Could The Handmaid's Tale going from dystopian fiction to true-life documentary for the US?

The Handmaid's Tale is pretty much Red Dawn for "progressives." A profoundly unlikely nightmare scenario which some of them secretly hope will happen.

There were "survivalist" types in the '80s champing at the bit for the chance to become Wolverines, just waiting for the Russians to invade. There are also those who want to be in the resistance against a theocratic state.

Cardinal said:

Those crazy uncle toms are the reason we can't have a strong environmental national policy that extends beyond a Democrat Presidential administration.

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I think that's more an "us vs them" dynamic than religious belief. God requests that we treat creation as we would treat Him. Christian vegetarianism and Christian environmentalism are real things. I believe Christians would be more apt to get on board if the political environment was not so adversarial. I don't mean to apologize for Christianity (though I certainly do, well aware of it), I mean to indict the general atmosphere before a specific group when it comes to a lack of understanding.

Winchester said:

No one can ever see it happening until it does.

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Now, that's just nonsense. Plenty always see it coming.

Rosie1 said:

I read the book years ago. I thought it could happen, if the right was allowed to go too far. And there are places in Southern Utah, not far from it now.

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There's nothing happening in southern Utah which remotely resembles THT.

Josie said:

(Let's all pretend we don't see the horrible grammar, mmmkay?)

View attachment 67242097

Plot Overview. Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, a totalitarian and theocratic state that has replaced the United States of America. Because of dangerously low reproduction rates, Handmaids are assigned to bear children for elite couples that have trouble conceiving.

Please vote and tell us why you voted that way.

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Actually a combination of The Handmaid's Tale and The Hunger Games. We're closer to The Hunger Games than the other dystopian fable at the moment but with all the nonsense about so called "Christian persecution" going on and the well funded campaign to put authoritarian theocracy in Washington, it wouldn't take very much, perhaps just one more manufactured "national security emergency". That might come in the form of an attack of some kind, or a war.

I'm not saying that all wars have been phony or manufactured, but I am saying that this country has undertaken elective wars which had no purpose other than to ramp up authoritarianism and to make defense contractors wealthy and powerful.
See "IRAQ".

Many in the military leadership, even conservatives, have voiced concerns over the dissolution of the civil order in the case of another attack. General Tommy Franks, speaking in 2003 to Cigar Aficionado Magazine, said that another attack might mean "the potential of a weapon of mass destruction and a terrorist, massive casualty-producing event somewhere in the western world—it may be in the United States of America—that causes our population to question our own Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in order to avoid a repeat of another mass-casualty-producing event. Which, in fact, then begins to potentially unravel the fabric of our Constitution."

As for the comparison to The Hunger Games, that's the ultimate end of libertarian anarcho-capitalism with the social contract excised out completely, dog eat dog, darwinian survival of the fittest, biggest bully eats everything and nothing trickles down.

For the wealthy in the world, that's just a game, for the rest of us not living on Mt. Olympus, it's the choice between paying the light bill or putting food on the table and for those who live paycheck to paycheck and who are one serious financial emergency from being in the streets, it's a stark reality.

Add an authoritarian totalitarian theocracy to the mix, and it does become The Hunger Games, and with the views openly expressed by fundamentalist Dominionists about the role of women, you can go ahead and add those Handmaids.

The cruelest realization however, is reserved for those of the extreme Left ultra-liberal persuasion who think that their lofty approach to fringe candidates is their means of "teaching the country a lesson". Their "purity pony" brand of reactionary thinking helped bring us Trump, because for them, if they couldn't have their fantasy candidate, (Jill Stein?) they were going to stay home or do the unthinkable and put the monster in power.

And a lot of Bernie Bros did the same thing. I was a Bernie supporter but when he lost the primary I held my nose and pulled the H lever despite not having any love for "worst candidate ever" Hillary.
Not the Bernie Bros, though.
For them, Hillary was "worse than Trump! - NEVER Hillary!"

