Below are three new poems. For an explanation of how I do these poems, see this. The last poem, "We Are All Republicans," is based on a non-political skinhead song by an anti-fascist skinhead band, so that's different than most of my poems.
1. Six Million Died. About Holocaust Denial.
2. Irish Tet. About the IRA
3. We Are All Republicans. About the IRA.
The rest of the poems can be found by clicking on the "lyrics" label at the bottom. There are about five pages worth so click on the "older posts" link at the bottom of each page.
“Six Million Died” based on “Six Million Lies” by No Remorse, original lyrics are here.
1. This is about the Holocaust. About six million Jews died.
2. With the last line of the first verse, I don’t mean to say there aren’t large differences between anti-Semitic extremism/violence and anti-fascist extremism/violence.
3. “Living Space” is English for a Nazi German term for what they wanted in central and eastern Europe- space for German settlers. I think this was largely but not totally separate from the Final Solution, since that part of Europe had a lot of Jewish people. I think it makes enough sense.
4. Zyklon B was the gas they used.
5. In EUROPE (and kind of in the Pacific), the Allies or at least the US, waged a fairly honorable war against the Axis.
**6. 60% of this version is me, 40% is the original.
7. I give this poem three stars out of five.
8. Occasionally I use words like"fight" and actually mean non-violent "fighting"; in this poem I was thinking of a response to to holocaust denial and fascism generally where the response is PROBABLY about 99% non-violent.
9. UPDATE 2/17/16 I replaced "in case" with "that" in the 5th line of the first verse.
Six million lies?
No, that’s how many died
Torture by the Nazis, we have the proof
Why did they try to cover up the truth?
Scared that they would all hang
yeah, their extremism and violence would boomerang
Chorus:
Six million of the human race
Partly to get more “living space”
Genocidal use of Zyklon B
By the fucking Nazis, of Germany
One of the worst genocides in history
They wanted Europe Jewish free
A cover-up is what nazis have tried
To hide the lies of their white pride
Well anti-fascism didn't die
The truth will break through all the Nazi lies
Chorus
So let's make the world Nazi free
We all want a diverse society
Nazism is rotten to the core
We’re fighting for truth and justice in this war
With honour and respect we'll surely win
Just like we did when we took on Berlin
*********
"Irish Tet" based on "Final Attack" by Final War, original lyrics are here.
1. In the 1980s the IRA had planned and partly armed themselves for what might be called an Irish version of the Tet offensive of the Vietnam War. Partly because some of their arms were lost or intercepted, they called it off. This poem is sort of a “what-if” about those plans.
2. I deleted the chorus and the last two lines of the last verse.
3. The BA is the British Army.
4. In such a situation I’m not sure if their mission would have been to maintain that level of activity until the British agreed to leave- it probably would have been to do that for as long as possible (and liberate as much territory as they could for as long as they could). Such a campaign would have contributed to a later agreement by the British to leave, especially as it would have drawn a LOT of global attention to their cause.
5. The 3rd line of the second verse is a reference to historical events centuries ago.
6. With the last line of the 3rd verse I probably greatly exaggerate how much revenge motivated them. But the British Army and the RUC did horrible things to the nationalist community.
7. The last line refers to the WWII (brown is the color of fascism). I just learned that apparently sometimes the French Resistance DID take and hold objectives for a short period of time. (this creates the necessary minimum conflict between my poem and the beliefs of the (AMERICAN and possibly Irish-American) authors of the original lyrics (more here))
**8. 58% of this version is me, 42% is the original.
9. I give this poem four stars out of five.
10. UPDATE 2/17/16 Based on what might be called a fairly scientific look, only about .2% of the IRA's operations intentionally resulted in civilian death.
11. UPDATE 7/5/16 I replaced "unleash" with "release."
The day is approaching, the day we release
All hell on the BA and the RUC police
gonna fight back, gonna knock em dead
Like fire the revolution will be spread
gonna use RPGs and heavy machine guns
won't stop till our mission is done
they invaded and took our land
now we’re gonna smash them with an iron hand
we've got our sights set on BA choppers and watch towers
corporate buildings, we’ll show them this country is ours
we're on a rampage, we just let loose
We’re gonna make them pay for all their abuse
we’re seizing mills, bridges and towns
We’re inspired by those French that fought against the brown
*************
“We Are All Republicans” based on “We’re The Oppressed” by The Oppressed original lyrics here.
1. This is basically about the IRA although some of it could apply to other mainstream republicans as well depending on how we define words like "fight" for this poem. It’s set sometime before the 1997 cease-fire, I guess at least about 4 years before.
2. Orange is the color of anti-Catholic bigotry in the Irish-British context.
3. The BA is the British Army.
4. They were forcing the British elite to move towards a united Ireland, and to some small degree they succeeded (my thoughts about the compromise of the Good Friday Agreement are here).
