Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Reviews Q

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).

“Indiscretion” See this for a plot summary.

A very non-political episode, but a good one. I give it two stars out of five.


“Rejoined” See this for a plot summary.

“The lesbian kiss that wasn’t” I can’t find where I read that, but I like how it describes part of this episode. Two women kiss each other, but it’s actually heterosexual since they’re motivated by feelings that their symbiants have for each other from earlier hosts when one host was male and they were married.

As I’ve described elsewhere, aside from the issue of non-heterosexual characters, ST has a fairly good record of being anti-homophobic.

UPDATE 3/24/22 When I watched this recently, I decided that it WAS anti-homophobic. Not the kiss really, but something else. Although I don't consider same-sex relationships to be "taboo," historically the word "forbidden" might be appropriate. The two Trill women wrestle with doing something (starting a new romantic relationship when their symbionts have a past together as a couple) forbidden by their society, because they love each other. They talk about pursuing that love even though they will be disowned by their society. In THAT sense it kind of IS anti-homophobic.

Overall a good episode, I give it two stars out of five.

“Starship Down” See this for a plot summary.

A very non-political episode, although there’s one minor thing I’ll address. I’m not going to say something every time Ferengi greed is displayed, it happens something like every other episode.

A good episode, I give it three stars out of five.


“Little Green Men” See this for a plot summary.

There’s some good political commentary about Earth history (and our present)- the greed, bigotry, war, nuclear fission, and tobacco.

The story is pretty creative and well-done, I give it four stars out of five.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Reviews P

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).

“Facets” See this for a plot summary.

A very non-political episode, but a very good one. I love how the actors have to speak and behave differently for a brief period of time. I give it four stars out of five.


“The Adversary” See this for a plot summary.

A very non political episode, but a good one. I give it four stars out of five.


“The Way Of The Warrior” parts 1 and 2. See this and this for a plot summary.

A very non-political episode, although we do learn that Cardassia is now governed by civilians after a successful effort by democratic forces there. We also see Worf join the series as a main character, which is cool since he’s towards the bottom of my top 20 favorite main character.


“The Visitor” See this for a plot summary.

A very non-political episode, but a good (and very emotional) one. I give it four stars out of five.


“Hippocratic Oath” See this for a plot summary.

I’m not sure how I feel about the main story, I’ve got very mixed feelings about whether Bashir or O’Brien was right. But it’s a good story, I give it three stars out of five.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Reviews O

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).

“Visionary” See this for a plot summary.

A very non-political episode, but a good one. I give it three stars out of five.


“Distant Voices” See this for a plot summary.

A very non-political episode. One tiny element of politics is that we learn about the Cardassian equivalent of mystery novels. In the enigma tale, all the suspects are guilty and the mystery is what they’re guilty of. The message sent is that if the authorities suspect someone, they must be guilty.

A good episode, I give it three stars out of five.


“Through The Looking Glass” See this for a plot summary.

A very non-political episode but there are some minor aspects that are political.

1. At the very beginning, it’s made clear one more time that ST and the Federation are against animal fights for entertainment and gambling.

2. I think this is the first episode where we see that the mirror universe Kira is bi-sexual. Unfortunately, she’s a villain and the fact that it’s the mirror universe further erodes the anti-homophobic statement made by having a non-heterosexual character.

Although I’m not a big fan of the mirror universe episodes, this one is good, I give it two stars out of five.


“Improbable Cause” and “The Die Is Cast” See this and this for a plot Summary.

A very non-political two-parter, but a very good one, I give it four stars out five.


“Explorers” See this for a plot summary.

There’s one political aspect to this episode. The Cardassians don’t believe Bajoran claims that early Bajoran spacefaring efforts 800 years earlier made it as far as Cardassia. These are the same Cardassians who must have convinced themselves that Bajorans were inferior in order to justify their occupation of Bajor. Denying achievements by Bajorans would be part of that. It reminds me how the indigenous people of the Americas are denied credit for the many achievements they made before Europeans did. I haven’t studied that for about 10 years and only vaguely remember a few, but there’s an average sized book about it that I read, there were something like 100-150. things that the indigenous people taught to Europeans. The United States constitution was influenced by the Iroquois Confederacy’s Great Law of Peace. I remember reading that some farming techniques were first used by indigenous people of the Americas. There’s a ton of others.


“Family Business” See this for a plot summary.

This episode is basically about how Ferengi society treats women. Not well as it turns out. It’s basically the second of, I think about 3 DS9 episodes that are about a Ferengi woman challenging the sexist nature of her society.

It’s a pretty good episode, especially considering the politics, so I give it four out of five stars.


“Shakaar” See this for a plot summary.

A very political episode and the politics are a bit complicated. Here’s how I see it:

Kai Winn, basically the Pope of Bajor, somehow becomes Interim First Minister of Bajor until an election can be held to elect a replacement for the last First Minister who died suddenly. It seems like a big mistake- to have Bajor’s spiritual leader retain that position of power when she becomes Bajor’s political leader as well. That’s too much power in the hands of one person. Of course I also don’t like Winn as she’s a conservative religious fundamentalist.

One of her first moves is to demand that some crucial farm equipment be returned to the government by farmers in one province. The first problem is that they had been told they’d have the equipment for a year and had only had it for two months. The second is that Winn wants the equipment transferred to another province which produces agricultural products for export. She believes that exporting food will improve Bajor’s chance of being admitted to the Federation. There are two flaws with that- first, she probably came under the influence of one segment of the business community that would benefit from such exports and second I doubt the Federation would turn them down because they weren’t exporting. Considering all of that, the drastic steps Winn takes to assert the government’s authority (using the Army, introducing martial law) are a total over-reaction and almost lead to civil war. It’s just a further illustration of how anti-democratic Winn is.

Overall a good episode, I give it four out of five stars.

Revolutionary Dreams

I've got six more songs/poems (I'm in transition to using the word "poem" which is more accurate for what I've been calling "song"). They're all "Those Lyrics" see this for an explanation. I'm not sure how many more songs I'll be doing that aren't "Those lyrics" since I think I have altered all the songs that I can work with from one of the two main sources I have for non-offensive material to alter.

For the rest of the poems click on the "lyrics" label at the bottom (there are at least two pages worth of posts, so click on the "older posts" at the bottom of the first page).

Anyway, these are roughly in order from okay to good, although I'm not sure I would call any of them very good.

1. 65 Days. IRA Hunger-Striker Bobby Sands.
2.  Victory or Death. The IRA in N. Ireland.
3. The Left Sat. The American Left and N. Ireland.
4. Socialist Dream. Progressives in America.
5. People's Dream. About People's Democracy, the left-wing/civil rights/anti-partition group in N. Ireland that existed from 1968 until sometime in the 1980s.
6. 32-County Republic. Republican struggle in N. Ireland.


“65 days” based on “forty-six years” by Skrewdriver, original lyrics are here.

