Kurt Vonnegut wrote a story about a man who pretended to be a turncoat for the Nazis, who broadcast propaganda for them during the war—think “Lord Haw Haw”, “Tokyo Rose”, Jane Fonda. Except, he was really a spy for the allies. But he does such a good job of broadcasting propaganda that during the war, his German master tells him, “I suspect you are a spy. But it doesn’t matter. Whatever use you have been to our enemies, you have been uncountably more to us.”
The story is set in a prison cell and told by flashbacks; the protagonist is about to be executed for war crimes by the victors. At the last moment, he is given a reprieve: Someone in government vouches for his story, he was really a spy for the good guys.
The man hangs himself that night in the cell, because he knows the truth: He actually did help the bad guys; he pretended too well to be one of them.
In the beginning of the book, Vonnegut writes: “This is the only book I’ve written where I know the moral, so I’m telling it to you here: ‘Be careful who you pretend to be, that is who you are.’”
Pretending. That is theme of the new movie, “Renta Familyl”, which my son and I watched last night. A struggling actor played by Brendan Fraser goes to Japan to pursue a gig, and life doesn’t go his way. He ends up taking gig acting jobs. That brings him to “Rental Family”, a uniquely Japanese outfit that sends actors to serve in roles for people—wedding participants, funeral attendees, friends, lovers, dads. Hard to understand, but it is a real Japanese thing and makes sense in a country fast de-populating itself because they have lost the taste for, well, screwing and making babies.
The gigs he takes can be divided into three groups: the well-intentioned, the vile, and the morally gray. He acts as a friend to a fellow who needs one. The man knows he is renting a friend, but he doesn’t care. The rental family actor is kind of like a sex worker, providing emotional comfort, not physical—an analogy made explicit in a scene with, well, a sex worker, with whom he has a liaison.
Then there’s the vile: the company’s best business is for an actress pretending to be a cavil weakling’s mistress and make an abject, fulsome apology to the pathetic man’s wife, who more often than not takes a slug at the actress.
It is in the morally gray gigs that the movie becomes fascinating and holds a mirror to our lives. He pretends to be a father to a winsome 11-year old girl (who steals every scene.) Cruel? Maybe. Is the girl’s joy any less real because he has been hired for the role? When is a lie okay? Would you tell your mom she is dying on her deathbed? When is a lie a compassionate act? Tough questions.
In the other morally gray gig, he is hired by an aging actor’s daughter to pretend to be a journalist, to boost the man’s ego. A job turns into a friendship, and he risks both his livelihood and his life in Japan to help him. Wrong? To whom, exactly? The man dies with a friend. Was the actor any less of a friend because he was paid? These are the questions the movie asks, and it’s the best kind of movie, the kind that lets you answer the questions itself. It doesn’t offer any facile solutions, only questions.
A down and out loser, nurtured by internet conspiracy theories and fed a diet of wild raving, half-baked ideas, kidnaps a high-powered CEO because he is convinced that she is the Queen of an alien race come to enslave or destroy the earth, and holds her captive in his mom’s basement.
Here’s the spoiler: She IS an alien queen come to destroy the earth! And that’s the LEAST interesting part of the movie.
“Bugonia” is an exploration into how real-life “masters of the universe”—not space aliens, the ones who reside in the corner offices, fly on private jets, and pay less taxes than the lady who cleans the toilets–do enslave us, and wield powers that will, if not actually kill us, make our lives a captive living hell. The movie riffs on the theme of bees—Teddy is a beekeeper; Michelle (the alpha-queen CEO) also espouses an admiration for them. And well she should! They are the perfect metaphors for us, you and me, today. A tiny .000001% of billionaires lord vast powers over us (the worker drones, in this not so subtle analogy).
You don’t have to be much of a conspiracy theorist, or live in your mom’s basement, to realize that to a large yet carefully made-invisible extent, we are subject to the whims and dictates of a ruling elite. Sure, we hold free elections–for candidates who are bought and paid for by that elite, because the cost of perpetually running for office is so high.
Why can’t we have election reform like in the UK, where costs are kept down because running for office is restricted to a scant six weeks before the election? Of course we can! All we have to do is get our representatives to vote for it. You know the same people who owe their allegiance, their fealty, and most of all their office and perks to the cabal writing the checks. Fat chance.
One billionaire bought one of the last free newspapers in America, his company publishes 86% of all books published on the planet, and sells us some huge percentage of all the crap we buy.
Another billionaire single-handedly controls access to space, sells a fleet of robot cars, and (in his spare time) reshapes our government to his choosing. A third owns most of the free housing stock left in America.
