Fire in the hole - A review of the novel The Iron Cage by Amos Keppler

   The Janus Clan series of novels starts off in The Defenseless as a fairly ordinary story about a seemingly all-American family. It changes slowly from that, turning into blood and strife, ghosts and shadows.

  There are several images of symbolic nature in the series. There is the river, the desert, the shadow and the fire, all important throughout the series.

  The Iron Cage is the tenth book. It is the last being published, but there are three more books that have already been released. This one is still an ending of sorts.

  Don’t expect anything even remotely mainstream here. Some mainstream people will be scared out of their wits if they should stumble upon this book. Seekers and open-minded people and those wanting a true description of the ongoing modern inhuman society will love it.

  Amos Keppler’s books can’t really be categorized, no matter how hard you try. They are far beyond any average attempt at doing that. Perhaps the entire Janus Clan series can be said to lean towards science fiction, but even that is a stretch. Each of the novels can touch anything, any genre, really.

  Most of all they are both a grim and optimistic tale about the modern world and those not fitting in there.

  The is about a different world in the late eighties, with both similarities and notable differences from our world. Ronald Reagan has become downright unpopular. The entire idea of neoliberalism and western establishment society have been seriously questioned by many people, not merely those walking in the Janus Clan’s tracks.

  The story follows the clan of warriors and subversives at various squatted buildings across the United States, in Miami, Chicago, and eventually Las Vegas, where everything crashes and burns, exploding both literally and metaphorically. A parallel story follows Mike and Linda, as they gather their other group of subversives and warriors. Those two groups have much in common, but not everything. The differences seem bigger than the similarities.

  Everyone should write about what Amos Keppler is writing about. The stories are so potent and powerful, so well describing human existence. This book is no exception in that regard.

  The last four chapters taking place in Las Vegas are a pleasure to read. An event that has been hinted at in several other books is finally happening. The payoff is amazing, the final chapter impossible to give proper praise. My advice is to read all the books in the series. The long story told in thirteen books is a modern classic transcending all genres and expectations, an epic story, in the true sense of the word.

  This is my first blog post in almost eight years, but the book is an event, so the occasion fits well with that.

Jill not Hill

  Everything I’ve heard Jill Stein say and seen her do tells me that she is the right woman in the right position. I’ve seen her respond to tough, loaded questions from journalists and spectators and generally speaking handling her challenging position in excellent ways. So, I will definitely support her. There are plenty of reasons to do so. We must stop Clinton, Trump and Johnson. Everything those three do and will do will worsen humanity’s already dire situation. Everything Jill Stein and the Green Party will do will improve it. It’s pretty simple and straightforward, really. We must embrace and propagate the positive message of necessary, mandatory change coming from Jill Stein and the Green Party and the entire radical community. We must give them all the support we possible can, like with Jeremy Corbyn and all other true agents of change in the world.

  Yes, those in charge, the oppressive forces of the world can't rule unless we keep allowing it. Sick, isn't it? It’s time we acted on that, and stopped them from ruining our lives, ruining humanity and all life on earth.

  The Sanders non-concession speech

Civilization - the great lie

  «The great lie is that it is civilization. It is not civilized. It has been literally the most bloodthirsty, brutalizing system ever imposed on this planet. That is not civilization. That’s the great lie, that it represents civilization.

  Or if it truly represents civilization and that’s truly what civilization is, than the great lie is that civilization is good for us». John Trudell

Nope!

  Nope, the extreme Global Warming we see today wouldn't have happened without human activity. It happens faster and with far more powerful consequences compared to «natural variations». This solemn and obvious truth only rejected by dumb and greedy jerks should have made us change our lives in fundamental ways. We must change society completely, in a way far more favorable to nature. We should have done so long ago. As it is now we are pretty much like the elephant in a china store, ruining everything, including our own means of survival. We commit collective suicide. And not just because of the human created climate change, but due to virtually all minor and major decisions we make or don’t make.

My thoughts on the novel Dreams Belong to the Night by Amos Keppler

This isn’t really a review, as it isn’t detailed enough for that, but more like a burst of excitement.

It’s a great, engaging story. You can hardly put the book down until you’ve read every single word.

Added to that is this:


It’s a story of extreme awareness, for everyone that has ever taken part in protests and have had their skull bashed in by the police. If you are anything like me, if you have suffered years and years of frustration in an effort to achieve true and powerful change in society this is the book for you.

I feel like a part of the story. It speaks to me. I can relate to the characters and to their situation, and the burning in their gut driving them forward.

To those protesting in the UK, United States, Cairo and every other place these days: you should really read the book, to find a focus for your justified anger and rage. I know I have.

Keppler doesn’t just write about ongoing rebellion, but the history of rebellion as well. This is even more precious since those in charge of the current tyrannical society do their best to eradicate all radical information, all critical thought and belief.

