The Handmaid's Tale is Chillingly Real TODAY

[KingCheops]

I have not seen the TV series of The Handmaid's Tale, but there was an earlier version with Natasha Richardson in 1990(?) that shows that Saudi Arabia was like that back then as well.

It's Sally Fields and called Not Without My Daughter.  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102555/

My opinions about the Mooslimes are pretty well known here but I do have to say that I'm watching what Salman is doing VERY closely.  It's almost like the movie Syriana.  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0365737/

Salman has correctly identified that US Shale along with big oil discoveries in Russia and the Oil Sands in Canada are posing a HUGE problems for KSA.  The price of oil isn't high enough to support their spending and OPEC doesn't have the control it used to enjoy.  The collapse in the price of oil actually helped US Shale because the viable companies which remained were able to cheaply purchase equipment and rights from those who folded.  The break-even price is much lower than it used to be.  Meanwhile KSA has literally nothing to produce apart from oil.  Salman has correctly identified that Wahhabism is holding the country back because no one can do anything in Magical Moon God Land because the Perfect Man's "Revelation" stifles all creativity.  He's been pushing through changes and talking about things to moderate Islam in an attempt to move into the 19th Century -- or maybe even the 21st if he plays it smart.

Women can now drive.  He went on Arabic TV and said that jihad was over because people can read the Butt Wipe Instruction Manual anywhere in the world.  He's entered into an agreement with the Vatican to build Churches for Christians in the KSA.  We'll see if this all sticks or if the backwards Tribal Shit-Show that is Arabian politics derails him.  But if he can pull this off and Trump can topple the Mullahs we might actually see some of this "Religion of Peace" (curiously lacking the 10 Commandments) that we're told exists.

[Merrill]

Just like the rest of us.

 Sounds like you will be supporting my proposal for universal health care and a reverse incometax.

(I was going to mention ka living minimum wage but with reverse income tax its unnecessary)

I would support a national health insurance that runs alongside the private system, funded by a national sales tax and tariffs. I don't want single-payer or socialized medicine. A German-style system would work just fine.

But beyond this, we need to get back to the concept of marriage and family: the State has taken the place of fathers, and women are dumping their kids in daycare while they go out to earn money to buy clothes and jewelry.

[Mordred Pendragon]

I would support a national health insurance that runs alongside the private system, funded by a national sales tax and tariffs. I don't want single-payer or socialized medicine. A German-style system would work just fine.

Sounds reasonable. I could support that.

[jeff37923]

Sounds like you will be supporting my proposal for universal health care and a reverse incometax.

And we'll be killing our infants just like the good ole UK in no time!

[Mordred Pendragon]

Can we not sperg about healthcare? The issue at hand is that Saudi Arabia is a hellhole and the Left is ignorant to it.

Plus, I am hoping Pundit will listen to reason and that my open letter to him and this forum will be approved. But I am not holding my breath.

[Spinachcat]

Iran is almost as bad as Saudia Arabia and has not survived because of the petrodollar.

I have Persian neighbors and Iran is a weird situation. Like the USSR in its later days, there are parallel societies running there while the country projects a narrative in its foreign policy that doesn't match up with their homeland reality.

Iran actually does a surprising amount of trade, just not with the USA...directly. My neighbors are still expecting Iran to annex chunks of Iraq.  

Also, it seems this Puritan edgelord has never heard of Separation of Church and State.

>Christian Protestant
>Democracy

Pick one, faggot.

YOU need to go smack your high school teachers for failing you.

I am an agnostic and no friend of the Religious Right BUT there is an extremely strong history of Christianity and Democracy. The French Revolution was Catholics. The US Founding Fathers were various flavors of Protestant. The development of democracy and its underpinnings of human rights are ALL highly connected to various Christian traditions and philosophies. I am NOT diminishing the important of Greek philosophers, but all their concepts made their way to modern democracy through Western Christian filters.

