I've allowed my book to be characterized as a diatribe against the Tea Party, but that's not what I've written. "Virtually Yours, Jonathan Newman" is not a book that simply champions a progressive future and opposes conservative perspectives. Politics, like life, is more complicated than that. The current inability of the US to deal with its economic future is testimony to what can result when things are reduced to simple slogans, black and white, good guys and bad guys.  

"Virtually Yours, Jonathan Newman" is a dystopian tale set in a future America where a corporate libertarian philosophy has led to a government that has ceased to function.  This "Great Change" in American politics results when people become so turned off by political gridlock and inefficiency that they throw aside the existing political parties and embrace an unknown future that has been sold to them by powerful, multinational corporate forces with a hidden agenda. The novel explores that world through the experiences of the Newman family as they struggle with personal tragedies fed by corporate greed that is no longer restrained by public institutions able to restrict their excesses.

It's a story about much more than government dysfunction. The Great Change in America is a backdrop to an exploration of what it is to be fully human. If we live in a virtual world made up of virtual experiences, are we fully alive? If our friends, employers, colleagues and customers are mostly people we've never met, how can they be so central to how we define ourselves, to who we are? If something is technologically efficient and economically productive, does that necessarily make it better? Who owns us?

The current political divide in the US is not a battle between those who want an effective government and those who want no government. Yet it is true that there is a fringe of extremist ideologues who welcome the current crisis as a way to weaken government, who see federal income taxes as unconstitutional, and ultimately want to remove public protections so the country can serve as their personal ATM machine. That's not the majority of those who are fearful of excessive government spending and want to reign in what they see as an out of control bureaucracy. However, anti-excess concerns can be exploited and inflamed into anti-government passions and the results, as my novel suggests, could be disastrous.

A strong democracy requires an efficient government that is fully answerable to the people. If we weaken the central government in a massive, complex, and diverse country like the US, we create a power vacuum that will be filled by those with the resources to manipulate our future for their own ends, not the common good. That is nothing new. Most of recorded history is a panorama of powerful individuals abusing their power for perceived short-term gain. Wars have been fought for decades over which family will control what territory. Whole industries have been manipulated and lives wrecked to enrich tiny elites who embrace the "greed is good" mantra, or feel entitled by birth or circumstance to a massive share of the nation's bounty. We don't have to look very far back in our history for evidence of this, though it is not a new phenomenon.

"Virtually Yours, Jonathan Newman" looks at all that and more, but that's not what the book is about. It's about a family, their commitment to each other, the challenges they face, their tragedies, victories, missteps and determination.  I love the Newman family, and I fear the world in which they live. That's why I wrote this book.

Even before we were introduced to the modern Tea Party, I wondered what life would be like in an America dominated by a corporate libertarian political philosophy. If our own government is our enemy, who are our friends? If people want the government's hands off the economy, whose hands will be on it? Who will make the important decisions that impact our daily lives in a thousand different ways, and to whom will they be accountable?

That, combined with my curiosity about the changing nature of our interpersonal and work relationships in an age of advanced and intrusive technology, led me to explore the lives of Jonathan Newman and his family.

 I hope you enjoy their story.

As the US tiptoes toward defaulting on the national debt in a ridiculous game of chicken, I find the thinking of those who see a default as a way to pressure the government to further lower taxes eerily familiar.

In VYJN, the Freedom First Party sweeps Republicans and Democrats from power and immediately begins dismantling the federal government, starting with the IRS. The promise of no federal income tax is core to their philosophy.

It isn’t difficult to see where we have come from and where we could be going. It started with “government isn’t the solution, government is the problem” in the 1980s. From there economists asserted the unproven and questionable premise that “taxes inhibit growth”, which led to “read my lips”, the no tax increase pledge, temporary tax cuts which have become more or less permanent and have significantly added to the national debt, and finally an apparent willingness to default on that debt and risk the economic stability of the country in favor of the principle of reducing taxes on the wealthiest citizens.

Is it a great leap to imagine a political party running on a program of further reducing government, eliminating income taxes altogether and releasing the unfettered power of the “free market” as a solution to the country’s economic woes? Do we really want to return to the pre-depression 1920s? Have we learned nothing from history?

The release date for "Virtually Yours, Jonathan Newman" has been set for August 3rd, 2011. There will be a launch celebration at Island Books on Mercer Island, WA at 7 pm on the 3rd. I hope to see you there!