Michael Sky Writes “Jubilee Day”

Michael Sky, author of the novel "Jubilee Day"

Author Facing Cancer Diagnosis

Michael Sky, Orcas homeowner at OPAL Commons, website developer, and author of several books and websites, has published his first novel, Jubilee Day.

Jubilee Day is a political thriller that recounts what happens when a group of principled, committed U.S. citizens enact a sacrificial practice of “decapitation,” whereby wealthy and powerful leaders are killed, with the warning to their replacements that if they continue in the policies of their “dominator” forebears, they will meet the same fate.

Jubilee Day takes place in Washington D.C., where Homeland Security officials investigate the serial deaths, and on “a small green island,” where the circle of friends and activists put their program into action.

Following the first decapitations, the group publishes its manifesto which include a progressive tax on millionaires, caps on executive compensation, cutting military spending in half, and a national Jubilee—the forgiveness of all debts.

As the story unfolds, Sky brings up the preamble to the U.S. Constitution, listing the purposes of government as a structure for “correcting” the mistakes of a system that has come to benefit the wealthy and powerful at high cost to the rest of the population.

Author Sky says, “You can’t let the people who profit most from money set the rules, especially regarding borrowing and interest. It always results in trickle-up economics.

“What I try to show is that the dominator system — controlling others through money, brute strength or religious authority — is viral in nature. Even your response makes you a part of the system. It’s very insidious to get out of. That’s why so many well-intentioned revolutions turn out the same: they operate with the same mindset and usually just get a new despot.”

As Sky says, “The problem is how to engage violence and the war machine somehow,  without being consumed by it.There’s got to be a way to remove the [dominators] without becoming one of them.”

"Jubilee Day" availale at Darvill's Bookstore and online

Jubilee Day describes such a way; Sky also addresses the consequences of the decapitation assassinations practiced by those who espouse the Jubilee Manifesto. “The Jubilees do not escape paying a price for [their sacrificial solution].”

The online book, also available in paperback at Darvill’s Bookstore, was written last year, when the first symptoms of what has been diagnosed as esophageal cancer became apparent. Swallowing and eating became increasingly difficult. “Thanksgiving was a nightmare,” Sky said recently.

Early this year, Sky had a feeding tube implanted and underwent radiation treatment to shrink the tumor and treat his dehydration and malnourishment. Then he came back home to OPAL Commons. As he recounted last March on his Caring Bridge website, https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/MichaelSky

I intend to live into my nineties…I will finish by saying that the two days when I thought I was passing quickly were absolutely glorious. It has been a wonderful life, one unending gift. No regrets. But I just don’t think I’m done yet.”

Sky says he has been caught up in the conflict between democracy and the dominator system which is “set up to benefit those who have money and makes them more powerful and less likely to do right.”

In 2007 after publishing his book, Thinking Peace, where he argues that the “personal is political,” he began to see a solution: what feminist author Riane  Eisler calls “The Partnership Culture.” Sky became clear that a return to true democratic principles in government could only happen if the executives and leaders were committed to reform; he cites Ralph Nader’s book Only the Rich Can Save Us.

Sky says “It’s up to the rich to pay attention and rectify the mistakes,” and gives Pillsbury heir Chuck Collins, William Gates, Sr. and Warren Buffet as role models. “It’s up to them to wake up and do the right thing.”

Michael admits to his novel being partly didactic: “I tiptoe right to the edge of polemic in the story of Jubilee Day, but I feel I pulled the story off. He speaks forcefully about his views of the enormous, and growing, disparity between the unregulated wealthy and the poor and “the intolerable stress that disparity causes on our society.”

“If we allow regulation to be decided by millionaire congressmen and senators, we end up broke and in debt forever – and they end up rich. The last bailout we went through proves this; we let those that caused the crisis to set the rules for the bailout. They should all be in jail and instead they’re ten times richer than when they started.

“I’m not an angry person, but when I’m engaged in this discussion, I become an angry person.

“I put my hope in a cultural shake-up that is profoundly affecting; in small isolated communities where the breakdown won’t lead to violence but will develop a peaceful ‘partnership culture.’

“What will it take to get us awake?” Sky asks.

Now he’s moving on –  inspired by the ideas expressed in ” What If?” https://www.whatifthemovie.tv/

He also has a new website, www.CommonHealth.us (in addition to www.thinkingpeace.com , www.breathinglessons.net and www.Jubilee-Day.com )

His earlier books, Dancing With the Fire, Breathing Lessons, The Power of Emotion and Thinking Peace are available online at Amazon.com and at Darvill’s Bookstore.