Excerpt – Moral Panic by K.M. Ecke @thedreamflow #thriller #newrelease #musicalbum
Synopsis
Tanner Moore is at the top of his game in the high stakes world of big technology. As chief technology officer of Paragon, the largest corporation in the world, he is about to release the greatest convenience innovation in the history of commerce: drone delivery service to every inch of the globe.
But when an interview with journalist Amy Noral is secretly recorded and published by the clickbait media, Tanner’s fall from grace is swift and brutal.
Tanner is fired, publicly condemned as a terrorist for comments he never made, and kidnapped by a mysterious vigilante group who use surveillance data to track and kill their enemies. Tanner must navigate their underground world full of violent zealots and mental manipulation to find his way to freedom, or see his drone technology used as the most advanced assassination tool ever devised.
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Moral Panic explores the collision of the most extreme elements of politics, ideology and technological media manipulation. It navigates through a maze of modern surveillance with a skeptical eye on the data-driven world we live in, to bring an awareness of the possibility of such a story coming true in the real world.
Buy at The Dream Flow
Excerpt
Chapter 49
Jacobs sat in her office late at night, listening to the political debate through a radio broadcast on her internet browser. She continued to search for Diana’s detractors as the debate raged in the background, getting more heated with each statement. There was never a mention of policy or any real tactical explanation of either candidate’s intentions. The moderator had lost complete control, and the scene had devolved into a frenzy of personal attacks and one-liners.
“The reality is that my opponent represents the old way of doing things, and I represent the new. We will not see the kind of change this state needs until we accept that,” Diana said, directing her diatribe toward current California Governor Thomas Brown.
She continued. “I’m interested in rescuing our citizens from the nightmare that men like Thomas Brown have built around us. He and his cigar buddies sit in dark rooms cutting deals that systematically assault the weakest members of this state, and I am sick of watching his incompetence ruin the lives of so many great Americans. It is time for real change. It is time to elect someone who understands what real people need.”
Governor Thomas Brown retorted, “Inheriting a multibillion-dollar fortune from your family does not make you an expert on what people need. It’s laughable to pretend you know something about people when you have never held a real job or lifted a finger doing real work in your entire life. I started a small business. I’ve worked menial jobs. I know what it’s like to feel the pressures of poverty.”
“That is precisely what makes me more qualified than you,” Diana interjected. “Good genetics. There is absolutely no reason to have people born into poor families governing other people. If your family was competent, they wouldn’t have been poor. You have had to accept dozens of donations from foreign governments and businesses just to fund your campaign, and you have sold out your loyalty to this country by doing so. I’m self-funding my campaign, so I am beholden to no one but myself.”
Governor Brown scoffed. “Which means you will run an administration to profit no one but yourself. Your advisors are the ones who keep your ventures afloat while you’re off being a professional socialite without any concept of what the real world is like. You have no idea what it means to be self-reliant, which is why the plan you have put forward is so fundamentally flawed.” He turned his attention to the audience. “She wants to take away sovereignty from every citizen in our state with her backwards policies. To be honest, I think she has some type of serious personality disorder, which I think is evident in the fact that she can’t keep a man around long enough to get married.”
“Do you see this? That’s sexism, and it’s about time women stood up against this type of abuse. Let’s add this statement to your long list of microaggressions against women. I think this is a great stage for you to publicly address the sexual misconduct charges being made against you.”
Thomas Brown exploded. “Those are absolute blatant lies manufactured by your propaganda machine! I am not a sexist. I would say the same thing to you if you were a single man. It’s absurd to assume a rejection of authoritarianism is racist or sexist simply because the person pursuing that authoritarian agenda is a minority or a woman.
“We need real leadership. We need decent people in power who speak truth. Whether they are men or women, white or black, poor or rich is inconsequential. What we absolutely do not need are lying, fearmongering, identity politicians using every small difference of socioeconomic status, race, and gender to divide the populace against each other so fascist nut jobs can take away the civil liberties of all people just to satisfy their shortsighted and infantile pursuit of power. This woman has never held elected office, and she didn’t even create her own wealth. She is barely competent enough to run a company, let alone a state.”
