The Cast of Characters for “The 15% Solution”:

•Dino Louis.  A well‑known, well‑respected, and well‑employed free‑lance sports journalist, before and during the pre-fascist Transition Era, Louis en­gaged in political analysis on the side.  From time‑to‑time he made attempts to draw attention to his polit­ical work, but was never successful in so do­ing.

Louis disappeared in 2001. It is not known whether he was able to successfully emigrate.  Many who could afford it did in that year before foreign travel for American citizens was restricted as it had been during the McCarthy Era of the 1950s.  (In that case he may just have main­tained a low profile abroad to avoid detection by the International Death Squads.) Or he may have been caught and "dis­appeared" in the old CIA‑inspired Latin American style of the 1970s and 1980s by a pre‑Helmsmen Domestic Death Squad. In any case, he had sent copies of the essays reproduced here to his friend Alex Poughton in London, as they were written. Those cop­ies, pre­served in Poughton's library, are used here with per­mis­sion.

•Alex Poughton.  The pencil‑thin English journalist Alex Poughton sported a pencil‑thin mustache and bore a striking resemblance to the well‑known 20th century Eng­lish actor, David Niven. Poughton chronicled the Fascist Period for the London Sunday Times under the head "Amer­ican Democracy."  Staying in polit­ical tune with the owner of his paper, Poughton's published writings were generally favorable to the fascist regime, and he was able to re­main in and travel freely throughout the coun­try (as a whole before 2011 and in the White Republic after that date).

However, published here are not his public puff pieces but pri­vate let­ters that he sent home by diplomatic pouch from time to time through his con­nec­tions in the British Embassy.  They present a rather differ­ent picture of American reality. The "Karl" to whom these letters were written has never been iden­tified.  Thus the origi­nals are lost.  But along with the Louis essays, copies are preserved in Poughton's library and are used here with permission.

•Curley Oakwood.  At 6'5" tall, weighing in at 320 lbs., his shaved head was always slightly aglow with sweat when bathed in the glow of television lights.  He was the dominant electronic media figure of his time.  Presented here are transcripts of broadcasts he made during the Fascist Period, until he went off the air the day before New Washington fell in 2023.

A high‑school drop‑out with a great radio voice, a great deal of per­sonal hate and resentment of anyone he regarded as "different," and a great ability to absorb quickly and regurgitate faithfully the intensive political coaching he received daily throughout his career from his Right‑Wing political mentors, Oakwood began his career at the age 25 in 1997.

Late in the Transition Era (1980 ‑ 2001), he had succeeded one Rush Limbaugh as the dominant Right‑Wing presence on the con­temporary mediums of "talk‑radio" and "talk‑television."  He pro­ceeded to go beyond Limbaugh, taking his one‑time mentor's often subtle expressions of hatred and anger that were beginning to wear thin and become too subtle for many of Limbaugh's 20 million lis­teners to follow, to a much more open form.

Imitating the example of lesser‑light reactionaries who had begun to appear mainly on local talk‑radio in the mid‑1990s, Oakwood made it abundantly clear to everyone listening just how hateful and angry he was. In that time of mounting frustration and rage for so many in the country, open hate just began to play much better than any even slightly veiled version.  (Radio station KFSO in San Fran­cisco, CA was one of the first to begin the "open hate" trend, early in 1995.)

Oakwood went on to become the leading public, non‑governmental voice of the American Fascists for their whole time in power.  Unre­pentant until the end, in 2026 at the age of 54 he was publicly hung for the crime of being "a principal leader of Ameri­can Fas­cism."  It was an un­usual role to play for a media figure who re­mained in media.  But it was one he had sought, and in the eyes of the forces whose interests he doggedly and faithfully served, he served them well.

•"Short, blond, and perky," according to a contemporary's descrip­tion, Constance "Connie" Conroy was a White House press officer who man­aged to maintain her post through every twist and turn of the intense political infighting which characterized the Fascist Peri­od.  Her com­mentaries reproduced in this book are brief excerpts from a set of non‑system, secret notes she kept throughout the time on an ancient computer called a "PC."

Conroy had first arrived in the White House under President Pine (despite his age some say literally, others figuratively) shortly after his accession to the Presidency in 2001, and lasted until the end.  By pure chance, her old computer fell intact into the hands of the Constitutionalist forces during the conquest of New Washington.  Fortu­nately for us, a technician of the Movement for the Restora­tion of Con­stitutional Democracy figured out how to operate it.

Conroy's notes, incomplete as they are, have provided the only "in­side look" available to historians of the period.  Following the lead of American Right‑Wing Reactionaries in government ever since the fa­mous "White House Tapes" incident which forced the resignation of President Richard Nixon in 1973, all of the official written and comput­er records of the whole Fascist Period located in New Washington were destroyed by the Fascists in the frantic weeks just before the city fell.

Conroy was Isolated for five years following the end of the Sec­ond Civil War.  After her release she married a retired Constitutionalist press officer, and is still alive at this writing.  As read­ers will be aware, since the written record is so sparse, any writ­ings of former Fascists, whether private or public, are by law in the public domain and so per­mission to reproduce is not re­quired.

•Parthenon "Pudge" Pomeroy, the owner of a gasoline station in northern New Jersey, was an archetypal supporter and beneficiary of American Fascism.  (Accounting for his strange given name were the facts that his parents were travelling in Greece the sum­mer he was con­ceived, and liked alliteration.  His childhood nick­name had been consid­ered to parsimoniously describe his appear­ance.  People viewing at the same time adult and childhood photo­graphs of him often remarked how much like "himself" he looked at an early age.)

Well over‑age during the Second Civil War, but forced to work for the Army of the NAR as a human pack animal (ironically for a man in his business, petroleum no longer being available for the mere transpor­tation of supplies), he was killed during the Battle for the Liberation of New York in 2022.  A diary kept by him from the year 2003, when he took over the family gasoline station from his father at the age 38, was found on his person.  He had no known survivors.

The 15% Solution | T.o.C.