Casing the Colors : Week 1

Dear readers, the entire week is now all about politics, so Saturday should be something different. I've just finished writing a book about a possible future for American and the world. I'm going to post two chapters on our blog every Saturday. That should take us through the summer -- with some lighter reading for the weekends. If you don't like the new book, I'll know by the drop in wour level of logging onto the blog on weekends, and we'll try another idea. If you would like to comment, you can always do it on the blog, or send me an email to new address especially for the book : < cpvigilance@yahoo.com > I'll keep all comments private between the sender and me. So, a new Casey Pops adventure begins. I hope you like sharing it with me. Have a safe and happy weekend, everyone, Casey Pops .................................................... CASING THE COLORS : THE NEW AMERICAN REPUBLIC © by Casey Pops CHAPTER 1 The future had pursued America since 1620. It was implanted in them, a pacemaker beating cadence as they advanced toward their destiny, feeding their individual and common acts. It was the DNA that made them as sure of freedom as they were sure of God and of His selection of them as the guardians of liberty for all humankind. Their DNA, that bundle of genetic quasi-religious collectivity that assured them they were unique, that lurked in their subconscious as a glue, holding them together in the certainty that God meant His sons and daughters to be free and that Americans were His chosen vessel. DNA providing memories of freedom centuries old but just beyond reach that served as their history and beacon -- it was those never dying memories of the future that led Americans to reconsider in the most forceful way their present circumstances. ................... General James Gordon, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was the patriarch of a very wealthy old Philadelphia family. The Republican Gordons had lived in Philadelphia since the Hessians arrived to help the Colonies, at a good price. Over time the money grew, turned into privilege, and often became the source of military patriotism. General Gordon had spent so much of his life in the Army that his working knowledge of party politics was limited to its impact on military budgets and planning. This, it might be added, in no way interfered with the private expression of his personal political views. His lack of practical political savvy was the reason Jim Gordon telephoned his daughter Katharine in early June 2022. He was justifiably proud of her work as a lawwer. She had a very successful business and political practice in New York City. But, he didn't need her legal services. What he needed was unique, even with his wide ranging experience. "President Harper has asked me to do a job for him," he said, "but it's not exactly a military matter. Do you suppose you could come down to Washington for the weekend." "Of course, Dad." Kate wondered what could be important enough to make the President ask her father for a favor that wasn't military. "I'll catch a shuttle tonight and we can have Friday, too." His blond, thirty-five year-old daughter, whose charm masked her brilliance to her advantage, had earned her political spurs early in life, raising money and serving as Pennsylvania's youngest ever GOP national committeewoman. Before she had graduated from Harvard College, Kate Gordon had built a political reputation for energetic and successful work helping to keep the Grand Old Party on the rails, not lurching too far right, but enough to preserve its tradition and its reputation for supporting the Constitution. That Kate was the daughter of one of the richest and most powerful men in the United States didn't hurt, but it also made her a natural target for the media, spreading beyond the boundaries of Pennsylvania GOP party politics when she was still a teenager. The media blew up her successes far out of proportion. But, undeniably, she was a force to be reckoned with in the GOP's future, considered by both party pro's and the media as the woman of her generation most likely to be the first woman named to the top of a GOP national ticket. It was one of the few things that gave her real satisfaction. .................... When Kate's taxi rounded the long curving drive and pulled up to the portico and double front door of her father's rambling white brick colonial style home in the rolling countryside near Potomac, Maryland, she saw a familiar BMW parked in the driveway. She hurried inside to find her father sitting on the back terrace with Scott Bennett. Lieutenant General Scott Hancock Bennett. She kissed her dad and tossed a satisfied smile at Scott, whose presence made her even more curious about the previous day's telephone call. "I didn't expect you to be here, Sweetheart," she said, carefully brushing Scott's cheek to avoid leaving lipgloss as she casually bent over him. "Don't I get points for being the welcoming committee?" he asked, patting her backside. "You bet, Angel. I haven't seen you for three weeks." Scott was not easily tamed, even at the comfortable distance they kept in their relationship. They had been together, not on a daily basis, but permanently, for most of her adult life. They had been thrown together by destiny when she was still a baby, before her father was at the Pentagon. Scott Bennett's suave, confident military presence was a natural result of his own family's military tradition reaching back to the 1840s during Bloody Kansas and the Mexican War. His demeanor, along with her father's, formed a large part of Kate's vision of what America was all about. When she was in law school, she and Scott, by then Colonel Bennett, began dating and neither of them ever searched for another serious relationship. They also never got around to marrying. Sometimes the vague futility of their attachment made Kate angry, but she occasionally found the clarity to admit to herself that she fostered the fuzziness as much as he did. It was secure, didn't demand total commitment of either of them and left plenty of time for their real passions, politics and war. And, every time Kate looked at him, she recognized at least one reason why she had never completely walked away, although she had often considered it. Scott Bennett was, at fifty-one, tall and rugged in body