Yet More Cypherpunks Fiction (Animal Farm/Handmaid's Tale)

[Hans Acker]

>> Major Variola (ret)[SMTP:mv at cdc.gov] writes:
>> 

Please tell me cdc.gov is *not* a open relay and that our resident 
microbiologist has 'doctored' his own machine. I don't think our 
nation can stand another CY53R-T3RR0R12T threat right now. ;-)

>> The inet-one.com archives show a Sircam offering which is just too
>> humorous to ignore, and which lne.com folks won't see:
>> a file called "animal farm novel report.doc.com"
>> (which is, of course, infected).  
>> 
>[...]
>
>Humor? I think it's sad. The sad thing, of course, is that 'Eleanor' does
>not recognize that Animal Farm is a person-by-person, event-by-event,
>allegorization of the Russian Revolution and ensuing events. Such is the
>state of modern education.
>
>Those who will not remember the past....
>
>Peter Trei
>

     ".....As I have said elsewhere, there was little that was 
     truly original with or indigenous to Gilead; its genius 
     was synthesis....."

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood portrays a 
religious-fundamentalist group seizing power in the 
USA through progressive acts of terrorism. 

Re-reading it for the umpteenth time, I was surprised 
at the similarities between the book and recent events. 
Like 1984, the book took current and past trends, and 
'carried them to their logical conclusions'.

>From now on, whenever I think about 'Jezebel's' I'll 
remember the grand finale of Animal Farm. 
Thanks SirCam! (No cavities!!!)


If you can't be kind about history, be vague.

--
Quote from "The Handmaid's Tale", by 'anonymous':

     "I guess that's how they were able to do it, in the way 
     they did, all at once, without anyone knowing beforehand. 
     If there had still been portable money it would have been 
     more difficult.

     It was after the catastrophe, when they shot the President 
     and machine-gunned the Congress and the army declared a 
     state of emergency. They blamed it on Islamic Fanatics, at 
     the time.

     Keep calm, they said on television. Everything is under 
     control.

     I was stunned. Everyone was, I know that. It was hard to 
     believe. The entire government, gone like that. How did 
     they get in, how did it happen?

     That was when they suspended the Constitution. They said 
     it would be temporary. There wasn't even any rioting in 
     the streets. People stayed home at night, watching 
     television, looking for some direction. There wasn't even 
     an enemy you could put your finger on.

     Look out, Moira said to me, over the phone. Here it comes.

     Here what comes? I said.

     You wait, she said. They've been building up to this. It's 
     you and me up against the wall, baby. She was quoting an 
     expression of my mother's, but she wasn't intending to be 
     funny.

     Things continued in a state of suspended animation for 
     weeks, although things did happen. Newspapers were 
     censored and some were closed down, for security reasons 
     they said. The roadblocks began to appear, and 
     Identipasses. Everyone approved of that, since it was 
     obvious you couldn't be too careful. They said new 
     elections would be held, but that it would take some time 
     to prepare for them. The thing to do, they said, was to 
     continue on as usual....."



Excerpts from "Afghanistan and the United States: Two 
Early Twenty-First Century Monotheocracies, as Seen 
Through Diaries," by Prof. James Darcy Pieixoto, Director, 
Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Archives, Cambridge 
University, England: speaking June 25, 2195


     [The Sons of Jacob Think Tanks] were organized shortly 
     after the recognition of the superpower arms stalemate and 
     the signing of the classified Spheres of Influence Accord, 
     which left the superpowers free to deal, unhampered by 
     interference, with the growing number of rebellions within 
     their own empires.
     [..]

     It was [Judd] who suggested the use of an obscure "C.I.A." 
     pamphlet on the destabilization of foreign governments as 
     a strategic handbook for the Sons of Jacob, and he, too, who 
     drew up the early hit-lists of prominent "Americans" of 
     the time. He is also suspected of having orchestrated the 
     President's Day Massacre, which must have required maximum 
     infiltration of the security systems surrounding Congress, 
     and without which the Constitution could never have been 
     suspended. 
     [..]

     "Its racist policies [..] were firmly rooted in the pre-
     Gilead period, and racist fears provided some of the 
     emotional fuel that allowed the Gilead takeover to succeed 
     as well as it did.
     [..]

     To institute an effective totalitarian system or indeed 
     any system at all you must offer some benefits and 
     freedoms, at least to a privileged few, in return for 
     those you remove.
     [..] 

We now return you to your regular programming.....


[demime 0.97c removed an attachment of type application/M$-virus-propagation-platform 
 entitled "I send you this file in order to have your device.txt.doc".]