The Pale Horse: The Northwest Montana Insurgency and its Aftermath (1987-2002)
- Thread starter XTrapnel
- Start date
I have just read through all of this in the past couple of days, fantastic TL. Bleak but very captivating and the graphics have all been amazing as others have pointed out.
I realize it hasnt come up as its on the other side of the continent from the story focus, but what is the opinion of the public in New England to the insurgency and its fallout?
I realize it hasnt come up as its on the other side of the continent from the story focus, but what is the opinion of the public in New England to the insurgency and its fallout?
You could do a rendition of Citizen X, and the only things which would really have to change would be the names.
NWF was good before it was popular. Now with all these foreign fighters turning up for religious or racial issues the real underground spirit has been lost. Back in the day it was just a platoon or company’s worth of guys in a bar with two guitars and a drum for cover. But now it’s mainstream and sold out with highly produced videos or on NZTV News International with embeddeds. I was into the Americanist crusade before it was cool.
Boomer is what the kids online call Generation X isn't it? So yes, yes I am. But I'm not making it because friendly young people online make this kind of joke.
This kind of autonostalgic whining has been associated with generation x since the 1970s when such whining was first witnessed (punk). It only became more pronounced over the 1980s (madchester) and 1990s (grunge) as generationally typical, usually about music. Thus the "punk / grunge" band cover to conceal the company business in the bar. The idea of a stolen authenticity which was witnessed but which has been destroyed is pretty common. Kinda what happens when an economy turns to ash in your hands. Certainly a potential for a grievous lost imagined past leading to political extremism to defend a lost ontological state.
You're not focusing on the Al Jazeera joke. Because if TVNZ-NI is reporting; then New Zealand is Qatar; then who is Saudi Arabia? What English Speaking Racist woman-abusing Resource Extraction economy governed by a closed caste of self-indulgent dickheads who are grossly incompetent but manage a repressive society where sick car burnouts are praised as the ultimate in culture—which possible state could possibly have religious, racial, anti-woman or political ties to NWF religious extremists while still being untouchable for the dominant hegemon? In this case rather than the United States the United Kingdom. Which country could that be?
yours,
living in Sydney,
from Newcastle,
Sam R.
This kind of autonostalgic whining has been associated with generation x since the 1970s when such whining was first witnessed (punk). It only became more pronounced over the 1980s (madchester) and 1990s (grunge) as generationally typical, usually about music. Thus the "punk / grunge" band cover to conceal the company business in the bar. The idea of a stolen authenticity which was witnessed but which has been destroyed is pretty common. Kinda what happens when an economy turns to ash in your hands. Certainly a potential for a grievous lost imagined past leading to political extremism to defend a lost ontological state.
You're not focusing on the Al Jazeera joke. Because if TVNZ-NI is reporting; then New Zealand is Qatar; then who is Saudi Arabia? What English Speaking Racist woman-abusing Resource Extraction economy governed by a closed caste of self-indulgent dickheads who are grossly incompetent but manage a repressive society where sick car burnouts are praised as the ultimate in culture—which possible state could possibly have religious, racial, anti-woman or political ties to NWF religious extremists while still being untouchable for the dominant hegemon? In this case rather than the United States the United Kingdom. Which country could that be?
yours,
living in Sydney,
from Newcastle,
Sam R.
You had me in the first part, then you completely and utterly lost the friggin' script in the second.
"You call that a clandestine arms shipment? THAT'S a clandestine arms shipment"
As it happens, before I realised that I couldn't really make the timeline sync up properly, the initial vector for Commonwealth investment into the NWF was originally going to be Joh Bjelke-Petersen, under the impression that the Rushdoonyites were more or less mainline Protestants being persecuted by Godless Syndies, channelling funds into the region through his network of sympathetic Queensland real estate investors.
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He's suggesting that Australia/some of Australia's elite (Murdoch?) are the Saudis to the NWF's Taliban/Al-Qaeda
Oh, I kinda thought he was talking about Canada. But why was he talking about Australia?
Day to day I don't see how people tell us apart:
Canada already has a fairly stable role in the collapse of American Syndicalism. Largely playing as Germany in the big board's metaphors. Also I wouldn't want to suggest that Canada is a hell on earth for indigenous people, metis, women, ethnic and cultural minorities; governed by a set of bastards indifferent to human life; sponsoring a patriarchal system of domestic terrorisation and violence. I'd leave that to Canadians.
