Ratification 2020

by Gary Armstead, Ashley Cain (Illustrator), Annie Dawid (Editor)

Lawrence Bell is an academic who becomes political when his brother returns, damaged, from Vietnam. This leads him into political activism for vets, which in turn shoots him into a Cabinet post with the Republican president elected in 2016. Bell is a good man who respects the rules. He follows protocol because he believes it is the right thing to do. But immediately in his new position, he discovers the President is planning to turn the country into a police state targeting the poor, who will end up in jail. The resulting huge prison population-the poor- will then become the manufacturing sector for the U.S., bringing back companies from cheap overseas labor sites. Slave labor of prisoners will drive up the country? profits, increasing the wealth of those in the top tier of the economy, while bankrupting everyone else. The police state will also employ many of those poor people, as it is the only upwardly mobile part of the work force, and thus the poor will police the poor.

300 pages, Paperback

Published August 7, 2014