"Bush's new Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, recently released a report naming the People's Republic of China as the primary threat to American strategic interests at home and abroad. The report placed Asia and the Pacific at ground zero for the newest American struggle for freedom and military superiority. The report de-emphasized the strategic importance of Europe to American interests, despite the fact that hot wars currently blaze in Macedonia and Chechnya. China is now Public Enemy Number One in the Department of Defense and the Pentagon. The reasons for this, according to Rumsfeld, are straightforward. China is on the verge of becoming an economic juggernaut. They have, and are developing, technology capable of delivering nuclear weapons to all points on the compass. They sell weapons to rogue nations such as Iran, threaten Taiwan, and occupied Tibet. They have the capability to spread their influence all along the strategically vital Pacific rim, home to many burgeoning economies and source of important materials like rubber and tin. They are, lest we forget, godless Communists, whose greatest wish is to spread their Marxist ideal with missionary zeal across the globe.

"Donald Rumsfeld represents a nation that is an economic juggernaut. We currently possess technology capable of delivering nuclear weapons to all points on the compass. We are still the only nation to have actually done so upon a civilian population. We have sold weapons to rogue nations such as Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan. We have occupied with our military forces Grenada, Nicaragua, Panama, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Haiti, Somalia, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Korea, and made a semi-coherent stab at Cuba not so very long ago. In this manner we have spread our influence all across the planet. We are a Christian nation, missionaries at heart, and are not above bearing the cross into battle for the greater glory of God. These are, in the end, mere details. The ability of governmental officials to persist in their wretched work in the face of scathing hypocrisy and irony is just the pastel with which we color our political palette. Donald Rumsfeld and his ilk, morosely, offer no surprises with their actions. Despite the fact that we have more political prisoners in chains than China does due to our hapless War on Drugs, despite the fact that we are guilty of worse crimes than we could ever accuse them of, this will not distract the contra-constitutional government of George W. Bush from rushing pell-mell into a state of conflict with our newly chosen foe. America functions best when it has an enemy to fear and demonize. This is an old truth which has, sadly, not yet been discredited as it should be.

"For you see, according to men like Donald Rumsfeld and George W. Bush, it is that hatred which is the surest avenue to power. When the American people, in their blind and foolish trust, are directed to hate something or someone because they become convinced they are threatened, the power of the government becomes almost invincible. We will work ourselves up into a frenzy of nationalistic vigor, allow the hawks in the military to run amok, and loosen the purse strings that tie our tax dollars so those funds can be accessed by defense contractors with dreams of missile shields dancing in their heads, lest the money be wasted on social programs and environmental preservation. The Republicans did not lose the White House in 1992 because they were stupid. They lost the White House because the Soviet Union was no longer a credible threat, and the GOP no longer had the ability to make us hate. Donald Rumsfeld has provided Bush and America a new enemy to fear and despise, but the consequences of this shift will be far more poisonous to the populace than perhaps they know. The Russians were Over There during the Reagan years, but today the Chinese are right here. Americans react poorly when they are taught to hate and made to fear. The spike in anti-Muslim crime by good Americans during the Gulf War, and the knee-jerk belief that an Arab blew up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, tells you all you need to know about how we deal with perceived enemies who are in reality citizens of our country. We hemmed in Japanese citizens behind barbed wire during World War II. What will come of our new circumstance? Who will be the victims tomorrow, now that we have somebody new to hate? ...I must learn to hate my old friend Thomas Chang, who is a poet in his soul. I must learn to hate Dharma Lim, whose father was a Buddhist monk and who taught me kung fu in his spare time. I must learn to hate some of my own students because they are Chinese. I must learn to hate the Chinese man I passed on the street tonight who was burdened with groceries for his family. Who will you have to hate tomorrow?" --William Pitt, 3/28/01

by Jerry Politex

I drove my silver Audi down Mesa Drive, the spine of Cat Mountain, hung a left at the cat's tail, drove quickly up the hilly, winding 2222 in low gear, took a right onto Balcones Drive, and came to a stop in the rear parking lot of Chez Zee.

Another sunny, warm early spring day in Northwest Austin, Texas. The lunch crowd was pretty much thinned out by now, so I had choices of parking spaces. I got out of the car, the turbines winding down, and stood by the rear entrance to the restaurant, a pretty-good place for not very expensive Southwestern food. I didn't have long to wait.

...click here to continue the novel.

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