1. The song is about Bobby Sands, the first Irish republican hunger-striker to die in 1981. The hunger-strikers were demanding that republican prisoners be treated as prisoners of war instead of as criminals. He was on strike for 65 days before he died. See this and this for more info; see most of the second half of this for a description of how much support they had. He was 27 years old when he died.
2. The hope refers to how inspirational his sacrifice was.
**3. 40% of the lyrics are me, 60% is the original.
4. I give this song/poem three stars out of five.
5. Skrewdriver was supportive of the Unionist and British causes in N. Ireland.

Twenty-seven was his final year
his memory brings hope and tears
A man whose courage, it was unsurpassed
No surrender until the very last

(chorus)
65 days, 65 days
65 days, he stayed true to his cause

They tried to break him with their corrupt ways
tried criminalization until the end of his days
They wanted to see his spirit subdued
But his commitment was always true

Chorus

And now he's dead, they couldn’t break him
The London fools thought they could take him
a soldier who paid the ultimate price
We won't forget his sacrifice

****

“Victory or Death” based on “Win or die” by Skrewdriver, original lyrics are here.

1. The title is a republican slogan (at least, it's on a republican t-shirt I have). The song is more or less focused on members of republican paramilitaries, although there’s one bit about republicans who fought through mass struggle.
2. This is set in the first 1-2 years of The Troubles (starting in Aug. 1969).
3. the Nationalist community had some very large majority that was working-class or small farmers, and that was even more so for republicans.
4. Armalites are a kind of automatic rifle.
5. The Catholic Church was pretty consistent in being hostile to republicans.
6.Orange is the color of anti-Catholic bigotry.
7. Connolly is James Connolly, Ireland’s greatest republican and greatest socialist.
8. Valhalla is part of Norse mythology, it's a place where warriors go after they die, although there seems to be some debate about exactly who gets in- only people who die in combat? Anyway, the fascists love it and have sort of taken over the concept, but a friend told me that he likes the idea of the left claiming it and specifically said that if such a place exists, Che and others like him are probably there. (Do I believe in Valhalla? You could say I’m sort of an agnostic on that question and am sort of solidly a Christian. The way I see it, this is pretty flexible, don't take it too seriously, and one way to think about it is that if you believe in Heaven and would rather these people went there instead of Valhalla, maybe they can do both, spend some time in Valhalla and some time in Heaven; but my friend and I do like the idea of reclaiming it from the fash)
**9. 27% of this version is me, 73% is the original.
10. Considering the source of the original, I feel like I have to point out what is probably obvious: as long as it doesn't cross a certain line (and I imagine it rarely does) Irish pride is very different from White pride. (I just heard something making me think that it's probably a small minority of northern nationalists that would talk about "Irish pride"; I still feel odd completely re-writing that line, so I'm going to keep it)
11. I give this song/poem three stars out of five.
12. Skrewdriver was supportive of the Unionist and British causes in N. Ireland.

As we look 'round at our nation, the resistance starts to settle in
Our once united Irish land, as the revolution starts to begin
Arrests on the streets are often, house raids happen every single day
loyalists stalk the darkened streets, looking for defenceless prey

(chorus)
Fight for your country, fight for your class
Fight for your nation, with armalites or en masse

As the people stand up against it, the Brit propaganda begins
To oppose the northern occcupation, is counted as a sin
We're proud of being Irish, and we want to show the world
Against the Orange and reaction, we stand with flags unfurled

As we stand and face the future, our eyes raised to the sky
We pledge ourselves to struggle, we'll either win or we’ll die
We won't lose ground, and be knocked down, we've got a history
In Valhalla Connolly looks down on us, and prays for victory

*******

“The Left Sat” based on “The Snow Fell” by Skrewdriver, original lyrics are here.

1. In general it is based on the earlier post I did about how the world (overall, but the problem is focused in small number of countries and varies from country to country) and especially the left, didn’t do what it should have done on N. Ireland between 1968 and today, although it also varies from time period to time period, and the worst would be 1994 (when S. Africa was democratized) until 9/11 and crucially between 1994 and the Good Firday Agreement in 1998. I won’t bother going into it anymore than that, but you should read that post before you judge this song (since it was published in March, that post has gradually gotten even better and is now about 10% different than it was when originally published).
2. The first verse refers to Margaret Thatcher.
3. I don’t know if Thatcher had a desire to rule all of Ireland, but it’s possible, and if it wasn’t for republicans (during the War of Independence) London would still rule all of Ireland.
4. The reference to unions is sort of a tangent from the main thrust of the song, but is relevant as republicans are overwhelmingly pro-labor and concerned about British workers and it worked with keeping the word “power.”
5. The second half of the second verse refers to the period of the early 1970s when I’m pretty sure the world was probably doing a fair amount, although probably still not what they should have been doing considering the nationalist community was going through the worst of their 30-40 year nightmare. I assume that at some point, as the situation in Apartheid S. Africa got worse in the mid-1970s, that attention was shifted to that until 1994. That’s reasonable, but there are two problems. Strongly worded resolutions weren’t being passed and when S. Africa was democratized, none of that energy seems to have been shifted into N. Ireland work.
6. I believe that this failure on the part of the world and the left is what made the armed struggle go nowhere, and contributed greatly to Sinn Fein compromising via acceptance of the Good Friday Agreement. Another factor was that their nationalist constituents who had experienced the bulk of the violence aimed at civilians in the conflict were tired of the war and being terrorized by loyalist paramilitaries and the security forces.
7. The Union Jack is the British flag, Belfast is the main city in N. Ireland.
**8. 73% of it is me, 27% is the original.
9. I give this song/poem three stars out of five.
10. Skrewdriver was supportive of the Unionist and British causes in N. Ireland.
11. The second and fourth verses are about mainstream republicans including the IRA.
12. UPDATE 9/8/11 In the third line of the second verse, I'm actually not sure to what degree the left WAS concerned about the North in the early years of the Troubles. I might change that.
13. UPDATE 11/22/15 I added TRADE- to the last line of the first verse.
14. UPDATE 6/14/16 I changed THEY to YOU in the second verse Same with the chorus.

She stood in a room in a home at number ten
She'd rule all Ireland if it wasn’t for the republicans
She'd stand and she’d stare at the city skyscrappers and towers.
for she was a beast as she hatched plans to break trade-union power.

(chorus)
as the left sat
abandoning it’s vision and ideals.
And the left sat
ignoring the Irish revolutionary appeal
And the left sat
You had to compromise in your people’s interests
And the left sat
and the revolution was so much less

You used the old methods that revolutionaries had used before.
You fought as the forces of light against the darkness in an insurgent war.
One day you were looking around and the left was concerned about the North
The next day the left went back to Apartheid and focused on that till 1994

(chorus)

But they weren’t even passing strongly worded resolutions
They had abandoned the nationalists and the Irish revolution
Then, after 1994, they were distracted by the environment and globalization
And did nothing to help the oppressed of the divided Irish nation

(chorus)

You finally came to the point where you decided to compromise
You had to, while the left sat your people were terrorized
Many people had fought and died their courage was unsurpassed
It still sickens my heart to see the Union jack flying in Belfast

(chorus)

****

“Socialist Dream” based on “European Dream” by Skrewdriver, original lyrics are here.

