# Ring of Fire: "This isn't America, you stupid idiot!"



## jeremiyah (Feb 13, 2009)

*
"This isn't America, you stupid idiot!"

Mike felt fury flooding into him. He clamped down on the rage, controlling it.
But the effort, perhaps, drove him farther than he'd ever consciously intended.
He turned to face Simpson squarely. When he spoke, he did not shout.
He simply let the microphone amplify the words into every corner of the gymnasium.

"It will be, you gutless *******. It will be." 

When I sent out the article about Marjorie's trip to Cuba, Somebody wrote back and told me that "The Power of Community" movie was about "communists," and that it was about the lie of Peak Oil. Uh Huh. I forgot to tell everyone that; I figured everyone already knew. Sorry. We study Chinese Medicine, Martial arts from Russia, Korea, Japan, Thailand, etc without worrying about their religion or their politics, so I did not think vegetable gardening practices in Cuba was too big a danger to anyone.
Yes, Cuba has been communist for quite a few decades now. And... Unless people are deaf, dumb & blind, they know that we are drilling for oil here in the US -more oil than OPEC can produce...so the Peak Oil myth is a totally moot point as well; whatever...
The point of "The Power of Community" movie, and the reason Marjory went to Cuba, and why she made such an expensive effort to get the story "from the horses mouth" is b/c it is a close historical example to learn how to go from modern civilization to nothing...and how to re-learn life, how to make the TRANSITION from an Oil based energy system to solar / wind / animal powered agriculture, economy, etc...without becoming barbarian zombies.

We may soon see how America faces the same test across the country, and if we manage to do a quarter as well as Cuba did, we will be doing well.

However, I am, In fact, glad the person commented, and that I wrote this, b/c it gave me pause to look up a few facts about Cuba; It is almost exactly the same size as the Ozark Plateau, and same ability to grow lots of food, and perhaps it could be said it has a similar high concentration of -if nor mono-cultural as much as the Ozarks, perhaps homogenous in the sense of similar culture -giving them the ability to work together well. Those factors will be key survival aspects of any "survival community" whether a few families, a town, a county, or a Bio-Region such as the Ozarks.

Sooo...I have another book to recommend that you all read.

It eloquently explains, and presents -in literature, in history, in philosophy -all of that presented through a fictional "real-life" setting of a "Once and Future History."

You can download it and read it free on Kindle.

http://www.amazon.com/1632-Ring-of-...t&ie=UTF8&qid=1367707689&sr=1-1&keywords=1632

You can read it online right now without even downloading it -the whole thing -right now,
not just the first few chapters to get you so deeply hooked you have to buy it)

http://www.baenebooks.com/10.1125/Baen/0671578499/0671578499.htm?blurb

I want everyone to read it for the simple reason that it says the same thing I am telling you all:
The survivalist mentality, "us four and no more" etc, will kill everybody. We need to plan on, like Mark Koernke, aka Mark From Michigan said back in the 90s:
"We will hit the ground running, and we will leave no one behind."
PLEASE!!! Read this story about a community starting with under thirty square miles smack in the Middle of Germany, right in the middle of a horrific decade long war, takes in German refugees, collects food, manufactures, schools, plans, and fights it way to extend the Principles of Freedom as far and wide as possible.
When prisoners are photographed and released with the warning that they have two days to get out of American territory, and if ever seen there again,
would be immediately killed without a trial, one prisoner asks; "Just how big is this "United States?"
When he looks into the eyes of the American leader, he figures Russia ought to be far enough to run.

This book is about starting with a 3 Mile Radius Ring, or Circle of Fire around a safe zone .
I have now, for 13 years, seen a 100 Mile Radius Circle, or Ring of Fire around a Safe Region

This is a little from the beginning of the book which lays out the two paths which lay before the town of Grantville, WV...and which lay before us today here in America:

"So that's about it, folks," Henry Dreeson was saying. The mayor nodded toward a small group of people sitting on chairs near the podium. "You heard what Ed Piazza and his teachers told us. Somehow-nobody knows how-we've been planted somewhere in Germany almost four hundred years ago. With no way to get back."

A man stood up on one of the lower tiers. "Are we sure about that, Henry? The 'getting back' part, I mean? Maybe whatever happened could-you know, happen again. The other way."

The mayor gave a glance of appeal to one of the teachers sitting next to the principal. Greg Ferrara rose and stepped up to the microphone. The high school's science teacher was a tall, slender man in his mid-thirties. His speech patterns, like his stride and mannerisms, were quick and abrupt-and self-confident.

Greg was shaking his head before he even reached the podium's microphone. "I don't think there's the proverbial snowball's chance in hell." He gripped the sides of the podium and leaned forward, giving emphasis to his next words. "Whatever happened was almost certainly some kind of natural catastrophe. If you ask me, we're incredibly lucky we survived the experience. Nobody suffered any serious injuries, and the property damage was minimal."