The story follows Teddy and Michelle in a series of escalating verbal exchanges. If what Michelle says sounds familiar, it’s because you’ve heard it before, every time the corporate shills talk down to us as if we were recalcitrant children. (Think of the last conversation you had with the HR lady.)
“Let’s dialogue this.”
“I think you are following a false narrative.”
“You are living in an echo chamber.”
Speech designed to put you in your place, to make you doubt yourself.
As the movie events become more desperate, Michelle finally admits that, yes! She is an alien queen! And as it happens, we ARE conducting experiments on you, a failed ape-excuse for a species.
Teddy responds like the dog that finally catches the truck; he doesn’t know what to do, and things end badly for Teddy. For the rest of the human race as well, as the alien queen teleports up to her spaceship and sprays a galactic can of Raid on us, thus ending the experiment.
That is the ultimate message: they do control us, and can wield that power to wipe us out at their whim. Bleak, but refreshing in its honesty. Let’s enjoy it now, worker bees, before they use the Raid on us.
All of us love a good WWII movie. Curl up on the couch, click on Netflix or YouTube, settle down to a great yarn where the good guys are unequivocally good and the bad guys are, well, literally Nazis. “Gosh, if I were back then, I would have been one of the resistance,” you tell yourself. “Fought those bastards. Maybe I would have smuggled Jews out of the country like that Schindler guy.” Oh yeah?
The sad truth is it is easier to be brave while watching a rerun of “Force Ten from Navarone” on your couch than when facing the proximate and inevitable ends of said bravery. Most of us would probably behave as the majority of Germans did–have a certain inkling that things are not right but shrug and figure that “The authorities know best.” Very few have the temerity or moral courage to stand up to an oppressive regime. We would have most likely been one of the many that when the reckoning inevitably happened, would bleat, “I didn’t know” or worse, “We were only following orders.” It is hard and dangerous to do otherwise, easier to accept an administrations’ lies, even though you know in your heart that something is horribly wrong.
There are times in a person’s life, and a nation’s, when we are called to stand up for what we believe. To go beyond the lies, reach deep down, and do what is morally right. This is one of those times.
This nation is executing a calculated program of ethnic cleansing. Our Supreme Court ruled that a human being’s race can be used to snatch people off the streets. That is happening, not just in isolated incidents but as part of a systemic policy. Jack booted thugs with no identification and faces masked conduct pogroms of terror—smashing windows in an unconscious echo of Krystal Nacht, cudgeling women to the ground, shooting pellets of poison gas. They are incentivized to do so by a bounty system, so it is understandable that they are not too picky about who they pick up. “It’s not our guy,” one ICE agent is recorded to have told his colleague. “Doesn’t matter” the other responds. Hundreds of US citizens and aliens with legal status have been rounded up in indiscriminate raids. They terrorize communities while descending from the sky on ropes, a scene taken out of the dystopian and terrifyingly prescient movie “Brazil.” Our conscience recoils at the images, yet the carnage continues.
But the men and women and children are all illegals, right? We are just defending our country. We are being invaded! (You parrot from the administration’s talking points.)
Setting aside the US citizens and aliens with legal status who have been rounded up–yes, they are here without legal status. Here is a surprise you won’t hear from the administration: It is not a criminal offense to be in this country without proper authorization. It is a civil infraction, on a par with a traffic ticket. Not a crime. However, it is a crime to cross the border without permission, and the two populations of the undocumented in this country are roughly split: 40% arrived legally, overstayed their visa, and have not committed a crime, and the rest entered illegally. Perhaps a distinction without a difference, but worth mentioning when the media and administration start shouting about “illegals.” And how despicable is that term? You might commit a crime, you might commit several. (You might commit 34!) But you are not ‘the crime’. You are in no circumstances “an illegal.” If so, our president, convicted of 34 felonies, is most certainly an “illegal.”
Everyone ever born had a mother who loved them. They were born with a certain human dignity. No person—not even our president–is “an illegal.”
Semantics aside, let’s address the main issue: Yes, we need a functioning method of enforcing our borders and letting in the polity we choose, no question. But after Reagan granted amnesty in 1987, there were no undocumented immigrants in the country. How did this suddenly become a problem?
Well, it’s not because we can’t defend the border—essentially no one is crossing illegally right now, due to a heavy military presence there. If the US wanted to, it could have stopped the influx a long time ago, in a succession of both Republican and Democratic administrations.