1. It’s about the US.
2. Depending on the circumstances, I’m quite comfortable with white supremacists being banned from marching on the public streets.
3. I have had this idea that the left could flip the right-wing slogan “Better Dead Than Red” since socialism would make- fatal accidents on the job less likely; fatal health problems connected to the environment or having poor or no health insurance less likely; and murders less likely.
4. Brown is the color of fascism.
5. In general, when I said liberal, I had trouble thinking of a word that would fit better, but I think the way it is now works. there are some liberals who, based on their beliefs should be friendlier to the left and less friendly to cops and capitalists. (see this for my thoughts about liberals)
6. The line about shooting cops is a reference to recent spate of cop-killings carried out by white supremacists.
7. By capitalist, in this case I meant those who have a lot of capital.
8. As far as cops helping Nazis, there's evidence that some do. My theory is that some very tiny minority are in bed with white supremacists and a tiny minority would drag their feet on going after them. There was a state trooper in, I think, Nebraska who turned out to be a Klansmen, and according to a Southern Poverty Law Center interview with a former Nazi skinhead, some cops would hang out with his Nazi skinhead group. I read a bunch of other stuff about white supremacists in the police in a mid-1990s book called "White Lies, White Power" by Michael Novick, plus some other sources.
**7. 56% of the lyrics are me, 44% is the original.
8. I give this song/poem four stars out of five.
9. I'm not sure I should have left the 2nd line of the 2nd verse the way it is- I might change it to something. In the meantime, I think it is possible to have some kind of progressive patriotism.
10. This is supposed to be at least 99% non-violent.
3/14/11 UPDATE 11. I can't remember what I was thinking when I referred to our land as democratic- I mean, to some degree it is, but I might change that line. (UPDATE 6/1/11 I just changed it to "western")

Brothers and sisters across the states
we have to end this fascist hate
I want to know just where we stand
we fight the nazis in this western land
They try to divide the workers- try to bring us down
spread their poison in all our towns
Police protect them as they march
and arrest those whose skin is dark

(chorus)
socialist dream, there's things that should be said
socialist dream, better red than dead
socialist dream, for freedom and for bread
socialist dream, better red than dead

It's the workers' country, we want it back,
love for our nation we do not lack
Why do some liberals put us down,
when the real enemy is the brown
It's not us who is shooting cops,
this right-wing hatred has got to stop
Racist cops and capitalists help them,
I hope all liberals realize before the end

****

“People’s Dream” based on “European Dream” by Skrewdriver original lyrics are here.

1. This is my second song about People’s Democracy, somehow towards the beggining of the process it just seemed like it would work best that way. PD was a militant, left-wing, and initially student part of the Civil Rights movement in N. Ireland starting in Oct. 1968 (it later became a political party and then around 1980 declined, and many members joined Sinn Fein and then it adopted another name). There’s more about them here and the first 1/3 of this. PD doesn’t exist anymore, so this doesn’t violate my rules on publishing songs about actual organizations.
2. There are six-counties in N. Ireland. I’m pretty sure that in the very early years of the PD it was organized just in N. Ireland, and in any case, it makes sense for the song to be about the northern members.
3. It takes place 1970 to early 1972, the time when republicans were engaging in armed struggle and the civil rights movement was still marching.
4. An explanation of why it’s wrong for the police to force Orange Order marches through Catholic areas is found here.
5. I have had this idea that the left could flip the right-wing slogan “Better Dead Than Red” since socialism would make- fatal accidents on the job less likely; fatal health problems connected to the environment or having poor or no health insurance less likely; and murders less likely.
6. The Dail is the parliament of the South of Ireland, which has pretty much always been hostile to the IRA.
7. PD offered critical support to the Provisional IRA (now known simply as the IRA).
8.The RUC were the police in N. Ireland until late 2001 and there’s evidence that to one degree or another they were sympathetic to loyalist paramilitaries. I explain that around 2/5 the way through the post here. The RUC also did quite a number on the Catholic population directly.
**9. The poem is 57% me, 43% the original.
10. I give this song/poem four stars out of five.
11. Skrewdriver was supportive of the Unionist and British causes in N. Ireland.

Brothers and sisters across the six
in the cities and out in the sticks
I want to know just where we stand
we resist the Brits in our Irish land
They try and crush us- try to keep us down
occupy our cities and our towns
Police protect Orangemen as they parade
it’s been that way for all these decades

(chorus)
people’s dream, there's things that should be said
people’s dream, better red than dead
people’s dream, for freedom and for bread
people’s dream, better red than dead

It's our country- we want it united
british imperialism will be smited
Why does the Dail put the IRA down
when the British Army’s on Irish ground
we support the ones planting bombs
and we’re the reds who are marching on
The RUC helps loyalists
they’re just public sector terrorists

*****

“32-County Republic” based “Aryan Nations” by Bound For Glory, original lyrics are here.

1. There are 32 counties in Ireland.
2. People claim that the British presence in N. Ireland isn’t imperialistic. I explain why that’s not true here (it’s about 43% the way down in a large paragraph, half of which is numbered points).
3. Squaddies is a term for British army soldiers. Volunteers are members of republican paramilitaries.
4. Belfast is the capitol of N. Ireland.
5. Stoops are the Social Democratic and Labour Party, Sinn Fein’s moderate rival in the Nationalist community. I describe what’s wrong with them here.
6. To one degree or another, what the vast majority of republicans envision is revolutionary change for Ireland.
7. This is set in the period 1970 till about 1990, before the Peace Process got going; when republicans were not interested in the compromises being offered by the British and/or unionists.
8. Republicans get a lot of inspiration from other struggles elsewhere, such as S. Africa and Palestine.
9. Since the original is American I made sure to include certain elements, see this.
**10. 54% of this song/poem is me, 46% is the original lyrics, although you could say it’s 60% me since I switched the third and fourth lines of the first verse.
11. Considering the source of the original, I feel like I have to point out what is probably obvious: as long as it doesn't cross a certain line (and I imagine that in N. Ireland it rarely does) Irish pride is very different from White pride. (I just heard something making me think that it's probably a small minority of northern nationalists that would talk about "Irish pride"; I still feel odd completely re-writing that line, so I'm going to keep it)
12. I give this song/poem four stars out of five.
13. In the 4th line of the second verse, I am talking about the dream of a 32-County Republic, which is alive in our minds.
14. This is about republicans, and a republican appeal to nationalists unhappy with the SDLP.
UPDATE 5/19/16 15. The third and fourth lines from the end are not meant as an endorsement of the traditional republican view that the 1916 republic still exists- they're meant as referring to what you might call a dream or vision, possibly in the hearts of republicans? (to be a little poetic about it). Something like that.

