"DOMESTIC ENEMIES"


ABOUT "DOMESTIC ENEMIES"


My new novel Domestic Enemies begins five years after the end of Enemies Foreign And Domestic in a much darker America, which is becoming more of an overt police state following each fresh act of terrorism. The national economy is on the brink of collapse, unemployment is soaring, and the cities are descending into ungovernable sinkholes of anarchy and ethnic violence. After decades of uncontrolled illegal immigration, tens of millions of angry non-English speakers begin to exert their political muscle, unafraid of a broke and feckless federal government. Several western states, in frustration, have passed official "English Only" laws, and have unilaterally begun to deport illegals across their state borders.

The action in Domestic Enemies takes place between Oklahoma and California, but most of it occurs in New Mexico. After many years of an open-door policy to illegals and intentionally laissez-faire voter registration, the entire state government has been taken over (in wildly rigged elections) by Chicano extremists who are only nominally members of the Democratic Party. The strapped federal government, which is dealing with multiple crises it considers far more urgent, turns a blind eye to the political turmoil in the "backwater" border state.

One of the new state government’s top agenda items is radical “land reform.” Large (mainly Anglo-owned) properties are to be confiscated on the pretext that their original deeds and titles are invalid, under the Treaty of Guadeloupe Hidalgo, dating from 1848. Confiscatory property taxes are levied against other large land holdings, to justify their seizure by the state. In order to enforce these “land reform” policies, the governor creates a new paramilitary organization, the “Milicia de Nuevo Mexico,” and arms them with surplus M-16 rifles from the state guard armories. (The actual New Mexico National Guard is still fully deployed to the ongoing war in the Middle East.) Thus the stage is set for a bloody showdown between New Mexico ranchers who refuse to leave their ancestral lands, and the Milicia de Nuevo Mexico, which is comprised largely of illegal alien immigrants fighting for the promise of citizenship, and for free land to be distributed as the spoils of victory. "Land for the landless!" and "Return what was stolen!" are their battle-cries.

The radical state government also passes “Español Solamente” laws, in reaction to several western states which have already passed English-only laws and begun ejecting illegal aliens. Police and other government employees who cannot pass difficult Spanish proficiency tests are fired. Milicia checkpoints are pervasive, searching cars for illegal firearms. The checkpoints are meant as a form of ethnic intimidation, a part of the new government’s unstated (but clearly intended) plan for the ethnic-cleansing of “Nuevo Mexico.” Bosnia and Kosovo in the early 1990s (just before those civil wars exploded) are a model for the political and ethnic brew simmering in the pressure cooker which is the New Mexico of Domestic Enemies.

"Voluntarios" from Mexico, Central and South America (as well as left-wing radical gringos) are flocking to Nuevo Mexico for citizenship, land, and a chance to strike a blow at the hated "imperialist" United States. Well-armed volunteers of the Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett stripe are also heading to the beleaguered state to support the threatened ranchers, and to keep New Mexico an integral part of the Union. South of the border, Mexico is roiling in its own Marxist revolution, with many echoes of the 1910s. As in that earlier Mexican Revolution, exiles, spies, and fleeing factions will also be pouring into Nuevo Mexico, adding to the darkly Byzantine atmosphere.

That is the background of my second novel Domestic Enemies, which I should finish in 2005. It will reprise several of the characters from Enemies Foreign and Domestic. I mean it to be a cautionary tale about the "Balkanization" of America, which may be an end result of our present out-of-control illegal immigration, combined with a failing economy, and leftist political correctness run amuck. As a writer of “future history,” I fervently hope to be far off the mark in my vision of an America I hope to never see.

Domestic Enemies should be in print and available early in 2006.
In the meantime, you may use the EXCERPTS button below to navigate to the early chapters, which are posted on this website.

And yes, there will be a final novel completing the trilogy: Foreign Enemies. This last book in the series will see the rump U.S. federal government invite U.N. "peacekeepers" onto American soil, in an attempt to regain control over the rebellious western and southern states. Once again, the promise of U.S. citizenship and free land will be used to draw foreign enemies onto our territory.

Matt Bracken - March 2005

Woo! Nother book to read!