and soul. His whole life was devoted to the troops he commanded in the name of the United State of America. He was self-disciplined and battle-tested in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in case anyone ever forgot, he was always quick to remind them that he was Academy. As the entire Army elite knew, Scott Bennett was Jim Gordon's protegé, a younger carbon copy of the great man. Kate knew that in many ways, her father found in Scott the son he never had. The General, fifteen years older than Scott, was the most universally respected general officer in the Army, serving with distinction in Iraq and Afghanistan and as a counter-insurgency expert in the Middle East and South America. Jim Gordon pursued his passion despite having been born with the immense wealth that would have made other men choose a life in business boardrooms or the pleasant vacuum of following the seasons around the world's society havens. Kate had very little memory of her father's presence during her early childhood, but she carefully preserved many of his long, handwritten letters, sent from places he was ordered to defend, telling her of his thoughts while he was responding to orders. The letters spoke with military precision of a commitment to duty that rose to a level she never expected to be required to meet. If Kate had many memories of her father, she had none of her mother, who was killed in a car accident when Kate was only three months old, leaving her motherless, a child whom her father was determined to save from all in life that could possibly harm her. At almost the same time, while Scott was still a teenager, his mother and father were killed in a plane crash, so it was General Gordon, a close friend of the Bennett family, who filled the parental void in Scott's life, as well as in Kate's. It formed a bond between the two youngsters that held them together for the rest of their lives. While her father occasionally asked if the two were ever going to get married, he seemed content to have Scott near and to know that he was devoted to Kate, who was not simply General Gordon's only child but the one thing in life he valued as much as his honor. .................... The following morning at breakfast, while the three sat around the terrace dining table devouring Jim's superb biscuits and homemade raspberry preserves, Jim told them about his conversation with the President. "He wants me to find a candidate to replace him in the presidential election. He's tired, and I think more than a little frightened, and he wants out. He says he can trust me to be quiet about it and not get Americans more stirred up than they are now." "The election's two years away," Kate said, perplexed that any sitting President would take the unheard-of step refusing to run for re- election. He'll change his mind when the election juices start to flow." "It's a golden opportunity," Scott offered. "He's sure as hell not the strong President we desperately need. He'll never make the tough decisions America's waiting for." "You're right, Scott," Jim said. "The President is too frightened to step up to the question of islamic terrorists and their leader. He knows they're not controlled by anyone, not their host countries or followers, and not the Arab leaders who support them financially or tolerate their existence. But now that the President has read the full FBI-CIA Report on terrorist activity, he's having trouble dealing with the fact that they're present in every major American city, led by a man with one goal -- bringing down the United States through a well-financed guerrilla war built on political frustration and racism." "Are you talking about Raqqa?" Kate asked, breaking into her father's characteristic monologue. "He gets a lot of his money from Carlos Miguel," Scott said, "and from Arab governments who agree with him and want to share his spoils if he should happen to win. The rest are afraid to resist him." "Carlos Miguel. I know him," Kate said matter of factly, surprised to find that she was at home in at least a tiny part of the covert territory her father and Scott dealt in routinely. "One of my best clients has to deal with him every so often to keep his South American operations running." General Gordon buttered his biscuit, troweling as if it were fresh cement. "I'm not sure what I can do for the President. He asked me to find someone who appeals to minorities, as well as to Middle America. That's a tall order. I can't even figure out how many minorities we're talking about, let alone find a President for all of them. And, he also wants someone who can shoulder the military response." The General's voice quavered with frustration and disgust. "For once, I agree with him," Scott said. "We're looking at a major military effort to eliminate the terrorists. We don't really control many inner cities now. They're a motherlode of poverty and drugs and alienation from the rest of America, despite the effort we're pouring into inner city social programs and police departments." "God Almighty, yes" General Gordon snapped, "violence is escalating faster than we can respond without starting massive resistance. Bored ghetto youngsters are bought for a few dollars, some crack and a load of anti-American bullshit. Violence. There's nothing else to occupy them. It's the same in Europe, terrorists using racial and religious divisions to radicalize and recruit the young." "The President doesn't want to start a war," Jim Gordon said, looking at his daughter. "He wants to pass the torch, so to speak. He has a suggestion. Justice Wellford. You know him a lot better than I do, Kate." "He's been my mentor ever since I started my law practice," Kate said. "You know that, Dad. He's fed me more clients than I can count and he's one of my best friends. But, when the word gets out that the President isn't running, Vice President Wilson will be all over us. Wilson may not be Abraham Lincoln, but the Grand Old Party has a way of ignoring qualifications if it thinks it can win with someone already in the lineup. Wilson will come out waving the flag and holding prayer meetings at abortion clinics. We need a new face with mega-credibility to have a chance against him. Stu? Maybe." The General laughed. "Isn't that just like a politician, Scott? Ask them a question and they tell you what you already know." "Kate, arrange