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Fiction: Narrative writing drawn from the imagination of the author rather than
from history or fact.

Fantasy: Though sometimes used as the equivalent of Fancy, or even imagination,
Fantasy is usually employed to designate a conscious breaking free from reality.
The term is applied to a work which takes place in a non-existent and unreal world,
or employs scientific principles not yet discovered, or contrary to present experience,
As in science fiction.

A Handbook to Literature by C. Hugh Holman – Third Edition

Our friend Daniel had emergency surgery earlier this week to drain the infection which caused his knee to swell up like a blimp. Daniel is one of those people who, liked by everyone, is what some people call, “a ham”. A fact, which, Daniel says, caused some conflict at the hospital when his roommate complained that the nurses were paying too much attention to the care of Daniel and hardly any to his.

While at the hospital, I noticed a book on Daniel’s hospital table.

Earlier, when I phoned to see if he was feeling up to having visitors, Daniel said that his hospital stay was giving him plenty of time to read, a fact which puzzled me, as I have never known Daniel to be a man who likes to read [he is more of an action type guy], and, yes, he would welcome visitors.

Seated on the chair across from his hospital bed, I could see the paperback on his table, and wondering what sort of book it was, I asked what the book was about. He said, “It is about a democratic president who is told by his aides, that Hamas plans to cause the eruption and explosion of a volcano in the Canary Island—and that such an explosion would create a most powerful tsunami, which, in turn, would wipe out the entire east coast of the United States.” He added that, “in the story, the president being a democratic president, he really doesn’t want to believe what his advisors, or the generals [in the Pentagon?] are telling him about this Hamas plot; he doesn’t want to hear it because he doesn’t believe in the possibility of such a thing happening, and because he doesn’t believe it can happen he doesn’t want to do anything to stop it. He does not believe it can happen, so the generals are meeting to plot against their democratic president to see how they can keep this catastrophic event from happening ....”

Daniel’s telling of the story managed to hook my political soul.

The book seemed to be extrapolating some of the 9/11 facts, twisting and spinning these facts around a democratic president, and creating a fantasy or fantastic world around them while sprinkling some sort of “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” flavoring on it.

Was this a blatant attempt to discredit democrats and democratic leadership in the U.S.A? Was it a blatant attempt to paint the democratic leadership as “soft on terror so as to keep Bush and the Republicans in power?” I wondered.

My head took a spin.

The plot, while fantastic, sounded very credible to Daniel in the wake of 9/11. It also sounded, to me, much like the plot of someone who had found a way to smear and, who, intent on smearing the democrats took each one of George W. Bush’s failures, transferred them into a fictional character, dressed that character in a democratic suit, sat him in the oval office under a democratic presidency and, attempted to correct Bush’s failures by making the Republicans in the book the heroes of the story. The more I listened to Daniel, the more the plot sounded like the plot of someone who was writing a story to spread, for George W. Bush, the Bush policy of fear mongering. It certainly spoke to Daniel’s heart and the message he received in it was that Democrats are soft on terrorism, that he would not be safe in an America in which there is a democratic president; that a democratic presidency endangers the world and that safety to the homeland and the world can only come from republicans and a republican president.

It was as if this work of science fiction had become, in Daniel’s mind as I heard him tell it, a message from the Bush propaganda machine, warning the people of the evils lurking out in the world, evils which only a George W. Bush, symbolized in the book by a Republican suited General, could stop.

Daniel is a Bush Republican. Actually, he became a Bush Republican after 9/11/2001. He was converted to Bushistan as a result of the emotionalism and nationalistic fervor displayed by the Bush propaganda machine after 9/11 and by the patriotic fervor which overtook the country then and continues to surface any time Bush pushes its emotional button.

At the hospital, and as we continued to talk about the book, I was troubled that anyone would use a work of fiction, fantasy, or science fiction to, intentionally or not, play so blatantly with the minds and hearts of people like Daniel, instilling the fear and distrust in them of any democrat and their democratic presidency. It seemed Machiavellian and malevolent.

