I recently slowly made my way through Bret Easton Ellis’ Lunar Park; in the novel, a copycat criminal started offing characters in a poor imitation of Patrick Bates, the most charming serial killer since Ted Bundy. As the novel evolves, the police start to question the main character in the novel, Bret Easton Ellis himself, about the crimes.



In yet another case of life imitating art imitating life--or something along those lines--the prosecutors are alleging that five militia terrorists in Georgia used an online novel as a sort of script for their terrorist attacks. The author of the book, Mike Vanderboegh, does happen to be a former militiaman, and his book “Evolved” does give specific advice to terrorists and want-to-be terrorists on how they can accomplish much more than they are now with the use of his advice.



The author is of course claiming that his work was “misinterpreted.” He also disparaged the suspects in an interview with FOX news. The suspects in question are being accused of targeting the federal government, including both buildings and federal workers. That said, he also writes in the introduction to his book that it is a sort of field manual for anyone concerned that ATF cops are fighting against the people.



The LA Times book blog, where I first learned of the allegations, seems more concerned with the relatively small issue of whether Vanderboegh’s work is actually a book or not because it hasn’t found a publisher. I think focusing on the issue of whether “Absolved” is a book or an unpublished manuscript ignores the much larger issues at hand.



The author’s work, whatever you call it, seems to be a sort of manifesto calling for militia types to take arms against their government. In this instance, the government is the United States government and the suspects in question made bucket lists of specific individuals and building that they felt should be targeted.



If Vanderboegh was a dark-skinned Muslim, the question about whether it was an actual book or not wouldn’t have been asked. It wouldn’t have been relevant. He probably would have been detained already, without a fair trial. 


The lessons that Americans should have learned since Timothy McVeigh bombed the federal building in 1994 have all been forgotten in the post 9-11 times in which we are living. Not all terrorists are non-white and not all terrorists get their ideas from the same places.