I briefly thought about using South Africa as a Saudi analogue in my joke; but, South Africa doesn't get away with it. Saudi Arabia and Australia _do._
In my autonostalgia my local music scene had two tracks on the theme of Australia's abuse of women, one called "domestic violence" the other with the recurrent sample "double murder suicide." Because during the 1990s economic collapse and before the capitalist state took guns out of mens hands in family homes, once a week we'd hear double murder suicide, triple murder suicide, on the news.
Also you want an element of religious, lingual and cultural link between the House of [*M—ch]*1 and the RNL extremists. Brazil wouldn't really have that level of dilettante engagement. Indian actions would be political, not interpersonal, etc.
yours,
Sam R.
*1 I don't live in a place safe enough to speculate but House of [*W—r] House of [*M—ch] would be a great potential documentary title if it happened.
Canada already has a fairly stable role in the collapse of American Syndicalism. Largely playing as Germany in the big board's metaphors. Also I wouldn't want to suggest that Canada is a hell on earth for indigenous people, metis, women, ethnic and cultural minorities; governed by a set of bastards indifferent to human life; sponsoring a patriarchal system of domestic terrorisation and violence. I'd leave that to Canadians.
I briefly thought about using South Africa as a Saudi analogue in my joke; but, South Africa doesn't get away with it. Saudi Arabia and Australia _do._
In my autonostalgia my local music scene had two tracks on the theme of Australia's abuse of women, one called "domestic violence" the other with the recurrent sample "double murder suicide." Because during the 1990s economic collapse and before the capitalist state took guns out of mens hands in family homes, once a week we'd hear double murder suicide, triple murder suicide, on the news.
Also you want an element of religious, lingual and cultural link between the House of [*M—ch]*1 and the RNL extremists. Brazil wouldn't really have that level of dilettante engagement. Indian actions would be political, not interpersonal, etc.
yours,
Sam R.
*1 I don't live in a place safe enough to speculate but House of [*W—r] House of [*M—ch] would be a great potential documentary title if it happened.
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Nice to see this back! I admit, part of me is afraid the Michael Aquino/satanist arc will get a little too goofy to be believable, but all the same I'm looking forward to see what you do with it.
Also, in light of current events, making Russell Bentley a major character was an...interesting choice.
Also, in light of current events, making Russell Bentley a major character was an...interesting choice.
Oh wow, I didn't realize this guy was real. I wonder what made him stand out, at this rate he's "up and about" around twenty years earlier than OTL. I guess not enough famous militia joiners from the 90s.
To be fair it took the exhaustion of just about every ideological alternative for the Saudi line to be relevant outside its backwater-- they couldn't even reconcile the aggrieved children of their defeated domestic enemies, as shown in the '79 Mecca siege.
And do we have to limit our search for a Saudi Arabia to this or that specific Entente member? Britain was petty enough to take back fucking Donegal. God forbid Protestants suffer anywhere. Sure maybe the rest of Britain (plus numerous colonies) and France (plus the Algerian coast) is a bit more liberal but I doubt it. (Not liberal enough for Wilson after all). At best it could have gone like the respective Restorations, all's forgiven but the regicides. But otherwise its all just compromise gravitating around the central fact that a foreign elite is making a point of arranging the furniture as it pleases, because obviously civilized societies have nothing to learn from Syndicalism and the entire generation (or as much as can be safely jettisoned) of industrial and party managers raised on self-congratulations over their righteous conquest and judicious stewardship can be tossed out on the streets like they deserve, the thieving rats.
And while all this compromise is going on (or not) another sector of the population is having its every wish fulfilled, so what's left for the satisfied men of Ulster but the world stage? They and fellow travelers have everything they could reasonably want (revanche? Check. Birthright? Check) and are left with nothing to do except preserving a stable society of fecund families forever. So either these people are just as influential as they dreamed of being, or they've been forced to back off a bit by the inevitable backlash (postwar European society has invited such biting criticism OTL for far less) but bide their time and count their money.
I guess some famous Australians have punched above their weight with this sort of thing but I don't think we need some Saudi-type patient zero, this is probably a very pluricentric tendency already. Something something "real Americans' resistance against the wogs who stole their country, if we let any more Polaks in we'll be a ridiculous neo-Syndicalist Babel just like them"
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What does the CSA's auto industry look like? Now that Syndicalism is over are the old auto companies* trying to return home?
