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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."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Sunday December 18 2016, @07:37PM
Do you roll over and play dead when someone wrongs you? What do you do when you discover someone broke into your car and stole a few things? Maybe report it to the police, file a claim with insurance? Or do you do nothing because there's no chance your items will be recovered, so what's the point?
You don't vote because your 1 vote might decide an election. You vote because it makes life harder for all the powerful people who don't want others to vote. Voting reduces their power. They don't like that. Even if your vote is wrongly discarded, they still had to hoke up some crap reason why your vote shouldn't be counted. It gives voting rights activists material to work with.
Have you not noticed that the people complaining the loudest about rigged elections are the same ones rigging the elections as much as they can? Why would you play right into their hands by not voting?
I hope you fight tyranny and oppression somehow. Voting isn't the only way, but it sure is an easy one, much easier than marching in front of the capitol carrying signs, risking tear gas, beatings, and arrest. Much easier than suing. Much, much easier and safer than joining (or starting) an armed rebellion. The boycott is fairly easy to do. Signing a petition is another easy move.
If you don't fight back, then why shouldn't predators pick on you every time they see something of yours they want to take?