This is one of my posts where I “review” Star Trek episodes. I will be giving each one a star rating. I sometimes will make some comments about non-political parts of them that I like or don’t like. I’ll sometimes use the issues raised in the episode to discuss similar issues in real life. And I will sometimes simply high-light the progressive politics of ST. ST is in-line with the three original themes of this blog, as I explain in the first ST post where I offer some general thoughts about ST.
I’m not very familiar with The Original Series and there might be some small amount of material there that would affect what I say about Star Trek (i.e. how often religion is mentioned)
Lastly. multi-culturalism is such a pervasive theme in ST that I only comment on it when it goes beyond the norm (i.e. inter-species partners).
There are several episodes in VOY that involve the question of whether or not holograms are alive, and/or feature conflict between holograms and organic beings. I’m going to ignore that part of VOY, it’s a bit too philosophical, and comparing the maltreatment of holograms to the maltreatment of, for example, Black people, seems stupid. Although I kind of make an exception for The Doctor (it’s impossible to be a fan of ST and not do that) I lean towards saying that holograms are not life forms, but I don’t feel like going into it.
“Virtuoso” See this for a plot summary.
A non-political episode. I give it two stars out of five.
“Memorial” See this for a plot summary.
A pretty poverful episode about war crimes It’s more or less comparable to some actions by the US military in Vietnam, the Holocaust, and some others although those two seem to be the most comparable with what happens in this episode. It also illustrates the tension between the soldiers who want to cover it up and those who wanted to go public with what happened.
As far as Vietnam, I’ve heard from good sources that massacres (usually very small) of Vietnamese civilians by the US military were common. Besides things like the testimony of John Kerry, and other similar testimony, I also find reasons to criticize America’s intervention in Vietnam in two novels about that war by Nelson DeMille. One reason I consider those novels to be good for people arguing with supporters of the Vietnam war, is that DeMille saw combat in Vietnam and as far as I can tell based on reading most of his novels, he’s more of a Hawk then a Dove. It seems that would probably mean that when he writes unflattering things about the US involvement in Vietnam during that era, it’s not driven by ideology, it’s driven by what he saw and heard in Vietnam. The novels are “Word of Honor” and “Up Country.” The former is more connected to this episode than the latter is.
In general, I believe it is VERY important that such atrocities are not forgotten and that those responsible should be held accountable. Memorials at the sites of massacres will help make it less likely that such crimes will be repeated. War crimes trials would have a similar effect.
I give this episode five stars out of five.
“Tsunkatse” See this for a plot summary.
A non-political episode. I give it three stars.
“Collective” See this for a plot summary.
A non-political episode. I give it three stars out of five.
This blog is mostly about 3 themes- Irish Republicanism, Star Trek, and opposition to bigotry, primarily in America (racism, homophobia, anti-semitism, etc.). It is mostly about Northern Ireland. It will mostly be about these issues in general and past events and will only sometimes touch on current events. Feel free to comment on the earlier posts.
About My Blog
My blog is about history, popular culture, politics and current events from a democratic socialist and Irish republican perspective. The two main topics are Northern Ireland on one hand and fighting anti-Semitism, racism and homophobia on the other. The third topic is supporting the Palestinians, and there are several minor topics. The three main topics overlap quite a bit. I have to admit that it’s not going to help me get a graduate degree, especially because it’s almost always written very casually. But there are some high-quality essays, some posts that come close to being high-quality essays, political reviews of Sci-Fi TV episodes (Star Trek and Babylon 5), and a unique kind of political, progressive poetry you won't find anywhere else. (there are also reviews of episodes of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit and reviews of Roseanne)
(my old blog was not showing up in Google search results AT ALL (99% of it wasn't being web-crawled or indexed or whatever) and there was another big problem with it, so this is a mirror of the old one although there will be some occassionnal editing of old posts and there will be new posts. I started this blog 12/16/20; 4/28/21 I am now done with re-doing the internal links on my blog) (the Google problem with my blog (only 1% of this new one is showing up in Google search results) is why I include a URL of my blog when commenting elsewhere, otherwise I would get almost no visitors at all)
(The "Table of Contents" offers brief descriptions of all but the most recent posts)
(I just recently realized that my definition of "disapora" was flawed- I thought it included, for example, Jews in Israel, the West Bank and the Golan Heights, and with the Irish diaspora, the Irish on that island. I'll do some work on that soon (11/21/20 I have edited the relevant paragraph in my post about Zionism))
(If you're really cool and link to my blog from your site/blog, let me know) (if you contact me, use the word "blog" in the subject line so I'll know it's not spam)
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