*GM for instance would have likely survived the syndicalist take over through their holdings in Canada, Australia, the soon-to-be PSA, and possibly Germany too depending on if they still bought Opel on schedule.
*GM for instance would have likely survived the syndicalist take over through their holdings in Canada, Australia, the soon-to-be PSA, and possibly Germany too depending on if they still bought Opel on schedule.
Can we get a look at the FSA's Constitution/structures of government at some point? Tangential to NW Montana but doubtless very interesting....
A question for the author, @XTrapnel, but what inspired you to create this timeline? It's not everyday you think, "Hmm, today I will write an alternate history guerilla war in the vein of the Chechen Wars."
And how do you research for this timeline? I can imagine it's something of a pain.
And how do you research for this timeline? I can imagine it's something of a pain.
So just wondering, is this timeline’s Butte a bigger city? Not that Butte was ever huge it did boom quite a bit in the 20s. I’ve heard some say it got as big as 100k but I don’t see it in the census records. Still it looks like it maybe had about 40k in the 30s. Might it be a bit bigger as I’m guessing it would probably be the big Copper producer among Syndie countries?
Also, are other cities in Montana still similar? I feel like Butte might stay it’s largest city though with the petroleum industry Billings might still grow?
Last question to and this might be a bit too local but would there still be an event like the farm crisis or S&L scandal in the 80s like in otl? I could see Grangeland especially struggling as the late 80s were dry years in the region. Might collectivized farms be doing poorly?
Also, are other cities in Montana still similar? I feel like Butte might stay it’s largest city though with the petroleum industry Billings might still grow?
Last question to and this might be a bit too local but would there still be an event like the farm crisis or S&L scandal in the 80s like in otl? I could see Grangeland especially struggling as the late 80s were dry years in the region. Might collectivized farms be doing poorly?
Go, Ghost, Go (1994)
Go, Ghost, Go (1994)
For the more radical members of America’s indigenous community, the Chicago Government’s victory in the Second Civil War was cause for guarded celebration. While the relative distance of the fighting from most of the larger reservations had meant that the disruption to day-to-day life was minimal, it was generally supposed that some sort of renegotiation of the tenuous status of Native Americans would follow the cessation of hostilities.
As with most other minority groups, initial optimism fuelled by genuine action as various interest groups jostled for support in the first Chicago Congress (in the case of Native Americans, the abolition of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in favour of an Indian People’s Congress and the establishment of the Native American-heavy Sequoyah CSR within what had formerly been Oklahoma) gave way within the first decade of the CSA’s existence to a vague disappointment, as it became clear that the formation of a new national approach to indigenous issues was very low down on the new government’s list of priorities indeed.
In the absence of a national policy, the indigenous experience of American Syndicalism was dictated by the CSR in which each group resided, varying tremendously according to the value of their land, the extent to which they could wield political power as a unified bloc and the character of each CSR’s executive. Within the incredibly wide range of outcomes that these conditions could generate, the history of the Montana-based Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes within the CSA was broadly average – a good deal worse than the Osage people, who, allowed to maintain their pre-Civil War rights to the oil deposits beneath Sequoyah, absolutely dominated their CSR’s politics and would remain the wealthiest group per capita within the CSA well into the 1970s; but, then again, a good deal better than that of the Navajos, whose location on the border with the PSA marked them out as an immediate vector for infiltration by New Mexican Navajos (attempts to resettle them elsewhere at gunpoint resulted in a low-scale insurgency well into the 1950s, which was ultimately put down with a level of brutality exceeding that of SATPO in Northwest Montana at times).
Neither particularly rewarded or attacked by the State, the Salish-Kootenai people’s experience of the CSA would nevertheless be one of dramatic upheaval. This upheaval was driven, at least initially, by well-intentioned if wildly inaccurate theorising regarding the history of indigenous peoples in North America. First proposed by the anthropologists Orville S. Nungesser and Charlotte Fairbanks at Indiana Central College, the “Indian Substrate Theory” postulated that well into the seventeenth century, most North American indigenous peoples had belonged to one of a half-dozen or so more or less linguistically unified cultural complexes, and that their subsequent division into hundreds of much smaller bodies was a legacy of discord created by white settlers to make these cultural complexes easier to extirpate from their original lands. The Indian Substrate Theory happened to strike an ideological chord with the First Chicago Congress, and benefited accordingly; although largely exploded elsewhere within a few years of its first publication, it was taught as fact within the CSA’s anthropology departments well into the mid-1980s.
