Victoria: A Novel of 4th Generation War

by Thomas Hobbes

  Folks in the N.C. liked their leaders' speeches to be short and to the point. The governors understood that. So did Gunny Matthews.

  “Gentlemen, thank you for this opportunity to speak,” the Gunny said. “As the leader of the Council Of Responsible Negroes, I do not dispute anything the governor of New York has said, because it is true. As a whole, the black community did become a burden on, and a threat to, the rest of society starting sometime in the 1960s.”

  “But it was not always that. As late as the 1950s, any of you could have walked safely, alone, through the black neighborhoods in your cities. You would have found intact families, with married fathers and mothers, who supported themselves and contributed by their work to society. You would have seen small but neatly-kept houses fronting clean streets. The people there would have welcomed you. If you were hurt or in need, they would have helped you. Their skins may have been black, but their hearts were as white as yours.”

  “I say this because it proves that negroes are not inherently disorderly or criminal. It is not in our genes. The catastrophe that overwhelmed the black community over the last sixty years came from following the wrong leaders and the wrong ideas. That has happened to other peoples as well. To white people. It happened in Germany and it happened in Russia. You fought against it here in America. Other peoples have turned from their wicked ways and lived, and we can do the same.

  “We know we must take strong measures, painful measures, to rebuild a negro civil society. We are prepared to do that. And we will do it, for ourselves, if you will let us.

  “Now here is our proposal: First, we will put an end to black crime. Any negro who commits a crime involving violence or threat of violence, who breaks into a home or business, or steals a car, will hang. Any negro accused of such a crime will be tried within 48 hours, the jurors will be selected from the residents, black or white, of the street where the crime was committed, the trial will be over in 24 hours, and the sentence will be carried out within three days. We'll build gallows in every park. We'll gibbet the hanged corpses on every street corner. And we negroes will do the hanging.

  “Not only will we hang every drug dealer, we'll hang every hard drug user. Anyone, black or white, on the street in black neighborhoods will be subject to random drug testing. Anyone who fails the test will be dragged to the nearest gallows and hanged. The drug test itself will count as the trial.

  “Second, we will enable all negroes to work, produce, and contribute to society instead of taking from it. For decades, regulations imposed by the U.S. government made it impossible for most blacks, and many whites, to start a small business. Anyone who tried was visited by dozens of inspectors and regulators demanding something or other under penalty of law. Now that government is gone, but the new members of the Confederation, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, still have many such regulations of their own. They have minimum wage laws that price negro labor out of the market. They have zoning laws that prevent a negro homeowner from running a boarding house. They have laws that allow only union shops to bid on state contracts.

  “Before welfare, negro communities had a thriving small scale economy. If you will allow us to get the regulations and regulators off our backs, we will build our own economy again.

  “Third, we will make certain no more negro children grow up in cities. Cities have always provided rich soil for vices of every kind. The other reforms we have proposed will help, but the city will never be as healthy, physically or morally, as the countryside. Therefore, any negro family that has or wants children will be resettled on a farm. Our states have vast amounts of land that used to be farmed but now lies fallow. World prices for food are rising. Life on a small farm will not make negroes rich in money, but it will give them richer lives.

  “We will buy the farmland we need for rural resettlement. We will pay for it by sharecropping. No one will be forced to sell to us, but many whites own more land than they can farm, and they will profit if they sell. The Amish and the Mennonites have volunteered to teach urban negroes how to farm. We know we can do it, because most of our people used to farm.

  “This is our proposal. If you will approve it, we are ready to put it into effect within 90 days. We ask you to give us three years to prove that it works. If it does not work within that time, we will know black people cannot live in this country, and we will leave. I will personally lead our people back to Africa.

  “Our question to you is, will you give us a chance to show that our people can live good, productive lives as your friends and neighbors?”

  The governors’ body language told me Gunny Matthews’ proposal had hit them hard. It was a serious offer from a serious man. It meant no more shuckin' and jivin'. If it didn't work, the blacks would leave the Northern Confederation. The only real risk to the rest of us was the possibility of three more years of black disorder if it didn't work. I figured we could live with that risk, especially since the potential payoff was a lot more land under the plow in a world increasingly short on food.

  The governors asked a few questions, then turned the meeting over to the citizens of the Confederation. Anyone could phone in their question or comment, and the response was broadcast live so everyone could hear it. I was happy to hear that most people seemed to react as I did: they were willing to give the blacks a chance, especially since they promised to leave in peace if they failed.

  By about nine that evening, the callers had dwindled, and the governor of New York moved to end the session. He did so with a surprise. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “I know we are accustomed to allow every state to make its own decisions. But on this matter, and undoubtedly on others in the future, we need a common policy. I therefore propose we take a lesson from the state that gave birth to our Confederation, the State of Maine. I propose we submit this proposal to the people, in a referendum held throughout the Confederation.” Each state had to make its own decision on that proposal, so the meeting adjourned.

  I had quietly mobilized the militias around each city that had a substantial black population, in case of trouble. There wasn't any from the blacks, but in Lawrence, Lowell, and Methuen, Massachusetts, the Puerto Ricans rioted.

