Sarah Palin, George W Bush, and a US Theocracy.

With the recent tragic death of Natasha Richardson, my partner, Mickey, recommended we honor her by watching one of her best films: "The Handmaid's Tale". Mickey knew it would inspire a blog post, and if you are not familiar with the story line (or the Margaret Atwood novel that inspired it), I highly recommend you take the time to link to the Wikipedia post that I have placed above.

Now, about Sarah Palin and how she plays into this theme. Two nights ago she was invited to speak to a "right to life" crowd in Evansville, IN. At 2 minutes and 22 seconds into the attached "Countdown with Keith Olberman" clip the commentator references how she admitted that "for just a fleeting moment" she considered having an abortion when she found out she was going to have a Down Syndrome baby.

It is in this way that Sarah Palin illustrates how close America came to realizing the type of government that allowed the fictional "Republic of Gilead" to be formed in the movie/book, "The Handmaid's Tale".

You see, what Sarah Palin took advantage of for herself was "choice". In her own words she said, "Just for a fleeting moment, I thought, 'No one knows me here. No one would ever know'"...if she had an abortion.

With that statement, she admitted that because of the current constitution in the United States, she had actually considered taking advantage of that "freedom to choose". If she, herself, had determined that she was not a good candidate to be a mother to a Down Syndrome child, she would have been able to ask her doctor for an abortion, but this is when the hypocrisy kicks in. If she had actually been elected to the office of vice-president, she was fully prepared to enact theocratic laws like those referenced in "The Handmaid's Tale"...laws that would put any doctor into jail who would have performed that abortion for her...for any reason.

In the movie, the destruction is horrible. The US government had been overthrown and the president and congress assassinated. The country was in the middle of a horrible civil war. The short news stories that are shown as a backdrop during the movie were very prescient and it was unnerving to hear audio clips that could have been cut verbatim from the Republican play book for their 2008 election campaign.

Margaret Atwood (the Canadian author of the original book) could already see what was in store for America when she wrote her 1985 novel. The fundamentalist revolutionaries portrayed in the novel had been successful in their campaign for a civil war because they had written their own revisionist history and worked the propaganda to the point that their sheep-like Christian followers had been convinced that the nuclear, biological, and chemical pollution that had rendered 99% of women infertile was actually God's judgement on the world for allowing abortions, stem cell research, in-vitro fertilization, and for tolerating homosexuality, fornication, and adultery.

Hmmmm? Where have I heard that before? Oh yeah...Sunday School!

The most telling moment in the movie was not what had been achieved by having the uneducated follow their church leaders blindly into war, but what those "church men" actually did once they were in power.

They created a brothel where the "commanders" were able to engage in every forbidden act that they had denied the general population, and for which civilians were systematically put to death.

We've never seen that done before either, have we?

My Brother and the "Tinfoil-Hat-Crowd"

On March 25th, 2009 my brother, Fred, showed his true colors. Since June 2008 I've known that all five of my siblings were drinking the Mormon Kool-Aid and had stopped thinking for themselves. That was when the California Prop 8 campaign put an impassable void between us, but I didn't think my brother had gone so far as to buy a de facto membership into the "Tin-Foil-Hat Club" until he posted this blog: "President Obama". Every claim that my brother makes in his post is based on hyperbole and the use of extremist rhetoric.

Before I go any further, I need to perhaps help some of you understand what the "Tin-foil-Hat Crowd" is. The Wikipedia explanation of this is perhaps the best one:

"Some people wear the hats in the belief that they act to shield the brain from such influences as electromagnetic fields, or against mind control and/or mind reading."

There were no mainstream leaders for these tin-foil-hat wing nuts until Fox News realized that their audience was shrinking and their faux-news stories were becoming irrelevant, so in recent weeks they have given mainstream publicity to the likes of Alex Jones (see news story here). Now we have a few emerging "kings" within the Fox Network who will soon be wearing "tin foil crowns". Foremost among them is Glenn Beck, who Fox News hired in January 2009 in order to pull in more viewers from the extreme right. Only time will tell if Glenn Beck (and Fox) will be found civilly liable in the shooting deaths of three Pittsburgh police officers who were shot by an avid follower who had been convinced (quite possibly by Glenn Beck's exaggerations) that there was a pending "Obama gun ban" (see news story above).

As for my brother...on April 2nd he posted another blog post (Kneel Before the King) that shows which news channel he listens to, and it similarly shows the new fashion in head gear Fred will soon be wearing, to not only keep out the sun, but also those mind-controling electromagnetic fields that seem to have 66% of the country under their spell (the most recent approval ratings for President Obama).

I guess when the Mormon Kool-Aid is already working so well it naturally extends its influence to The Glenn Beck Show. After all, Glenn Beck is a "temple-recommend-holding Mormon", so it is obviously safe to blindly follow his lead, just like most blindly follow the prophet.

Unfortunately, there are more Mormons like my brother than there are Mormons like my son, who has insight far beyond his 26 years. Unfortunately, he is being boarded by my brother Fred, so you can only imagine where he finds the fodder for his recent blog post on "The Blame Game" (see link here).