Greg glanced at the fluorescent lighting on the ceiling of the gym. A fleeting smile crossed his face. "The power plant's even back on-line, so we've got all the conveniences of home. For a while, at least." The smile vanished. "But we're still in the position of a trailer park hit by a tornado. What do you think the chances are of another tornado coming by-and setting everything back the way it was?" Greg took a deep breath.

"Personally, I'd have to say the chance is astronomically minute. Let's hope so. Another Ring of Fire would probably destroy us completely." The crowd jammed into the gymnasium was silent. Greg took another deep breath, and concluded with simple, forceful words. "Face it, folks. We're here to stay."

A moment later, he had resumed his seat. The mayor took his place back at the microphone. "Well, that's about it, people. As far as that goes. What we've got to do now is plan for the future. The town council has been meeting pretty much nonstop for the past three days, and we've come up with a proposal we want to put before everybody." He paused for emphasis, just as the teacher had done. "We'll have to vote on it. This is way beyond the council's authority. So every registered voter here-"

The mayor stumbled to a halt. "Well, I suppose everybody here, registered or not." The sour look on his face caused laughter to ripple through the gym. For as many years as anyone in Grantville could remember, Henry Dreeson had been admonishing people to register to vote.

The mayor plowed on. "We need to figure out a proper structure to govern ourselves by. We can't just stick with a mayor and a town council. So what we want to propose is that we elect an emergency committee to draw up a plan-kind of a constitutional convention. The same committee should oversee things in the interim. And we need to elect somebody as the committee's chairman. He-or she-can make whatever immediate decisions are needed."

...

A motion at the edge of the crowd drew Mike's attention. John Simpson, his sister's new father-in-law, was stepping forward to the microphone. The well-dressed man moved with the same self-confidence with which he had addressed numerous stockholders' meetings. He did not push the mayor aside so much as he forced him to yield the microphone by sheer authoritativeness.

"I agree with Mayor Dreeson," he said forcefully. "We are in an emergency. That calls for emergency management."

Another, less self-confident, man would have cleared his throat before proceeding. Not John Chandler Simpson. "I propose myself as the chairman of the emergency committee. I realize that I'm not well-known to most of you. But since I'm certain that I am better qualified than anyone here, I have no choice but to put myself forward for the position. I've been the chief executive officer of a major corporation for many years now. And before that I was an officer in the United States Navy. Served in the Pentagon."

Next to him, Mike heard Frank Jackson mutter: "Gee, what a self-sacrificing gesture."

Mike repressed his own snort of derision. Yeah, like Napoleon volunteering to take the throne. For the good of the nation, of course.

Quickly, he scanned the faces in the crowd. Mike could detect some signs of resentment at a stranger's instant readiness to take command. But not much. In truth, Simpson's decisiveness was obviously hitting a responsive chord. People floating in the water after a shipwreck are not inclined to question the origin of a lifeboat. Or the quality of its captain, as long as the man seems to know what he's doing and has a loud voice.

He brought his attention back to Simpson. "-first thing is to seal off the town," Simpson was saying. "Our resources are going to be stretched tight as it is. Very tight. We're going to have to cut back on everything, people. Down to the bone. We certainly aren't going to have anything to spare for the refugees who seem to be flooding the area."

Mike saw Simpson cast a quick glance toward him and his little cluster of coal miners. Simpson's face was tight with disapproval. Over the past three days, Mike and his coal miners had made no effort to drive away the small army of refugees who were beginning to fill the surrounding woods. Once he was satisfied that a new group was unarmed, Mike had tried to coax them out of hiding. With no success, so far, except for one family which had taken shelter in the town's outlying Methodist church.

"I say it again," Simpson drove on. "We must seal the border. There's a tremendous danger of disease, if nothing else." Simpson pointed an accusing finger at the south wall of the gymnasium. The banners hanging there, proudly announcing North Central High School's statewide football championships-1980, 1981, and again in l997-seemed to be surrogates for his damnation. "Those people-" He paused. The pause, as much as the tone, indicated Simpson's questioning of the term "people." "Those creatures are plague-carriers. They'll strip us of everything we own, like locusts. It will be a toss-up, whether we all die of starvation or disease. So-"

Mike found himself marching toward the podium. He felt a little light-headed, as he always had climbing into the ring. Old habit forced him to ignore the sensation, drive it out, bring his mind into focus.

The light-headed sensation was not nervousness so much as sheer nervous energy. And anger, he realized. That too he drove aside. This was no time to lose his temper. The effort of doing so brought home to him just how deeply furious he was. Simpson's last few sentences had scraped his soul raw.

