As a major fan of history and dystopian fiction, I look at what is happening in the world with a mixture of concern and awe.

I am concerned because what is happening parallels so much of what occurred in the lead-up to World War II, when Hitler was in power. His party burned books, disbanded the police force, censored what was said. In so many ways, this is happening now. We are not burning books, but we are hiding our history. HBO has taken “Gone With the Wind” off of its streaming platform; do they realize what the film is actually about? In doing this, they are also erasing the first black woman to win an Oscar. I get it, there are people out there who are uncomfortable with this country’s past, but that’s a good thing. We can learn from what happened if we acknowledge it. When we bury it, hide it in the back of a closet, we forget what actually happened and we cannot grow. I am a firm believer that you grow best when you are uncomfortable. If we only live in sunshine and roses, we do not know how to survive in the rain and darkness.

I am in awe, because I find it amazing that people are actually starting to do something when they see a problem. Do I necessarily agree with the way they are going about all of this? Not at all; there is no need for the looting, blocking the highways, attacking the police. Does it get attention? Abso-fricking-lutely! It brings the conversation to the forefront, but the conversation is not about what they are protesting, the conversation ends up being whether or not the protesters are correct in what they are doing.

My second favourite genre of fiction is dystopian fiction. I loved The Hunger Games series, I did like the prequel, but it’s not my favourite, and would like to see more about the lead-up to the creation of the Districts, as well as what happened to start the rebellion that ended up creating the Games themselves. The Divergent series was an amazing view at a social experiment and how people work when assigned to one specific area of their community. 1984 and Animal Farm – need I say anything other than “THESE WERE NOT MEANT TO BE GUIDEBOOKS!”? I see us, as a society, going down the path into the themes of these novels.

There was an article I read the other day, over on ZeroHedge; “How Do You Prepare For a Revolution?” With all of the COVID-19 shutdowns and insecurity of what was going on, “prepping” became a lot less of a laughing stock (although those of us who prep really had a good laugh at those who ran on toiler paper). However, those of us who could, for lack of a better word, be termed “preppers,” started having our phones and emails blowing up. “What do I do?” “How do I prepare to stay home and not go out?” “What do I do with my kids at home all day?” The list of questions goes on. We are not looked at as so crazy now, and what the majority of people found out, is that we “preppers” have never really given up on our grandparent’s or great-grandparent’s way of life. We always have supplies on hand, from food to paper products to clothing, you get the picture. We do not have to do weekly shopping, heck, for a lot of us, we do not have to do monthly shopping. We have gardens growing, and livestock (if our local ordinances permit). We have a network of similarly-minded folks that we can barter with: goods for services, services for services, services for goods, goods for goods. We do not work for “the man,” but instead have our own businesses that bring us our money. We start our own businesses when times get bad (I’m in a workgroup with about a dozen or so people who have started businesses over the past 3 months. Yeah, hustle!). We have a way to survive when the going gets tough.

I guess what I’m saying is STOP! Stop the hate, stop fighting being uncomfortable with history. Maybe sit down and read a few different books on the subject you are angry about; you just may find out something you never knew about it. Stop tearing down monuments and statues, stop banning books, words, and films. Stop being so gosh darn reliant on everyone else. You may end up hating a lot less than you currently do, and realize that there are good things in our past, and when there are not, we can only learn and grow.