Tag Archives: dystopian literature

BALLADEER’S BLOG IS BACK IN ACTION, NO THANKS TO TECHNO-FASCISTS …

Mascot sword and pistolBaby, I’m BACK, just like that notoriously bad sitcom starring Demond Wilson. The problem was NOT WordPress, so don’t blame them, but it was just another round with me refusing to be silenced by Techno-Fascists who abuse their internet influence. 

I’ll be catching up on my Halloween Month posts and other items now that I’m live again, but for right now here’s an appropriate rerun of my blog post DYSTOPIA NATION: TECHNO-TYRANTS OF SILICON VALLEY – 

Here at Balladeer’s Blog I write plenty of items about myths from around the world. I often mention that my blog posts about figures from the American West are along the same lines to me since I think the exaggerated tales of whatever their real-life stories were originate the same way that many religious fables do: the usual human tendency toward superstition and embellishment.

Dystopian literature is similar but instead of embellishing figures and events from the past this type of fiction involves taking contemporary problems and/ or trends and extrapolating them into larger than life menaces in the near or far future.

Soylent Green did it with overpopulation and food shortages, One Blade of Grass did it with environmental issues and Orwell’s 1984 did it with totalitarian political forces which still threaten to use his nightmarish novel as their road map. Countless other examples could be cited.   

THE TECHNO-TYRANTS OF SILICON VALLEY – The modern-day versions of the disgusting old Robber Barons might well be the corporate fascists aka techno-fascists in assorted tech industries, not just regarding Silicon Valley but also  privacy-violating rich pigs at Facebook and elsewhere.

In fact, you could make the case that people like Mark “Skippy” Zuckerberg and his fellow corporate fascists are even worse since I don’t recall bloated rich pigs like E.H. Harriman or Cornelius Vanderbilt trying to police other people’s every thought, word and deed. The invasive and ever-expanding tentacular reach of techno-fascists or in this fictional case Techno-Tyrants would make these villains a very credible threat to political freedom and freedom of expression.

Freedom of expression amnesty internationalIn recent years outfits like Twitter, Facebook and others even made public noises about banning customers based on their conduct UNRELATED TO THOSE UTILITIES! Can you imagine the old, old Ma Bell monopoly cutting off people’s phone service because their operators caught those users discussing voting for political candidates disapproved of by Ma Bell’s upper echelons or expressing opinions frowned upon by Ma Bell?

Even worse, places like Google and others have made it firing offenses to be caught holding opinions at odds with the one percenters and bloated rich pigs who run those tech-related outfits.

For the fictional Techno-Tyrants of this blog post it’s a quick jump to depicting such abusive totalitarians working in tandem with an oppressive government. They could leave citizens unable to access the internet or their various accounts or medical records until they recant any statements or opinions frowned upon by the Techno-Tyrants of Silicon Valley. Continue reading

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Filed under LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, opinion

DYSTOPIA NATION: THE NEW COLONIALISM

FOR A LOOK AT MY PREVIOUS DYSTOPIA NATION POSTS CLICK HERE

Mascot sword and pistolTHE NEW COLONIALISM – Here’s another situation to embellish and extrapolate from in standard Dystopian Literature format. It’s the way that isolated, heavily-populated regions of pompous snobs, cowardly hypocrites and hilariously pretentious asses consider themselves the rulers of the entire rest of the nation.

Part of the inspiration for this installment came from the way Ben Franklin observed that – leading up to the Revolutionary War – even everyday citizens in Great Britain would snobbishly refer to Americans as “OUR subjects in the Colonies.”

That possibly apocryphal account easily puts one in mind of the snobbish way that Democrats pompously think they know how everyone else should live their lives. And if the people they consider to be THEIR “subjects” don’t agree, well, in the words of the fictional Darth Vader “Then they should be MADE to agree!” That’s the Democrats’ mantra. (I’m an Independent voter.)

mapAnyway, in our fictional future for this time around, the isolated areas of Democrat Supremacists or “Blue Meanies” began to panic as they felt their tyrannical grip on their “Colonies” slipping.

As far back as the early 21st Century the Democrat Supremacists had formed masked hate groups like Antifa – really KLAN-tifa – to inflict violence on dissenters.

The Dem-Sup control of the media, internet and film-making ensured that the only opinions that got wide-spread exposure were the opinions shared by millionaires. Dem-Sup contempt for the working class and the poor grew in direct proportion to the way in which the working class and the poor rejected the “One True Worldview” being forced upon them by Dem-Sup plutocrats.     Continue reading

14 Comments

Filed under Future History, Neo-Pulp, opinion

DYSTOPIA NATION: TECHNO-TYRANTS OF SILICON VALLEY

Mascot sword and pistolHere at Balladeer’s Blog I write plenty of items about myths from around the world. I often mention that my blog posts about figures from the American West are along the same lines to me since I think the exaggerated tales of whatever their real-life stories were originate the same way that many religious fables do: the usual human tendency toward superstition and embellishment.

Dystopian literature is similar but instead of embellishing figures and events from the past this type of fiction involves taking contemporary problems and/ or trends and extrapolating them into larger than life menaces in the near or far future.

Soylent Green did it with overpopulation and food shortages, One Blade of Grass did it with environmental issues and Orwell’s 1984 did it with totalitarian political forces which still threaten to use his nightmarish novel as their road map. Countless other examples could be cited.   

THE TECHNO-TYRANTS OF SILICON VALLEY – The modern-day versions of the disgusting old Robber Barons might well be the corporate fascists aka techno-fascists in assorted tech industries, not just regarding Silicon Valley but also  privacy-violating rich pigs at Facebook and elsewhere.

In fact, you could make the case that people like Mark “Skippy” Zuckerberg and his fellow corporate fascists are even worse since I don’t recall bloated rich pigs like E.H. Harriman or Cornelius Vanderbilt trying to police other people’s every thought, word and deed. The invasive and ever-expanding tentacular reach of techno-fascists or in this fictional case Techno-Tyrants would make these villains a very credible threat to political freedom and freedom of expression. Continue reading

10 Comments

Filed under Future History, Neo-Pulp, opinion