Word Soup

I'm currently reading Stuart Archer Cohen's The Army Of The Republic, which imagines a complete and total fantasy world where corporations essentially run the United States Government, and use vast networks of disinformation and propaganda to keep the general populace stupid, obedient, and patriotic. I know, it sounds really far fetched.

It's an interesting book, in that it tackles the nature of violent revolution. A major corporation has started privatizing the nation's water supply (a la Bolivia) and the result is a massive network of fractured political activism (a la Seattle 1999) which varies from extremist groups ready to assassinate CEOs on the street, to groups who'd prefer simply using protest power to reclaim a government of and by the people.

It's a world where you can barely tell the difference between a city cop and a privatized corporate mercenary ( a la Halliburton). A world where government and corporate interests have fused into one relentless cultural pathogen that begins to use the same trademark tactics (murdering activists, spying on American citizens) that ultimately pop up in any country where profit-driven fascism is allowed to be the primary driving ethos (a la Chile).

As this Onion AV review hints at, if the novel has a problem, it's that the characters feel a little plastic and humorless. There's a ham-fisted attempt to make you identify with the nation's elite, but you wind up ultimately unconvinced that these characters are any more than set dressing for revolutionaries to play among and between. Still, the point gets across, but maybe only if Cohen is preaching to the choir (in this case a progressive middle-classer like myself, who has spent the last ten years writing about telecom, and watching AT&T and Verizon essentially purchase the U.S. Government to thunderous applause by a mindless populace):

"In many ways, Army is exactly the kind of book it promises to be. There's a lot of venom toward greed, the mainstream media, and the co-option of civil rights, and most of that venom is delivered by a series of interchangeable talking heads. The points are often well-made, but rhetoric alone isn't enough. Cohen's writing is humorless and strident, but at times, he rises above his debate points in showing the desperation and loneliness of the activists, and their increasing paranoia. Most importantly, Sands' uncertainty about his place in the political machine and his awakening conscience build to a surprisingly moving conclusion. It's an argument that works better than a thousand speeches."