I'd like to ask them all now: "Well, you GOT your "Never Hillary", how's he working out for ya?"



I do not blame the Republican Party for Trump 2016, I blame the nonvoters and the purity ponies. We couldn't even hold onto our slim Senate majority. That's all on us. All of it is. We had the worst candidate ever, so bad that she couldn't even beat Trump, and we had a bunch of useless, spineless crybabies who didn't understand that elections have consequences.

But I don't have any fairytale delusions about where all this ugliness is heading. And it IS the ugliness that takes us there, the vindictive taste for vengeance that will loose our basemost instincts and put more monsters in power.
Only when the last seal is applied to democracy and it suffocates in darkness will those teeming masses suddenly realize that they were useful idiots and nothing more.
And their crying and wailing will be the loudest, because for those of us who have been struggling with this nightmare for the last two years, our crying stopped a very long time ago.
We have to act.

PS: General Tommy Franks, speaking again in 2005, expressed surprise when no WMD were found in Iraq.

Checkerboard Strangler said:

Actually a combination of The Handmaid's Tale and The Hunger Games. We're closer to The Hunger Games than the other dystopian fable at the moment

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I'm sorry -- I had to stop right here and comment.

We're closer to the Hunger Games than any other dystopian storyline? Really?? I find that actually pretty hilarious. We are close to entire states being starved to death by the government and randomly drawing victims/citizens of that state to battle it out for food by killing citizens of other states once a year? LOL!

Skeptic Bob said:

Ones in which multinational corporations grow so large and powerful that governments start yielding control over to them, to include legislation and law enforcement.

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So . . . Rollerball.

Cardinal said:

The Muslim ban and family separation were two other things I had in mind as examples of sudden, unthinkable shifts. Here are just some of the "unthinkable" events that happened in just two short years, off the top of my head:

1. Separating families at the border and holding their children in internment camps, all completely without due process.
2. Banning "undesirable" religions from entering the country.
3. A break with our allies.
4. The abandonment of the core mandate of NATO.

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Not one of those things has happened, and to the extent #1 has, it's not the way you imply. It's no different from what happened under the previous administration. The only difference is number, due to level of enforcement increasing, and media attention.

5. The chilling of relations with ****ing Canada, with Republican voters agreeing that Canada is a hostile trading partner.
6. The embrace by Republicans of Russia at the expense of our allies and fellow Americans.
7. The destruction of the barrier between the White House and the Department of Justice, with the justification of its use in persecuting political enemies and defending political allies.
8. The tacit acceptance by Republicans in the President refusing to show his tax returns, dissolve his businesses and rampantly profiting from his office.

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This is all either nonsense or you purposely taking the worst possible interpretation because you wish to believe the worst possible things.

So the question isn't "Could Handmaiden's Tale happen here." but rather "Why couldn't it?"

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Because your caricatures of people with whom you disagree politically are not what those people actually are.

ecofarm said:

I think that's more an "us vs them" dynamic than religious belief. God requests that we treat creation as we would treat Him. Christian vegetarianism and Christian environmentalism are real things. I believe Christians would be more apt to get on board if the political environment was not so adversarial. I don't mean to apologize for Christianity (though I certainly do, well aware of it), I mean to indict the general atmosphere before a specific group when it comes to a lack of understanding.

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It's "us vs them" if one side decidedly embraces national environmental policy and one side decidedly rejects it. When you get closer to the reason for this what you find is the increasingly common theme that liberals are engaging in "earth worship." What the Democrats and scientists were unaware of is that by saying they "believe in" climate change and the factors that contribute to it they were unintentionally using faith-based language.

But even then environmentalism has by now fallen completely into the cracks of political tribalism in the national dialogue, so it's more than likely by now that even if every single evangelical Christian were to disappear from the face of the earth (let's just go with "rapture"), anti-science would survive them.

Josie said:

I'm sorry -- I had to stop right here and comment.