5. At some point in the past for at least a year or two and probably a decade or two, Sinn Fein called for a constitutional convention to be part of a future unification of Ireland. I think it’s a great idea that should be revived for two reasons: 1) it would probably shift Ireland towards the left and even more importantly, 2) it would give the northern Protestants a very big say in what kind of Ireland they’re being added to (they’d be on the same level as everyone else). (more of my thoughts on how to ease Protestants and unionists into a united Ireland are found here)
7. The second half of the first line of the second verse is a little strange, but that was already there and for the time being I have decided to keep it (and I wouldn’t be surprised if BA soldiers saw the Nationalist community as being the “other”).
**8. 79% of this version is me, 21% is the original.
9. I give this poem five stars out of five.
10. The second line of the last verse refers to the NORTHERN Catholic working-class.
11. Armalites are rifles, RPGs are Rocket Propelled Grenades.
Born to fight, born to win
We are all republicans.
Born into this sectarian Orange state
Fighting for Irish freedom, we won’t wait
The BA fears us, thinks we're strange
Armalites and RPGs, we fight for change
We will never, ever be beat
As we force the British elite
We are Volunteers, of the Irish masses
Fighting for the Catholic working-classes
Advancing freedom and revolution
A new Ireland and a new constitution
Showing posts with label Holocaust Denial. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Holocaust Denial. Show all posts
Friday, February 12, 2016
Friday, September 25, 2009
Star Trek: Voyager 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).
“False Profits” See this for a plot summary.
A sort of political episode about Ferengi capitalism. The attitude of Ferengi, and many capitalists in the real world, is illustrated by the exchange between a Ferengi and a local:
Local: I am a sandle-maker from the poorest quarter of the city.
Ferengi: The laziest you mean.
There’s some other things that illustrate capitalism among Ferengi (and some of today’s capitalists
“Remember” See this for a plot summary.
This episode is about genocide. The group being targeted is resisting technological progress that society is making. First, the existence of Amish people shows that such people can co-exist with a modern technological society. In any case, exterminating people because they reject technology obviously is bullshit.
The story is well done- the genocide and the cover-up well illustrated. Although I wouldn’t mind a more positive ending, I kind of like how they leave things sort of up in the air about whether or not the truth of the genocide will be confronted by the Enaran people.
I’ll take this opportunity to briefly describe one of my very favorite books. It’s called “Fatherland” by Robert Harris. It’s an alternative history novel where Nazi Germany wins the war and there is a cold war between them and the US. A Berlin police detective who’s almost a dissident, stumbles onto evidence of the Holocaust. The Final Solution was completed but there’s no official records and no one talks about it, although some people more or less understand what happened. The detective investigates and discovers the truth.
If you’re not much of a reader, there’s movie that’s been made based on the novel.
Anyway, this episode get four out of four stars.
“Sacred Ground” See this for a plot summary.
A non-political episode. I give it two stars out of five.
“Future’s End” Parts 1 and 2. See this and this for a plot summary.
Although non-political, a very good two-parter. I say that partly because I generally always like time travel ST episodes. Also, I generally like Sara Silverman, who guest stars.
I give it four stars out of five.
“Warlord” See this for a plot summary.
A non-political episode, but tiny thing that could be considered anti-homophobic. While a male consciousness in inhabiting Kes, she kissed Tuvock, a male. On the other hand, like most of the other same sex kisses in ST, it’s noteworthy that Kes is inhabited by a villain.
Anyway, I give it three stars of five.
“the Q and The Grey” See this for a plot summary.
A non-political episode, although as a sort of Civil War buff I kind of liked that aspect of it. I give it three stars out five.
“Macrocosm” See this for a plot summary.
A non-political episode. I give it two stars out of five.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Reviews E
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 Forsaken” See this for a plot summary.
A very non-political episode, but an okay one. I hate to say this considering the role of the actor in the world of ST, but I’ve never been a fan of the Lwaxana Troi character which might be a small part of why I’m close to giving this episode one star instead of two. I’m not too interested in the awkwardness of Odo trying to fend off Troi who doesn’t take no for an answer. The other part of the episode, about the computer, is good, but I’m still tempted to go with one star. Having said that, I give it two stars out of five.
“Dramatis Personae” See this for a plot summary.
Another very non-political episode, but a good one. The way the crew start acting differently is interesting. I give it two stars out of five.
“Duet” See this for a plot summary.
This is one of my favorite episodes, I’ll say right away it gets five out of five stars.
It’s about a Cardassian who served as a military file clerk at a notorious forced labor camp where Bajorans mined for the Cardassians. He creates a situation where he is identified on DS9 as the notorious senior officer in charge of the camp. He does this so that his war-crimes trial at the hands of Bajorans will force Cardassia to confront the truth of what it did to Bajor.