This story isn’t just about rebellion. It is rebellion.

We sat around the bonfire at night, not far from what is usually busy city streets and read from the book. I tell you, it was an event, so powerful and engaging.

I feel, in a strange way that the story truly speaks to me and my situation, and not just because the story is set in Copenhagen and Northern Europe and is about politically aware people there.

It speaks to the core of all humans, striving to break free.

"When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw". Nelson Mandela

It's worse than we dare think

According to The Nation Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), we have an immense amount of change to look forward to in the future years due to climate change. Some of the potential future effects will include frequent wild fires, an increase in number and length of droughts, as well as a increase in the intensity and duration of tropical storms. Some of the major effects will not only impose on humans, but plants and animals too. Droughts, extreme weather, and wild fires bring extinction to plants, animals, and their habitats. With plants and animals becoming extinct our resources will become scarce.

This is nothing new. It has been known for decades, but it's about to take a dramatic turn for the worse. The future is already here. The dire prospects for humanity’s tailspin suicide run grow even dimmer.

Wasteful

The Danes throw one fifth of the food they buy this year according to a recent study, a sharp increase from previous studies.

Perhaps I shouldn’t complain. I and fellow house members always find a lot of good stuff in Copenhagen’s garbage cans. It also makes me almost appreciative of the cold. Garbage cans are excellent freezers this time of the year.

But, no, I see it as yet another insane expression of the modern society. It’s founded on waste, on a beyond wasteful existence, among several other things, founded on mindless destruction of nature, of life and resources. Most people today have no awareness of their surroundings or their place in it. There is no deliberate viciousness in them throwing away perfectly useful food, since there is hardly any awareness at all, no matter the act or lack of one.

In a better society people would own no more than they were able to carry and not inhabit giant homes able to house dozens of people. Current society is fucked up to the max, quite simply. That point is simply driven home even more than it usually is during Christmas.


As for Christmas: People’s «decision» to celebrate it isn’t taken in a vacuum. Their «choice» has consequence for many others, making it that much harder to expose the deceit making up the oppressive society.

Review of «the Defenseless» by Amos Keppler

This is one of the few reviews I’ve written, one of the few I’ll ever write.

Most of my few reviews I do because they’re worth it, and this is worth it beyond my ability to describe.

It… grabs you from the very first sentence and never let go. It grabs you harder, and painfully so, as the story progresses.

It’s about growing up in today’s brutal and beyond destructive society, about alienation, the beyond powerful desire for freedom and everything in one, boiling package.

I can guarantee you one thing: you’ve never read anything even remotely similar before.

If the reader’s eyes are closed they’re forced open quite fast. If he or she has any illusions of the world, they’re quickly deprived of such.

We follow three siblings and their friends through adolescence in a typical American suburb, but it could be virtually anywhere in the modern Western world. The stench of the blood flowing from open wounds is impossible to ignore. This isn’t a book for small children. Thank the Goddess!

I had the pleasure of reading it the first time several years ago. It only gets better the second time around.

Amos is a self-publishing author, and they’re the best kind, almost the only kind in today’s inhuman world worth reading.

We get honesty from that kind of author, that kind of artist. In this story it’s pervasive beyond belief. This is the world in all its horror and «glory». Be welcome to it.

No human being calling himself or herself radical should miss this book. No one should, period. Everybody should read it, and perhaps learn something crucial about the world they live in, about themselves, and be forever changed.

It is that explosive, that powerful, so filled with substance and fire.


And the best news of all: This is just the first of 12 - twelve - novels from Amos’ hand that will be published during the next three years.

Look out, society and tremble at your rotten core.

A good thing

It is great when Gisele Bündchen speaks out in favor of breastfeeding. There is too much propaganda today for the formula shit people can buy at stores. Artificial is better, it says, than doing it the natural way, a statement used often today, in many areas. And many people listen when Gisele speaks, inevitably. A lot can be said about that, but at least in this, one case it’s a good thing.

Of course natural breast-milk is healthier and better for the child than that other shit. In fact that other shit is clearly downright harmful, because it’s woefully lacking in essential ingredients.

There are those women that for some reason or another are unable to nurse their children. I’m not going after them at all. I’m just pointing out yet another crucial truth present day humanity seems to have forgotten and misplaced.

Emphasis wrong

One of the many issues where mainstream pseudo-environmentalists and supporters of «green capitalism» get it wrong is energy, the entire topic yet another diversion from what everything is truly about.