The reason we have a large undocumented population in the US is that it serves large business interests to allow it. Undocumented immigrants are the perfect disposable labor force—they don’t do pesky things like ask for higher wages, or unionize, or insist on complying with those inconvenient OSHA rules! And contrary to Fox News’s breathless reporting, they commit fewer crimes than citizens do, for good reason—they want to keep a low profile. They are the perfect “overflow” labor pool—economy gets too hot, kick some out. Need workers, let more in.
We are being sold a bill of lies. Undocumented immigrants are in this country because big business wants them here. We could end much of it today by mandating the use of the E-Verify system, which checks that the SSN used to on an I9 form is legitimate. This would stop all the “gray workers’ who use false SSNs and whose pay is documented by W2s. We paid for it, why is E-verify not mandatory? Ask who benefits from not using it.
You, and I, and all the undocumented immigrants are pawns of the moneyed interests that are ostensibly against illegal migration while they profit from it and ensure it continues. They can get away with this because it serves the administration’s interest to create an “us vs them” dichotomy—the exact approach that a certain well-known historical figure in those WWII documentaries used. We shake our heads at the “murders, thieves, rapists (some of them might be good people), and while we are distracted, big business laughs all the way to the bank.
Yes, we need to fix this system. We need to enforce the border standards so that we vet people who come the US and not just rely on the business interests to do our recruiting for us. The US needs people. We need, on average 2.1 births per woman merely to maintain the population. Right now, the “replacement rate” is down to 1.5. What’s the matter with that? GDP—the economic output of the nation, is a product of two factors: The number of workers times productivity per worker. Productivity can only increase so far. We need workers to sustain increases in our GDP. Recall the definition of a recession: two consecutive quarters where GDP drops.
So why not kick out all the “illegals” and start from scratch with a cogent system that defeats the business interests’ goal of cheap, easily subjugated labor? Two reasons: One, our economy is built on this quasi-slave labor. It would take a huge dip if we were able to suddenly kick everyone out, one from which it would be difficult to recover. We are already seeing signs of this happening in the building and service industries.
The second reason is moral. These people were tacitly allowed to work here by a system that exploited them. In a myriad of ways, we allowed them to share in building our nation, and they deserve some rewards for that effort. Consider a thought experiment: You sign on with a startup company and work hard for them for many years, expecting a payout when your stock options mature. There were some discrepancies with your work history, or maybe your diploma, when you hired on, but you were assured that it was not a big deal. Years you toiled, and when you are about to reap the fruits of your labor, you are unceremoniously kicked to the curb because the discrepancies that were known and ignored now loom large.
Many say that this is “jumping the queue” and unfair to people who came here “legally.” Setting aside the hilariously blatant hypocrisy of this statement by people whose descendants did not come in any “legal” fashion at all (much of the land gained by the simple expedient of taking it and murdering anyone who disagreed), I submit that by working here for a time and staying out of trouble, they have earned a right to stay. Don’t believe me. Believe Patton. On the eve of his invasion of Italy, this is what he told his troops:
“When we land, we will meet German and Italian soldiers whom it is our honor and privilege to attack and destroy. Many of you have in your veins German and Italian blood, but remember that these ancestors of yours so loved freedom that they gave up home and country to cross the ocean in search of liberty. The ancestors of the people we shall kill lacked the courage to make such a sacrifice and continued as slaves.”
Patton, in his inimitable way, was making an astute point. Being American does not come from an oath, an allegiance to a flag, or an F16 flyover at a football game. It comes from a certain courage to forge into the unknown and seek a better life for yourself and your family. In many ways, these immigrants are the most American of all of us, imbued with the spirit of courage and hard work.
What this administration is doing—rounding up brown-skinned people—is wrong. Stand up to it. In 20 years or so they are going to make documentaries and movies about this time in American history. You don’t want to be one of the guys that viewers boo at.
My kids always accuse me of taking credit for inventing things. In their deluded and semi-formed minds, just because I discovered something on my own does not mean I invented it. For instance, I am positive that I invented the term ”Press the reset button” to mean forgetting what is passed and focusing on the now. I distinctly remember coming up with that term one morning in August of 1979 while hitchhiking from the Grand Tetons and I was particularly remorseful of something that had happened. A few years later, Bingo! I started hearing people using that term. My kids point out that other people probably had the same idea, and just because I thought of it and didn’t know other people used the term doesn’t mean I invented it. As I said, deluded.
I had to admit the kids were right in one case: In my upcoming book, “Google Maps Handicap,” two lunkheads inadvertently bring about the demise of the GPS system. This ushers in a new age of comity, depolarization, and general bonhomie, because people have to ask each other for directions and come to find out that the other guy is just like them, bonded in their inability to read a map. I didn’t have a term for this, but was sure I invented the concept.