When Kira figures out that he was only the file clerk and he describes how horrible he felt about what was done at the camp, they have the following exchange:
Kira: You didn’t commit those crimes and you couldn’t stop them. You were only one man.
Marritza: oh no, don’t you see, I have to be punished, we all have to be punished. Major you have to go out and tell them I’m Gul Darhe’el. It’s the only way
Kira: Why are you doing this?
Marritza: For Cardassia. Cardassia will only survive if it stands in front of Bajor and admits the truth. My trial will force Cardassia to acknowledge it’s guilt. And we’re guilty, all of us. My death is necessary.
Kira: What you’re asking for is another murder. Enough good people have already died. I won’t help kill another.
Later, when Kira is walking with Marritza on the Promenade, she says to him: “what you tried to do was very honorable. If Cardassia is going to change, it’s going to need people like you.” Right after she says that, a Bajoran fatally stabs him and says that he did it simply because he was a Cardassian, a justification Kira rejects.
Kira’s first and last lines and Marritza’s second line in the exchange are very good lines, as is Kira’s line right before Marritza is killed. Although it’s not a big surprise with Kira, it’s still noteworthy that she tried to make him feel better, recognizing that even though he was in the military at the camp, he was just a file clerk and he felt horrible about what happened.
What Marritza says in his second line, which is complemented by what Kira says right before he dies, is great. When one nation occupies or otherwise hurts another in a way comparable to what Cardassia did to Bajor (or worse), they also damage themselves. It invites an erosion of democracy, and also invites corruption and bigotry; and it harms that nation’s reputation with others. Once that has happened, the best way to deal with it is to be brutally honest. You can’t get rid of a problem until you admit that you have a problem- being honest about it will make it less likely that it will happen again in the future. The nation cannot regain the full respect of others until it is honest and does what can be done to right the wrongs they committed.
As far as something very comparable in the real world, it would be nice if more Germans with knowledge of the Holocaust had been honest about it- although some were, it wasn’t as many as we would have liked. But many did come forward with information about it. This also reminds me of how at the end of the war one American officer who liberated a camp forced the people of the local town to come to the camp to see what it was like, something which apparently shocked the townspeople.
Another good example of course is England/the UK and Ireland. I’m not too sure how much of the ancient part of that history Britain has acknowledged and apologized for. I know that in 1997 Tony Blair was the first British Prime Minister to apologize for British policy during the Famine. I also know that when that happened, republicans suggested that he should also apologize for London introducing sectarianism to Ireland as a way to oppress the indigenous population.
More recently, there’s been a lot of activity around looking into the past events in the conflict over the partition of Ireland. There’s the Bloody Sunday Inquiry, an investigation into the Dublin and Monaghan bombing (and allegations of British collusion in those bombings) and a lot of other deaths where the role of the security forces is an issue- either because it was the security forces who killed people, or they’re suspected of colluding with the loyalist paramilitaries. Although I’m not familiar with the details, various human rights groups have expressed concern about how the British government is setting up inquires and such into past events- it is setting them up in such a way that the government has a lot of control over the final product. There have been calls for an internationally organized inquiry into the past, comparable to S. Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation but organized by some international organization like the United Nations. There’s also a need to be more honest about the discrimination Catholic have faced, and about the conditions facing Catholics before the reforms of 1968-70. By the time the British government becomes honest about this, they’ll probably be politically ready to withdraw from Ireland, but in the meantime they can and should be pressured to go with an internationally organized look at the past as described above. Also, when the truth is more officially established or reinforced by new reports and statements by politicians, this will have an important effect on opinion among the Protestant population in N. Ireland. It will almost definitely nudge people towards being anti-sectarian if they have more reason to accept that Catholics have been treated very badly in N. Ireland. The ant-sectarian minority among Protestants will go from small to large (I’m defining anti-sectarian in the sense that they will take a stand and say something whenever inappropriate comments are made, that sort of thing). So, it’s not just the British that would benefit from someone like Marritza, but also the Protestants who are unionists in the North- if more of them would speak out against how Catholics have been treated and to a small degree still are being treated, that would be very beneficial. One part of why it would be beneficial is that eroding sectarianism would strengthen the broad working-class in N. Ireland, through the labor movement and other organizations that are pro- working-class.
Are there people more or less like Marritza in Britain or N. Ireland? Yes. there’s the Troops Out Movement in Britain, and lots of Labour, left, and some other politicians who say and do the right things. In the North, there are left politicians who more or less fill the role. One of Sinn Fein’s District Councilors is a Protestant who used to be a cop, Billy Leonard. In the late 1970s the chief of staff of the Irish National Liberation Army was Ronnie Bunting Jr. whose father was a notorious sectarian bigot. There are others who more or less fit the mold, in the sense that they are Protestants who have broken from Unionism and are part of and/or support the nationalist population.