The Salish-Kootenai people’s first encounter with what the CSA saw as the logical consequences of the Indian Substrate Theory came in 1954, when the inhabitants of Flathead Reservation were given ninety days’ notice that, along with those of every other reservation in the former state of Montana, they were to be transported to Crow Reservation: there, it was hoped that, in time, the various indigenous peoples would recover the linguistic and cultural unity denied them by European settlement, eventually acceding to the CSA as a separate CSR on the same lines as Sequoyah. Even by the frayed logic of the Substrate Theory, this relocation was ludicrous: the Salish peoples, clearly rooted in the Pacific Northwest, were about as closely culturally related to the Crow peoples as the CSA officials mandating the relocation were to the Steppe Mongolians. Nevertheless, the move (driven far more by the pressing need for manpower to work the enormous coal deposits below Crow Reservation) went ahead, with only token resistance from the Salish-Kootenai.
If the CSA had been using the prospect of cultural unity between the Crow and the resettled peoples as anything more than a figleaf, it would have been bitterly disappointed by the simmering resentment which immediately developed: the Crow, entirely understandably, regarded everyone else as an interloper; everyone else, equally understandably, regarded the Crow as rent-seeking beneficiaries of their labour. Deprived of any real means to settle this dispute, and trapped by state fiat in a situation from where no escape was possible, many of the Salish-Kootenai turned to a tribal nationalism which had taken on an increasingly unpleasant edge by the early 90s, as a new generation which had known nothing but exile came of age.
Jim Balestier was typical of this generation of radicals: a mine foreman in his early thirties by 1994, his involvement with dissident Salish-Kootenai groups suspected of a string of arson attacks on Crow Property had attracted the attention of reservation authorities. Faced with, at best, permanent blacklisting from mine employment, and possible criminal proceedings, Balestier decided to take advantage of the collapse of authority in the Grangeland CSR to reclaim his birthright. Stealing a half dozen trucks, he and about fifty young men fled the reservation, buying their way through roadblocks with excess diesel; they had reached Polson, the former capital of Flathead Reservation (now virtually abandoned after the collapse of SATPO), before anyone in an official capacity had noticed what was happening.
It is likely that Balestier and his followers would have fallen prey to one of the many groups of looters still roaming the area as of the summer of 1994, had it not been for support from an unlikely source: the Klassenites, many of whom viewed indigenous Americans as essentially wayward Aryans, and whose relatively low numbers despite their outsize importance within the leadership of the Northwest Republic meant that more allies were always welcome, became enthusiastic proponents on the ruling council of the Northwest Republic for recognition of a separate Salish-Kootenai Republic within the wider Northwest Front. It was under their aegis that this Republic was established on 18 October 1994.
Balestier’s flight to Polson represents the first wave of what was to become a much larger migration of Salish-Kootenai peoples – it is estimated that, by early 1996, over five thousand people had returned to the area around Flathead Lake. For the time being, both the Klassenites and the Salish-Kootenai were content to maintain their mutually beneficial relationship. As the Northwest Republic embarked upon its first year of official existence in 1995, however, stranger forces even than this alliance would come to the fore.
For the more radical members of America’s indigenous community, the Chicago Government’s victory in the Second Civil War was cause for guarded celebration. While the relative distance of the fighting from most of the larger reservations had meant that the disruption to day-to-day life was minimal, it was generally supposed that some sort of renegotiation of the tenuous status of Native Americans would follow the cessation of hostilities.
As with most other minority groups, initial optimism fuelled by genuine action as various interest groups jostled for support in the first Chicago Congress (in the case of Native Americans, the abolition of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in favour of an Indian People’s Congress and the establishment of the Native American-heavy Sequoyah CSR within what had formerly been Oklahoma) gave way within the first decade of the CSA’s existence to a vague disappointment, as it became clear that the formation of a new national approach to indigenous issues was very low down on the new government’s list of priorities indeed.
In the absence of a national policy, the indigenous experience of American Syndicalism was dictated by the CSR in which each group resided, varying tremendously according to the value of their land, the extent to which they could wield political power as a unified bloc and the character of each CSR’s executive. Within the incredibly wide range of outcomes that these conditions could generate, the history of the Montana-based Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes within the CSA was broadly average – a good deal worse than the Osage people, who, allowed to maintain their pre-Civil War rights to the oil deposits beneath Sequoyah, absolutely dominated their CSR’s politics and would remain the wealthiest group per capita within the CSA well into the 1970s; but, then again, a good deal better than that of the Navajos, whose location on the border with the PSA marked them out as an immediate vector for infiltration by New Mexican Navajos (attempts to resettle them elsewhere at gunpoint resulted in a low-scale insurgency well into the 1950s, which was ultimately put down with a level of brutality exceeding that of SATPO in Northwest Montana at times).
