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Is it real or fiction? Raven’s Resurrection

Russian spies in Ravens Resurrection?

You bet. It was destined.

Even since President Trump took office, the radical left and what we now call “Fake News” have been raging (along with a few Republicans like John McCain), putting up a 24/7 drumbeat about “Russian collusion.” It’s been going on for two years now and there is no indication it will stop anytime soon.

The attacks on Trump for a crime that does not exist (collusion) lack proof, though America certainly does have serious issues with corrupti0n, foreign agents, election tampering, and election fraud. Voter ID and secure systems would seem prudent. Russia got 20% of our uranium and IRAN got huge sums in cash.

China likely was even more successful at stealing our secrets. A Chinese spy was the office manager and driver for Dianne Feinstein, the powerful head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, for 20 years. When the FBI warned her of this (years ago), she allowed him to retire without being prosecuted. Presumably he is still in America collecting a Federal pension.

I read history. I was alive during the Cold War. I lost my best friend in Vietnam. The Russian Bear has teeth. It is dangerous. Russian spies stole our designs for Atomic and Hydrogen bombs. We executed their spies, but too late, only after the Russians had the bomb.

Soon the old Soviet Union had twenty-six thousand – Twenty. Six. Thousand. — nuclear warheads aimed at us. We had as many aimed at them. It was a scary time.

Armageddon never happened. Sanity prevailed and both sides eased back from the brink. The result was constant, draining proxy wars, from Korea, to Vietnam, along with sophisticated disinformation and sabotage. Americans died. Russia is a competent, dangerous enemy.

The Cold War was a scary time, but we prevailed, and it ended. The old USSR is no more.

Decades later the ruling elites in America – most notably Hillary Clinton as Obama’s Secretary of State – sold 20% of our uranium to Russia. The deal was structured so that Russia could resell it to places like Iran and North Korea, rogue states with few, if any, checks and balances. It was funded by pallets of American cash delivered to Tehran to finance nukes to kill us. Our tax dollars at work.

Note: The assertions in the above paragraph have not yet been objectively and seriously scrutinized. Hillary’s destruction of thousands of Emails was investigated by the Obama DOJ. She was exonerated. Then, just before the election she lost, the investigation was reopened. She was exonerated again. The person in charge of investigating Hillary, James Comey, was fired, as have others at top levels in the bureau. FBI and INTEL corruption at top levels has been an issue.

Both parties were complicit.

Today there is diversion, a 24/7 drum beat, Russia Russia Russia. Liberal heads exploded and Fake News went wild because an American Head of State (Trump) dared to meet with a Russian head of state (Putin). To me, that was strange.

It was a meeting like many others that have been going on for 70 years between these nations, but the left went berserk. Some of those summit meetings went well for America. Some did not. At Potsdam in 1945 a war-weary America led by an exhausted, dying President and absent the leadership of Churchill, gave Eastern Europe to Stalin.

That decision doomed millions to slavery and encouraged Russian aggression. The result was the Iron Curtain and the Cold War, which was not rolled back until Ronald Reagan convinced Russia to “tear down that wall.” The world saw half a century of darkness.

Through it all, the good and the bad, Russia and the United States had common interests.

Were it not for the Russians there is a good chance Hitler would have prevailed and we’d all be speaking German. Were it not for Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), self-interest, and mutual respect the world might have turned into a cinder.

Today, the biggest threats are things like radical Islam, migration jihad (Hijrah), world rulers who have put socialist ideology over reality, an unaccountable UN, and a New World Order (NWO) that works to erase borders, end nation states, and empower unaccountable bureaucrats. Both America and Russia are challenged by this.

We face common problems. Just as in the days before World War II, we have common interests. The meeting between Putin and Trump went well, against the odds. The public senses that. Russia is a threat, but most have confidence our leaders can handle it.

I recently did a survey to assess what Americans viewed as threats.

Mine had a small sample group, one perhaps biased by the fact that few liberals read my novels and that I block leftist trolls. But Gallup did a similar survey in June, one much larger and more scientific.