So imagine my surprise when I was interviewed for a podcast this month by sociologist Dr. Gary David, Professor of Sociology and Professor of Information Design and Corporate Communication at Bentley University. We discussed my books, published and upcoming, and when I described my theory that destroying the GPS would help us because people would have to rely on each other more, he said, “Yeah, that’s a common theory in sociology, called Collision Theory.” Well, kids, I will give you this one. But even if I cannot take credit for inventing this theory, I will take credit for publishing a novel about it next year.
Talking with Dr. David was an enriching and edifying experience, and I am looking forward to listening to it when it hits next January or February. His schedule is here.
Besides the podcast, this month I gave a talk at the Loudon County library in Leesburg. One fellow showed up with a well-thumbed copy of my book and asked very pointed questions. I loved it and relished that he read it and came with questions. Bring it!
Speaking of Submerged, this November marks the 8th month in a row it has been a bestseller on Amazon, and still going strong! Keep reading and thank you, wonderful readers!
In November, I have two public appearances:
A live podcast on Military Broadcast Radio on 18 Nov at 8 Pm Eastern. This will be my first live podcast. Can’t wait to hear what comes out of my mouth.
For people who wanted more of either Submerged or How to Hotwire an Airplane, your prayers have been answered! I published two chapters that I omitted from Submerged and an alternate ending to Hotwire on the Freebies section of my website.
Just dropped off the winners of a lottery GoodReads ran for my latest book, “How to Hotwire an Airplane.” For the people that won, if you would like the USPS tracking number, drop me a line at author@henryrausch.com. Or better yet, sign up for my newsletter here, and when you do, you will have access to a few things I wrote but never published. I just posted the alternate ending to “How to Hotwire an Airplane.” My agent at the time wanted me to change the ending, so I did, but he still didn’t like it, and we couldn’t come to an agreement, so we parted ways. I am interested in what people think–do you think the alternate ending is better? Let me know!
Another thing I posted to the “freebies” section are two chapters I had omitted from “Submerged” due to length considerations. I am sure all authors have this experience, write more than is realistically publishable and we have to “kill or darlings” as the saying goes. But this being the Halloween season, the “darlings” have come back to life as zombies!
For readers in the Northern Virginia or Washington DC area, I will be giving a talk at the Leesburg, VA Rust library tomorrow, 23 Oct, at 7 PM. Link here. I have more library appearances and radio and podcast interviews to come, and will publish them here as well as on my website. On October 18, I will be interviewed live on Military Broadcast Radio at 8 PM Eastern time — I assume they will make a recording and post it to their website.
In the meantime, thanks for reading my books, and I look forward to your comments, email me at author@henryrausch.com.
The earth continues its journey around the sun, the air gets cooler, football is on TV, leaves fall. Picnic give way to tailgaters, and our coffee and food is imbued with everything pumpkin-coffee, milkshakes, lattes. October wraps around us like a warm blanket.
September was a busy time for me writing-wise. I signed books at the Gainesville B&N and then gave a well-received talk at the George Mason Branch Library in Annandale, Virginia. I also decided to change the cover of “Hotwire” from one that I loved. But I admit it may have been too inflammatory—Lady Liberty shoved in handcuffs across an ICE vehicle. The new one represents the book better, a beat-up plane in the desert. Book sales have picked up, so I think I made the right choice. I am running a giveaway on GoodReads this month. Enter here to have a chance to get a free book!
Submerged continues to do well! October marks the seventh month in a row that is ranked #1 in its category on Amazon and it is now #1 in two categories!
At the talks I give, people are really interested in the hidden world of submarines, and also in their history and future. I talk about how pivotal subs were in the Pacific War—the submarine force comprised 2% of the Navy but sank 55% of the Japanese shipping sunk. Hitler started the war with 59 submarines, and with those, he came dangerously close to starving England into submission. For the future, submarines are the only warships that can take the fight to our potential enemies, China and Russia. China has hypersonic missiles for which we do not have a reliable defense, restricting surface ships to the “Second Island Chain” (around Guam). They cannot proceed westward without being subjected to hypersonic missile attack. Russia is fielding Yasen-class submarines with Zircon missiles, also hypersonic. Subs will be the defining factor in, God forbid, a war with Russia or China.
I also made progress on my new novel, tentatively titled “Google Maps Handicap”. The external story is about two gearheads who invent a racing app that forces the US Government to turn off all the GPS satellites. But it is the subject of the internal story that I think will captivate readers more: the growing polarization in America today, both the economic divide and the ideological one. I have written about 30,000 words of the first draft. When ready, I will post a few chapters on the website.