“Daniel, this has already happened.” I said.

He asked, “What has already happened?”

“This whole thing has already happened.” I said. “We have a man in the White House who was told that United States was in imminent danger from an attack by AlQaeda, he was told, prior to September 11, 2001, that there were credible threats made by AlQaeda against the United States, and he did not listen. He did not want to be bothered. He preferred to enjoy his time away from the oval office at his Crawford Ranch where he spent the summer clearing brush. That man was not a democratic president,” I said. “He was a Republican...”

Daniel said, “I know this has already happened—but next time around it’s going to be worse.” ...”Someone,” he said, “had better start paying attention and the democrats don’t seem to believe that it can happen.” Daniel’s tone of voice seemed determined, or serious. Daniel was convinced of what he was saying.

I felt my head spinning once again. All sorts of thoughts ran through my head. I am one of those democrats who believe that George W. Bush uses fear to intimidate people into submission and to get his way.

I thought of Condoleezza Rice’s statement at Princeton University, “Democratic principles must also be backed with power in all its forms: Political and economic, cultural and moral, and yes, sometimes militarily.” And, I thought of George W. Bush’s statement at the National Endowment for Democracy, “... our new enemy teaches that innocent individuals can be sacrificed to serve a political vision.” And, I thought of how their lies have sacrificed the lives of many innocent people. I am angry that neither one of them ever admits to, or recognizes the many lives, American and Iraqi, which they sacrifice in pursuit of their domination of Iraq and Iraqi oil.

I thought of how, fear and propaganda, are used by totalitarian states to suppress freedom of thought, freedom of speech, and freedom of dissent. I thought of how in repressive and jackbooted states, works of fiction, musical compositions, and other creative projects become propaganda machines intent on spreading, maintaining, and securing the party’s dominant ideology.

This book on Daniel’s hospital table sounded so much like that! A culture of fear book! At least where Daniel is concerned, the book seemed to serve as a propaganda machine for Bush and his administration.

I said, “You know Daniel; fear planting among the people is really helping no one. Seeding fear serves no good purpose. Fear paralyzes people. It stops them from thinking. People are already scared enough as it is... they do not need to be scared anymore than what they are.”

Daniel said, “Yes, I know.” And then he repeated, “But someone had better have fear put in them and they had better start paying attention or we are all going to be wiped out.”

“How do you think the books ends?” I asked Daniel.

“They remove the democratic president from the presidency for dereliction of his duty; the generals [disgruntled Republicans?] are able to come up with a plan to stop the nuclear explosion of the Canary Island volcano, and...” Daniel said...

I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t hear the rest of what he was saying.

“We already have someone who needs to be removed for dereliction of his duties—not someone who lives in a work of fiction or of science fiction, like the, carved out of real life-change the name of the party, president in the book, but someone in real life, and he is not a democratic president. He is a Republican, and he didn’t listen. He wasn’t interested and we got 9/11...” I interrupted him.

“Yes, but, it wasn’t just the president who didn’t listen. There are a whole bunch of people who did not give him the message, going, even, all the way back to other administrations ...” Daniel said.

“Oh! Okay! Go ahead. Excuse him! Make everyone else, anyone else, responsible for 9/11 but him, even when he had already been in office almost a whole year when ...” I thought and wondered what the name of the book on Daniel’s table was and who the author was, but I didn’t ask.

As we were leaving the hospital, my mood somewhat dampened by the exchange which had taken place, I told Daniel, “Maybe I’ll get you some good books to read, like Perry Mason or Ellery Queen, or something like that...” to which my husband, with his ever sense of good humor, added, “Maybe something more like Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck books...those might even be better.”

We all smiled.

Once at home I looked up the name of the book and its author. The question for me remains.

Should this book be considered a work of fantasy, or fiction, or should it be considered an arm of the Bush propaganda machine?

