castelan — is everyone still alive? Silver and Lin and Tucker Gere?”
“I guess.”
“I know Aristotle said stories should prefer probable impossibilities to improbable possibilities — clever dude, Aristotle — but you’ve gone entirely off the chain, Sabia. Even Dickens and Dostoevsky didn’t go where you went. What kind of consciousness would imagine—”
“A revolutionary one. The mind of an oil pipeline bomber. I’m guilty. You’re guilty. We’re guilty of revolution. And by guilty, I mean innocent.”
“I know it. One thousand percent. Innocent. But you're a long way from going to college to study horticulture. Prison is no consolation prize. I’m going. And so are you. You know that right? You can’t believe in the possibility of pardon for this, can you?”
“I don’t know. There's more to life than living a good life, Jasmine.”
“Well, we’re lucky you and me. And Jenna. We rip on Iowa, but it’s not like the bombs are falling on our heads at all. Not on us.”
“All I wanted was to tell someone on the outside, Jasmine. I need someone on the outside to help me work through this thing.”
“We're beyond that, Sabia. I think it's over.”
“All I need is one person, Jasmine, one more person in the Alliance. I’ve got you. All I need is you.” Sabia reaches out.
Jasmine draws her in. “Even when they put me behind bars — you’ve got me. And Gabe, Roane, and Avery. And Roca and Jenna. And many others you don't even know. Okay? But this cannot continue.” Jasmine points to the door. “We'll be lucky to survive downstairs today. This is it. We need to protect those high school kids. Steiner has guards posted outside, and they are trigger ready.”
Sabia doesn’t bother to point out that she too is still one of those high school kids.
“You don't understand, Jasmine. We can hold out. The Perez family survival bunker, I'm telling you, it’s right below the farmhouse, more-or-less. An old coal mine. Nobody knows. That's where Silver is. And Lin. And Castelan.”
Jasmine holds Sabia at arms-length. “We're standing on their heads?”
“Basically.”
“You're literally holding President Silver and everyone else directly below this farmhouse? The President of the United States of America. Right here.”
“Way below.”
“Well, fuck my ass,” says Jasmine.
“I know, right,” says Sabia.
“That doesn't mean there's any way out of this, Sabia.”
Jasmine pulls Sabia back toward her and holds her tight. They lean into each other's strength and warmth and full embrace.
Downstairs in the kitchen Jenna stands over Director Steiner where she has been shocked all the way to the floor by the stun gun.
“I dare you to get up,” says Jenna.
Director Steiner struggles to move from her semi-prone angle. She shoves herself into a sitting position in front of the kitchen sink.
“That’s far enough,” says Jenna. She takes a step back. She shows Castelan’s stun gun and takes his handgun from the counter.
“Avery,” says Roca. “You know the zip ties we use to stake trees in the orchard. In the kitchen closet. With duct tape. Give them both to Jenna.”
Avery finds the ties and tape. Jenna pushes the handgun into the band of her pants.
“Face down on the floor, Steiner!” Jenna waves the stun gun at Steiner's face. “I saw what you did to Sabia in the orchard. I should have met you at the greenhouse door with the shotgun.”
“You're making a mistake,” says Steiner.
“You’re not the boss of me,” says Jenna. “Get face down on the floor, or I’ll teach you another lesson.”
“This is why you belong in prison, Jenna Ryzcek.”
“You had your chance, Steiner, and you blew it. What’s the survival rate of cops who lose their guns?”
“You're a little terrorist after all, Jenna. You really are.”
“You made me one. You and your kind — the police state. I’m no terrorist. But you? I’m a liberator. A freedom fighter. And you are the Top Cop of the Imperial Police State. The Queen of the Black Sites. Empress of the Hole. Your word doesn't mean Jack Shit here, Queenie. You couldn't be more wrong about me.”
“So it was you who taught Sabia to be an outlaw.”
“We teach each other.” Jenna kneels and holds the stun gun against Steiner's cheekbone. “Do you want your teeth to rattle out of your jaw? Or do you want to go flat on the floor by your own power?”
“Anything for you, Jenna.”
Director Steiner complies.
Jenna takes the zip ties and duct tape from Avery. He watches with wide eyes. “You’re innocent of all this, Avery. You’re doing what you’re told to do by people who are armed.”
Avery nods.
Jenna ties Steiner's hands behind her back and weaves duct tape in form of a figure eight to bind her ankles loosely so that when she stands she can barely walk.
“Lie flat, Kingsley,” Roca commands the Secret Service Director. “Spread your arms and legs.”
“Don’t do this, Roca,” says Director Kingsley. “You’re not helping Sabia. You’re not helping anyone.”
“My people have lived in this land centuries longer than your people, Director Kingsley. Anyway, I hold the gun. I tell you what to do now. Sabia's in charge above all. Not me. So get flat. Or should we wait and let Sabia take care of you?”
Kingsley complies. He sprawls on the floor.
“Take all his shit, Jenna. Then get Steiner’s.” Roca nods to Roane, Gabe, and Avery. “You kids stand back. You have no responsibility for any of this. You do as Jenna and I say. Like Jenna said, she and I are the ones with the guns here. You're guilty of nothing. You remember that.”
Jenna strips Kingsley of his gun, radio, and phone. She takes his car keys and wallet. She sets everything on the kitchen table. Jenna then strips Steiner of similar items. The American Liberation Alliance is collecting quite an arsenal.
“Bind him,” says Roca. “If he so much as flinches toward you, I'll fill his ass with shot.”
Jenna ties Kingsley the way she did Steiner. “We’re through the looking glass now, Kingsley.”
“Who’s the Mad Hatter?”
“President Silver. She’s very mad.”
“You know where she is?”
“Good work,” says Roca. “Now, Kingsley, get on the couch.”
Kingsley stands. He balances awkwardly in his constraints. He is able to slowly shuffle toward the couch.
Kingsley stops at the couch and speaks to Steiner: “I feel like we've made a lot of progress in solving this case today, Priama.”
“Fuck you, Bill. It’s your mess, all of it.”
“This is you, Priama. Your plan, not mine. Arrest Sabia, wrestle her inside, put her on trial. I guess she won.”
Director Kingsley sits on the couch.
“Same with you, Steiner. To the couch,” says Roca.
Jenna helps Director Steiner to her feet and then to the couch.
As Director Steiner tries to ease gingerly onto a cushion clutching her ribs, Jenna shoves her. Steiner falls against Kingsley.
“That’s what you get for attacking Sabia. That’s what you get for labeling me a terrorist for trying to save the world. Enjoy your fucking zip ties.”
Then Jenna goes to Roca and Roane, Gabe and Avery, and together they watch over the Directors of the national police state bound side-by-side on the couch. They wait for Jasmine and Sabia to return to the living room.
“So I guess pizza is out,” says Gabe.
“Maybe,” says Jenna. “Maybe not. Could be nothing is off limits today.”
