The Handmaid's Tale:

[AlinPA]

A few months ago, someone in this forum suggested reading The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood to answer a thread something like "what will the end game of this administration look like?" I bought it and read it. Its what you'd get with the right wing running the administration with Jerry Falwell and the other right wing fundamentalists along with John Ashcroft. "they suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary." "Nobody wanted to be reported for disloyalty". The wierd action by Ashcroft covering up the statue of Lady Justice because a naked breast was showing feels just like the picture Atwood made in the book. How close are we? I argued with my daughter about it and she says I'm exagerrating to make a point. She acknowleges that I'm not all wet though.

[LeftistGorilla]

1. great book...

Atwood at her best....
although I liked Cat's eye better...
anyways...she has a new book coming out...

¡°Margaret Atwood¡¯s classic novel, The Handmaid¡¯s Tale, is about the future. Now, in Oryx and Crake, the future has changed. It¡¯s much worse. And we¡¯re well on the road to it now. Once read, nothing will look the same again.¡±

http://www.oryxandcrake.ca/

inspired by the latest actions of the current bogus US government (IMO)...

[JanMichael]

2. Hey! I had a couple of threads like that!

I have no doubt that the Ashcrofts and Robertsons want this end. Does Dubya? I think so.

There was an awesome 60 Minutes on End Timers and Rapture types a few months back, Atwood pegged them as dangerous loons almost 20 years ago.

[PunkinPi]

3. A really good read,

there was also a movie made from the book (same name), not as good as the book, but helps you visualize the situation.

[AlinPA]

4. Thanks, I think Faye Dunaway was in it? I did not see it,

but will look for it this week.

[Rowdyboy]

5. Just saw it on Lifetime this weekend...

The movie is FAR inferior to the book. However, the movie-weak as it is-does help you wrap your mind around the hideously bizarre general theme of the film. The visualization of the "handmaids" outfits and their proscibed social behavior gave me a better sense of the reality the book portrayed.

[jobendorfer]

6. On a similar note -- Heinlein's "If this goes on--"

Back in the late 40s the SF writer Robert Heinlein wrote a
novella called "If this goes on--". It depicted a future
United States ruled by a fundamentalist theocracy (with
a number of parallels to the society depicted in _The
Handmaid's Tale_). Later, in the 1980s, Heinlein observed
that he had received many, many letters challenging aspects
of the story, but none of these criticisms challenged the basic
premise -- that a fundamentalist movement could overthrow the
government and seize absolute power.

Writing in a 1954 postscript to the paperback anthology
"Revolt in 2100", Heinlein wrote:

"Could it be otherwise here? Could any one sect obtain
a majority at the polls and take over the country? Per-
haps not--but a combination of a dynamic evangelist, tele-
vision, enough money, and modern techniques of advertising
and propaganda might make Billy Sunday's efforts look like
a corner store compared to Sears Roebuck. Throw in a
depression for good measure, promise a material heaven here
on earth, add a dash of anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism,
anti-Negroism, and a good large dose of anti-"furriners"
in general, and the result might be something quite fright-
ening--particularly when one recalls that our voting system
is such that a minority distributed as pluralities in enough
states can constitute a working majority in Washington."

J.