Going back to the episode, I want to highlight Marritza’s powerful statement: “Cardassia will only survive if it stands in front of Bajor and admits the truth.”
Basically every aspect of the episode is great. Five stars out of five.
“In The Hands Of The Prophets” See this for a plot summary.
This episode introduces the character who, although I can’t stand her, is nonetheless a welcome part of the series. She’s vedek Winn, basically a priest, who is campaigning to be Kai, basically Pope.
In order to increase her profile and create a situation where her rival will be asassinated, she picks a fight with Keiko O’Brien who is teaching the children of the station. Winn objects that Bajoran religious beliefs are not being taught since some of the students are Bajoran.
I should say at this point that although I am mildly religious and fairly spiritual, I believe strongly in secular education with people of all religious beliefs and none learning together. Thus I agree with Keiko’s position that she won’t teach Bajoran religious beliefs and with Sisko’s opposition to creating a second school for the Bajoran kids. Keiko told Winn “I don’t teach Bajoran spiritual beliefs, that’s your job.” Later, Winn suggests that Keiko shouldn’t teach anything that conflicts with Bajoran beliefs. I can tell you that I was taught many things which contradicted the Bible, but it didn’t erode my religious faith. It is possible to learn scientific theories and facts that contradict your religion and still have faith in that religion.
UPDATE 12/27/15 I may have mentioned this elsewhere but I think it also needs to be mentioned here. I basically believe in Intelligent Design, but I don't believe it should be taught or even mentioned alongside evolution in science classes and probably no ore than slightly mentioned in school in general.
The idea of religious segregation in education reminds me, of course, about N. Ireland. According to Eamonn McCann, in April 1997, the Chancellor of the University of Ulster, rabbi Julia Neuberger, labeled the single-religion schools for Catholics and Protestants “sectarian” when she was speaking at the opening of an integrated school. Her statement caused an uproar, at least among large parts of the Catholic population. I think people should be careful using the term sectarian- it has two meanings in relation to N. Ireland and religion. First, a reference to DIVISIONS, and second, a reference to BIGOTRY. To suggest that the schools maintained by the Catholic Church are anti-Protestant is not accurate, but they do represent sectarian divisions. In the mid-1970s Seamus Costello of the Irish Republican Socialist Party said that he supported the continuation of separate education for Catholic children because in a united system, Catholic children would be taught the wrong things as far as Irish history and Irish politics (it would be Unionist). Costello made it clear that he didn’t like the Catholic Church controlling education but he felt that the alternative would be worse. That was before the development of integrated education in the early 1980s, years after Costello was killed. Today, especially with the Assembly set up so that education cannot be dominated by Unionism, I’d say that at this point, and for the last 11 years at least, integrated education is a good idea. It will erode sectarian divisions, has the potential to see some of the Protestant students won over to the Irish nationalism of some of their peers, and will weaken the political power of the Catholic Church, which is good for a lot of reasons (the social conservatism they promote and their support for the Social Democratic and Labour Party).
UPDATE 10/21/16 (my thoughts on the IRSP and Costello are found here (my high opinion of Costello is not reflected in my opinion of the Republican Socialist Movement since 1982) )
UPDATE 4/26/11 In early 2002, the then leader of the Irish Labour Party, Ruari Quinn, praised Martin McGuiness of SF for the work he was doing promoting integrated education as the N. Ireland Minister of Education.
Going back to the episode, it’s made very clear that Winn’s extremist, fundamentalist and conservative combination of politics and religion is a minority tendency in the Bajoran faith. The other side of Bajor’s religion, represented by vedek Bareil is very popular, both with the clergy and with the people. Which is more or less (in some ways less) how it is, in general, with religion.
Overall it’s a good story, although I have to take off a few points for how Winn annoys me, which brings it down to three stars out of five (without Winn I’d say three but almost four).
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 Forsaken” See this for a plot summary.
A very non-political episode, but an okay one. I hate to say this considering the role of the actor in the world of ST, but I’ve never been a fan of the Lwaxana Troi character which might be a small part of why I’m close to giving this episode one star instead of two. I’m not too interested in the awkwardness of Odo trying to fend off Troi who doesn’t take no for an answer. The other part of the episode, about the computer, is good, but I’m still tempted to go with one star. Having said that, I give it two stars out of five.
“Dramatis Personae” See this for a plot summary.
Another very non-political episode, but a good one. The way the crew start acting differently is interesting. I give it two stars out of five.
“Duet” See this for a plot summary.
