Slashdot Mirror
Ridley Scott Returns to PKD
Krau Ming quotes from a report at Sneakpeek.ca "Ridley Scott's Scott Free Productions will produce a 4-hour TV adaptation of author Phlip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle, based on a script by Howard Brenton. The original 1962 novel was a science fiction 'alternate history' that won a sci fi Hugo book award in 1963. Premise of the book, about daily life under totalitarian Fascist imperialism, occurs in 1962, fourteen years after the end of the Second World War in 1948. The victorious Axis Powers, Japan and Germany, conduct intrigues against each other in North America, specifically in the former US, which surrendered to them, after the Axis conquered Eurasia and destroyed the populaces of Africa." Adds Krau Ming: "Hopefully this will fall in the category of well-done PKD adaptations (though I'll leave it up to the slashdotters to determine which of the previous movies should be categorized as such)."
In 1962 it was insightful, but now it's just a Godwin.
There's also been one incredibly crappy alternate history TV series that has soiled that sort of plot beyond recovery (the one where the USA didn't enter WWII and then found to their horror later about the genocide - that thing people were running away from before the war even started).
That's probably because conservatives in the US are fascists. It's beyond puerile to get upset about being called out on it. Xenophobia, check. Fear mongering, check. Corporatism, check. Ultra-nationalism, check. Obsession with stomping out socialism, that's a big check. Relying heavily upon tribalism, check. Using the aforementioned to get people to vote against their own self interest, check.
Seems to me that if conservatives are going to whine about being called fascist, that it might make sense to adopt a platform that differs in some significant and substantial way from the prototypical fascism one. But then again, if you're even making that complaint you're not going to admit that you're full of it.
Oh, I think U.S. conservatives have proven that they're fully capable of painting themselves brown, with no help needed. Once the Tea Party starts wearing uniforms, it's time to run away, quickly.
Fascist governments forbid and suppress opposition to the fascist state and the fascist movement. Exactly which side is it that is a huge proponent of the so-called Fairness Doctrine? That would be the left. Exactly which side is it that instead of debating the issues shouts racism whenever there is dissent. That would be the left.
Fascism presents itself as a solution to the perceived benefits and disadvantages of conservatism by advocating state-controlled modernization. Exactly which side is hell-bent on enacting "progressive" Cap & Trade and heavily subsidized "green" projects? That would be the left.
Fascism is heavily opposed to laissez-faire capitalism which by definition means "leave us the hell alone". Exactly which side is a huge proponent of heavy-handed government regulation? That would be the left.
There is a scholarly consensus that fascism was influenced by both the left and the right. A number of historians have regarded fascism either as a revolutionary centrist doctrine, as a doctrine which mixes philosophies of the left and the right, or as both of those things. Don't give me that crap about Fascism be exclusively the domain of the right wing.
Xenophobia? Nationalistic? What a crock. Leftist regimes have been the most xenophobic and genocidic in history.
Obsession with stomping out socialism? Fine by me. By what right should anyone have to give up what they rightfully earn so other people can slack off?
Tribalism? Oh, you mean those leftist warlords in African and other parts of the world who aren't satisfied with corrupting elections that they kill anyone who opposes them?
Quite frankly it is you, sir (spelled with a c and a u) that are full of it. Don't let factual history hit you in the butt on your way out.
dead. It is a dea0d Darren Reed, which