Plan B Forum

Putting this in politics because it’s all about politics.

A very sobering documentary which is well worth watching- I just watched on Kanopy the free streaming service available to most folks with a library card.

For those who have Amazon Prime, it's free there too. Also, it's free at tubitv.

I watched it a couple months ago. It shows how Christian Nationalists have found the perfect pawn in Trump.

I am reading 'It Can't Happen Here' by Sinclair Lewis, published in 1935. Hitler and Mussolini were going on in Europe, Kristallnacht was still two years into the future. It's a novel of course: but the protagonist, the presidential candidate Windrip beats Roosevelt in the Democratic Party primary and goes on to win the presidency in 1936.

Windrip apparently supports family values and is heavily endorsed by the Christian Church and business. Millionaires (I don't think we had the B word back then) flock to him and take their places in his government.

Change a few names and dates and it could have been written last year.

This quote showed up on the English Literature Facebook page the other day and seemed entirely appropriate:

“Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again.”
~ André Gide

Obliquely on-topic . . . Good Omens by Pratchett and Gaiman. Worth a read.

After the death of Sir Terry, I read several of the things published posthumously. They seemed weak and strained. So I moved on. Thank you Gen'l, for this reminder. I found Good Omens on my kindle and I probably read it at least 20 years ago. I went back to it. I am enjoying it. It is great fun untangling all the allusions and mis-quotes. As I read I also recall the previous good times reading other books about the witches. I wonder if there will PhD candidates producing annotated versions in a few more decades.. BSG ,I strongly recommend this as better than a very strong psychotropic pharmacy preparation for improving your outlook on life today. It sure works for me.

snailgate

Already read it, already saw the first two series of the TV adaptation, won't be watching the final episode because Neil Gaiman is a rapey raperton and I'm done with giving any of my time or attention to artists who rape or enable rape - just to be clear I pitched all the Alice Munro collections I'd bought after it was revealed she knowingly let her husband rape her daughter for years so I'm not discriminating against perverted men, I'm done with all perverts in general.

BSG I absolutely approve of you voting with your checkbook and time. Me, I prefer to judge a book by what I find in it. Some of my friends strongly object to the all works of Orson Scott Card because of his homophobia. I choose to recommend some of his works (such as Speaker for the Dead) because I believe they are nicely written and express a viewpoint worth thinking about.

snailgate.