As we trudge closer to theocracy in the USA....

Have you been following the Doonesbury comics over the past week? Holy Relevant Politics, Batman!

Here's the progression so far:









Have you read The Handmaid's Tale? In it, Atwood paints a dark portrait of how the US might look if the Christian Right gains the reins of government. When I first read the book - when it cam out, about the time I started college - I thought this an unlikely future. I mean, we wouldn't let this kind of insanity happen, right? Half our population is women - surely they would defend their rights!

I was wrong. This is the direction our country is headed. Women of America, do you like the vision portrayed in this novel? If that's too SFnal for you, let me put it this way: Do you like the world in which women live in theocracies and religion-dominated nations like Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan under the Taliban (or even now), and so forth? Because that's where we're headed.

Don't believe it could happen here? Then you're not paying attention. You're like the young me, privileged with having grown up white male in a United States freshly reformed after the cultural revolutions of the 1960s and 1970s.

This is not only our future; it's happening now. Do something about it.

I'm adding The Handmaid's Tale to my SF Novels reading list.

Chris