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Promoted from the diaries by streiff. Promotion does not imply endorsement.
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Thirty some odd years ago, Margaret Atwood wrote a dystopian novel called The Handmaid’s Tale.  Today, it has been turned into a hit television series.  In the story, women are the slaves of men and kept around only for breeding.  We live in a time when women are freer than ever in history, especially in Western culture.  Hence, one would think this hit television series and novel would be an appropriate satire of feminist paranoia, but it isn’t.  There are women and some men who literally believe that women today are enslaved to men and they are only one or two Supreme Court justices away from them being relegated to breeding machine status.  These are the same people who donned the red robes and protested against the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh.  They are much like the people who destroy stars dedicated to President Trump on walkways and who beat Trump pinatas at protests who believe they live in a fascist totalitarian state.  No such action would be tolerated in a fascist state.

The success of The Handmaid’s Tale is understandable in today’s age where being a victim is a badge of honor.   All this is blamed on the incipient white male privilege that exists.  This is a funny story if it wasn’t so sad.  Leon Carmen is a white Australian author who could not get his novel published by anybody.  So he changed his name on the cover of his book to Wanda Koolmatrie and changed his biography from being a white male to being an Australian aboriginal woman.  Lo and behold, the book was published and even received a prestigious literary award.  It became a national scandal in Australia when the author proposed a sequel and the publisher found out that the author was a white taxi driver, not an oppressed Australian aboriginal woman.  There did not seem to be much white male privilege in play when Leon Carmen hawked his novel to publishers.

Given the success of The Handmaid’s Tale and living in a time when victimhood is everywhere to be found, it is only a matter of time before a racial equivalent is published, its rights sold to Hollywood and it becomes a hit television series.  We are at that stage in the music industry.  Recently, some act called Childish Gambino who, this writer can assure the reader, looks nothing like any Gambino I have ever seen, racked up 300 million YouTube hits for a song called “This Is America.”    The video depicted the country as a seething cauldron of racial oppression.  In the arts, for every example of a Wakanda power fantasy, there are two examples of  how Wakanda is prevented from happening by the white, male, privileged hierarchy.

The allegiance of artists with the Left is nothing new in history.  Most literary awards, for example, go to some tome that involves racial or gender oppression real or imagined, immigration and the joys of multiculturalism.  Sadly, many of these books are poorly written.  In fact, publishers came to see themselves less as the searchers of good literature and more as the willing propagandists of a Leftist agenda.

In the past, artists saw themselves as rebels living and commenting on the fringes.  They were the underdogs fighting the establishment with words, musical notes and paint brushes.  Being that the Left is now the establishment in the arts and entertainment industries, this puts true artists in a weird predicament.  Their instinct to rebel should pit them against Leftist orthodoxy.  But, that has not happened and today’s artist is actually a conformist.  Today, declaring your hatred of Donald Trump is considered a rite of acceptance into the artistic community.  Those who don’t hate Trump are either silenced by the mob, or reluctant to let their feelings known with a few precious exceptions.

Today’s artists and entertainers are not the free thinkers and rebels they believe themselves to be.  Instead, they are no better than the conformists who willingly gave a Nazi salute in Nuremberg.  Worse, they have become the police over the minds of others.  They are not even aware they have become the conformists and that their agenda is antithetical to free thought and individuality.  These are two important qualities that contribute to the creation of good art and it explains why once talented shows like Saturday Night Live now suck.  Instead, we have a cadre of multi-millionaire authors, singers and actors lecturing us about privilege, oppression and discrimination.

True artists question the cultish beliefs foisted upon them.  They do not conform to the mindset du jour which translates simply to: OrangeManBad.  In knee-jerk fashion, they endorse Leftist causes and become part of the establishment.  They have become the propagandists no better than an untalented army of Joseph Goebbels.

Only when they again begin to question will they resume their traditional role of pioneer and rebel.  Sadly, derangement runs deep in the artistic and entertainment industries.  Expect more pontification about subjects they know nothing about, nor have experienced.  Expect more red-robed women cavorting through the streets of DC and more songs about a racist, oppressive America.