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)



(The "Table of Contents" offers brief descriptions of all but the most recent posts)


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YOU NEED TO READ THE POST "Trump, Netanyahu, and COVID-19 (Coronavirus)" here. It is a contrast of the two on COVID-19 and might be helpful in attacking Trump. And see the middle third of this about Trump being a for-real fascist.

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Star Trek: Voyager 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).

“Worst Case Scenario” See this for a plot summary.

A non-political episode. I give it three stars.

“Scorpion” Parts 1 and 2 See this and this for a plot summary.

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

“The Gift” See this for a plot summary.

A non-political episode, but it does require some notes.

First, we say goodbye to Kes, who was one of my least favorite VOY main characters. We also see the begginning of Seven’s transformation from being a Borg towards being a human.

I give it three stars out of five.

“Day of Honor” See this for a plot summary.

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

“Nemesis” See this for a plot summary.

First, I kind of like and kind of hate the dialect of english used by the aliens.

Setting aside the liklihood that what Chakotay witnesses in the simulation exaggerates things, it’s a good illustration of genocidal oppression. The fact that the Vori use such indoctrination techniques for recruits to their military (including any alien they get their hands on) makes me think their cause is not so just; on the other hand, the way Chakotay is greeted when he visits the village for real indicates that the Vori soldiers have popular support.

As far as both sides being equally bad, that’s often the case. That was more or less the case with WWI and probably the vast majority of wars.

I give this episode four stars out of five.

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