This is one of my favorite episodes, I’ll say right away it gets five out of five stars.
It’s about a Cardassian who served as a military file clerk at a notorious forced labor camp where Bajorans mined for the Cardassians. He creates a situation where he is identified on DS9 as the notorious senior officer in charge of the camp. He does this so that his war-crimes trial at the hands of Bajorans will force Cardassia to confront the truth of what it did to Bajor.
When Kira figures out that he was only the file clerk and he describes how horrible he felt about what was done at the camp, they have the following exchange:
Kira: You didn’t commit those crimes and you couldn’t stop them. You were only one man.
Marritza: oh no, don’t you see, I have to be punished, we all have to be punished. Major you have to go out and tell them I’m Gul Darhe’el. It’s the only way
Kira: Why are you doing this?
Marritza: For Cardassia. Cardassia will only survive if it stands in front of Bajor and admits the truth. My trial will force Cardassia to acknowledge it’s guilt. And we’re guilty, all of us. My death is necessary.
Kira: What you’re asking for is another murder. Enough good people have already died. I won’t help kill another.
Later, when Kira is walking with Marritza on the Promenade, she says to him: “what you tried to do was very honorable. If Cardassia is going to change, it’s going to need people like you.” Right after she says that, a Bajoran fatally stabs him and says that he did it simply because he was a Cardassian, a justification Kira rejects.
Kira’s first and last lines and Marritza’s second line in the exchange are very good lines, as is Kira’s line right before Marritza is killed. Although it’s not a big surprise with Kira, it’s still noteworthy that she tried to make him feel better, recognizing that even though he was in the military at the camp, he was just a file clerk and he felt horrible about what happened.
What Marritza says in his second line, which is complemented by what Kira says right before he dies, is great. When one nation occupies or otherwise hurts another in a way comparable to what Cardassia did to Bajor (or worse), they also damage themselves. It invites an erosion of democracy, and also invites corruption and bigotry; and it harms that nation’s reputation with others. Once that has happened, the best way to deal with it is to be brutally honest. You can’t get rid of a problem until you admit that you have a problem- being honest about it will make it less likely that it will happen again in the future. The nation cannot regain the full respect of others until it is honest and does what can be done to right the wrongs they committed.
As far as something very comparable in the real world, it would be nice if more Germans with knowledge of the Holocaust had been honest about it- although some were, it wasn’t as many as we would have liked. But many did come forward with information about it. This also reminds me of how at the end of the war one American officer who liberated a camp forced the people of the local town to come to the camp to see what it was like, something which apparently shocked the townspeople.
Another good example of course is England/the UK and Ireland. I’m not too sure how much of the ancient part of that history Britain has acknowledged and apologized for. I know that in 1997 Tony Blair was the first British Prime Minister to apologize for British policy during the Famine. I also know that when that happened, republicans suggested that he should also apologize for London introducing sectarianism to Ireland as a way to oppress the indigenous population.
More recently, there’s been a lot of activity around looking into the past events in the conflict over the partition of Ireland. There’s the Bloody Sunday Inquiry, an investigation into the Dublin and Monaghan bombing (and allegations of British collusion in those bombings) and a lot of other deaths where the role of the security forces is an issue- either because it was the security forces who killed people, or they’re suspected of colluding with the loyalist paramilitaries. Although I’m not familiar with the details, various human rights groups have expressed concern about how the British government is setting up inquires and such into past events- it is setting them up in such a way that the government has a lot of control over the final product. There have been calls for an internationally organized inquiry into the past, comparable to S. Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation but organized by some international organization like the United Nations. There’s also a need to be more honest about the discrimination Catholic have faced, and about the conditions facing Catholics before the reforms of 1968-70. By the time the British government becomes honest about this, they’ll probably be politically ready to withdraw from Ireland, but in the meantime they can and should be pressured to go with an internationally organized look at the past as described above. Also, when the truth is more officially established or reinforced by new reports and statements by politicians, this will have an important effect on opinion among the Protestant population in N. Ireland. It will almost definitely nudge people towards being anti-sectarian if they have more reason to accept that Catholics have been treated very badly in N. Ireland. The ant-sectarian minority among Protestants will go from small to large (I’m defining anti-sectarian in the sense that they will take a stand and say something whenever inappropriate comments are made, that sort of thing). So, it’s not just the British that would benefit from someone like Marritza, but also the Protestants who are unionists in the North- if more of them would speak out against how Catholics have been treated and to a small degree still are being treated, that would be very beneficial. One part of why it would be beneficial is that eroding sectarianism would strengthen the broad working-class in N. Ireland, through the labor movement and other organizations that are pro- working-class.