We're closer to the Hunger Games than any other dystopian storyline? Really?? I find that actually pretty hilarious. We are close to entire states being starved to death by the government and randomly drawing victims/citizens of that state to battle it out for food by killing citizens of other states once a year? LOL!

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Did you intentionally change "closer" to "close" for any particular reason?
But since you seem to have done so, let's approach from that angle instead.

Did Puerto Rico "get enough paper towels" to clean up its disaster, especially when compared to the assistance being brought to the people of Florida right now after Hurricane Michael? I acknowledge that Puerto Rico's own leadership wasn't playing their "A Game" either but Whitefish Electrical was an almost nonexistent company with THREE EMPLOYEES when they were selected to mount all hands on deck campaign to restore power to Puerto Rico's aging power grid.
With all the suitable contractors available, why this tiny company and why a no-bid contract?
Well, we KNOW why now.

That's not exactly "entire states being starved to death", I admit to a bit of hyperbole under poetic license but let's continue with the rest of the news, like those death toll numbers.
Trump FEMA appointee Brock Long said originally that he agreed with the official figure of "sixty-four deaths" but after a GWU study confirmed nearly THREE THOUSAND, he flitted about, saying that "figures are all over the place."

I daresay a good many of those three thousand are not only accurate, but could have been avoided.
My whole point is, this administration IS CLEARLY PLAYING FAVORITES, and it is CLEARLY PITTING ONE STATE AGAINST ANOTHER in his attempt to seal a lock on power. Donald Trump and his agency heads have declared a virtual state of war against California, New York, and any other blue state who doesn't bend and bow to his decrees.

Again, perhaps I utilized a bit of hyperbole to make a point but at least I am not changing words.
I said "closer to" not "CLOSE TO"...one ("closer") indicates "twenty minutes past eleven PM" while the other ("close") indicates "11:55 PM."

And as I said in my response, it might not take very much for the tattered curtain to drop entirely.
To paraphrase another member's sig line:
"I have an answer. It might not be the answer you were expecting and you might not like the answer, but at least I have an answer."

Please don't change or exaggerate my words because I choose them carefully.
Had I intended to say "close" I would have used that word.

ecofarm said:

The Enlightenment, an understanding of socially natural rights which lead to such realizations as the American and French Revolutions, defeated dogmatic religious authority hundreds of years ago and that will not change.

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Yes but billions of dollars are being poured into the coffers of modern day dogmatic religious authorities as you read this, with billions more to come, some are even coming unwittingly from the pockets of taxpayers who don't even realize that their tax money is fattening the accounts of people who view them as "beasts to be bled".

Manc Skipper said:

The American enlightenment is contaminated by Dominionism and the experiment is failing. Such extremism could take the Gilead road.

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I view Dominionism as nearly equal to jihadist islamist extremism, the difference being they aren't building suicide vests yet.
But they're talking the talk and if you listen to their sermons, it's all out there in the open.

One thing's for sure: Dominionism is wholly incompatible with secular democracy, and it openly defines secular democracy as an agency of Satan, and democracy's adherents as heretics and enemies.

Josie said:

I agree that humans are capable of it. I just don't ever see it happening in the US.

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"It can't happen here" are famous last words.

Thoreau72 said:

I watched 2 seasons. Great acting, a bit too dark for me, but certainly within the realm of possibility. The religious right has very high influence in the workings of government.

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As high as you might think their influence is, I assure it's much much more locked down than you might believe, even now.

Checkerboard Strangler said:

Did you intentionally change "closer" to "close" for any particular reason?
But since you seem to have done so, let's approach from that angle instead.

Did Puerto Rico "get enough paper towels" to clean up its disaster, especially when compared to the assistance being brought to the people of Florida right now after Hurricane Michael? I acknowledge that Puerto Rico's own leadership wasn't playing their "A Game" either but Whitefish Electrical was an almost nonexistent company with THREE EMPLOYEES when they were selected to mount all hands on deck campaign to restore power to Puerto Rico's aging power grid.
With all the suitable contractors available, why this tiny company and why a no-bid contract?
Well, we KNOW why now.