And Christian Protestant Democracy is WHY we have Separation of Church and State. Because Protestants can start whatever weirdo cult they want on random street corners instead of being beholden to the One True Church of Rome (or London), the Founding Fathers wanted to make sure the State would never impose one flavor of any religion upon us.

So you getting to be a Roman Pagan is thanks to Protestants.

I totally get your fury at the Religious Right, but you gotta know your history.

Women here are "free" to be exploited and live meaningless, materialistic lives.

They wanted equal rights! Welcome to the corporate world!

Sorry, no mercy from me. Equal rights = equal responsibility = live with your choices, or make new ones.

Can we not sperg about healthcare?

Sperging is what we do best!

[jeff37923]

Can we not sperg about healthcare?

Pot. Kettle. Black.

[Mordred Pendragon]

I have Persian neighbors and Iran is a weird situation. Like the USSR in its later days, there are parallel societies running there while the country projects a narrative in its foreign policy that doesn't match up with their homeland reality.

Iran actually does a surprising amount of trade, just not with the USA...directly. My neighbors are still expecting Iran to annex chunks of Iraq.  




YOU need to go smack your high school teachers for failing you.

I am an agnostic and no friend of the Religious Right BUT there is an extremely strong history of Christianity and Democracy. The French Revolution was Catholics. The US Founding Fathers were various flavors of Protestant. The development of democracy and its underpinnings of human rights are ALL highly connected to various Christian traditions and philosophies. I am NOT diminishing the important of Greek philosophers, but all their concepts made their way to modern democracy through Western Christian filters.

And Christian Protestant Democracy is WHY we have Separation of Church and State. Because Protestants can start whatever weirdo cult they want on random street corners instead of being beholden to the One True Church of Rome (or London), the Founding Fathers wanted to make sure the State would never impose one flavor of any religion upon us.

So you getting to be a Roman Pagan is thanks to Protestants.

I totally get your fury at the Religious Right, but you gotta know your history.

I know that there is a lot of Western Christian influence in American democracy, I was just fucking with Bucket because a lot of his talking points were pretty Stormfront-y.

[jhkim]

It's called Saudi Arabia.

The Left is super-concerned about imaginary Christian theocracies but doesn't give the tiniest crap about the real version that exists today in the Muslim world, and that Islamists are trying to IMPORT into the West. They want to create The Handmaid's Tale in Europe and America, and the Left is cheering them and trying to censor and imprison anyone who disagrees with that plan.
That's the ridiculous double-standard hypocrisy of the entire Leftist movement: the very best chance of the Handmaid's Tale coming from where it already exists (all over the Muslim world) to the West will be if THEY help make it happen.

I'll buy some of that - but in the U.S., Republicans are just as friendly to Saudi Arabia as the Democrats are. Bush, Obama, and Trump have all militarily and diplomatically supported Saudi Arabia. The hypocrisy certainly applies to both sides. On the Republican side, there is the immigration ban on Muslim countries that fails to include nearly all the countries where deadly terrorists have actually come into the U.S. from - i.e. Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt, Uzbekistan, and United Arab Emirates.

[Trond]

I don't have any problem with a country where women aren't allowed to vote and I can murder my children with few consequences.

I'm joking.  Or am I?

I think you are right about Saudi Arabia and it's similarities to The Handmaids Tale, which I haven't read, but to be honest as long as it stays there why should I care?  I'm against muslims or any other social ideology apart from Christian Protestant Democracy ruling in the West but I don't care what they do in their own countries.  As long as I don't have to live there I'm fine with it.  Rape and kill all the kiddies you want, as long as it stays on the other side of the world I'm cool with it.  We've got enough kiddie murderers and rapists to deal with as it is.

I look after foster children so I know what I'm talking about.  If I could kill all the people who do this stuff with a press of a button I would, but since I can't I try and help as best I can.

