We are closer than ever to 1930s-style totalitarianism: Atwood

[Tactical Peek]

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - The world is closer to the dark days of the 1930s than at any time since, Canadian author Margaret Atwood said on Saturday in Frankfurt, where she was due to receive a prestigious German literary award.

Atwood’s dystopian novel “The Handmaid’s Tale”, first published in 1985, has shot back up the bestseller lists after being made into an award-winning TV series depicting a totalitarian future in a United States where women are forced into sexual servitude.

Donald Trump’s election as U.S. president has, for some critics, brought that vision closer to reality as he uses social media to browbeat opponents, and lawmakers in a number of states seek to restrict women’s reproductive rights.

“It feels the closest to the 1930s of anything that we have had since that time,” the 77-year-old Atwood told a news conference, drawing parallels with the fascist and communist regimes which then ruled parts of Europe.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-bookfair-atwood/we-are-closer-than-ever-to-1930s-style-totalitarianism-atwood-idUSKBN1CJ0EL

[DoubleAgentOrange]

1. It's not just Trump sadly

Daniel Ortega, of all people, is even more anti-choice and anti-woman than the kookiest of GOPeeons.

https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-08-16/women-nicaragua-fight-right-get-abortions-could-save-their-lives

Rebranded as an Opus Dei-style fundie-"Catholic" (sorry, but there's no room in my Church for Blairs, Ortegas, Gibsons, and Bannons), Ortega was re-elected to the Nicaraguan presidency in a questionable election just days before Putin handed David Duke Nukem the keys to the Oval Office.

It's upsetting because the Sandinistas used to be among my heroes.

Doubly so since, when it comes to my left, I usually side with radicals and populists over the Trudeaus and Blairs of this world.