First thing we do, we put the lawyers and the suits in charge. Then we hang all the poor white trash. As he approached the podium, he caught sight of James Nichols standing next to his daughter. Oh, yeah. String up the ******s too, while we're at it. The image of a beautiful face came to him. And fry the *****, of course.

He was at the podium. He forced Simpson away from the microphone with his own equivalent of assertive self-confidence. And if Mike's aura carried less of authority, and more of sheer dominance, so much the better.

"I agree with the town council's proposal," he said forcefully. Then, even more forcefully: "And I completely disagree with the spirit of the last speaker's remarks."

Mike gave Simpson a glance, lingering on it long enough to make the gesture public. "We haven't even got started, and already this guy is talking about downsizing."

The gymnasium was rocked with a sudden, explosive burst of laughter. Humor at Mike's jest was underlain by anger. The crowd was made up, in its big majority, of working class people who had their own opinion of "downsizing." An opinion which, unlike the term itself, was rarely spoken in euphemisms.

Mike seized the moment and drove on. "The worst thing we could do is try to circle the wagons. It's impossible, anyway. By now, there are probably as many people hiding in the woods around us as there are in the town. Women and children, well over half of them." He gritted his teeth, speaking the next words through clenched jaws. "If you expect mine workers to start massacring unarmed civilians-you'd damn well better think again."

He heard Darryl's voice, somewhere in the crowd. "Tell 'em, Mike!" Then, next to him, Harry Lefferts: "Shoot the CEO!"

Another laugh rippled through the gym. Harsher, less humorous.

The title Chief Executive Officer, for most of that blue-collar crowd, vied in popularity and esteem with Prince of Darkness. The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse, rolled into one, wearing a Brooks Brothers suit and holding a pink slip in his hand.

Sorry. No room in the Ark for you. Nothing personal. You're just useless in today's wonderful global economy.

Mike built on that anger and drove on. "His whole approach is upside down and ass-backwards. 'Seal off the town?' And then what?" He swept his hand in a circle. "You all heard what Greg said earlier. He estimates the disaster-the Ring of Fire-yanked an area about six, maybe seven miles in diameter with us. You know this countryside, people. We're talking hills, mostly. How much food do you think we can grow here? Enough for three thousand people?"

He let that question settle for a moment. Simpson started to say something, angrily pushing toward the microphone. Mike simply planted a large hand on the man's chest and pushed him back. Simpson stumbled, as much from the shock of being "manhandled" as the actual shove itself.

"Don't even think about taking this microphone from me, big shot," growled Mike. He hadn't intended the statement to be public, but the microphone amplified his words through the gymnasium. Another laugh came from the crowd. Almost a cheer, actually-as if they were applauding a dramatic slam dunk by the high school's favorite player.

Mike's next words were spoken softly, but firmly. "Folks, we've got to face the truth. We're here, and we're here to stay. Forever." He paused. "Forever," he repeated. "We can't think in terms of tomorrow, or the day after. Or even next year. We've got to think in terms of decades. Centuries."

Simpson was gobbling something. Mike ignored him. Drive on. Drive it home.

"We can't pretend those people out there don't exist. We can't drive them away-and, even if we could, we can't drive away the ones who'll come next." He pointed a finger at Melissa Mailey, the high school's history teacher. "You heard what Ms. Mailey told us earlier. We're smack in the middle of one of the worst wars in history. The Thirty Years War, it's called. Not halfway into it, from what she said. By the time this war is over, Germany will be half-destroyed. A fourth of its population-that includes us, now, 'cause we're here in the middle of it-dead and buried. There are gigantic armies out there, roaming the countryside. Plundering everything, killing everybody. We've seen it with our own eyes. Our police chief's lying in his bed with half his shoulder blown off." He glanced at Lefferts, up in the stands. The young miner was easy to spot, because of his bandages. "If Harry had any sense, he'd be lying in bed, too."

Another laugh rang through the gym. Lefferts was a popular young man, as much for his boundless energy as anything else. Mike turned and pointed to Rebecca. "She and her father were almost massacred. Robbery, rape and murder-that's standard operating procedure for the armies roaming this countryside.

"You don't believe me?" he demanded. He gestured angrily at the door leading out of the gym. "Ask the farmer and his wife we barely kept alive. They're not thirty yards from here, in the makeshift hospital we set up in the school. Go ahead, ask them!"

Simpson was still gobbling. Mike turned to him, snarling. "I guess this clown thinks we can keep those armies off by blowing hot air on them." Another roar of laughter. Most of the crowd was with him now, Mike could sense it. Rooting for the home team, if nothing else.

"Sure, we can fight them off for a while. We've got modern weapons, and with all the gun nuts living around here"-another mass laugh-"we've got the equipment and supplies to reload for months. So what? There's still only a few hundred men who can fight. Less than that, once you figure out how much work's got to be done."

