I've seen several posts that reference the prescience of #OctaviaButler's PARABLE OF THE SOWER. Here are my observations about the book, which begins in July of 2024:

️ Only the wealthy have access to healthcare.

️ Fires due to arson are a huge problem in California.

️ Kids are staying home from school.

️ "Hyper-empathy syndrome" is considered an illness. (See: Deacon Ben Garrett of Utah) 

Access to safe, clean water is a privilege few can afford. (See: environmental deregulation)

️ Hurricanes form earlier than before, and with more disastrous force. 

The social safety net is gone, with no help for those in the path of storms. (No more FEMA.)

️ People cling to the hope that God is in charge. (See: Hakeem Jeffries)

️ Obsession with Space exploration and going to Mars, while people on Earth are struggling for basic needs, like food, shelter, and water.

️ Severe drought puts a strain on water resources.

️ People start gardens due to food prices and food shortages.

️ Ham radios provide the most reliable form of communication. (See: Hurricane Helene)

️ Nothing is done to curb gun violence.

️ The government wastes money on vanity projects.

️ Wealth is concentrated in the government and in big corporations. 

️ 2024 Presidential candidate "Donner" promises to eliminate waste in government spending, to abolish unnecessary departments, and to return America to its former glory.

️ People hang on to the hope that voting still matters. 

️ The most prejudiced are the least adaptable,  therefore the least able to cope with change.

️ The November election results in President-elect Donner.

️ President Donner's party lays out a plan to suspend laws that they consider "overly restrictive" like those pesky child labor laws. (Already, 30 states have rolled back child labor laws, including 9 for hazardous occupations.)

The unhoused will be required to work for corporations, as prison labor essentially. (See: the criminalization of homelessness.)

This takes us to the present day, February 2025

HT @susurros
What #OctaviaButler saw on Feb. 1, 2025, three decades ago

by Russell Contreras

Science fiction writer Octavia Butler wrote in her 1993 novel "#ParableOfTheSower" that Feb. 1, 2025, would be a time of #fires, #violence, #racism, #addiction, #ClimateChange, social #inequality and an authoritarian "#PresidentDonner."

That day is today.

The big picture: This Black History Month, which begins this year on a day of Butler's dystopian vision, Axios will examine what the next 25 years may hold for Black Americans based on the progress in the first quarter of this century.

Through her fiction, Butler foresaw U.S. society's direction and the potential for civil societies to collapse thanks to the weight of economic disparities and climate change — with blueprints for hope.
#Afrofuturist writers today interpret Butler's work as metaphorical warnings that appear to be coming true and a call to action.

State of play: This year, the month-long celebration of Black American accomplishments and perseverance will be commemorated amid uncertainty after the Trump administration ordered government agencies to end DEI policies.

The move is confusing some agencies on whether Black history can even be acknowledged this year while the nation deals with rising hate crimes, the aftermath of California wildfires, a fentanyl epidemic and a new president who blames the country's ills on workforce diversity.
Meanwhile, states like Alabama have passed bills limiting the discussion of race and Black history in public schools.

Zoom in: In "Parable of the Sower," the novel's 15-year-old protagonist, Lauren Olamina, writes a simple journal entry: Saturday, February 1, 2025: "We had a fire today. People worry so much about fire."

What unfolds in the pages that follow is a dystopian world surrounding the gated, racially mixed, fictional community of Robledo, California.
A new drug forces addicts to set fires to communities, who then rob and rape victims. Unhoused people roam the streets and are forced to steal to survive. Hurricanes, fires and violence push Americans to flee north to Canada.
President Donner, like President Trump, promises to restore the country to its former glory.
Racially mixed couples, like Olamina's Black/Chicano family, are vulnerable to attacks, and her parents, both PhD holders, have limited job opportunities.

Yes, but: Black, white, Latino and Asian Americans fall in love despite the racism outside the walls.

They arm themselves and protect each other.
They share history and books in defiance of attempted erasure.

What they're saying: "She was trying to warn us of a possible future that she saw coming if we did not change," Jesse Holland, editor of the anthology, "Captain America: The Shield of Sam Wilson," tells Axios.

https://www.axios.com/2025/02/01/octavia-butler-feb-1-2025-black-history-month
#BlackHistoryMonth