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Question:  What made you write Life on the Outpost in the first place?
Answer:  Like most people on this planet, I became sick of lies coming from the mouths of our neurotic, psychotic, pig-headed politicians.  All I wanted was some truth.  It was while surfing the internet that I first learned about extraordinary renditions, secret prisons and multi-billion dollar sole-source contract awards to private companies run by our great leaders.  These are the days when the Department of Justice legally permits torture.  We know this sad fact because foreign-sounding names like Khaled el-Masri, Laid Saidi and Maher Arar are coming back to cast a long shadow over the legacies of our top leaders.  And yet those slimy politicians continue to blatantly lie without blushing.  Where are the weapons of mass destruction?  Who said the mission was completed?  Why is Cat Stevens suddenly a terrorist?  Where were the secret prisons located?  Just give me some truth, I say, and I’m not the only one. 
Question:  Tell us about what happens in Life on the Outpost.
Answer:  It’s a dark period in one nation’s history, when the leaders secretly decided to drain the Treasury of hundreds of billions of dollars.  The only mechanism that could justify transferring such vasts amounts of cash into private hands was financing a war, which they promptly started with a small, far-away nation.  A police “clamp-down” on society accompanied the looting process, capturing numerous innocent people along the way in their net.  One man, a translator by profession, observed the changes taking place, yet remained silent until he was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of public intoxication.  The experience inside the prison’s brutal system transformed the meek translator into a violent revolutionary, hell-bent on destroying the increasingly oppressive government system.  When the bomb he cooked up at home failed to blow up at a state reception, the translator realized that violence was not the answer.  By that time, however, it was too late.  
Question:  Too late for who?  The translator? 
Answer:  Read the book.  It’s not that expensive.  You can order it on-line . 
Question:  You describe some rather disturbing and gruesome scenes in several chapters.  Can you tell us whether it was your imagination or was it rooted in reality?
Answer:  All of these terrible stories are based on reality, unfortunately.  The beating of a 64-year old man, who gets arrested on trumped up charges of being drunken and disorderly, came from New Orleans post-Katrina hurricane.  Thankfully, there was CNN footage that caused a public outrcy, otherwise that victim would surely have been imprisoned on false charges.  And in America, unlike in my story, nobody came to the poor guy’s rescue. 
Question:  What about the German car salesman in a cage next to the translator’s? 
Answer:  That came from an internet story about how CIA kidnapped an innocent German citizen, El-Masri, during a legally sanctioned exercise in “extraordinary rendition.”  They flew him over to a secret dungeon in Afghanistan called the Salt Pit, where he spent six grueling months in interrogations.  Other prison scenes were taken from descriptions of what occurred inside Abu Graib, which is now re-named “Camp Redemption” for some idiotic reason by our glorious leaders.  Just recently the Bush administration released a 71 year-old man from Guantanamo Bay prison without filing any charges, after years of captivity.  Why was he there?  And the children!  Did you ever wonder about what happens to the children detainees?  Just look at Guantanamo Bay, and you will find the answers.  So I really didn’t have to use my imagination to re-create a torture chamber: it’s all daily news.  Disgusting, don’t you think?
Question:  But what can anyone do?
Answer:  Honestly, I don’t have the answer.  Rebellion against a morally corrupt government is an individual thing.  The only recourse under the democratic system is to complain to your Congressman or Senator, but that’s not going to accomplish anything.  Changing the system from within simply does not work, and violence only causes more violence.  As a result, I strongly believe in civil disobedience.  For example, I don’t participate in political events and I never vote for those uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocrites.  If they want my support, in return I demand simple truth and accountability, something that our so-called leaders refuse to provide.

© 2007 Alex Frishberg