Are there people more or less like Marritza in Britain or N. Ireland? Yes. there’s the Troops Out Movement in Britain, and lots of Labour, left, and some other politicians who say and do the right things. In the North, there are left politicians who more or less fill the role. One of Sinn Fein’s District Councilors is a Protestant who used to be a cop, Billy Leonard. In the late 1970s the chief of staff of the Irish National Liberation Army was Ronnie Bunting Jr. whose father was a notorious sectarian bigot. There are others who more or less fit the mold, in the sense that they are Protestants who have broken from Unionism and are part of and/or support the nationalist population.
Going back to the episode, I want to highlight Marritza’s powerful statement: “Cardassia will only survive if it stands in front of Bajor and admits the truth.”
Basically every aspect of the episode is great. Five stars out of five.
“In The Hands Of The Prophets” See this for a plot summary.
This episode introduces the character who, although I can’t stand her, is nonetheless a welcome part of the series. She’s vedek Winn, basically a priest, who is campaigning to be Kai, basically Pope.
In order to increase her profile and create a situation where her rival will be asassinated, she picks a fight with Keiko O’Brien who is teaching the children of the station. Winn objects that Bajoran religious beliefs are not being taught since some of the students are Bajoran.
I should say at this point that although I am mildly religious and fairly spiritual, I believe strongly in secular education with people of all religious beliefs and none learning together. Thus I agree with Keiko’s position that she won’t teach Bajoran religious beliefs and with Sisko’s opposition to creating a second school for the Bajoran kids. Keiko told Winn “I don’t teach Bajoran spiritual beliefs, that’s your job.” Later, Winn suggests that Keiko shouldn’t teach anything that conflicts with Bajoran beliefs. I can tell you that I was taught many things which contradicted the Bible, but it didn’t erode my religious faith. It is possible to learn scientific theories and facts that contradict your religion and still have faith in that religion.
UPDATE 12/27/15 I may have mentioned this elsewhere but I think it also needs to be mentioned here. I basically believe in Intelligent Design, but I don't believe it should be taught or even mentioned alongside evolution in science classes and probably no ore than slightly mentioned in school in general.
The idea of religious segregation in education reminds me, of course, about N. Ireland. According to Eamonn McCann, in April 1997, the Chancellor of the University of Ulster, rabbi Julia Neuberger, labeled the single-religion schools for Catholics and Protestants “sectarian” when she was speaking at the opening of an integrated school. Her statement caused an uproar, at least among large parts of the Catholic population. I think people should be careful using the term sectarian- it has two meanings in relation to N. Ireland and religion. First, a reference to DIVISIONS, and second, a reference to BIGOTRY. To suggest that the schools maintained by the Catholic Church are anti-Protestant is not accurate, but they do represent sectarian divisions. In the mid-1970s Seamus Costello of the Irish Republican Socialist Party said that he supported the continuation of separate education for Catholic children because in a united system, Catholic children would be taught the wrong things as far as Irish history and Irish politics (it would be Unionist). Costello made it clear that he didn’t like the Catholic Church controlling education but he felt that the alternative would be worse. That was before the development of integrated education in the early 1980s, years after Costello was killed. Today, especially with the Assembly set up so that education cannot be dominated by Unionism, I’d say that at this point, and for the last 11 years at least, integrated education is a good idea. It will erode sectarian divisions, has the potential to see some of the Protestant students won over to the Irish nationalism of some of their peers, and will weaken the political power of the Catholic Church, which is good for a lot of reasons (the social conservatism they promote and their support for the Social Democratic and Labour Party).
UPDATE 10/21/16 (my thoughts on the IRSP and Costello are found here (my high opinion of Costello is not reflected in my opinion of the Republican Socialist Movement since 1982) )
UPDATE 4/26/11 In early 2002, the then leader of the Irish Labour Party, Ruari Quinn, praised Martin McGuiness of SF for the work he was doing promoting integrated education as the N. Ireland Minister of Education.
Going back to the episode, it’s made very clear that Winn’s extremist, fundamentalist and conservative combination of politics and religion is a minority tendency in the Bajoran faith. The other side of Bajor’s religion, represented by vedek Bareil is very popular, both with the clergy and with the people. Which is more or less (in some ways less) how it is, in general, with religion.
Overall it’s a good story, although I have to take off a few points for how Winn annoys me, which brings it down to three stars out of five (without Winn I’d say three but almost four).
Thursday, May 21, 2009
More on Israel and Anti-Semitism
In this case, I think for now I'll just provide a link to the discussion I've been part of on another blog. It's about a formerly left-wing group in Eugene OR which, through anti-semitism over Israel, has become more right-wing than left-wing. It's here.
For the rest of my stuff on this issue see two posts, one of which is linked to from the first, here.
Actually, although reading the discussion is probably worth your time, I guess I WILL post most of my comments here.