Neither particularly rewarded or attacked by the State, the Salish-Kootenai people’s experience of the CSA would nevertheless be one of dramatic upheaval. This upheaval was driven, at least initially, by well-intentioned if wildly inaccurate theorising regarding the history of indigenous peoples in North America. First proposed by the anthropologists Orville S. Nungesser and Charlotte Fairbanks at Indiana Central College, the “Indian Substrate Theory” postulated that well into the seventeenth century, most North American indigenous peoples had belonged to one of a half-dozen or so more or less linguistically unified cultural complexes, and that their subsequent division into hundreds of much smaller bodies was a legacy of discord created by white settlers to make these cultural complexes easier to extirpate from their original lands. The Indian Substrate Theory happened to strike an ideological chord with the First Chicago Congress, and benefited accordingly; although largely exploded elsewhere within a few years of its first publication, it was taught as fact within the CSA’s anthropology departments well into the mid-1980s.
The Salish-Kootenai people’s first encounter with what the CSA saw as the logical consequences of the Indian Substrate Theory came in 1954, when the inhabitants of Flathead Reservation were given ninety days’ notice that, along with those of every other reservation in the former state of Montana, they were to be transported to Crow Reservation: there, it was hoped that, in time, the various indigenous peoples would recover the linguistic and cultural unity denied them by European settlement, eventually acceding to the CSA as a separate CSR on the same lines as Sequoyah. Even by the frayed logic of the Substrate Theory, this relocation was ludicrous: the Salish peoples, clearly rooted in the Pacific Northwest, were about as closely culturally related to the Crow peoples as the CSA officials mandating the relocation were to the Steppe Mongolians. Nevertheless, the move (driven far more by the pressing need for manpower to work the enormous coal deposits below Crow Reservation) went ahead, with only token resistance from the Salish-Kootenai.
If the CSA had been using the prospect of cultural unity between the Crow and the resettled peoples as anything more than a figleaf, it would have been bitterly disappointed by the simmering resentment which immediately developed: the Crow, entirely understandably, regarded everyone else as an interloper; everyone else, equally understandably, regarded the Crow as rent-seeking beneficiaries of their labour. Deprived of any real means to settle this dispute, and trapped by state fiat in a situation from where no escape was possible, many of the Salish-Kootenai turned to a tribal nationalism which had taken on an increasingly unpleasant edge by the early 90s, as a new generation which had known nothing but exile came of age.
Jim Balestier was typical of this generation of radicals: a mine foreman in his early thirties by 1994, his involvement with dissident Salish-Kootenai groups suspected of a string of arson attacks on Crow Property had attracted the attention of reservation authorities. Faced with, at best, permanent blacklisting from mine employment, and possible criminal proceedings, Balestier decided to take advantage of the collapse of authority in the Grangeland CSR to reclaim his birthright. Stealing a half dozen trucks, he and about fifty young men fled the reservation, buying their way through roadblocks with excess diesel; they had reached Polson, the former capital of Flathead Reservation (now virtually abandoned after the collapse of SATPO), before anyone in an official capacity had noticed what was happening.
It is likely that Balestier and his followers would have fallen prey to one of the many groups of looters still roaming the area as of the summer of 1994, had it not been for support from an unlikely source: the Klassenites, many of whom viewed indigenous Americans as essentially wayward Aryans, and whose relatively low numbers despite their outsize importance within the leadership of the Northwest Republic meant that more allies were always welcome, became enthusiastic proponents on the ruling council of the Northwest Republic for recognition of a separate Salish-Kootenai Republic within the wider Northwest Front. It was under their aegis that this Republic was established on 18 October 1994.
Balestier’s flight to Polson represents the first wave of what was to become a much larger migration of Salish-Kootenai peoples – it is estimated that, by early 1996, over five thousand people had returned to the area around Flathead Lake. For the time being, both the Klassenites and the Salish-Kootenai were content to maintain their mutually beneficial relationship. As the Northwest Republic embarked upon its first year of official existence in 1995, however, stranger forces even than this alliance would come to the fore.
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