Tag Archives: dystopian themes

November 8, 2023 · 6:02 pm

HOME (1968) BY MEGAN TERRY – FORGOTTEN TELEVISION

home or future soapHOME aka Future Soap (1968) – This science fiction drama set hundreds of years in the future first aired on January 19th, 1968 on American Public Broadcasting’s N.E.T. Playhouse. Home is a 90-minute piece about the threat of overpopulation – and the excuses that threat gives the government to impose authoritarian conditions on the populace – set among a honeycomb of claustrophobic rooms in which citizens of the future must spend their lives due to the dictates of the government.

They are born in, live in and work in these small chambers, own nothing and are forbidden to travel.

megan terry picFood is in pill form, rituals praising the government are required and “happy drugs” must be consumed daily in order to keep the populace in line. When a couple is able to obtain permission to have a child they must wait until someone in their communal room dies. 

The work was written by Megan Terry (at right), a founding member of the Open Theater in 1963, who was also noted for her 1966 anti-war musical Viet Rock. That production is by many considered to be the first true rock musical made for the stage. Continue reading →

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January 16, 2021 · 10:01 pm

DYSTOPIA NATION – TECHNO TYRANTS

mascot sword and gun pic

BALLADEER’S BLOG

Here at Independent Voter site Balladeer’s Blog, I can’t help but reflect on how less than three full years ago when this blog post used America’s increasingly totalitarian Big Tech fascists as examples for dystopian literature, it seemed like the dire possibilities explored might come within a decade or just under.

Unfortunately, in less than those three years that I mentioned we’ve seen privileged white male one-percenters like Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg EXCEED many of the abuses I wrote about in what was then (2018) fiction.

If you enjoy the article below, HERE is a link to a 2018 article about AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL pointing out how Google and Facebook threaten human rights. And HERE is a link to another such article. The lesson being “Don’t try to say that Big Tech won’t abuse their money and power after all that we’ve seen.”

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THE TECHNO-TYRANTS OF SILICON VALLEY (2018) – 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 →

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