Washington, DC -- (ReleaseWire) -- 06/21/2016 --DAWN BENNETT: Stephen Coonts is a bestselling author of thriller and suspense novels. His latest book, Liberty's Last Stand is to me sadly looking very prophetic. The plot involves a terrorist attack which the President answers by imposing martial law and suspending the Constitution. And we've just suffered another terrible terrorist attack, and while the president hasn't imposed martial law, he's again threatening to restrict the Second and Fifth Amendment via the so-called 'No-Fly, No Buy' law. Stephen, as you wrote your book to be a page-turning thriller, did you ever expect it to prove so real?
STEPHEN COONTS: Well, I certainly hope not. I wrote the book in 2015 and it's just pure coincidence that the book came out on Monday right after the Orlando terrorist attack. But terrorist attacks in America are predictable. It's not a question of if, it's only a question of when. Also we keep admitting vast numbers of Middle East refugees, we have no idea who they are, what they believe in. And of course we have an open border, so anybody can walk across, and some of our enemies probably are, according to some reports.
BENNETT: In Liberty's Last Stand, your most recent book, Texas secedes after the President suspends Americans' constitutional freedoms. Next week is the big Brexit vote, and of course that talk is filling the airwaves and there's now increasing talk of a 'Trexit', with Texas leaving the U.S. If elections prove unable to rein in in Washington DC, do you think secession is something that we should start to consider more seriously?
COONTS: I don't know if we should, but I certainly think that a great number of people will. I don't know whether it's the right thing to do, but I think there's a lot of very unhappy people who feel like the political process is broken. And certainly that's the source of both Donald Trump's and Bernie Sanders' appeal to different segments of the population. Most people feel like traditional politicians have ignored their concerns. So when you have a whole bunch of people who feel frozen out of the political process, you've got problems.
BENNETT: Your book also deals with the divergence that's happening now between rural America and in our cities. How do you see that divergence playing out in modern America? Have there always been clear differences between those two cultures?
COONTS: I think so. There certainly was when I started political science way back before the earth cooled [laughter], but it seems like the cultural divide between Right and Left is getting worse. It's getting deeper, it's getting more virulent, and people on both sides refuse to talk to the other. And that's not what makes democracy work. Democracy requires compromise, listening to the other side's concerns, and finding some way to meet in the middle. Democracy assumes nobody's going to get everything they want, but everybody has to get a little bit. I don't see that much of that attitude today. It seems like our current President's theory is that unless he gets the whole enchilada he's not going to let anybody else have anything.
BENNETT: What do you make of fallout of that? With the political violence that we're seeing here it almost feels like we're in a third world country.
COONTS: Well, it does. I think that this summer at both the Conventions it's going to be a lot worse. I think if there's actually going to be a suspension of the constitutional rights and declaration of martial law, it'll probably be because of riots during the various Conventions. As I'm sure you and everybody else has heard, there's a great deal of talk that a lot of these rioters are being paid. They're certainly being bussed in and paid to be there and make noise, and perhaps not paid to actually be violent, but violence ensues. And of course the latest thing is the hacked email of Black Lives Matter that threatens 11,000 people at the Republican Convention in Cleveland. And so being bussed in and paid. Things are bad and they're getting worse. It seems like nobody's willing to let the democratic process just sit and work.
BENNETT: The United States used to be free, and it just seems our government and our economy is in the throes of self-destruction. Typically in history that always happened right before a revolution. I don't know if the revolution that we are talking about here in the United States is a soft revolution or if it's a violent one, but I certainly believe we're in major political change mode. I just can't figure why we've forgotten how our democratic process works. It's surprising.
COONTS: It is. But one of the things is that most successful republics in history have been sort homogenized, if you will, and ours is the most diverse republic in history. We've got people from all over the world, all creeds, all races, all languages, and to try to make this a democracy that holds together with everybody with the same values is a little bit fantastic. I don't know that it's working too well. It seems the more diverse we become, the louder and angrier the conversations become. But, anyway, Liberty's Last Stand is an attempt to capture all that. I'm just a novelist, I just tell stories. People will see in this thing whatever they want. And the reviews so far, conservatives love it, people in the middle say we've got to listen to this, and the liberals call it the right-wing trash. So that's going about the way I thought it would.
BENNETT: Your book is eliciting some very sharp blowback with the liberal readers. As a matter of fact, one called it a middle-finger in the face of most Americans. What do you say to that kind of criticism?
COONTS: I think it's unfair. But people that aren't very articulate pick phrases like that, and so what does it mean, it means that the reader didn't like it, and he or she didn't bother to tell us why. The liberals don't want to argue about the themes of the book, they just want to denigrate it.
