The Dresden Dolls 'Shores of California' music video So the reasoning behind this week’s video: just some of the stuff that people like the Commander and the other proponents of the Republic of Gilead seem to think is wrong with pre-RoG society. Also kind of an homage to Moira. (and maybe I needed just a bit of fun to counteract how much this book disturbs me) The scary thing is that some of the reasoning behind the RoG SEEMS valid, or might if it was something slow coming on rather than a sudden change. Should we be worried about all the crime and murder and horror in the world? Yes. Wouldn’t it be lovely if there were some sweeping change that could change it all? At first I would be tempted to say yeah, sure, but after reading this book I’m pretty sure I would have to think long and hard about it. People don’t tend to think long and hard about the issues going on around them unless it affects them directly (myself included). Just like Luke in the story we don’t tend to think about how things might be more difficult for people of other genders, races, religions until it is our gender, race or religion being oppressed in some form. A girl can tell a man all day about how embarrassing it is to be sexually harassed and he might still think ‘what’s the big deal, it’s a compliment’. Someone of another ethnicity could tell me all they like about how they are treated differently based on their name or color, and while I might think I understand I never really will because I haven’t lived it. The men in this story might really think they are doing women a ‘favor’ (at least some might), but that doesn’t change the fact that they have only taken some problems that faced women and replaced them with others. I think that this story is saying that we need to be more vigilant as individuals and as a society about what is taking place in the world around us, locally, nationally, internationally. We need to pay attention to more than what affects ‘me’ and try to see the big picture. If we don’t it could be too late by the time we realize something is wrong.