Their conclusion was the same. Few people cared about Russia. The Gallup survey gave that concern a * meaning “fewer than one percent.”

https://news.gallup.com/poll/1675/most-important-problem.aspx

Put another way, as an anecdote, one thought leader on Twitter recently put it this way:

What’s on the Liberal Whining Wheel for today? Climate change (no, boring), “babies in cages” (nope, lies), BLM (not until nearer the election), guns (tired of the grumpy kid), tariffs (yawn), whining actresses (hypocrisy), so…Russia, it is!

James Woods, June 2018

Still, of course, somewhere in an alternate universe perhaps 1/3 of voting Americans, almost half of Congress, and 99% of the News Media is consumed by the threat of “Russian Collusion.” We’re all going to die and it’s Trump’s fault. Whatever.

My view is that good novels are NOT reality, but they are an image of reality.

What’s a novelist to do in Orwellian times? Responses vary.

Those with the big publishers and potential films (I don’t see a lot of difference between NY and Hollywood leftists) are mostly staying on “PC safe” topics, avoiding making political enemies in a time when who you voted for can get you blacklisted or targeted by violent mobs.

Brad Thor is a top writer (#1 in my genre). His latest book, Spymaster, is a tour-de-force of possible Russian threats. James Patterson made a novel about, and co-authored by, Bill Clinton. Yikes!

One interesting cluster of new writers, mostly retired SPEC OPS, are writing vengeance novels. Their plot lines are Benghazi-like betrayals where only the hero survives. He then uses his skills to target and kill those responsible. Some examples are books like Tim Tigner’s Betrayal and Jack Carr’s The Terminal List.

These books avoid politics. The focus is on personal revenge and kinetic action. The James Bond franchise went that way. Bond’s typical villains are evil individuals. The “Bond girls” and Russian spies of yore are long gone.

Recent books by some of our best-selling writers have drifted this way, often written by new authors, featuring more or less “standard” bad guys, “branded” super-human heroes, and a lot of kinetic action. Think Rambo, but with terrorists and traitors. Compare the original Bourne novel (1980) to the string of recent action movie adaptions.

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Those are the trends I see, but what do publishing industry insiders say? NY publishers are much like what we see from Hollywood. Political correctness reigns. Firms are shrinking.  Writer’s Digest asked this question in their October 2018 issue during the run-up to the election:

How has the thriller genre evolved over the past few years?

Literary Agent #1: “… quite a burst in the market for female-driven stories in the thriller/suspense category.  A huge increase in millennial woman interested in domestic and psychological suspense, which is really exciting.”

Literary Agent #2: “… (seeing) thrillers evolve from a very male-dominated genre. Thrillers are now more emotionally driven with family devotion at the heart of the narrative, often with elements of woman’s fiction….”

My reaction: “Female spies and assassins seeking meds for mental issues, plus child care, and emotional support, like Carrie on Homeland? Again? Really?”

Homeland came out of Israel, not Hollywood. The early seasons were great. The later ones, not so much…. Sequels and copies would seem problematic.

These days, Hollywood does best with comic book themes (e.g., Spider Man, etc.) and sequels, not serious thrillers. The Red Sparrow books were excellent, but the movie was B-grade at best, this despite a large budget and good talent.

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Then there is me, as a novelist. What should I write when everything is political. When reality is schizophrenic and not close to what is reported in 24/7 news or endorsed by many in power? In a nation that still has strong First and Second Amendments, some authors will force their characters to deal with it.

That’s what I did. In Raven’s Resurrection I chose to have Raven’s team target the large threats — Iranian terrorists enabled by Deep State politicians — but to be forced to work with deadly Russian spies if they hope to succeed, or even survive. For the most part, my characters are not happy about this.

I hope you enjoy my novel.

Other threats to National Security in Raven’s Resurrection

Recall what Obama said when he took office: “I will fundamentally transform America!” He never told us what that meant. His promise of “Hope and Change” was a blank slate. It took eight years for America to understand that we were on the Saul Alinsky road to becoming a socialist state like Venezuela.