Their focus is mainly on energy production, hardly even considering what it is used for. As long as the energy production itself produces less pollution it seems to be all right to these people. All kinds of new energy sources are being discussed, solar, thermal, wind and even the bad old nuclear, which is the very worst imaginable. This discussion is a diversion, a deceit, or at best: a totally wrong emphasis. To me the worst case scenario here, in this context would be the day we could literally draw energy from the very air. Then the Earth and all life on it would be doomed beyond salvation. The worst use of energy today isn’t the use of a few light bulbs here and there, or less water in the shower, which the discussion seems to be focused on, but what is used for the massive, constant Destruction we witness every second we live. More land is gobbled up by what Amos Keppler calls the World Grinder, more wilderness is covered by concrete, asphalt, glass and plastic. The modern, current human society does that, marching on to its mad tune, destroying everything in its path.

As Keppler and others are pointing out; it is humanity’s energy needs that must fall to virtually nothing, until we, literally speaking don’t leave more than a few footprints on Earth again during our entire lifetime.

As we see how Virgin America, Bravo TV and other grand polluters have had a sponsored top spot on the #earthday hashtags and Earth Day trending topic on Twitter today we know yet again what a massive propaganda machine is out there, even today, on Twitter and everywhere, especially today to fool people into thinking recycling, light bulbs, showers and other equally useless smoke and mirror undertakings are important, distracting them from the real issue.

I would say about 1 percent calling themselves green on the Internet and in human society as a whole is genuine. The rest is just out to make lots of bucks, to make a killing on Earth’s destruction, or they are playing useful idiots to them.

I don't know which the worst is of those two groups making out those 99 percent. It's about even, I guess.


Nothing is more important today than this, to see beyond the illusion and start fighting the true fight for humanity's future.

Gitmo Copenhagen

I sit here, in a friend’s house, writing this down in a fairly relaxed manner. They're rounding up a lot of my friends, right now, in Liberty City, attacking them and dragging them off to The Cage, but I am fairly safe, since my friend isn’t on Gestapo’s list over my friends or even acquaintances (I hope). My arm is in a sling. It hurts, and the painkillers cloud my mind, but I am pleased to say that the Burning inside is still there, stronger than ever.

I can say, with confidence that I have lots of first hand knowledge of the events I’m about to describe to you. During the last week I’ve spent so much time in the cages in the «temporary» prison in Valby that it almost feels like home.

There is so much to share about my experiences the last few days and nights that I could write a book about it (and perhaps I will), but let me give you all a little taste, a few facts, a brief look into government terror against its own population.

This is a selection of what the police, the current Gestapo in Copenhagen has done to us and other protesters in the last few days.


They are bugging us, always harassing us. They have done that for years, and also increased the level of harassment weeks before the summit began.

When they attacked the protests they did so completely without provocation. They striped us (modern «handcuffs» made of plastic), took a random selection of the 100 000 people big protest rally and made people sit on the cold sidewalk, not allowing us to pee or shit or anything, and many of the inexperienced victims did it in their pants. We didn’t, having some idea what to expect. It was below zero, and we quickly felt like ice pickles, hardly able to move or feel our arms. Some of us tried to get up and walk away, but we were pushed back down. A boy hit his head and lay still for minutes. We screamed at them to help him, to get a doctor, anything, but they ignored us. When he woke up he looked totally out of it. We were separated from him later and never saw him again. The pee and shit in people’s pants froze. A girl was beaten harshly by a club. She had been screaming, or rather howling with an almost gone voice for minutes. They took her away eventually. We kept quiet. When you are threatened with brutal violence, unable to defend yourself you stay quiet.

Then they finally took us to The Cage, a number of cages actually in what they call an interim prison in Valby. It is basically a storage facility that would make a butcher proud. We were stored, like sardines in a box. People in my cage began throwing up. Several of them showed telling and dangerous signs of extreme fatigue and brain damage, the blood in their faces and the diluted pupils among them. I’m not a doctor, but you don’t need a crystal ball to see the obvious. It’s beside the point anyway, as I hope you will understand.

Twelve hours can be incredibly long. All sense of time disappears. This is the very essence of torture. You take victims to a place, both real and imagined where all safety is gone and the inconceivable becomes commonplace. Then, after a while you can make them do whatever you want. I’m somewhat hardened, in the sense that I have experienced a lot of this shit through the years, but I’m not ashamed to say that this was the worst I have ever experienced.

And it has happened every day since Thursday. I have had the pleasure of spending two nights at the hotel facilities in Valby. And if you didn’t realize that this was sarcasm there is no hope for you.

Others have spent at least three.

This is no longer a question of only Climate Change, and in truth it never was. Society must change dramatically, not only releasing a little bit less greenhouse gases to an overtaxed atmosphere.

They lie to us, lie to you, making you believe anything, while you sit safely in your chair, in front of your television set, and are deceived 24/7. Do you think you are safe in your ignorance and fear and non-participation? Many of those passing by the last four days believed that, too.

And you aren’t safe in your living room either. The tenet of a tyranny is that no one is safe. Everybody is living with the Damocles sword above their head, whether they acknowledge that or not.