Now he pointed to Bill Porter, the power plant's manager. "You heard what Bill had to say. We've got enough coal stockpiled to keep the power plant running for six months. Then-" He shrugged. "Without power, we lose most of our technological edge. That means we've got to get the abandoned coal mine up and running. With damn few men to do it, and half the equipment missing. That means we have to make spare parts and jury-rigged gear."

He scanned the crowd. When he spotted the figure he was looking for, he pointed to him.

"Hey, Nat! How much of a stockpile do you keep in your shop? Of steel, I mean."

Hesitantly, the owner of the town's largest machine shop rose to his feet. He was standing about half a dozen tiers up in the crowd.

"Not much, Mike," he called out. "We're a job shop, you know. The customer usually supplies the material." Nat Davis glanced around, looking for the other two machine shop proprietors. "You could ask Ollie and Dave. Don't see 'em. But I doubt they're in any better position than I am. I've got the machine tools, and the men who can use them, but if we aren't supplied with metal-" He shrugged.

A voice came from across the gym, shouting. That was Ollie Reardon, one of the men Davis had been looking for. "He's right, Mike! I'm in no better shape than Nat. There's a lot of scrap metal lying around, of course."

Mike shook his head. "Not enough." He chuckled. "And most of it's in the form of abandoned cars in the junkyard or somebody's back yard. Have to melt them down." He emphasized his next words by speaking slowly. "And that means we have to build a smelter. With what? And who's going to do the work?"

He paused, allowing the words to sink in. Simpson threw up his hands and stalked angrily back to his seat. Mike waited until Simpson was seated before he resumed speaking.

He suppressed a grin. Kick 'em when they're down, by God! Mike gestured toward Simpson with his head.

"Like I said, I disagree with everything about his approach.

I say we've got to go at this the exact other way around.

The hell with downsizing. Let's build up, dammit!"

Again, he swept his hand in a circle. "We've got to expand outward.

The biggest asset we've got, as far as I'm concerned, is all those thousands of starving and frightened people out there.

The countryside is flooded with them. Bring them in. Feed them, shelter them-and then give them work.

Most of them are farmers. They know how to grow crops, if they don't have armies plundering them."

His next words came out growling. "The UMWA will take care of that."

A chorus of cheers came up, mostly-but by no means entirely-from the throats of the several hundred coal miners in the gym.

Drive it through. "We'll protect them. They can feed us.

And those of them with any skills-or the willingness to learn them-can help us with all the other work that needs to be done."

He leaned back from the microphone, straightening his back.

"That's what I think, in a nutshell. Let's go at this the way we built America in the first place.

'Send me your tired, your poor.' "

Angrily, Simpson shouted at him from the sidelines. "This isn't America, you stupid idiot!"

Mike felt fury flooding into him. He clamped down on the rage, controlling it.

But the effort, perhaps, drove him farther than he'd ever consciously intended.

He turned to face Simpson squarely. When he spoke, he did not shout.

He simply let the microphone amplify the words into every corner of the gymnasium.

"It will be, you gutless *******. It will be."

Then, to the crowd: "According to Melissa Mailey, we now live in a world where kings and noblemen rule the roost.
And they've turned all of central Europe-our home, now, ours and our childrens' to come-into a raging inferno.

We are surrounded by a Ring of Fire.

Well, I've fought forest fires before. So have lots of other men in this room.
The best way to fight a fire is to start a counter-fire.
So my position is simple...
I say we start the American Revolution-a hundred and fifty years ahead of schedule!"
*

http://www.baenebooks.com/10.1125/Baen/0671578499/0671578499.htm?blurb

http://www.amazon.com/1632-Ring-of-...t&ie=UTF8&qid=1367707689&sr=1-1&keywords=1632


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## KaiWinters (Jan 4, 2013)

Yeahhhhh...while it may sound nice the theory...it is "fiction"...does not work out particularly the way they make it sound if you read the rest of the books.
The Ring of Fire is a set of three books of individual stories based on the book "1632" and all of the follow up books of which there are many. Also include the Grantville Gazette, all 47 novellas. If you read them all, and I have and continue to since the first book...one of my favorite series...you will realize that a "blend" takes place over time and much of the area becomes the USE...United State of Europe...but still under a king, of Sweden, and there is still a nobility and many of the "survivors" of the "Ring" have become very wealthy and sort of a new nobility though without some of the trappings of the old nobility.

Don't take one piece of a very complex time, people, religion...did not even mention how religion dominates pretty much all things at that time...government, etc. and make it seem like the second coming of the USA...it did not happen in the book and not in real life either. You will find a blend takes place in all things based on individual strengths, like Mike, beliefs, etc. A majority of any stripe can take over and run things...hmmm sounds like now with the liberal majority in control....


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## Ezmerelda (Oct 17, 2010)

I read the first book, and about half the second, then I just quit. The series made me tired.


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