Today we are recovering, but much harm was done. The Trump administration is doing a heroic job, but it will take years of swamp draining to get us back. From Iran to NK to NATO to trade and to FISA and rigged elections, America is winning the big battles. That’s what matters.

The main theme of Raven’s Resurrection is a Deep State assisted Iranian invasion. The sub-plot is a secret underground QUDS base enabled by corrupt officials, traitors, and drug cartels. Areas of dispute included arguments about who had purview when a number of FBI Agents were killed, the State or the Federal Government.

My book was written before California declared itself a “Sanctuary State” and mounted initiatives to resist, secede, open its border to illegals, eliminate ICE, and even split itself into three new states. The last actually got on the ballot, but was blocked by a court order.

Since my novel came out, I’ve been informed that it understates the cross-border military threat. The linked article gives a draft of a plan being floated to deal with that, a document which is public but well out of date. Link. The issue of invasion and civil war is left for a future book after the 2018 elections.

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There is a lot going on, but I do want to mention one of the “smaller” national security issues you don’t hear about that was in my novel. That issue is Air Traffic Control and a new technology called ADS-B (Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast Out).

All my novels have a small section in the back called “Factoids and Fantasies” that gives links to real world topics. ADS-B is mentioned in Raven’s Resurrection.

On January 2, 2020 to fly in U.S. controlled airspace, aircraft must have what is called ADS-B out. As of December 1, 2017, only 46,968 U.S. registered aircraft were so equipped, of which 1,542 were registered to U.S. air carriers. Most, including my own aircraft, are not yet so equipped.

In some cases, the cost of the new equipment may exceed the cost of the entire aircraft. The minimum is perhaps $5,000-$10,000 for a small aircraft and $50,000-$200,000 for a “legacy” turbine. More for an airliner. One source says you can buy one new airliner for the cost of each two that you upgrade.

Even getting the equipment is an issue. For example, my internal GPS is approved as is the ADS-B transponder that I wish to purchase, but the two are NOT yet approved to work together. FAA paperwork to make the pairing legal to use is promised for this year. Compliance is worse for jets, the airlines, and the military. That’s a long story, one not worth discussing here.

What is worth discussing here – and featured in my novel – is the issue of “the security of some ADS-B data.” This to me is a potential National Security risk, one I used in the plot of my novel.

ADS-B output data is NOT encrypted. All aircraft, up to and including Air Force One, are required to continually broadcast their identity, position, and flight parameters. Instead of using radar, each aircraft will broadcast where it is. This data will be shared by all in the airspace and on the ground.

The happy news is that pilots will be able to receive the signals from nearby aircraft. Pilots can see the positions, altitudes, and vectors of all the traffic around them on a cockpit display. That part is beautiful.

The goal is to help pilots and controllers avoid “traffic conflicts,” potential mid-air close encounters or collisions. The problem is that ADS-B can also allow bad actors to target an aircraft.  In my novel terrorists exploit this lapse in a plot to kill one of my characters.

This is a small thing compared to other national security issues we face. It is real and dangerous, but we can fix it. Eventually. Assuming we keep a competent government in power, I am confident that ADS-B equipment will be upgraded and the data encrypted.

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Note added in 2019 — Two interesting developments involving ADS-B have emerged.

1. Sure enough, Aviation organizations are now pushing for ADS-B privacy improvements. See, for example, Incognito, in the February 2019 AOPA Pilot, by Mike Collins.

Note: In 2019 the Trump Administration allowed private aircraft to OPT OUT of having their identities and ownership publicly being broadcast by ADS-B.

2. To the considerable embarrassment of the “Deep State” and former Obama Administration, the ability to track flights has allowed public knowledge that a constant stream of Federal CDC aircraft have been collecting infected illegals at the border and distributing them all over America in large hospitals. This is the opposite of quarantine.

These illegals are walking bioweapons. So far “Fake News” has kept the lid on, but….