Is it random, you say? That is the point. It’s supposed to be random. People are trained to police themselves, out of fear, because they are conditioned to do it, or quite simply because they want to avoid even considering the implied threat of violence.

Tonight they went after those independents still protesting, charged into Liberty City like a hot knife through butter. They have wanted to shut down Liberty City from its very start, and made an effort out of it the last twenty years. Tonight they are making another effort.

The same old false song

Radio Baghdad from Copenhagen today:

I'm scribbling this in haste, before returning to the streets of fire.

We see it every time. There is a man with a bomb or a suspicious suitcase somewhere (as if a suitcase can be suspicious). Protesters are planning sinister acts. Terrorists are gathered in the community house where protesters are gathered. And so on. Pure bullshit and lies and deceit are filling the headlines and the subsequent text. All of it to justify BAD treatment of the dangerous protesters. It's quite okay to knock their heads bloody and their bodies blue and black.

Everything the government says about their true opponents is passed on by established media, their loyal, yapping dogs. The true protesters are never given a voice, except as a beaten-to-a-pulp (and dangerous) villain behind bars.

And the power-loyal «protester» is defending Gestapo's action, like his kind always is.

And the adoring public is eating it up, like the stupid, mindless slaves and zoombies they are.

When the local branch of the modern Gestapo is charging us with bloody clubs we defend ourselves. it is as plain as that. The sheep bow their heads and take whatever the pigs dish out, but we don't.

And the men and women behind the fences, in their palaces are let off the hook, relieved of any true criticism.

Clear like the purest of water.

Welcome to Copenhagen

10 000 rebels and protesters are expected to come to Copenhagen during the official Global Warming meeting here. Very few of them will have a place to stay, but that’s okay. There are lots of buildings to squat, many which have been empty for years. It’s a bout time they are put to good use.

The border police will do their best to close the border, of course, like they are usually doing before such events, to keep people from exercising their right to protest, but we are used to that, and know many ways around it. My guess is that most of our ten thousand brothers and sisters, and possibly more, bent on spitting the so called world leaders in the eye will reach the Copenhagen streets these cold and hot days and nights.

I look forward to meet you, to scream and sing with you and join you in giving the people sitting on their asses a just reward. The police will most certainly try to arrest me and other «troublemakers» well before the event, like they always do, but by then we will be long gone from our usual haunts. We will have gone underground, so to speak.

See you all in December…

Green

Green is here. Weeks of warm weather didn’t quite cut it, but days of rain after that did the job.

I love spring. Life is undeniable, irresistible then. No amount of oppression anywhere can hide its violent outbreak. Growth itself is wreaking havoc with our bodies, senses and mind. I see green in even the grayest of concrete, of Death. Loss, the loss of spirit is all around us, as it always is in civilization, but muted these days, not nearly as powerful as it seems in the death-sleep season.

The petrol vapor still lingers in the air, its bitter taste reminding us where we are. All the poison, mental and physical, released by current destructive human society is very much present. But its bite is less. These days, briefly, we can easier imagine a different world.

I see trees, and I see the forest. I see it as I walk up and down streets and alleys. I even see it in people’s eyes, briefly, this time of year, as many open their eyes in wonder, as they taste the forgotten and forbidden and catch the scent of life in the wind.

I love spring. People turn wild and daring before my eyes. Chains don’t break, but they turn brittle and weak… at least for a little while, and I enjoy the brief respite from the cold.

The Good Neighbor

The neighbors stare at me. I’m a practicing witch and the neighbors know this, because I have never made any attempt at hiding it, any secret of the life I lead, but on the contrary calmly explained it every time I’ve been asked, treating my craft as a completely ordinary thing, as natural as any craft, any way of life. Which it is. At least it would have been in a society approaching sane.

I work with herbs, a healer in my own right, using the ingredients nature gives me, without resorting to poison and unnatural compounds. I light fires in the night and dance naked around the seething and scorching flames.

Rumors are abundant. I sacrifice chickens when no one is watching. The children are restless and I am to blame.

I am to blame for everything, from disease to a boring life, for all the poxes mankind has visited upon themselves.

I’m alien to them to them, a curiosity, exotic, worrisome and dangerous. My confidence in self, my ability to stand out from the crowd, to seek what is unknown and different, is a threat to the Big Lie they have created to sustain their mundane lives.

So they stare, and Hunger for what they don’t dare grab, and their hunger turns sour, turns to fear, resentment and hatred. They see a person free as a bird, see it possess what they have lost, and they want to cage it, and if they can’t cage it, destroy it. Their distorted hunger is a horrible thing. The good neighbors stare at the witch with envious eyes.

At best they want to manage and tame us. At worst they want to burn us at the stake… and they will... unless we stop them.