That's not exactly "entire states being starved to death", I admit to a bit of hyperbole under poetic license but let's continue with the rest of the news, like those death toll numbers.
Trump FEMA appointee Brock Long said originally that he agreed with the official figure of "sixty-four deaths" but after a GWU study confirmed nearly THREE THOUSAND, he flitted about, saying that "figures are all over the place."

I daresay a good many of those three thousand are not only accurate, but could have been avoided.
My whole point is, this administration IS CLEARLY PLAYING FAVORITES, and it is CLEARLY PITTING ONE STATE AGAINST ANOTHER in his attempt to seal a lock on power. Donald Trump and his agency heads have declared a virtual state of war against California, New York, and any other blue state who doesn't bend and bow to his decrees.

Again, perhaps I utilized a bit of hyperbole to make a point but at least I am not changing words.
I said "closer to" not "CLOSE TO"...one ("closer") indicates "twenty minutes past eleven PM" while the other ("close") indicates "11:55 PM."

And as I said in my response, it might not take very much for the tattered curtain to drop entirely.
To paraphrase another member's sig line:
"I have an answer. It might not be the answer you were expecting and you might not like the answer, but at least I have an answer."

Please don't change or exaggerate my words because I choose them carefully.
Had I intended to say "close" I would have used that word.

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LOL! Dude. Your entire statement was one big exaggeration full of hyperbolic nonsense. And you know it is. You're trying to justify it by grasping at straws with your piss-poor analogy of Puerto Rico v. Florida. You know it was a very silly thing to say and you're kind of admitting that it was, but you're still not willing to let it go completely.

The Hunger Games is a HUUUUUUUGE leap from where we are now. The government isn't starving people to death. The government doesn't choose people from each state to brutally murder each other for food and fame. THAT'S the dystopian storyline you think we're closest to? Have you just not read many?

Checkerboard Strangler said:

"It can't happen here" are famous last words.

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I didn't say that. I said "I don't see that ever happening here".

Ya know, just like people on the left keep telling people on the right to stop being afraid that the government will take their guns away. It will never happen here, they say. Right?

Josie said:

But even if Trump said anything like that and any of his zombie-like supporters who think his every word is gospel would go for it, there's no pathway to it actually happening. You'd have to have more than just some dumb Trump supporters behind it.

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We're maybe two or three states away from a constitutional convention being called, and rest assured, it SHALL be.
Who exactly do you think will be holding the pen?

SheWolf said:

I don't know this series myself, but we don't have extremely high infertility rates or dangerously low reproduction rates. Fertility rates often do cause countries to take extreme measures, but I don't think the US is facing a population crisis.

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Not raw population numbers, just a crisis in which insufficient authoritarian right wing fertility rates aren't meeting the goals needed to sustain a permanent supermajority. What did you think the Quiverfull movement and the Seven Mountains were about?

SheWolf said:

I know the fundamental Mormons do think they are supposed to have lots and lots of kids. The women refer to themselves as the mother of nations. I have always wondered what would happen if a young Mormon girl could not become pregnant. That type of fundamentalism could lead to a lot of problems, especially if taken to a mainstream level. Everybody in America can't have 20 or more kids.

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Wonder no more. My wife's former husband came from a Mormon family and she suddenly found herself recruited.
She was given the deluxe tour by the grand old family patriarch AND her husband, and her mission was made clear to her in no uncertain terms.
When she could not conceive at first, it sent a little shock wave. When she did conceive and it was a girl, things went back to a somewhat happier plane but when her son (what the family REALLY wanted) was born with 5 congenital fatal heart defects (saved by 3 open heart surgeries before age five) more shock waves, and when she finally came down with multiple sclerosis and her son's health scares became too serious, he cast her on the junkpile.
She was damaged goods and not suitable to be a "mother of nations".