My novel Soft Target featured a bioweapons attack on America. Events like this are making it real, but still little noticed. Link.

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There are other National Security issues that stem from ADS-B. Encrypted or not, a brute force “denial of service” (DDOS) attack could shut down the Air Traffic Control network. The USAF pointed that danger out when ADS-B was proposed. It got the government to agree not to remove all the traffic control radars.

Decisions of the Obama administration, from Iran and Uranium One, to Benghazi, Syria, the Ukraine, and our borders consistently made us less safe. Remember when Obama dropped quarantines for humans and then deliberately imported Ebola? When Navy ships kept colliding?

It was that way with our ATC (Air Traffic Control) system, and the problems had nothing to do with the pending issues of ADS-B. It had to do with hiring incompetents.

Political correctness and affirmative action can be deadly. Here is a link to ponder. Unknown to the public, dangerously dysfunctional people were being hired and deployed as ATC controllers. Such a pattern of misconduct makes good fodder for novels, but I resisted that temptation. The Fake News media, consumed by porn stars, phony Indians, and Russian ghosts, missed it entirely.

NOTE: In late 2018 I am happy to be able to say that the new administration has restored, even elevated, ATC professionalism and competency.

The new group of controllers seem to be mostly female, young, crisp, and professional. My traffic handling experiences in the last year have been excellent. God Bless America.

What was omitted in Ravens Resurrection?

Total electronic surveillance far beyond the wildest dreams of the Gestapo, KGB, or STASI. It was the topic of my novel Privacy Wars. It won 3 National Awards.

That wasn’t discussed in Raven’s Resurrection. Raven doesn’t need it. He has Josie, a paranormal viewer who can see across time and space.

The threat of a Total Surveillance State, prisons without walls, Cyber Gulags, is greater than when I wrote Privacy Wars. Technology has advanced. Everything is watched, and by many sources, both private and public. Anything you say might be monitored, including Attorney/client conversations.

Most of Team Obama, at this writing, still has their security clearances, even those who have been fired or retired. The phone in your pocket is a surveillance device. So are your cars and many home appliances. Some of the courts are rigged. Link.

What has people concerned recently is that America is on the brink of Civil War. Some say we are already engaged in one. Here is a good link if you want to think about that.

One group now declines to accept elections unless they win. That’s been going on ever since this Century started, 2000, but now they lost a rigged election against an outsider, one they expected to win.

Criminal acts are exposed. Sealed documents are being released.

Their brains are exploding. There is credible evidence that our intelligence agencies were weaponized. They were used to spy on and target political opponents, and to steal a Presidential Election. We now have a shadow government with a war room just a few miles from the White House. Link.

FISA safeguards to prevent surveillance abuse against Americans do not work. Here is a link.

Now truth is coming out. Careers have been ruined and reputations destroyed. High level officials in the Federal Government have resigned or been fired, but so far no one involved in these crimes is in jail. My view is that America is at grave risk. Here is why, from one who suffered under a totalitarian state:

“In keeping silent about evil, in burying so deeply within us that no sign of it appears on the surface we are implementing it, and it will rise up a thousand-fold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.”

Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

The left cries for impeachment, violence, and a coup. The right says, “Bring it on.”

My view is this. Americans tend to be forgiving, but this time we need to know that we are in a war. It’s time to take the gloves off. We must deal with these people harshly but in accord with law.

Those who did this evil must be exposed, indicted, tried, convicted, and punished.  If we can make our system work, that’s the best outcome. It’s the road we are on, I hope.

These things are not discussed in my novel Raven’s Resurrection. They are better left to non-fiction books, Congress, and the courts in my view. The Deep State is in panic. In real life, we had an admitted Communist and Muslim running the CIA and high level corruption at the FBI, a situation which is still sorting out.

I recommend Killing the Deep State, by Corsi, and The Russia Hoax by Gregg Jarrett. A flood of similar books is out, including several best sellers, and more are coming.

Thank you for reading my novels. Reviews and recommendations are appreciated.