Octavia Butler Obit of Sorts

Feb. 27

Science fiction writer Octavia Butler passed away several days ago. She was prominent because she was one of the few black women who wrote and published science fiction. I regret that I didn't read a lot of her work even though I enjoyed the one novella of hers that I had read. You can find more of a wrap up at Boing Boing. She was also featured a few months ago on Democracy Now, probably her last interview. Check out these quotes from her work. Sounds like someone we know who really is buying the rope to hang ourselves so to speak...Here's the late Ms. Butler:

OCTAVIA BUTLER: I'm going to read a verse or two. And keep in mind these were written early in the 1990s. But I think they apply forever, actually. This first one, I have a character in the books who is, well, someone who is taking the country fascist and who manages to get elected President and, who oddly enough, comes from Texas. And here is one of the things that my character is inspired to write about, this sort of situation. She says:

"Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought. To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears. To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool. To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen. To be led by a liar is to ask to be lied to. To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery." (Ed: Reminds me of someone..)

And there's one other that I thought I should read, because I see it happening so much. I got the idea for it when I heard someone answer a political question with a political slogan. And he didn't seem to realize that he was quoting somebody. He seemed to have thought that he had a creative thought there. And I wrote this verse:

"Beware, all too often we say what we hear others say. We think what we are told that we think. We see what we are permitted to see. Worse, we see what we are told that we see. Repetition and pride are the keys to this. To hear and to see even an obvious lie again and again and again, maybe to say it almost by reflex, and then to defend it because we have said it, and at last to embrace it because we've defended it."

AMY GOODMAN: On that note we'll have to leave it there, but we'll continue it online at Democracy Now.org. Octavia Butler.

Speaking of Democracy Now, if you want to depress yourself check out today's and Friday's episodes. It really is as bad as you think.