Isn’t that like, part of what makes SciFi as powerful as it is? That it’s talking about political and social issues without naming names?
Exactly.
Which is why authoritarian regimes are terrified of it, and apologists for those regimes self censor.
You might as well just burn the books, assholes.
They don’t gotta burn the books they just remove 'em While arms warehouses fill as quick as the cells Rally round tha family Pockets full of shells
That’s really shameful and disheartening. The science fiction community tends to be exceptionally thoughtful and aware of dangerous precedents. It’s sad to see this kind of political nonsense taint the award.
Another of the writers affected was Paul Weimer, who was excluded from the fan writer category. One of the several points raised about him in the emails is that he had previously travelled to Tibet. But Weimer said he had only been to Nepal, not Tibet. “It’s not even competent political censorship – it’s haphazard bullshit,” he said.
How I yearn for the days of competent political censorship /s
Why do we continuously cowtow to those fascists? It’s getting more and more difficult to not sound like a racist but it seems like everything coming out of that country are just lies, damn lies, fabricated lies, and rampant cheating/corruption. It’s like their national past-time is lying.
It’s not racist to dislike and distrust a government, as long as you don’t equate all people of that region or ethnicity with that government. Authoritarian governments, especially Israel, but also China, LOVE to cast dissent with their politics or cultural values as “racist” but this is ABSOLUTE bullshit and should be called out, mocked, disparaged and laughed at, NOT legitimized.