Actually, I am still wondering what the intention of Patrick Robinson, author of Scimitar SL-2, is.

Am I to consider this Poseidon adventure of a book as a work of fantasy, or fiction, or...

As an arm of Bush’s fear mongering and propaganda machine?

Authors Bio:
E.T.SIMON ... Keeping the Bio Real and Transparent ...
E. T. SIMON is more often like a transplanted palm tree from the land of Santiago de Cuba where she was born to a Cuban, Tulane University, lawyer educated father and, a Mississippi, mother, great-granddaughter of American Revolutionary War hero, Brigadier General Andrew Pickens who is credited with the victory against the British in the Battle of the Cowpens. Although at times, E.T. Simon is more like, the fruit of the pecan of her Mississippi grandparents pecan farm of long ago, or even like the Sycamore so firmly rooted in the Florida Peninsula. As such, the daughter of bi-cultural, bi-lingual parents, E.T. Simon navigated the bi-cultural ties, bi-lingual shores of her birth, while learning to appreciate Cuban and Southern cuisine and cultures, from a very early age.

At the age of 15, two years after her mother's death, she dreamt about running away from her home to join the , "Bohemians" of the 1950s in New York's Greenwich Village and become a writer. She did not. In 1961, at the age of 18 her father sent her across the pond to her mother's family in Mississippi in an effort to keep her from falling prey to Fidel Castro's repressive agents who were on her trail for her opposition to Fidel Castro.
Bumpy rides, or not, In 1976, E.T. Simon, after twelve years of part time studies, with in-between times-off for parenting, obtained her B.A. in English with a Major in Literature and a double minor in Psychology and Philosophy. In 1985 she obtained her Master's Degree in Counseling and in 1987 her License in Marriage and Family Therapy.
Her quest to pursue a MFA in Creative Writing was derailed when a stuffed shirt Chaucer Literature Professor graded her paper on The Prioress Tale short of the A she needed to establish her credentials in the MFA Creative Writing Program, even while receiving the support of the Academic Dean who told her with a certain urgency, "don't stop writing. You'll find a way."
Prior to pursuing her graduate studies in counseling, Ms. E.T. Simon joined a Creative Writing Group where she honed in on some of the art and craft of writing and had the pleasure of attending poetry readings by Tess Gallagher, Denise Levertov, Rutabaga Rose and others.
Following her 1985 graduation, Ms. E.T. Simon proceeded to work as a counselor/family therapist until 1998 when, following surgery, she became a near recluse and has remained a near recluse for the last twelve years or so.
It was during those years that she worked as a counselor/family therapist that Ms. E.T. Simon learned that grief is a powerful agent which often contributes to the derailing of families; that human hearts can bury grief for generations and generations with the grief popping up unexpectedly as a symptom anywhere, sometimes even in someone else further along in the generations.
Ms. E.T. Simon also learned that when careful unearthing of buried grief happens and a person is enabled to truly grieve the pain of a loss they have been holding on to for years, then rebalancing of the derailment takes place and true healing occurs.

Writing is a lifelong love of E.T. Simon's, and whether she kept her writings buried in dusty drawers, or shared them with university professors, writers' groups, editors, or published them, the writer's flame burns undying in her. The flame of truth also burns in her along with the need to stand up for the underdog, of which, today, she finds herself to be one. This blended well in her throughout her years of computer activism for peace and social justice.

E.T. Simon's articles have been published under the name of TERESA SIMON-NOBLE, the pen name of ELENA DUMAS; and at times, under the additional pen name of SKYAGUNSTA, or SKYAGUNSTA PICKENS, both of which are a direct reference to her great-great-grandfather Brigadier General Andrew Pickens who was named "Skyagunsta," by Native Americans who came to appreciate him as a man of conscience. Please also know that whether the articles have been signed with one name, or another; with a pen name, or another, the writings have always come straight from my heart, my perception, and my core values.
In other words, it has always been me, and only me, writing the articles.