BENNETT: I think that's a theme though. I am a Centrist, I'm fiscally conservative and I'm socially liberal. But I think most of America is starting to realize that those that are on the extreme Left they seem to be not looking at things reasonably, they look at things emotionally. And so it's a problem. You were a fighter pilot during the Vietnam war, how have your feelings towards Washington changed over the 40 years since then, if at all?
COONTS: I don't know that they've changed much. I didn't think much of Washington and the Vietnam War when I was actively fighting it. I remember the book at the time was The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam, and I thought that that was right on, I thought the Vietnam War was a vast political mistake. And my book Flight of the Intruder was an attempt to tell the human story of the people that actually worked on and off aircraft carriers. I was optimistic after the war when the people that got us in finally got voted out, and the war finally got ended, and we moved on. I think democracy works, but it works over such a long period that people get very frustrated waiting for the earth to turn, if you will. And that's still the case. We all get very frustrated. Bill Maher pointed out that he thinks liberals are in denial over Islam. These people that don't hold any of the values that most Americans hold, they're homophobes, they want to kill Christians, they throw acid in women's faces, they're pedophiles, you know, all this stuff. And yet the liberals embrace them, and it's almost an emotional reaction. And it is certainly illogical. I can't imagine why a liberal who wants his daughter to be able to have an abortion and to get the education she wants and get a job that pays decent wages could possibly have in common with a Muslims who wants his women to stay home and stay ignorant and beats them. And then is a pedophile to boot.
BENNETT: Regarding this separation that we're having between one America and the other, your book Liberty's Last Stand depicts a civil war that is significantly more bloody than America's actual Civil War. Do you truly think there would be a war if States seceded again considering how much more deadly our military capabilities have become since the last Civil War, and would American soldiers even care enough to go and kill, for example, Texans because they've left the Union?
COONTS: I played with that whole theme in the book Liberty's Last Stand. What would happen? And what is predictable? And it seems to me that what is predictable is people in uniform are going to have very divided loyalties, as they did during the American Civil War in the 1860s. But today it's not just regional, North vs. South, it's Right vs. Left. So I don't really know the answer. I think the answer would hinge on each person's view of the world and loyalty and honor and so on in the military. I think that a great many people would be willing to fight for their view of what it's all about, liberals and conservatives. So I had a lot of fun with it, I don't know that I got the answer right, but at least, hopefully, I'll leave you thinking.
BENNETT: For the fans of your bestselling books there are two recurring characters that make a return again in your last book Liberty's Last Stand, and that's Jake Grafton and Tommy Carmellini. In the book, these two former intelligence officers lead a resistance movement against the very government they worked for. And obviously the CIA is part of the executive branch. Do you ever think it's possible for that part of the government to help lead the opposition to the ever-expanding executive branch that we seem to be participating in now?
COONTS: I think it's possible, I don't know how probable it is, but it's certainly possible. In the book I used current intelligence-gathering electronic technology that Jake, the CIA Director, turns against the White House because he doesn't trust them. And he finds out what's going on over there. And this is the same technology that the CIA and the Israelis used to try to determine what the Iranian negotiating strategy was in Switzerland a year or two ago when John Kerry was trying to negotiate a treaty. This stuff is real. It exists. And whether it would be used in the way that I posited is another question. But of course that's what fiction is all about. We can think about all the ways to make a story believable, especially using real technology.
BENNETT: Your first book Flight of the Intruder of course was made into a major motion picture, and that was starring Danny Glover and Willem Dafoe. What are the chances that Hollywood will adopt a story like Liberty's Last Stand, given their liberal bent?
COONTS: I think about zip doodle, but you never what Clint Eastwood is going to do.
BENNETT: (Laughs) That's true, that's true. Thank you Stephen. I appreciate it.
For over a quarter century, Dawn Bennett has been successfully guiding clients through the complexities of wealth management. Her unique vision and insight into market trends makes Bennett a much sought after expert resource with regular appearances on Fox News Channel, CNBC, Bloomberg TV, and MSNBC as well as being featured in Business Week, Fortune, The NY Times, The NY Sun, Washington Business Journal in addition to her highly regarded weekly talk radio program - Financial Mythbusting. Through prudent and thoughtful advice, Dawn Bennett has strived to consistently provide the highest quality of guidance.
About Dawn Bennett
Dawn Bennett is CEO and Founder of Bennett Group Financial Services. She hosts a national radio program called Financial Myth Busting http://www.financialmythbusting.com.
She discusses educational topics and events in the financial news, along with her thoughts on the economy, financial markets, investments, and more with her live guests, who have included rock legend Ted Nugent, as well as Steve Forbes and Grover Norquist. Listeners can call 855-884-DAWN a as well as take podcasts on the road and forums for interaction.
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