SheWolf said:

There is a famous WW2 quote on that. First they went for the labor unions and so on. These people sit around and keep saying that line will not be crossed.

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Forget all that. Well, don't forget it but bear in mind that right now, they will cross ANY line and commit ANY egregious deed as long as it meets one standard: STICKING IT TO THE LIBS.

So I am not discounting your WW2 quote, I am saying there's even more impetus behind it than just that old chestnut.

Josie said:

(Let's all pretend we don't see the horrible grammar, mmmkay?)

View attachment 67242097

Plot Overview. Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, a totalitarian and theocratic state that has replaced the United States of America. Because of dangerously low reproduction rates, Handmaids are assigned to bear children for elite couples that have trouble conceiving.

Please vote and tell us why you voted that way.

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I must admit, I haven't read it. Based on your overview, I suspect there is a much bigger message. But considering your overview(Thank you for that), low reproduction would likely be addressed by more open immigration, loosened adoption rules, and a ban on abortion.
The overview reminds me that under-reproduction is already happening as it effects a society growing older and counting on younger to replenish retirement funds(like SS). I believe it is a really big problem in most First world nations. Japan comes to mind. By the way, I intend to read it now.
Regards,
CP

ecofarm said:

Now it's the left fearmongering. I never get a break.

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Oh come on...fearmongering?
Have you ever gotten into an argument with a creationist?
Fearmongering is when one spins nonexistent nonsense into scary stories.
This is a fact, a cold hard fact, almost forty percent of this country believes that the Earth is six thousand years old and that scientists are tools of Satan.
I'll play devil's advocate and say that HALF of that 38% don't believe the "six thousand year old" part but "scientists are Satan's minions?" Yeah...thirty eight percent of this country mistrusts science, flat out doesn't believe in it.

ecofarm said:

Seriously? You're gonna take a poorly worded poll designed to produce bombshell results and act like "them's the facts".

I understand religion can be used in an anti intellectual manner. Religion is an abstract object, a tool, and only means what someone does with it. It doesn't have a will of its own. It's an object. It's not to be feared; it's to be employed, manipulated or used as a communication device. Stop fearing objects.

No amount of ridiculous polls will make me fear an object.

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We're not talking about ordinary folks who just go to church.
Those people, like traditional conservatives, are on the endangered list.

Church today is increasingly fundamentalist. Pick a church, almost ANY church, and I will point you to the fundamentalist faction and show you that they are the outspoken majority. The liberal Christian evangel is on life support. Jimmy Carter is perhaps their greatest living exponent.
Now go ask Franklin Graham (Billy Graham's son) what HE thinks of Jimmy Carter's Christian faith and sit down so you can be prepared for the answer.

RELIGION IS USED AS THE CHIEF ANTI-INTELLECTUAL TOOL today.
It is the destroyer of intellectualism. Critical thinking was almost BANNED outright in the Texas GOP platform of 2012.

Checkerboard Strangler said:

Not raw population numbers, just a crisis in which insufficient authoritarian right wing fertility rates aren't meeting the goals needed to sustain a permanent supermajority. What did you think the Quiverfull movement and the Seven Mountains were about?

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That's true.

Checkerboard Strangler said:

Wonder no more. My wife's former husband came from a Mormon family and she suddenly found herself recruited.
She was given the deluxe tour by the grand old family patriarch AND her husband, and her mission was made clear to her in no uncertain terms.
When she could not conceive at first, it sent a little shock wave. When she did conceive and it was a girl, things went back to a somewhat happier plane but when her son (what the family REALLY wanted) was born with 5 congenital fatal heart defects (saved by 3 open heart surgeries before age five) more shock waves, and when she finally came down with multiple sclerosis and her son's health scares became too serious, he cast her on the junkpile.
She was damaged goods and not suitable to be a "mother of nations".

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That is a very messed up story.