Because it's not like a bunch of Jews helped America end WWII or anything, or that several democratic countries in the West aren't protestant (example: France and USA are both secular, and the largest religion in France is Catholicism).

[Kiero]

Team Blue can't be pro-Women, pro-Gay and pro-Islam simultaneously.

This is the thing I find most laughably hypocritical about the "progressive" left, not to mention their lack of self-awareness, in their defining issue of Israel. You can only be a leftist if you are "pro-Palestinian", yet they are blind to the fact that Hamas are not only anti-Semitic (all Islamists are), but are sexist and homophobic too. Somehow none of those other incompatibilities matter because the "Zionists" are evil. Never mind that the most natural "allies" of Islamists, barring their specific faith, is the religious right, who share their social conservatism and desire to use politics to advance religious mores.

Not until moderate Islam puts down radical Islam and grinds the radicals into dust.

Never going to happen. As far as I can see, there are broadly three groups in Islam. Islamists and extremists, who might be 10%, who believe it's their right to impose their beliefs on everyone else by violence. The "moderates" who are the majority, which means they don't agree with the means the Islamists are using, but don't actually disagree with their goals. That's why they'll happily give money to Islamist organisations and won't report extremist activity to the authorities. Lastly, the reformers, who actually want to make Islam a more normal faith compatible with liberal democracy, but face not only criticism, but the potential for ostracism and violence from their own communities.

[Omega]

I have not seen the TV series of The Handmaid's Tale, but there was an earlier version with Natasha Richardson in 1990(?) that shows that Saudi Arabia was like that back then as well.

"Not Without my Daughter" from 1991?

[Melichor]

"Not Without my Daughter" from 1991?

The Handmaid's Tale is a 1990 film adaptation of Margaret Atwood's novel of the same name. The book was published in 1985.

[jeff37923]

"Not Without my Daughter" from 1991?

No. That was a docudrama with Sally Fields in the starring role I believe.

[jhkim]

I'll buy some of that - but in the U.S., Republicans are just as friendly to Saudi Arabia as the Democrats are. Bush, Obama, and Trump have all militarily and diplomatically supported Saudi Arabia. The hypocrisy certainly applies to both sides. On the Republican side, there is the immigration ban on Muslim countries that fails to include nearly all the countries where deadly terrorists have actually come into the U.S. from - i.e. Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt, Uzbekistan, and United Arab Emirates.

To illustrate,

[ATTACH=CONFIG]2468[/ATTACH]
Ref: http://fortune.com/2018/03/21/mbs-saudi-prince-us-visit-business/

This is the problem I see with both Teams in the USA. Disconnect between their factions and actions.

It never made sense for Team Red to be both pro-Christian and pro-MegaCorps. Pro-small business would have made some sense, but that wasn't the gig. Like Team Blue, it was always all about the MegaCorps.

Team Blue can't be pro-Women, pro-Gay and pro-Islam simultaneously. Not until moderate Islam puts down radical Islam and grinds the radicals into dust. But Team Blue's hatred of Christianity is really strange since you can't be simultaneously pro-Black and pro-Latino as Christianity and Catholicism are major parts of their cultures. I wonder how long the pro-Latino and pro-Abortion marriage is going to last. The Democrats are a hodgepodge and Trump is the only thing holding the Democrats together.

Actually, I think that either liberals or conservatives can potentially be pro-Men, pro-Women, pro-Gay, pro-Straight, pro-Christianity, and pro-Islam all at the same time. However, too often they are both just pro-MegaCorps, as you say. Both liberals and conservatives are full of strange bedfellows.

In general, about being pro-this or anti-that, though, is often crappy reductionism. The bullshit that I encounter regularly is saying that I am (1) pro-Nazi if I support free speech for Nazis; (2) pro-Islamist terrorist if I oppose illegal detention of suspects at Guantanamo; (3) pro-rapists and murderers if I support rights of prisoners; (4) anti-Semitic if I support freedom for Palestinians. All of those conclusions are crap, I say.