UPDATE 7/20/09 I just realized something. When the bigot talks about how atheist, non-/anti-zionist Jews shouldn't identify as Jewish, I think he was trying to accomplish something else in addition to genocide by decreasing the number of people who identify as Jewish. If non-/anti-zionist Jews stop identifying as Jews, it'll be even easier for people like these bigots to say that supporting Israel is characteristic of all Jews, and that will fuel anti-semitism on the left, and there will be more people susceptible to being recruited by the far-right.
"#
Tom Shelley said,
on May 13th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
I am sort of reluctant to tell people this, although I probably should when this comes up, and I have now told three people before this.
In my sophmore year of college, I was mildly anti-semitic. First, it was mild, I never used the K-word, I never thought “those f—ing jews,” I certainly as f— never bought in to Holocaust Denial, but I had some kind of negative attitude towards Jews.
It was largely about Israel. Although it wouldn’t matter if my estimate was right, I had an exaggerated sense of how uncritical J-As are. Same thing with how upper-middle-class they are. I also had two Jewish room-mates, one that year and one the year before, I didn’t get along with, one I even got in a fight with. And to a large degree I didn’t know many Jews till my freshman year of college (although my Mom’s best friend was Jewish).
I did basically nothing about it, I don’t know if it was connected to me organizing an event in support of the Palestinians (no one showed, there was another event on that issue, the same night). I’ve continued supporting the Palestinians, and the speaker I got, I have since learned is very much against anti-semitism, although possibly a little soft on Hamas, and I don’t think I was thinking at the time that he was anti-semitic.
About 3 years later I was organizing Students for Justice in N. Ireland at CU-Boulder with a Jewish woman as a fellow co-chair. Obviously it was not a great leap for me, my problem was pretty mild. I think what did it was that when I spent some time doing an AFL-CIO internship called Union Summer, the assistant site coordinator was Jewish (later on we were kind of friends at college) and there was an Irish-Catholic guy and they did this Catholic/Jewish rivalry thing for laughs, I’m not sure how to describe it, but about 5 years ago on Comedy Central Jon Stewart and Colin Quinn did it.
Not exactly the Angela King story, but I thought I’d mention it.
tom"
****
and
****
"#
Tom Shelley said,
on May 21st, 2009 at 4:28 pm
(apparently the comment I’ve been trying to post is too long. It’s been suggested that I edit it down, but I don’t know what the limit is, and I kind of hate doing that anyway, so I’m doing it in two parts, hope that’s okay)
I actually found the Pacifica Forum web-site, and found some things that contradict what I thought and some things that support what I thought, so I’m basically where I was earlier. Some things that contradict what I thought (or with the last one, makes them look okay, I mean, how many groups do that?):
1) Several links to progressive sources.
2) A link to jewishvoiceforpeace.org (of course for all I know they ARE self-hating, but I doubt it)
3) Fondness for United for Peace and Justice (if they’ve gone bad I probably would have heard about it unless it was the last 6 months)
4) probably 2-3 other minor things.
5) A willingness to feature links to articles critical of them and statements by former members who are critics.
stuff that supports the charges:
2) They had a speaker talk about his passion for the swastika. As far as I can tell it was the traditional swastika, but you do things like have David Irving speak and then have a pro-swastika event, you can’t complain if people connect the dots.
3) Attacks on Naomi Klein, Noam Chomsky, and Amy Goodman. Must be a coincidence that they’re all Jews. They support the Palestinians, but they’re attacked anyway. With Chomsky it’s specifically because he believes it’s possible that Israel can be preassured to change, but he doesn’t get it that Zionist hate is in the genes (or the talmud, or whatever these sick people at Pacifica think) (as I’m sure those three would agree, the point is that it’s possible to convince Jewish Israelis and their Jewish supporters elsewhere that Israel must dramatically transform how it relates to the Palestinians, and that is very possible- sort of likely, and will be more likely when those supporting the Palestinians make it more clear that anti-semitism is not tolaterated in their ranks). (I’m actually not a big Chomsky fan, Klein seriously annoys me, but I used to love Democracy Now, my not listening recently isn’t a protest).
4. The following is from a page on their site: “‘It is an inconvenient truth that for a section of the Western public, an increase in anti-semitism would lead to a decrease in support for Israel, so Zionism and anti-semitism are sometimes on opposite sides of the fence, rather than two sides of the same coin. It follows that it is impossible to be equally opposed to Zionism and to anti-semitism.’” This is clearly aimed at getting supporters of the Palestinians to be anti-semitic, and could easily be interpreted as hoping for an upsurge in incidents.
to be continued
#
Tom Shelley said,
on May 21st, 2009 at 4:30 pm
part 2 of my comments above
5. I don’t feel like throwing myself into this, but will make a few comments on the page https://pacificaforum.org/posts/10
A: “Real fascists are against Zionism. Their genuine opposition to Jewish supremacy should be openly discussed, not slandered and suppressed.” Sounds like they’re friendly to fascists to me, although elsewhere the author claims to be against fascism, while at the same time making a major attack on anti-fascism (https://pacificaforum.org/mass).