In the midst of our struggle, that we will sustain
I see through the lies and see the imperialistic reign
I can see oppression, 'cos there's squaddies all around
Volunteers are fighting soliders, every day in Belfast town
Now tell me would you work and vote for the stoops and their creed?
Are you willing to vote for their lies when revolution is what you need?

Chrous:
the 32-County republic is rising (rising) to make a brand new start
There is no disguising (disguising) the pride that's in our hearts
the 32-County republic is rising (rising) and we will never fall
the 32-County republic is rising (rising) to answer our people's call

we're too smart to play these reformist compromise games
We've got our own thing going now and revolution is it’s name
From the gay pride marches in Dublin to the workers with raised fists
The 32-County republic is still alive as long as the dream exists
Across the mighty oceans there lies our inspiration
we stand in soldiarity with those fighting to free their nation


One last note: Even with the songs that are only about 10% me (and at the upper end, one is 75% me), I have a request, although I don't have strong feelings or expectations about this. First, I want credit for these songs. Second, I'd appreciate it if the notes follow the lyrics around the internet. If you modify the lyrics further, please either make some notes for the changes if you leave some of my changes, or just provide a link to this URL so people can see my version. Although I'm not sure how many people will like what I'm doing with the lyrics, to one degree or another (depending on how much I changed them) I'm proud of these songs- and at the risk of getting a little personal, if people like the songs, I could really use the extra boost of getting credit for them right now (or if you don't like them, they were all written by Sarah Palin- that fascist, what kind of sick person enjoys altering racist lyrics?).

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Reviews N

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).

“Life Support” See this for a plot summary.

A fairly non-political episode. We see more of how repulsive a character Kai Winn is, which is both good and nauseating. We also see more of how sexist Ferengi culture and society are.

One thing I could Northern Ireland-ize is the idea of a peace treaty between Bajor and Cardassia. I’m going to skip, for now, the details of the treaty between the Irish and the British that resulted in the South of Ireland getting it’s independence and talk about how the Dublin state got along with the British.

It’s pretty widely accepted that if Michael Collins had not been killed during the Civil War he would have continued the fight for all of Ireland to be independent and united. With his death that didn’t happen. Unlike with the situation between Cardassia and Bajor where the Occupation is completely over, the Irish state in Dublin has generally gotten along with London EVEN THOUGH the British continue to occupy an area that the vast majority of Irish consider to be Irish and want to be united with the area governed by Dublin. The State in Dublin could have been more supportive of the IRA by coming to some kind of arrangement with them and more politically supportive of the nationalist community by consistently making a big deal internationally about how they were treated. At the very least that would make things very awkward between London and Dublin, although it’s unlikely the British would have gone to war over it. If they did, that would have almost certainly increased support for the IRA in the South and re-occupying the South would not have been sustainable for the British considering the resistance they would have met in Ireland and the embarrassment it would have caused internationally. At the very least they should have taken that attitude after the events of Aug. 1969 when there were major pogroms (one successful, one unsuccessful) against the Catholic community in the North. At that point there was a lot of international attention on the North, a lot of sympathy for the Nationalist community, and it seems like at that point the British would not have reacted by directly attacking or occupying the South. Letting loyalist paramilitaries attack the South would have been relatively minor and but would have had a similar effect if the Dublin state had responded the right way, by pointing to likely collusion or the way that the British were turning a relatively blind eye to the loyalists and highlighting what was happening to the nationalist community and all the other arguments in favor of unification as justification for the State’s behavior that brought on the loyalist attacks. Also, such an aggressively republican strategy would have been appropriate at that point as the republican movement and the nationalist community were putting lots of pressure on the British and there was a higher than usual amount of international pressure on the British, which could have been increased if the Dublin state had been more republican. A leading Irish-American politician once responded to critics in the Irish-American community who were pushing him to be more (Irish) republican by saying "What do you want me to do, be more Irish than the Irish government?" Of course, it’s not an issue of being Irish, it’s an issue of being against oppression and injustice and in favor of human right and against imperialism, but it still would have been easier to generate support for uniting Ireland if the Irish state had been more republican.

Why weren’t they more republican? Historically and in recent decades, most of the politicians who have had a relatively or very moderate attitude towards the British represented business interests who didn’t want their business disrupted by confrontation with the British. in general the population in the South had their freedom and civil rights, etc. which affected how strongly they felt about the situation facing the nationalist community- they were and are concerned about them, but are not interested in confrontation with Britain since they can live their lives just fine anyway. Much of the left also were anti-republican, something which I’ve heard attributed to something called “post-colonial self-loathing.” It’s also possible that to some degree, opinions on this in the South would have improved if the rest of the world had shown the appropriate amount of interest, and as I’ve explained here and here, almost the entire reason why the world didn’t show more interest has nothing to do with Irish public opinion. It has to do with the Left and and with Sinn Fein making mistakes and the IRA making mistakes.

Going back to the episode, I don’t like it very much. I give it one star out of five.

“Heart of Stone” See this for a plot summary.

A very non-political episode, although there is one thing that’s worth commenting on. Nog starts his efforts to be the first Ferengi in Starfleet. Nog is one of my two favorite secondary characters and him being the first Ferengi in Starfleet is a very interesting story. Although as a Ferengi he’s fairly sexist, he clearly isn’t wedded to the way Ferengi society treats women and he has shown, even before expressing a desire to join Starfleet, some dissent from Ferengi values. I also like his friendship with Jake. So I like the idea of him being the first Ferengi in Starfleet.

Overall a good episode, I give it two stars out of five.

“Destiny” See this for a plot summary.

Overall a very non-political episode, two sort of political bits:

1. It’s made clear that the Federation do not allow animal fights for entertainment and gambling.

2. It’s made very clear that religious texts should not be taken too seriously, although they can be used for inspiration.

(Although I am mildly religious and fairly spiritual and the Bible laid the seeds of me becoming a socialist, I’m not a religious socialist. The seeds of socialism that the Bible planted in me when I was very young were further developed by the music I listened to in High School (as I describe in the 2nd 1/3 of an earlier post) and some information I learned about US history in 11th grade and two fiction books I read in High School. So I don’t identify as a religious socialist and don’t quote the bible in favor of my positions, but I respect people who do identify as religious socialists. They use religious documents as a small part of the basis for their arguments and believe strongly in seperation of church and state)


It’s a good episode, I give it three stars out of five.


“Prophet Motive” See this for a plot summary.

A very interesting episode, very political. We learn that the Ferengi were not always greedy and in fact at one time long ago were basically the opposite of what they are on DS9. There’s lots of anti-capitalist talk from the prophets/worm hole aliens.

Overall a good episode, I give it three stars out of five.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Reviews M

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).

“Defiant” See this for a plot summary.

Aside from the Maquis aspect (my thought on the Maquis are here, while discussing the two-parter “The Maquis”), a very non-political episode, although it raises some points I think I’ll discuss.

1. The power of the Obsidian Order (basically the Cardassian KGB). Although it’s revealed that they are prohibited from having military forces (i.e. warships) it’s also revealed that they in fact are building a war fleet, which is completely confirmed later in the series and it appears that the Order doesn’t get in any trouble for building such a fleet, which further indicates that they are a very powerful and unaccountable force on Cardassia.

2. At one point Kira raises the issue of outsiders helping with some cause. She speaks as if there’s something wrong with that, as if anyone who does that must have some ulterior motive. Plenty of people do that, although there are different ways of looking at it (do we count white anti-racists in general? do we count Irish-Americans who joined the IRA?). If people see injustice and want to help end it as an ally, and they get involved to the point where they’re part of an underground organization, I don’t see what the problem is. Even if they’re a total outsider, I still don’t see what the problem is. And people who criticize such volunteers probably also believe the US should pat itself on the back for liberating parts of occupied Europe during WWII. America should do that, because although we had other reasons for getting involved, we were partly motivated by concern for Europeans oppressed or threatened by the Nazis and we in fact did help liberate parts of occupied Europe. The fact that we were also doing it for some national security reasons doesn’t make that bad. When people do it simply to help others, that should be seen as even more acceptable.

You could also argue that by helping end the oppression of some other group, they are helping themselves in the sense that, as Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” But that kind of “selfish” motivation should be seen as acceptable.

3. Many times throughout the ST series ST mis-uses the word “terrorist.” In this episode and others it’s taken so far that Kira says that when she was with the resistance she was a terrorist. I define a terrorist as someone who focuses largely on intentionally killing civilians, although there are also operations aimed at NOTHING more than terrorizing the civilian population without killing anyone. There are different ways of looking at it and there are gray areas that will result in plenty of debate, but I’d say when at least around 2-5% of an organization’s operations are aimed at intentionally killing innocent civilians, it’s a terrorist organization- although there’s other factors to calculate in, that’s a rough guide to how I see it.

Although there will be debate about which groups are terrorist and which aren’t, since we view and treat terrorist organizations differently from others, we should try to have a good definition of what one is. The common definition is a group that fights the government. But that means that the ANC were terrorists (even in recent years ANC figures have been on US terrorist lists), the IRA are terrorists, the Iraqi kurdish Peshmerga were terrorists, etc.


Overall a good episode. I give it four stars out of five.


“Fascination” See this for a plot summary.

A very non-political episode, and not a very good one. I give it two stars out of five.


“Past Tense” parts 1 and 2. See this and this for a plot summary.

This two-parter is one of the most progressive and probably the most socialist episode ST has ever done. The two-parter is also very good, and I give it five stars out of five. A big part of why I like it is that I generally really like ST’s time travel episodes. Also, there’s some good action.

But the main thing I like about it is the politics. It’s about a period in America’s history lasting about 10-20 years and ending shortly after the events in the episode in the year 2024. At that point, every major American city had what was called a “Sanctuary District”- a walled in section of the city where homeless people without criminal records were housed. The buildings they occupied were basically squats and many people slept out on the street. Most were there for years, although the idea was that the staff would help with job placement. There was only one doctor for about 10,000 people. Security were notoriously cranky. The real idea of the districts was to keep homeless people out of sight of everyone else. It also occurred to me that it would make it difficult for the homeless to organize and express themselves to politicians and the media. It’s also treating homeless people who aren’t criminals as if they are, in the sense that their freedom is taken away, they’re put into what are basically prison camps.

The script brings up a lot of good points about poverty, I’ll high-light two of them. One of the sanctuary residents talks about how he lost his job because the company got new equipment. When automation results in people losing their jobs and those people end up homeless, that’s very messed up. Automation should be done in a way that makes things easier and safer and more productive WITHOUT costing jobs, which is very possible. Then the jobs created via the production and maintenance of the new equipment will bring us closer to full employment.

The best part of the two-parter is when the man who becomes a spokesperson of the residents says that one of their demands should be the re-instatement of the "Federal Employment Act." Whatever it is, it sounds like a good idea, and at the very least it’s some kind of stimulus program, if not something like the New Deal where the government creates jobs directly.

At the end Bashir and Sisko have the following exchange:

Bashir: Having seen the middle of the 21st century, how could they have let things get so bad?

Sisko: That’s a good question. I wish I had an answer.

Besides the great politics, it’s a great two-parter in other ways too. I give it five stars out of five.

Oh no, Here comes a green tory

I have four more songs. I've sort of upped my standards as far as the quality of what I post and what I don't. At this point I've got something like three songs I'm not posting because I'm just not happy with them. So, these are all a bit better than the average I post- they're not my favorites, but they're pretty good.

For the rest of the poems click on the "lyrics" label at the bottom (there are at least two pages worth of posts, so click on the "older posts" at the bottom of the first page).

1. Never Again. Republican struggle in N. Ireland.
2. Oh, No, Here Comes a Republican. The GOP in America.
3. Blanketmen. The struggle of republican POWs in British prisons to be treated as POWs.
4. Green Tories. Moderate or conservative Irish Nationalists.

With the exception of the last one, they're all "Those Lyrics," see this for an explanation. There's not much difference, but the higher quality ones are towards the bottom.

“Never Again” based on “Tomorrow Is Always Too Late” by Skrewdriver, original lyrics are here.

1. Stoops are the Social Democratic and Labour Party, Sinn Fein’s moderate rival in the nationalist community. For what’s wrong with them, see this.
2. The no-go areas were parts of Belfast and one huge part of Derry where the security forces were kept out by barricades and armed IRA members. They were in existence most of the time between Aug. 1969 and July 1972 and acted as safe areas for Catholics being targeted for harrassment by the security forces and murder by the loyalist paramilitaries.
3. Since this takes place during the period Jan. 1970 to Jan. 1972, the people had started marching about 2-3 years earlier, but it sort of works anyway (it doesn't say when they awoke, so it could be 2-3 years earlier, and the statement that they're marching right now would be accurate).
4. The Tri-color is the Irish flag and the starry plough is the flag of socialist republicanism.
5. The general idea of the song is that in order to guarantee that the events of Aug. 1969 would not be repeated (1,500 Catholic families were forced out of their homes by loyalists, see this and this for more details) Ireland should be united and so the sooner that happened the better, and that involved putting pressure on the British through armed and other actions. Although things ended up not being catastrophic for the nationalist community, it was reasonable to think at the time that something at least as bad as Aug. 1969 could happen again. (I don't know how many republicans and nationalists saw it that way, but probably a lot)
6. Connolly is James Connolly, Ireland greatest socialist and greatest republican and a major leader of the 1916 Easter Rising, who was executed afterwards.
7. Pearse is Padraig Pearse, a major leader of the 1916 Easter Rising, who was executed afterwards.
8. Tone is Wolfe Tone, the grandfather of Irish republicanism who led a rebellion in 1798 and committed suicide when in jail awaiting execution afterwards.
9. Bombay St. was the main area where Catholics were forced out of their homes in Aug. 1969.
10. Long Kesh was the main prison camp holding republican paramilitaries.
**11. 32% of this version is me, 68% is the original.
12. I give this song/poem three stars out of five.
13. Considering the original, I should say that Irish pride is very different from white pride (most of the time). (I just heard something making me think that it's probably a small minority of northern nationalists that would talk about "Irish pride"; I still feel odd completely re-writing that line, so I'm going to keep it)
14. Skrewdriver was supportive of the Unionist and British causes in N. Ireland.
15. I changed the 2nd line of the 1st verse by removing the word "only" from bewteen "my" and "interest."
16. This is basically about the IRA.

The stoops say what we should do, but I don't want to know
My interest is revolution, and maintaining the no-gos
The people have awoken and are marching right now
‘cause we are loyal to the Tri-Color and the starry plough

Chorus:
Tomorrow is always too late
We should never sit around and wait
Tomorrow is always too late
Get out there and do something today

Our enemies are tories, unionists as well
Both these forms of evil are raining our death knell
We salute the troops of yesterday, who fought the British plague
And we will carry on your fight as the republicans of today

(Repeat Chorus)

We must remain true to our cause, for comrades thrown in jail
For their sake and sacrifice, we must never fail
For Connolly and Pearse and Tone too, and Bombay St. as well
For the proud Volunteers in Long Kesh, our efforts they must tell


(Repeat Chorus)

*****

“Oh No, Here Comes A Republican” based on “Oh No, Here Comes A Commie” by Skrewdriver, original lyrics are here.

1. It’s about a member of the American Republican Party, the GOP. It’s also about a republican who probably represents a very small minority of today’s GOP, if you add up all the things I say about him, probably between 10% and 40% of the GOP matches this description.
2. Looking to the past means looking at periods when women had more inequality, gays were in the closet, and people of color were "in their place."
3. In the 1968 election, Nixon used what was called the “Southern Strategy” of appealing to people unhappy about desegregation. It represented a major part of the shift of the South from the democrats to the republicans. In general, white supremacists are more likely to work with the Republicans than the Democrats.
4. Only some small minority of the support that the GOP gets comes from white supremacists, but it seemed like the best substitute.
**5. 44% of this version is me, 56% is the original.
6. I give this song/poem four stars out of five.
7. As I think might be obvious, there is nothing violent about this.

He looks to the past, he worships the upper-class
Nothing but air in his head
Appears in your eyes, peddling lies
Selling ideas that are dead

He's out there every single day
Talking 'bout the unions and the gays

(chorus)
On no, here comes a republican
elephant on his breast
Oh no, here comes a republican
Won't you give it a rest?

He hates his own land, he has a plan
To bring it all down to the ground
Confuse you with lies, installs his spies
Brings our destruction around

He just wants to see our nation declining
He wants the white man’s future to be shining

(chorus)

Support for his plans, comes from the Klan
People who only know how to hate
They wear robes of white, they’re so full of shite
Just like with Nixon in 1968

The elephant gets it’s support from these anti-semites
Hopes that they’ll help roll back our hard-won civil rights

(chorus)

Oh no, here comes a republican
the stars and stripes he flies
On no, here comes a republican
Won't you off and die?

******

“Blanketmen” based on “Justice” by Skrewdriver, original lyrics are here.

1. Blanketmen were republican prisoners who, in the late seventies until shortly after the end of the hunger-strike in 1981, wore blankets because they refused to wear a criminal’s prison uniform. In the late 1970s the British tried to break the republican family by criminalizing republican prisoners. See this and this (most of the last 1/2 is about the hunger-strike era). The prsioners resisted this effort, culminating in the 1981 Hunger-Strike when 10 men died, Bobby Sands was the first. This song is set in the mid 1970s before there was a large degree of support for the prisoners (from what I’ve heard, the first 1-2 years very few people understood what was happening to the prisoners and therefore very few people cared).
2. Most, perhaps all republicans who were “on the blanket” had been convicted by jury-less courts.
3. It wasn’t until the late 1970s that large numbers of people started to care about the prisoners.
4. The nationalist population were more or less terrorized by the British security forces and by loyalist paramilitaries, although they remained strong and determined to win and confident; but you could still say they were terrorized.
5. Orange is the color of anti-catholic bigotry in N. Ireland.
**6. 47% of this version is me, 53% is the original.
7. I give this song/poem four stars out of five.
8. Skrewdriver was supportive of the Unionist and British causes in N. Ireland.

My spirit is strong as I'm dragged from the court
My mother screams "Brits out" in support
One by one, they lock us all away
non-Jury “Justice” is the game they play

(Chorus)
Call that justice, well it just ain't fair,
How much longer before they care
Call that justice from an alien judge
Jailed for fighting for the land you love

In a blanket, your time you’ll spend
‘cause you won’t break nor will you bend
A degrading regime if you won’t be criminalized
you fight for your people who are terrorized

Chorus

Call this orange state a democracy
But it’s steeped in division and inequality
Here's the reality, an alien state
Locking up patriots behind prison gates

*****

“Green Tories” based on “Government Out” by The Oppressed, original lyrics are here.

1. Green Tories are Irish nationalists who would normally be members of a normal conservative party. It could also refer to republicans with conservative politics.
2. Fianna Fail is the largest party in the South of Ireland. They’re conservative populists, generally socially conservative, and corrupt and very cooperative with the United States.
3. The stoops are the Social Democratic and Labour Party, Sinn Fein’s moderate rival in the nationalist community. I describe what’s wrong with them here. Probably some large minority of them are definitely not Green Tories, but the rest, to one degree or another, are Green Tories.
**4. 32% of this version is me, 68% is the original.
5. I give this song/poem four stars out of five.
6. Only violence is part of the "revolt" referred to and the possibility of a future violent uprising by workers in the South.

You listen to their stories
you listen to their lies
You listen to their propaganda
They’re the bastards workers despise...

Chorus:
Hear the people scream and shout
we want green tories, green tories out

Fianna Fail coddles the rich
The stoops hold back the revolt
Neither party gives a shit
all they’re after is your vote

Chorus

To who will green tories answer
when corporations rule the state
If they answer to Washington
Irish independence will be faked

Chorus

So don’t listen to their stories
don’t listen to their lies
don’t listen to their propaganda
They know one day we will rise


One last note: Even with the songs that are only about 10% me (and at the upper end, one is 75% me), I have a request, although I don't have strong feelings or expectations about this. First, I want credit for these songs. Second, I'd appreciate it if the notes follow the lyrics around the internet. If you modify the lyrics further, please either make some notes for the changes if you leave some of my changes, or just provide a link to this URL so people can see my version. Although I'm not sure how many people will like what I'm doing with the lyrics, to one degree or another (depending on how much I changed them) I'm proud of these songs- and at the risk of getting a little personal, if people like the songs, I could really use the extra boost of getting credit for them right now (or if you don't like them, they were all written by Sarah Palin- that fascist, what kind of sick person enjoys altering racist lyrics?).

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Reviews L

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).

“Second Skin” See this for a plot summary.

A fairly non-political episode. One aspect of it that’s political is that there is more evidence, combined with other episodes, that women do okay among Cardassians- not as well as they do in the Federation or among the Romulans, but it seems like they do better than Klingon women do.

Another bit of politics is that the plot represents another conflict between Cardassian dissidents and the Cardassian state, something that I like- the struggle of democratic forces on Cardassia is inspiring. There’s also the part where Kira becomes a kind of daughter of a former Cardassian leader turned exiled dissident (this is at the end when she says good-bye to him). Although it’s not a surprise with Kira, it’s still nice to see that she’s supportive of democratic forces on Cardassia. I’m not sure if that’s despite what Cardassia did to Bajor or because of it- besides believing in democracy and human rights for Cardassians, she might also understand that a democratic Cardassia will probably hold to account those responsible for crimes of the occupation AND will also be less likely to re-invade Bajor.

UPDATE 1/12/12 I should have added this a long time ago, but I DO find the Arab Spring inspirational and I do support it.

A good story, I give it three, almost four stars out of five.


“The Abdandoned” See this for a plot summary.

A very non-political episode, I give it two stars out of five.


“Civil Defense” See this for a plot summary.

A very non-political episode, I give it three stars out of five.


“Meridian” See this for a plot summary.

A very non-political episode, I give it one star out of five.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Reviews K

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).

“Tribunal” See this for a plot summary.

A very non-political episode. The only political part is the Orwellian form of “justice” practiced by the Cardassian court. We also see more on O’Brien’s attitude towards the Cardassians, although surprisingly he’s less hostile towards his “lawyer” than you would expect, evidence that his bigotry towards the Cardassians is pretty mild.

Overall, a good episode, I give it three stars out of five.

“The Jem’Hadar,” “The Search, Part 1,” and “The Search, Part 2” See the links for plot summaries.

This three-parter sees the introduction of The Dominion, who have been mentioned several times before and become the main antagonists of the Federation in DS9.

We learn that, unsurprisingly, Ferengi capitalism is also at odds with the Federation’s environmentalism.

Quark gives a brief lecture comparing human history with Ferengi history and claims that Ferengis look better because they don’t have the war, slavery and genocide that’s part of human history. The idea is that since humans have all that in addition to the greed the Ferengi have, humans historically are worse. Historically, from their point of view in the future, that’s probably true, and it’s a good idea to often highlight how humanity has done some horrible things. But at the same time, when Quark was speaking and for something like 200 years before that, humans were overall much better than Ferengi.

The next two parts are very non-political, but very good episodes, partly because they launch the main conflict in DS9, between most of the Alpha Quadrant and The Dominion.

In the simulated story, when they talk about how Bajor will become part of the Dominion, the Vorta says that Bajor won’t object. But at the beginning of this three-parter we learn that the Bajoran colony in the Gamma Quadrant was destroyed by the Jem’Hadar, something which would increase the likelihood of Bajoran resistance, probably followed by the destruction of Bajoran cities at the hands of the Jem’Hadar.

All together, this three-parter gets four stars out of five.

“The House of Quark” See this for a plot summary.

A very non-political episode. One small bit of politics is that we are reminded that women have second-class citizenship among Klingons.

There’s a couple of good items of character development. O’Brien and Bashir move closer towards being friends, a part of the show I really like. Also, after the station’s school closes, Keiko gets a job as a botanist, which is what she’s trained to do.


“Equilibrium” See this for a plot summary.

A very non-political episode, but a good one. I give it two stars out of five.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Reviews J

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).

This one will be a long one. There’s a two-parter that straddles two DVDs, so I’m doing both in one post.

“Playing God” See this for a plot summary.

A very non-political episode, but a good one. I give it two stars out of five.


“Profit and Loss” See this for a plot summary.

A fairly political episode, it could apply to lots of situations in the real world, including, to some degree, Iran. The episodes which are about democratic forces on Cardassia are always ones I like. Democracy is a very good thing, and I feel inspired by stories about people in Cardassian society that are working for a democratic Cardassia. Such forces would probably also tend to have a good understanding that what happened during the occupation of Bajor was wrong and was intertwined with how totalitarian Cardassia is.

We also see Quark behave better than usual, although it has almost everything to do with love and almost nothing to do with supporting democratic forces on Cardassia.

A good episode, I give it three stars out of five.

UPDATE 1/12/12 I should have added this a long time ago, but I DO find the Arab Spring inspirational and I do support it.


“Blood Oath” See this for a plot summary.

A very non-political episode, but a good one. I give it three stars out of five.

Kira has some good lines about how ugly, were her activities killing people while with the Bajoran resistance (in other episodes she made it clear that it was necessary, justified and helpful, and in general the resistance conducted itself honorably).


“The Maquis” parts one and two. See this and this for a plot summary.

UPDATE 11/11/11 I used to link to a page on startrek.com that describes the Maquis. It's no longer there. I think I'll have to just type something up myself, but in any case there will soon be either a new link or a brief explanation written by me.

I have mixed feelings about the Maquis. On one hand, in general I share the politics of ST and the Maquis are sort of, mostly portrayed as something close to “bad guys.” On the other hand:

1) A significant part of the Maquis, as was highlighted in a The Next Generation episode, is Native Americans who felt that their colony was the home they’d been looking for for 200 years. Their reluctance to leave is justifiable, considering that they felt that land was part of maintaining their culture.
2) Bearing in mind that Cardassian politics remained roughly as they were during the occupation of Bajor, it’s not surprising that they were treating the Federation colonists poorly.
3) Chakotay makes a pretty good Starfleet officer on Voyager, as do some of the other Maquis, especially Torres.


Going back to the other side of this, I’m not sure if most of the settlers had a good argument in favor of the idea that their desire to stay is worth causing problems for the Federation and possibly dragging them into a war with Cardassia. Most of them you could probably argue should just leave their colonies. On the other hand, some of the colonists probably had good arguments for staying and the others would have been reluctant to leave those ones behind. It seems like the negotiators who redrew the border screwed up- I can’t imagine why they felt the need to put some Cardassian colonies in Federation space and vice versa. It’s suggested that the Cardassians thought they’d come out ahead because the Federation would shelter the Cardassian colonies while they would get rid of the Federation colonists in Cardassian territory. But why would the Federation agree to swapping colonies? It seems like, after the outbreak of hostilities with the Maquis, the solution would have to be a re-negotiation of that part of the treaty and either re-draw the boundaries to avoid this problem and/or evacuate colonists wherever necessary in order to create Federation colonist-only planets and Cardassian colonist-only planets.

Like I said, I have mixed feelings about the Maquis.

Lastly, the situation kind of reminds me of the situation in Ireland with the island partitioned between north and south. The nationalist population was abandoned by about half of the republican movement, with little reason to believe that they would be treated well. They weren’t treated well and the IRA intermittently carried out operations until 1970 and then almost constantly carried out operations until 1997, and that often brought them into conflict with the authorities in the South. In 1948 they adopted a General Order that force was not to be used against the State in the South (there was a lot of hostility most of the previous 30 years between republicans and the state in the south). This amounted to some degree of de facto recognition of the Dublin state and resulted in very few shootings or bombing by republicans in the South. In 1986 Sinn Fein decided that if their members got elected to the Parliament in Dublin, they would take their seats, which was sort of, almost completed the recognition of that state, although it fell short of agreeing to stop attacks on the British, and there were some small problems here and there.

I’d actually say that republicans should have taken the approach they took from 1986 until 1997 earlier. That is, the approach where they recognize the state, but insist that pressuring the British to get out of the North is more important than listening to Dublin about the IRA’s activities. In the mid 1950s a small republican group took that approach and at the same time that the military wing was attacking the British, the overall leader was a member of the Irish Senate. So it would have been possible and probably would have been helpful as the population probably would have been more supportive and the security forces probably would have been less hostile.

Going back to the episodes, they’re pretty good, I give them three stars out of five.


“The Wire” See this for a plot summary.

In a few places, civil liberties are raised. First, Odo continues having an attitude about maintaining order on the station that conflicts with Federation concerns about civil liberties- something that seems to come up, at least so far in the series, about every other episode. Although Odo is obviously a good guy, it’s made clear by the Starfleet characters pretty consistently, especially by Sisko, that, with some reasonable exceptions in emergencies, civil liberties are a priority. Second, the way that the Cardassian security/intelligence organization Obsidian Order maintains a totalitarian eye on the private lives of Cardassians is described.

Besides that, a very non-political episode, but a good one. I give it three stars out five.


“Crossover” See this for a plot summary.

In general a non-political episode, but some things are worth discussing.

First, when they describe the history of the mirror universe, they mention how the terran (human) empire was reformed by Spock and then, after the reforms were completed, the Alliance of Cardassia and the Klingons conquered the terrans. The idea is that the reforms weakened the terrans’ ability to defend themselves. I don’t know exactly what the reforms were but I can imagine they were basically progressive-socialist and included some degree of demilitarization. I wouldn’t say there is zero risk of something like that when you reduce the size of your military, but A) in general the benefits are worth it and B) in some ways it improves your security.

When I think of the US decreasing the size of the military, I’d say there would be a lot of benefits, both in general, and specifically for our national security. In terms of our security, i’d say the following:

1) Some of the money that would be saved could be put into debt forgiveness and/or non-military foreign aid. That would improve the world’s opinion of the US and make it less likely we’ll be attacked and more likely that if we are attacked we have a lot of allies.

2) Some of the money that would be saved could be put in to domestic social programs like health-care that would improve the image people have of the US. There’s a large chunk of the planet’s population that don’t like the US PARTLY because of how poor and working-class Americans are treated in America.

3) Many throughout the world would make it clear that they are against an attack on America and would come to America’s aid if it were attacked if we didn’t have the fairly threatening military posture we currently have. We’re basically saying “see this gun? DON’T FUCK WITH ME!” A lot of people then don’t care if someone DOES fuck with us. A reduced military would change that.


What I outline above would work best if accompanied by a general change in American foreign policy, but even just shifting some money around in the federal budget would help make America safer.

Making America more democratic and decreasing inequality would, overall, decrease the threat to us and increase the willingness of other countries to stand with us, discouraging attacks and helping us after attacks if they happen.

Going back to the episode, I’m not a big fan of the mirror-universe episodes. I give this one three stars out of five.


“The Collaborator” See this for a plot summary.

A fairly non-political episode, aside from the role of Vedek Winn, who I have described before as basically a conservative fundamentalist religious leader, and who is, of course, the antagonist of Starfleet, especially Sisko and O’Brien.

Overall, a good episode, I give it three stars out of five.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Reviews I

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).

“Armageddon Game” See this for a plot summary.

This episode raises the issue of weapons of mass destruction. Getting rid of WMD is a good idea. These weapons are totally indiscriminate and have lasting environmental effects. However, the United States, and any other country that wants to, needs to take the lead on abandoning these weapons. This is too important for nations to say “we’ll move after they move.” The deterrent should be a global pact that whoever uses WMD will be ostracized and isolated by the global community.

When it comes to nuclear weapons, my thoughts on this are influenced by one of three novels that are more or less in the genre associated with novelist Tom Clancy but that I nonetheless recommend to progressives for reading. That book is “Fire Lance” by David Mace. It was written in 1986 and is about a future nuclear war where after the US and USSR exchange fire with most of their respective nuclear arsenals, the northern hemisphere is going through nuclear winter- a condition which is spreading south. The two sides are taking a break and the US government, in bunkers, is considering starting things up again. They end up doing that and at the end it’s made clear that pretty much all human life on the planet will die as a result of nuclear winter. It’s a very powerful anti-nuclear war statement.

When people say that we need these weapons to deter terrorists or to eliminate other countries’ WMD, that ridiculous. Terrorists are not deterred by our WMD, they get more popular support because we have WMD. And our possession of WMD makes it more dificult for the global community to make it very clear that WMD are unnaceptable on our planet.

Going back to the episode, it also sees a bit of movement towards O’Brien and Bashir being friends, although I think that friendship is still about 5-10 episodes away.

I give it four stars out of five.

“Whispers” See this for a plot summary.

A very non-political episode, but a good one, I give it three stars out of five.

“Paradise” See this for a plot summary.

A fairly political episode.

It’s about a group of people who have developed a society without technology, a back-to-nature type thing. Their leader arranged for them to be forced by circumstances into that situation- she wanted to establish such a community, as she decided that technology was bad for people.

Although I’m not interested in being part of such a community myself, I see little problem with people living like that if they choose, although there are probably some potential problems, such as the issue of whether or not modern medical treatment is availed of, especially for children. I haven’t looked into it or thought about it much, but as long as any available medical treatment was used for children and people could leave if they wanted, as far as I can tell, there’s little problem with it, although today opportunities to live that way are few considering how crowded the planet is getting. There MIGHT also be some problems with such people rejecting reasonable regulations and laws that have to be applied to them. I guess I would have to evaluate each case on it’s own.

One neat aspect of this episode is that we learn how O’Brien became an engineer after initially being more or less an infantry soldier during the war with the Cardassians.

A good episode, I’d give it three stars out of five.

“Shadowplay” See this for a plot summary.

A very non-political episode, but a good one. I give it two stars out of five.