  The Massachusetts militia quickly encircled the affected areas in each city, then blockaded them. They turned off the water and gas, stopped all food deliveries, and waited. It took about 48 hours for the first Puerto Rican refugees, cold, hungry and thirsty, to approach the militia's perimeter. There, by my orders, they were turned back.

  Meanwhile, the Massachusetts legislature passed a resolution expelling all Puerto Ricans in the three cities from the Commonwealth. Once that law was in place, the militia announced over the radio that Puerto Ricans would be allowed to leave each city by one exit. The exit was chosen to be convenient to a railroad, and after the PRs had been fed, given water and allowed to warm up, they were packed into boxcars for a short trip to Boston harbor.

  There, freighters were waiting, along with John Ross's LPH and his Marines. The PRs were led on board the merchantmen, and on November 17, the convoy set sail on “Operation Isabella.” It anchored off the small Puerto Rican port of Aguadilla on Thanksgiving Day. The Marines came ashore in case there was resistance—there wasn't—and the human cargo was landed. Our men were back on board their amphib and sailing for home in time for turkey with all the trimmings, and Massachusetts had a double reason to be thankful. After that, there were no more riots.

  By December 15, all the states in the Confederation had accepted the governor of New York's idea for a nationwide referendum on the CORN proposal. It was held on January 3, 2029, and it passed by 58 percent. Surprisingly, the referendum got strong majorities in virtually every black ward. The lesson we taught the Puerto Ricans probably helped, but the fact was that most blacks were ready for a change. After all, most of the victims of black crime were also black.

  Inner-city crime quickly vanished. The shiny new gallows stood mostly unused after the first few weeks. The bla
ck militant act everyone had groaned under for decades simply collapsed. As Dr. Johnson said, the prospect of being hanged concentrates the mind wonderfully.

  What astonished many of us, including me, was how quickly the out-migration to the countryside began. Even though most urban negroes had been born and reared in the city, they seemed to retain some ancestral memory of a happy country life. We didn't have to force them to head for the farm; they wanted to go. Churches, white and black, worked together to find landowners who would accept negro sharecroppers, sharecroppers who, unlike those in the old South, would eventually own the land they cleared and farmed. The Amish and Mennonites proved to be excellent teachers. Within a year, over a third of the urban black population was relocated on farms. By the end of the three years given by the CORN plan, the only negroes left in the cities were old folks without kids and a few black professionals. Gunny Matthews and the other negroes who had seen through the professional victim hokum had brought their people home.

  Today, in the year 2068, our negro farmers are the bedrock of our agriculture. Their products make up more than 30 percent of our exports. Black and white folk still mostly keep to themselves socially, as is only natural, but they work together for the good of our nation. The black visionary whose vision finally came to pass was not Martin Luther King, but Booker T. Washington.

  If you visit a one-room negro country school, at recess you may hear the children jumping rope to this cheerful little song:

  Hang him high

  Or hang him low,

  To the hangman

  He will go.

  Hang the fat

  And hang the thin,

  Bow his head

  And stick it in.

  Hang the young

  And hang the old,

  Hang the bully

  And the bold.

  If he steals,

  He must know,

  To the hangman

  He will go.

  It's always been true that children learn their lessons best at play.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Hope, they say, is a fool, and perhaps so was I. But I had hope the new year of 2029 would see normal life begin to return to the Northern Confederation. With the war in remission and the black problem on its way to solution, our main difficulty was that the economy was in the tank. We were caught in a depression worse than that of the 1930s, a lot worse.

  As in Russia in the 1990s, the breakup of the country had severed so many trade relationships that industry came to a standstill. There were no raw materials, no spare parts, no markets. The Pine Tree Dollar held its value, because we stuck to the rule of not printing any we couldn't back with gold or foreign exchange. But to get foreign exchange, we needed to export. To export, we needed to make things. And to start making things again, we needed to loosen the money supply, which we couldn't do because we couldn't print more money. Our empty wallets told us why economics is called “the dismal science.”

  Bill Kraft worried that voters would demand we start issuing money we couldn't back. That didn't happen. Folks weren't about to forget why the old USA fell apart. There was no nostalgia for decadence. People just took in their belts a notch or two, huddled together in the one room that had heat and looked for opportunities to work.

  Slowly, those opportunities came. With the Federal government and its OSHAs and EPAs and EEOCs gone, someone with an idea could just set up shop. In Massachusetts, one of the companies on Route 128 made a breakthrough in battery technology and began manufacturing power-packs for European and Japanese electric cars. In New York, a crazy retired colonel started building small dirigibles using carbon fiber frames, as replacements for helicopters. They cost only one-tenth as much to operate for the same lift, and foreign orders started coming in.

  A computer wizard in Providence came up with a terminal that gave the user hard copy as he typed, thus guaranteeing he would never again lose days of work because the system crashed. He called his device a “printwriter,” and it sold like, well, typewriters.

