Today I listen to Monster & re-read A Handmaid's Tale

[MindPilot]

On edit: I intended to post this in GD. Mods, please move it if you think it appropriate.

Words and music by John Kay, Jerry Edmonton, Nick St. Nicholas and Larry Byrom

(Monster)
Once the religious, the hunted and weary
Chasing the promise of freedom and hope
Came to this country to build a new vision
Far from the reaches of kingdom and pope
Like good Christians, some would burn the witches
Later some got slaves to gather riches

But still from near and far to seek America
They came by thousands to court the wild
And she just patiently smiled and bore a child
To be their spirit and guiding light

And once the ties with the crown had been broken
Westward in saddle and wagon it went
And 'til the railroad linked ocean to ocean
Many the lives which had come to an end
While we bullied, stole and bought our homeland
We began the slaughter of the red man

But still from near and far to seek America
They came by thousands to court the wild
And she just patiently smiled and bore a child
To be their spirit and guiding light

The blue and grey they stomped it
They kicked it just like a dog
And when the war over
They stuffed it just like a hog

And though the past has it's share of injustice
Kind was the spirit in many a way
But it's protectors and friends have been sleeping
Now it's a monster and will not obey

(Suicide)
The spirit was freedom and justice
And it's keepers seem generous and kind
It's leaders were supposed to serve the country
But now they won't pay it no mind
'Cause the people grew fat and got lazy
And now their vote is a meaningless joke
They babble about law and order
But it's all just an echo of what they've been told
Yeah, there's a monster on the loose
It's got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there watchin'

Our cities have turned into jungles
And corruption is stranglin' the land
The police force is watching the people
And the people just can't understand
We don't know how to mind our own business
'Cause the whole worlds got to be just like us
Now we are fighting a war over there
No matter who's the winner
We can't pay the cost
'Cause there's a monster on the loose
It's got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there watching

(America)
America where are you now?
Don't you care about your sons and daughters?
Don't you know we need you now
We can't fight alone against the monster


Brief Synopsis of A Handmaid's Tale by Margret Atwood:
In the mid-1980s near Boston, Massachusetts, a cabal of rightwing fundamentalists murders the U.S. President and members of Congress, disenfranchises women by impounding their credit cards and denying them jobs and education, and sets up Gilead, a repressively conservative state bent on annihilating homosexuals, abortionists, and religious sects other than their own, and resettling Jews, old women, and nonwhite people in radioactive territory, known as the Colonies. Because nuclear and biological warfare has polluted vast areas, the population suffers a sharp decline in viable births and a rise in birth defects. Consequently, infertile and aged females, as well as homosexuals, are dispatched as clean-up crews in the Colonies. Fertile women involved in illicit liaisons or second marriages are apprehended, indoctrinated, and parceled out to Commanders of the secret police as Handmaids. These red-uniformed breeders live in seclusion and virtual slavery and are deprived of their real names and labeled with a patronym of the men who control their lives-as in “Ofcharles” and “Ofwarren.” The purpose of these polygynous relationships is the perpetuation of the white race, which carries on warfare in outlying areas in a struggle for supremacy

[annabanana]

1. A monster on the loose indeed.

America has a lot of work to do, to get back to where we once belonged.

[MindPilot]

2. And this line could've been written yesterday

We don't know how to mind our own business
'Cause the whole worlds got to be just like us
Now we are fighting a war over there
No matter who's the winner
We can't pay the cost

[Turbineguy]

3. At some point in Gulf War I

Poppy Bush said that the Vietnam Syndrome was over.

At the time I felt those words were poorly chosen and an insult to Americans who had died and lost loved ones. But saying that we were done with Vietnam has brought us to Iraq.

And so the words to "Monster" are just as fitting now as they were then.

[GenDem]

4. "Handmaid's Tale" is a frightening piece of fiction.

I read that book last summer and found out on DU that there was a movie made in 1990 starring Faye Dunaway, Robert Duvall, Natasha Richardson, & Aiden Quinn. I rented it last weekend and it was very good.... a very scary peak into religious extremism. Very similar to 1984. The kind of story where you can imagine it really happening if you let the fundies get a tighter grip. I highly recommend reading the book and seeing the movie.

[kestrel91316]

5. I remember reading Handmaid's Tale in the 1980s and feeling

scared, yet relieved that it was extreme enough I just KNEW it could never happen here. We were safe.

I am no longer so certain.

[MindPilot]

6. That's when I read it the first time

And at the time I had similar thoughts. I was disappointed that the author hadn't explained how America got to that point. Now I know an explanation wasn't necessary; Ms. Atwood is a prophet. :scared: