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).
“The Sword of Kahless” See this for a plot summary
A very non-political episode, but a good one, I give it two stars out of five.
“Our Man Bashir” See this for a plot summary
A very non-political episode, but a good one. I give it four stars out of five.
“Homefront” and “Paradise Lost” See this and this for a plot summary
A very political two-parter. It’s largely about preserving democracy and freedom while a nation battles an external enemy.
I think the methods adopted early in the two-parter are okay. The sweeping of certain areas with phaser fire seems like a good idea, although as Sisko’s dad pointed out, the blood tests were not worth the trouble. I have mixed feelings about soldiers on the streets in that situation, although they were thinking a Jem’Hadar invasion could be imminent, so that kind of justifies it.
The admiral’s belief that Starfleet should take over is obviously undemocratic- his claim that it wouldn’t be a dictatorship is ridiculous. Democracy makes nations stronger, it motivates the people to do their best when they’re fighting for democracy.
It’s important to avoid destroying a democracy in order to save a democracy. There are reasonable measures depending on the context that I would support even though they erode democracy and/or freedom. Even better, there are measures that can be taken when a threat increases that don’t erode democracy or freedom at all- many of the measures taken in relation to air-travel security since 9/11 are in that category, as was the suspension of flight for a brief period after 9/11. But many others, including much of the Patriot Act have significantly eroded democracy.
(I can't remember exactly what I was thinking when I wrote the second sentence of the paragraph above. I sort of want to walk it back some and offer as an example, how during WWII the British should have had at least one general election and didn't have any between 1936 and 1944. But they DID have a government of national unity including both Labour and the Tories)
Overall a good two-parter, I give it four 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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