I have heard from a few readers in the past month and yearn to hear from more! I respond to everyone and that is why I write, to create a reaction in people. Hopefully positive, but negative is fine too. Let me know what you think!
October will be another busy writing month for me. I will be hosted on a podcast early October, when that hits, I will post a link here. Oct 23 I will be giving a talk at Rust Library in Leesburg. And on Oct 19 I will find out the result of the Writers Digest Writing Awards, the top of which is a five-figure cash award, and an all-expense-paid trip to their 2026 convention. So if you live anywhere in Noeth America and hear a primal yell coming from West Virginia on that day, you will know my memoir won.
Until next month! Thank you for reading, and, as always, peace.
First, the good, no, make that fantastic news: My memoir, Submerged, was awarded first place in published nonfiction at the 2025 WriterCon! I am writing this in a Quality Inn in Russellville, Arkansas, on the way back from that convention, held in Oklahoma City. I am deeply honored and humbled by this award. There were world-class authors there, some of whom are on the NY Bestseller list. The award was not a “gimmee” or participation trophy, which makes being awarded it all the sweeter. More on WriterCon in a moment.
August started out with a splash. I was invited to be a guest speaker at the Virginia Writer’s Club Annual Symposium held in Ashland, VA. I spoke about how to get a manuscript approved by the DoD Office of Pre-Publication Security review (DOPSR). I had to get Submerged approved by DOPSR, and so does anyone else who has held a security clearance. Like all things government, it is daunting, bureaucratic, and time-intensive. But having learned the ropes, I felt honor-bound to help other vets in my shoes. I feel quite strongly that we should tell our stories; if not, they will be gone when we are. My second book, How to Hotwire an Airplane, has many stories from my father, who served as a Hospital Corpsman with the US Marine Corps 65-67 in Vietnam. He never wrote his story, so I did it for him.
The second week of August, I learned that Submerged had been selected as one of the top 11 all-time submarine books by a book review site, Tales and Text, which was very gratifying. You can check out the other books they recommended here.
18 August found me giving a talk on submarines to a library group in Alexandria. One of the attendees was a 98 year-old woman who had been an Air Force pilot! Boy, did she have some stories.
This brings me to WriterCon, which I mentioned I am just returning from. It is a gathering of authors, agents, and editors for an intensive three-day series of lectures, workshops, meetings, and sharing. I remember meeting a woman at Oshkosh who told me she gets her “aviation batteries” recharged at that annual convention; well, I felt this same way here, for writing. I learned so much, I will spend the next few days retrieving my notes and putting them in order. Plus, the vibe was supportive and collegial. I made new friends and met people with whom I had only conversed via email before.
That’s it for this month. I promised not to spam you, only send a newsletter once a month. As I write this, it has turned 1 Sep on the East Coast, which means that Submerged has now spent a WHOPPING SIX MONTHS on the Amazon bestseller list in its category! For everyone who bought it, thank you!
One of the exercises at WriterCon—a contest actually–was to write a 100-word story, subject “End of the World”. Here is my entry, which I thought was pretty good, but the woman who won it had a much better story, to be honest. As I said, the writers there were top-notch.
Until next month, peace, and I wish good things for everyone.
Henry Rausch
Missile Drill
“Set Condition 1SQ for Missile Launch”
The order rang through the submarine, accompanied by the familiar gong-gong-gong of the general alarm. 160 sixty pairs of feet hit the deckplates on the way to missile launch positions. Men trundled out of racks, ditched meals. When he got word that stations were manned, the XO of USS Oklahoma clicked the bezel of his stopwatch and assessed the results. 66.6 seconds, nearly a new record. He was pleased; hundreds of launch drills had paid off. It wasn’t until the missiles left the tubes that the crew realized it was not a drill.
Hi everyone. When I started writing and publishing, I did not realize that I would have to gain skills in, if not master, a wide variety of subjects that have nothing to do with telling stories. Hosting and building a website is apparently one of them. Up to now I have been sending my domain (henryrausch.com) to the Amazon author page, but it was impressed upon me that this does not suffice, hence this meager and halting attempt at a webpage which must look like first efforts back in 1996 if not sooner. Rest assured, it will get better! I am especially interested in establishing a dialogue with my readers, and I think this site will enable that in two ways: I have now an email address: author@henryrausch.com, and I think there is a comment feature on this site which allows people to make comments directly.
I will have lots more to write about in the coming days. I want to tell you about the two books I have published and the one I am writing now. Also, I fly alot, all around the country, and will be posting my thoughts and experiences about that as well.