  I was tempted to go into business myself, making a practical and highly gratifying attachment for the telephone which would, upon detecting voicemail on the other end, immediately zap the receiver with a gazillion-volt charge and turn it into a blob of melted celluloid. Regrettably, my General Staff duties proved too demanding to allow a diversion into business.

  Most new businesses weren't fancy or high tech. Rather, they represented a step back into the early years of the Industrial Age. They were small shops, located near rivers and railroads, making things people needed: plows and hoes, carts and wagons, frying pans and treadle sewing machines and hand operated washers.

  It wasn't clear at the time, but these NIPs—New Industrial Pioneers—marked the real new wave the Tofflers and other fat fools had predicted. Only it was the opposite of everything they had foreseen.

  First, it centered on making things. It turned out that passing around information among computers was just a video game for adults. It wasted vast amounts of time, produced nothing, and caused living standards to fall faster than a whore's drawers. By moving back into the Industrial Age, the NIPs began laying a sound base for a stable prosperity.

  Second, in the real new wave, enterprises were small. Bigness did not result in efficiency. On the contrary, anything big—government, business, an army, whatever—created a labyrinth in which incompetents could hide, breed, and “make careers.” Instead of a “world economy,” we found ourselves moving toward many small, local economies where maker, seller, and buyer all knew each other and understood what worked.

  Third, the new wave marked the end of rampant consumerism. A dose of reality, in the form of hard times, taught people what was important: a few useful things, made by hand by real craftsmen, built to last for generations. Some people called it the “Shaker Economy,” and that wasn't far off the mark.

  These were the beginnings of a Retroculture society, though at the time they were actions driven by necessity, and we saw them as nothing more. An invisible hand was at work – not that of Adam Smith's market, but the infinitely more powerful hand of God. For the first time in generations, we were willing to be the sheep of His hand, and let His wonders unfold.

  But in the year 2029, that all lay in cloud. We were scrambling to make ends meet, all of us. The General Staff had quickly demobilized the army, all but three battalions which were stationed as quick reaction forces, one in Connecticut and two in New York. Local militia were responsible for keeping the borders closed. It was less than a bare-bones arrangement, but the Confederation didn't have the money to do more, and the men were needed at home to hammer and forge, plow and reap.

  The first crisis of the year came in April, right on April Fool's day. I scented that something was in the wind, because for the previous three weeks, no one had been able to find Governor Bowen.

  This wasn't merely a case of the governor being unavailable; we were accustomed to that. He had vanished! No one had any idea where he had gone, not even the nurses who took care of him or his wife. What made it all the stranger was that, for many months, he had been unable to leave his bed.

  Bill Kraft proved unusually unhelpful. He'd gone home to Waterville and he declined to return to Augusta. Nor would he let me come up there to see him. He told me flat out it would be a waste of my time and his. I suspected his was a Taoist withdrawal – inaction as a form of action –but that didn't help clear up the mystery. The legislature was out of session, nobody moved to recall Bowen by referendum, so all I could do was sit like Mr. McCawber and wait for something to turn up.

  Around 10:30 in the morning on the first of April, my phone rang. On the other end was Major Jim Jackson, formerly a Marine reservist in Vermont and now the NC General Staff rep in Montpelier. “We got some funny goins' on here,” he said, “and I thought you ought to know about 'em. As we speak, I'm lookin' out the window at men and women both, all headed toward the state capitol and all carrying weapons. They don't look like our sort of fo
lks, either. Most of the men have long hair, and the women seem to be the horse-faced sort. If its some kind of April Fool's gag, they're doin' a good job of keepin' a straight face.”

  “If this call is an April Fool's joke, it'll be on you, because I'll have you clapped in irons 'til May,” I replied.

  “It isn't,” Jim replied. “I'm now seein' a few flags. They appear to be green.”

  “Shit, more Muslims?” I asked.

  “I doubt it, here,” Jim answered.

  “Who else would have green flags?”

  “Deep Greeners,” Jim answered. “Vermont's still got a good number of 'em. They've kinda gone to ground since Vermont First took over, but they didn't die off. If I were to bet, I'd bet that's what I'm lookin' at. They're seedy enough. And no one else would give women guns.”

  Deep Greeners were the Khmer Rouge of environmentalism. They believed nature was a gentle, sweet, loving earth goddess who had been ravished by Man the Despoiler. The earth could again be a Garden of Eden, if only man could be removed. That this would leave no one capable of appreciating the garden did not occur to them. Deep Green was the most radically anti-human ideology humans had yet invented, in that it called for man to eliminate himself. There were, of course, exceptions: Deep Greeners were fit to live. But nobody else was.

  “OK, Jim, go check it out, and try to stay out of trouble,” I ordered. “Alert the local militia, too. I'll be over as soon as I can get there, with part of the Battle Squadron.”

  The Battle Squadron was a new unit established after demobilization from two infantry companies. It answered directly to the Chief of the General Staff. Mostly, I used it as a cadre unit to experiment with new tactics, techniques and weapons and to train other units. In battle, they were a force I could use to intervene personally. In this case, they had some interesting gear I wanted to try out, stuff the Marine Corps had developed in the 1990s as part of “non-lethal warfare.”