Diana blasted back, “I have absolute confidence in my ability to rule with wisdom and intellect, which are two things your governorship has lacked since the day you took office.”
“Do you hear that?” Governor Brown said. “She wants to rule you. She sees you as her subjects, her playthings. Her manipulation of the system demonstrates she is morally bankrupt, and I refuse to let her bring about this insanity to the state of California.”
Jacobs monitored the internet’s reaction to the debate on the social media branch of the Paragon app. The list of profiles using the violent keywords she’d targeted was growing steadily and was now in the thousands.
Jacobs was recording the audio from the debate into her media software. Her editing skills were excellent, and she could form entirely new sentences by combining separate pieces of Thomas Brown’s speech.
She took individual words, adjusting their tone and inflection using several advanced audio scrubbing techniques to compile a list of inflammatory statements sounding as though they were uttered from Thomas Brown’s mouth:
“Poor black people are fundamentally flawed.”
“Poor men are inconsequential.”
“We need to take away the civil liberties of all people.”
“You have no concept of what it means to be self-reliant, because you are a woman.”
A prerecorded attack ad had been produced by Diana’s campaign. It contained a voiceover playing atop a selection of patriotic stock photos: “Thomas Brown isn’t fit to serve as governor. His old way of doing things is holding back our state. Can you bring yourself to vote for someone who says this?” Then she added Thomas Brown’s falsified statements to create the perfect attack ads.
Using a group of fake Paragon pages she’d set up the week before, Jacobs sent the following ads to extremely specific demographics:
The version with, “Poor black people are fundamentally flawed,” was sent to every minority within the state of California.
“Poor men are inconsequential,” was sent to every man in the income brackets between $0-45,000 per year in California.
“We need to take away the civil liberties of all people,” was sent to every gun-owning man in California.
“You have no concept of what it means to be self-reliant, because you are a woman,” was sent to every woman in the state of California.
The exit polls showed those who watched the live debate thought Thomas Brown won, but judging by Carter’s estimation, over fifty times more people would see her fake ads than those who watched the debate.
– K.M. Ecke
Album
After years of artistic exploration and experimentation, Change of Mind is Ecke’s lyrical statement of defiance against cultural insanity. After producing four albums under various pseudonyms and working with several Denver-based groups to help them produce albums, this is the first he has released under his own name.
Released Mar. 2, 2018
Physical Copy: $9.99
Digital: $5.99
Full album and Digital Downloads available
Listen for Free on Spotify
- Reason And Rhyme
- American Dream
- Virus Of The Mind
- Illuminate Soul
- Rise Above
- Change of Mind
- Lacks A Lie
- When We Were Blind
About the Author
Hailing from the original birthplace of the atomic bomb, Los Alamos, NM, K.M. Ecke is an organic, free-range, preservative-free, philosopher-poet using universal truth to battle cultural insanity. Ecke, which is German for ‘corner’, is the child of a physicist and musician and grew up at the corner of creativity and logic. After ten years of existential exploration and creative experimentation, he releases his debut novel Moral Panic, along with an album of lyrically-focused songs, Change of Mind via his independent creative collective The Dream Flow.
Ecke strives to deliver a strong story with inherent value to his readers. The author is well-versed in writing, including essays, songs, and poetry, the last of which the author finds the most efficient form of expression, and thus, the best way to improve his writing practice.
Initially intending for law school, a business law class changed his direction, and Ecke chose to pursue writing, soul-searching, and creative projects. After several years of odd jobs learning about different pieces of the world, he began his own private music teaching business and attended Colorado Film School for a year and a half to study filmmaking. After 18-months in his program, he veered to his own path and established Dream Flow Media, the home to all of his creative endeavors; publishing, music and all additional branches of the many-faceted visionary. Along with his own creations, he strives to bring other artists into the fold to develop a creative collective for a variety of multimedia projects.
Ecke also works as a filmmaker for local non-profits and bands and hopes one day to see Moral Panic on the big screen. The author lives in Denver, Colorado and hosts a storytelling micro-podcast Myths, Metaphors, and Morality. For more info, visit the author online at TheDreamFlow.com.
