This week’s oh-so-interesting social media meme shows the king and his adviser looking over the huge crowd who are armed with torches and pitchforks and want his head. The adviser comments to the king, “It’s easy, sire. All you have to do is convince the torch people that the pitchfork people want to take theirContinue reading “’Tis the season”
Category Archives: tyranny
The ones who remember
Continuing musings from the conclusion of Fahrenheit 451 … Post-apocalyptic literature assumes that a cataclysm of some kind is the inevitable climax to dystopia — but catastrophe is always avoidable, until it isn’t. A series of choices makes the situation worse and worse until Big Brother micromanages lives (Nineteen Eighty-Four) or the populace lives inContinue reading “The ones who remember”
Emerging From Dystopia, Part 2
(“And some day we’ll remember so much that we’ll build the biggest goddam steamshovel in history and dig the biggest grave of all time and shove war in and cover it up,” Granger said in Fahrenheit 451.) And what else will people remember? That all are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain, unalienableContinue reading “Emerging From Dystopia, Part 2”
Emerging From Dystopia
An article making the rounds the other day noted that Ray Bradbury predicted all this, writing in his dystopian classic Fahrenheit 451, that people would demand tyranny and censorship, that it would not be forced upon us but enforced by popular demand. Yes, Bradbury’s book does contain that bleakness. But — But Fahrenheit 451 endsContinue reading “Emerging From Dystopia”
That moment you realize you’re being lied to
(I wrote this at this stage of the last presidential campaign. Sadly, I don’t need to change a word.) (with grateful thanks to George Orwell, H.L. Mencken, Dr. Seuss and Joss Whedon) Winston Smith sat in a corner where he was pretty sure the telescreen couldn’t see him, and he wrote in a journal. HeContinue reading “That moment you realize you’re being lied to”
What goes around hasn’t changed
“And here we are, poised between the two, between a dreadful reality and an unformed terror, trying to make such decisions as will avoid the tyranny of the very far right and the tyranny of the very far left, the two of which can often be seen coalescing into a tyranny pure and simple, withContinue reading “What goes around hasn’t changed”
Choose your boss
I try not to write about politics anymore. Once upon a time, I was a rabid Republican. That was when Republicans said things like “government should defend our shores and deliver the mail and otherwise stay out of our lives” and “In this present crisis, government isn’t the solution to our problem; government is theContinue reading “Choose your boss”
On Beyond Oz
The puppy drew back the curtain, and there was an odd little imposter man manipulating smoke and mirrors. The puppy was smarter than the rest.
Chance encounter at a park bench
Winston looked both ways and behind him before he started to write. “I think the Marxists are about to topple the government. Either they will win the election, or they will take it forcefully afterward rather than concede defeat. The rioting is just the precursor, legitimizing their violence in the streets …” “Whatcha got there?”Continue reading “Chance encounter at a park bench”
“You can turn it off!”
This is a little tricky, because I’m trying to reach you amid the noise and the distraction, right through the telescreen. You may never find the message through all the clamor, or if you do, it will have been an accident that you found this — but what a fortunate accident. And here we are.Continue reading ““You can turn it off!””
