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These stark socialist sculptures in Bulgaria have an almost Zardoz-like aesthetic about them. You half expect a coterie of post-apocalyptic stormtroopers to come piling out, armed with laser-axes designed to crush the edifice of bourgeois oppression. More »
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For possibly the first time ever, North Korean art is being displayed in Europe, and the utopian optimism is heart-breaking. Yes, monster movies may not be the scariest culture North Korea ever produced. More »
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If there's one thing that this past week has taught us here at io9, it's not that a historic election can get everyone excited about the future. It's not that people are hopeful in a way that's changed the very atmosphere of a country overnight (albeit a night that many of us spent watching more CNN than is potentially healthy - they had holograms). No, it's that a lot of you really don't like it when we talk about politics. As in, "Screw you guys, I'm going home" don't like it. More »
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Ronald Reagan, Winston Churchill, and Eugene Debs all had one thing in common: they were fans of science fiction. More than that, they all used scifi at one point or another to shape their political actions and views. From presidents and prime ministers to ordinary citizens looking for change, many people have turned to science fiction as their political guide. We look at some of the ways space operas, utopias, and aliens have shaped our political landscape and given us hope for a more futuristic tomorrow. More »
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When I was a kid in mega-conservative Orange County, calling somebody a commie was like calling them evil: It was a term nobody understood, and therefore it meant everything amorphously bad. People didn't use words like "socialist" or "unionist" — it was just commie, or maybe (in my town) commie faggot. That's why these days I feel like I'm living in a new America. Barack Obama's political agenda has got media and pundits actually talking about socialism, and not just as a demonized, nasty caricature of itself. Though the McCain camp is trying to call Obama a socialist as a smear, most commentators on the left and right know Obama isn't a socialist. But they worry (or hope) that his policies will lead to an America where "socialist" is no longer an insult. Are their concerns realistic? More »
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