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posted by martyb on Sunday December 18 2016, @01:34PM   Printer-friendly
from the fact-following-fiction dept.

Wired has a recent article about author Octavia Butler and how her work presaged the "Make America Great" again campaign.

Octavia Butler, who died in 2006, was the author of such visionary science fiction novels as Kindred, The Parable of the Sower, and Dawn. Gerry Canavan, who just published a book-length study of Butler, describes her as one of the greatest writers of her era.

"I think you'd put her up there with Philip K. Dick and Le Guin and Delany and these other people who really made an impact on the way that science fiction circulates," Canavan says in Episode 234 of the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast. "Especially that mode of literary science fiction that's somewhere in the middle between genre fiction and prize-winning novels, she has to be top two, top three in that list."

Butler made headlines this year when fans noted that her 1998 novel The Parable of the Talents features a fascist politician who rises to power by promising to "make America great again." The comparisons to Donald Trump are obvious, but Canavan says the character was actually inspired by Ronald Reagan.

[...] Butler had a singularly dark imagination, and often had to do multiple rewrites in order to tell her stories in a way that readers would find palatable. But Canavan says that in the current political climate, Butler's dim view of humanity is starting to seem ever more relevant.

"She often thought about how easy it would be for everything to just kind of go back to the way it was," he says. "That the things that seemed like they were permanent progress were really just a kind of epiphenomenon of the wealth of the United States in the latter half of the 20th century, and that when that fell apart, all the bad days would come back again."


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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 18 2016, @07:20PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 18 2016, @07:20PM (#442761)

    But let's not forget the opposing party (the one whose candidate LOST), was *caught* red-handed trying (and succeeding) to derail Bernie's populist support, by cheating.

    Get a sense of perspective. This "cheating" amounted to no more than (1) some DNC staffers talking shit about sanders in email and (2) a friend at cnn sending her campaign a debate question which was never asked during the debate.

    That's absurdly minor stuff. The only reason you think its a big deal is because the campaign was so clean that a spec of dirt looks like a ton of manure.

    Sanders didn't let that spec of dirt stop him from whole heartedly endorsing Clinton. If he thought she wasn't legitimate he could have just done dark and said nothing. He wasn't a democrat before his presidential campaign, he didn't have to stick around.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @02:29AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @02:29AM (#442908)

    Sanders didn't let that spec of dirt stop him from whole heartedly endorsing Clinton. If he thought she wasn't legitimate he could have just done dark and said nothing.

    That doesn't mean he thought she wasn't legitimate, it means he thought there was more benefit to the country from doing what he still could to defeat Trump than from pointing out any illegitimacy he may have privately imputed to Hillary.

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @03:20AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @03:20AM (#442929)

      That's a stretch. You are arguing that sanders believes clinton to be illegitimate but not illegitimate enough to be disqualified.
      Well. Even if that's true, then for all practical purposes he believes her to be legitimate.

      If a utilitarian argument is good enough for Sanders himself then its good enough for anyone criticizing clinton's actions toward Sanders.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @10:17AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @10:17AM (#443047)

        You are arguing that sanders believes clinton to be illegitimate but not illegitimate enough to be disqualified.

        No, he's arguing that the opposite is not proven by the known facts.

        The world isn't binary. People can disagree with one option without agreeing with the opposite.

  • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday December 19 2016, @04:35AM

    by Reziac (2489) on Monday December 19 2016, @04:35AM (#442953) Homepage

    I watched Sanders "endorse" Clinton. Never have I seen anyone look so much like someone had a gun to his head.

    --
    And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @06:48AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @06:48AM (#442976)

      Projection, its easy to do.
      Or are you one of those fuckwits who believes that the clintons are a crime family who go around murdering people?

      Either way your beyond wrong. Sanders was everywhere endorsing clinton. Talk shows, convention, rallies. Everywhere. It wasn't at all half-assed or reluctant.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @10:20AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @10:20AM (#443049)

        Or are you one of those fuckwits who believes that the clintons are a crime family who go around murdering people?

        Does that only include doing the actual murdering themselves, or does it include being a part of groups that send other people to do their dirty work?

        http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/05/03/article-1383279-0BE4C7EF00000578-154_964x771.jpg [dailymail.co.uk]

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @06:12PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @06:12PM (#443237)

          I first thought you were going to retort with some fake news bullshit, so you can understand my obvious relief when I saw that you pointed to The Daily Mail.