Alternate version of New America...

[Webstral]

While I also have my doubts about how secret an organization like New America could be, New America makes for good story-telling. One can tweak NA to fit one's own limitations on suspension of disbelief. I've never been big on New America, but the organization can serve a purpose.

I like the Neo-Nazi racism foundation for New America because for me it taps into some very deep, dark stuff. For better or for worse, my father was a history major at a liberal arts college. I grew up on WW2 history. I got a stiff dose of Holocaust awareness in my at-the-dinner-table and riding-in-the-car and fishing-at-the-local-pond education. Flash forward in time, and I'm married to a woman whose parents are African-American and Asian-American. To the Neo-Nazis, Klansmen, and Aryan Brothers of the nation, my son is an abomination, while I am a blood traitor. I like having the story-telling tool of New America available specifically because I'm not remotely neutral about the New American racism.

Getting to the story-telling part, I have been sketching out ideas for the New American power in Idaho so I can show these guys in action. New America is a device for showing how the kind of evil that overtook Germany can overtake at least a slice of the American population. Not every white person in the Idaho cantonment has to be a racist. Like the Germans, the non-NA folks along the Snake River simply have to go along with the program.

In The Final Solution, a New American cell has enjoyed huge success in the Snake River Valley of Idaho. Unlike the Tampa New American organization, the Snake River New Americans have gone with a more traditional Holocaust-style of treatment of the untermenschen. Concentration camps have been set up, and the non-Aryan internees are worked to death. It's pretty straightforward, really.

From a story-telling standpoint, I get my dramatic release from two events. The first is the friction that develops between the Shogun in Nevada and the New Americas. The Shogun is a warlord, but he's an equal-opportunity warlord. He's Japanese-American, and the outward apsects of his army (the Gunryo) are heavily Japanese partially as a means of fostering internal cohesion among his troops. The Gunryo has a lot of bikers, but the few racists have been... weeded out. The Shogun gets wind of what is happening in Idaho and executes a major raid with his army of mobile marauders. He "liberates" a number of people from the concentration camp, then promptly adds them to the peasant population under his thumb in Nevada. Mind, I'm not trying to make the Shogun a hero. I just like the irony of the Shogun and New America being at each other's throats.

The second event is Operation Manifest Destiny. The Snake River has to be opened up to barge traffic so that the Colorado and the Puget Sound cantonments can be linked logistically. Skipping over the preparations to build an expeditionary force that can do the job (which could fill a thick novel), I imagine American troops gathered from all over the country (including a reinforced battalion from SAMAD) pushing forward an offensive to crush the New Americans and liberate the surviving Americans in the concentration camps. So yes, it's a fairly simple good v evil story for me. I happen to like it because it touches me in a very personal, very fundamental way.

Webstral

[Targan]

Originally Posted by Webstral

I like the Neo-Nazi racism foundation for New America because for me it taps into some very deep, dark stuff. For better or for worse, my father was a history major at a liberal arts college. I grew up on WW2 history. I got a stiff dose of Holocaust awareness in my at-the-dinner-table and riding-in-the-car and fishing-at-the-local-pond education. Flash forward in time, and I'm married to a woman whose parents are African-American and Asian-American. To the Neo-Nazis, Klansmen, and Aryan Brothers of the nation, my son is an abomination, while I am a blood traitor. I like having the story-telling tool of New America available specifically because I'm not remotely neutral about the New American racism.

I'm glad you wrote this Web. I have held off posting in any threads about New America because the whole concept of NA makes me very uncomfortable. Of all the things in modern society that I can not abide, racism is high on my list. I often say (only half jokingly) that you can always find much better reasons to hate someone than the colour of their skin. I don't like speculating on what New America would or would not do because I don't want to have to put try to put myself inside the head of a New America member. I'm normally pretty good at being empathic and trying to see things from other peoples' points of view but with NA I find myself really not wanting to.

[pmulcahy11b]

I like to have the racist New America as bad guys, for the reasons Targan mentioned. My mother is a concentration camp survivor, and that contributes as well.

As for myself, racism is basically institutionalized hate, and in the US we're already seeing it reassert itself. But It doesn't make sense to me -- there are so many reasons to hate people as individuals that hating them as a race doesn't make any sense. Dogs are altogether better people -- most of the time they love unconditionally, and when they don't, people probably made them that way.