a meeting with Stu Wellford. Invite him here so we can talk privately. The President wants someone in place and committed before Labor Day. That doesn't give us much time." Kate recognized her father's tone. The discussion was over. "So Harper doesn't have the stomach for a guerrilla war in our own cities. Is that the message, Jim?" Scott asked. "That just about covers it," the General said, bristling. "What a hell of a time for him to find out he's got the wrong job." CHAPTER 2 As most crises in America, it all started as a political problem. Americans had responded to increasing racial confrontations and terrorist attacks by first electing a Black President who was charming and articulate, in the hope that he could bring racial peace to the country. He had brought Progressive leftist ideology instead, including jettisoning white and Christian Americans and replacing them with globalist ideas about rejecting traditional America for open borders, the United Nations and Islam. The reaction, when it came, was patriotic and powerful, in the form of a President whose ideas were a blur of rebuilding traditional America and making white Christians feel good about themselves again after eight years of living in a country where they felt they were no longer welcome. His programs had worked to some extent and America felt better about itself, with jobs and a working Constitution at the end of his presidency. But, the prosperity and calmed nerves of the American middle class was a thin patina that put a shiny surface on a festering inner core of Progressive anger, small but fanatic and well-funded by globalist godfathers, using race and special-interest minority rights as its feedstock. The next President, Carl Harper, was a moderate, right-leaning Republican who had generated considerable rancor by trying to live with both Democrats and Republicans, depending on the issue, while serving in the House of Representatives. The continuing conservative reform legislation of the overwhelmingly Republican Congress, often sold to America by the President rather than Congress, further encouraged Progressive-instigated inner city disturbances on such a wide front that reports of them became routine news items. Hundreds of citizens were injured and many killed as inner cities exploded in hatred and violence. The rioting was not so much a community response to being poor in a wealthy country as it was the response of young people who had been convinced that they were being deliberately persecuted by an establishment that would never accept them. Their first leader, an old Democrat socialist who had no interest in anything but forcing the Democrat Party farther to the left, had energized them but could not control them and the movement was soon taken over by the professional globalists and Progressives, determined to destroy constitutional government in America. In what become a commonplace reaction, President Harper would order National Guard or federal troops to inner cities as peacekeepers, while the US Army Corps of Engineers tried to carry out its order to rebuild America's ravaged urban ghettos. Harper's hope was to buy domestic peace. But the patrolling troop units experienced nightly sniper fire, and their presence gradually ushered in daylight attacks. The almost universal contempt among minorities for any government plan made the rebuilding job impossible and Carl Harper, a President not well-liked or trusted by either major party, had no personal reservoir of popular support built up over time to turn the tide. The President couldn't understand why his promises of a better, more traditional America didn't simply materialize from the media barrage provided by good speechwriters and public appearances. For him, that was the way politics always worked. The President set the direction and the rest of the country followed. Instead, what Carl Harper got was violence on an unprecedented scale. .................... While America choked on unparalleled violence, Russia was in the late stages of its own crisis of conscience and finally imploded. The Russian president who had been elected routinely for the past two decades, largely because he controlled the entire apparatus of government and the security services, couldn't hold his security forces in line as ordinary Russians piled onto the streets in protest, timidly at first, and then in waves, to reject his stifling neo-soviet political agenda. His coterie of ministers, chosen because of their unquestioning devotion, was hounded by the Duma and its parliamentarians demanding his resignation to free the scene for their preferred opening up to a less autocratic government. The Russian president resisted with all the force he could muster, but he had only skeptical and weakened military power brokers to serve him. It wasn't enough. In the midst of the increasingly violent confrontations between the Kremlin and the Duma, suddenly a man from the Urals took center stage. Alexei Katerinov, tall, lean, young for his 45 years, and recognized by the Moscow political elite as a Duma member who had stood his ground against neo-soviet tendencies whenever they flashed in any public debate. His constituency was no more and no less democratic than any other in Russia, but his acknowledged personal integrity gave him the unique presence needed to confront the president and parliament hardliners. Katerinov's supporters were a predictable mix of post-soviet Russia's economic winners, and the frail but tenacious working class that depended on them for survival. One morning in the same June that saw the US President blink, Katerinov simply appeared in the offices of the parliamentary leadership and suggested that they declare the president too ill to serve. He told them he would take interim power. The Duma, fascinated by his imposing figure, sure that the military would support him, and unable to think of anything better, agreed. At least they would be on the right bandwagon this time, they reasoned. Katerinov became Interim President, held a snap election and won by a handsome majority. The West watched and its left-leaning media commented furiously about the lack of democratic procedure, but finally they were swayed by the deftness with which the new Russian President Katinerov eased his way into power, winning over the Duma, the military and the populace.