B: “Britain’s main extreme right-wing party, the BNP, embraced Zionism at the same time it abandoned the last trace of anti-semitism - yet the left still calls it ‘Nazi’” This contradicts his claim that anti-fascism is pro-Jewish. I’m not sure how far the BNP has moved on anti-semitism and Israel, I mean, American Renaisance conferences had Jewish speakers as racist allies and anti-semitic speakers at the same time, but events have shown that they liked the anti-semites more than the racist jews, so they were basically anti-semites while providing kosher meals for their racist Jewish friends. Anyway, it does contradict the idea, ridiculous to begin with, that anti-fascism is pro-Jewish- it’s anti-hate, it’s pro-democracy, it’s pro-diversity etc. Also, his statement sounds like he’s complaining about people criticizing the BNP, like he’s still sort of fond of them even after they (to one degree or another) stopped being anti-semitic. It’s possible that without the anti-semitism, fascist is a more appropriate term for the BNP than Nazi, but who cares? The difference is so small that I’m not going to care when someone on the far-right uses that to criticise anti-fascists.
#
Tom Shelley said,
on May 21st, 2009 at 4:31 pm
part 3
6. In a post at https://pacificaforum.org/posts/23 the pacifica writer writes: “I remember the folk singer Leon Rosselson once making a comment at one of his gigs along the lines of
“if you’re of Jewish origin but you’re not religious and you’re not a Zionist there’s not really much point in calling yourself a Jew”.
Unfortunately, he then fudged the issue by claiming to believe in some kind of ‘Jewish spirit’ and then sang a song about it.”
In general the post seems aimed at a method of genocide similar to what happened with American Indians and boarding schools, turning Indians into white people. And it’s stupid. As far as I can tell, (I got this largely from a Jewish-American who was a fellow Ethnic Studies major) being Jewish is also an ethnic/cultural identity, at least for some majority- some are atheists and identify that way solely. There are some others I’m iffy on, but I know of one Jewish person who is an atheist, identifies as Jewish, and supports the Palestinians. Of course she had to throw a wrench into this by telling me she identifies as a religious Jew, but that’s stupid and the facts are the facts: A) she doesn’t believe in God (this is all based on when we were friends about 7 years ago) B) she changed her first name to a traditional Jewish one, C) she talks about Israel by using the word Apartheid. So as far as I can tell, you can be a secular Jew who supports the Palestinians (I suppose to some tiny degree she might call herself a Zionist, but probably not and she does talk about Israeli Apartheid).
7. In that piece on anti-fascism, he makes all sorts of excuses for the killing of Seraw, the Ethiopian killed in Portland OR by boneheads in the late 1980s. More generally he suggests that hate crimes are often something other than hate crimes.
I think that’s about it. I might read more. Like I said, I’m still where I was before, although it was interesting to get some more details. There are basically two Pacifica sites which link to each other. https://pacificaforum.org/ and
http://www.geocities.com/pacificaforum/
Tom"
For the rest of my stuff on this issue see two posts, one of which is linked to from the first, here.
Actually, although reading the discussion is probably worth your time, I guess I WILL post most of my comments here.
UPDATE 7/20/09 I just realized something. When the bigot talks about how atheist, non-/anti-zionist Jews shouldn't identify as Jewish, I think he was trying to accomplish something else in addition to genocide by decreasing the number of people who identify as Jewish. If non-/anti-zionist Jews stop identifying as Jews, it'll be even easier for people like these bigots to say that supporting Israel is characteristic of all Jews, and that will fuel anti-semitism on the left, and there will be more people susceptible to being recruited by the far-right.
"#
Tom Shelley said,
on May 13th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
I am sort of reluctant to tell people this, although I probably should when this comes up, and I have now told three people before this.
In my sophmore year of college, I was mildly anti-semitic. First, it was mild, I never used the K-word, I never thought “those f—ing jews,” I certainly as f— never bought in to Holocaust Denial, but I had some kind of negative attitude towards Jews.
It was largely about Israel. Although it wouldn’t matter if my estimate was right, I had an exaggerated sense of how uncritical J-As are. Same thing with how upper-middle-class they are. I also had two Jewish room-mates, one that year and one the year before, I didn’t get along with, one I even got in a fight with. And to a large degree I didn’t know many Jews till my freshman year of college (although my Mom’s best friend was Jewish).
I did basically nothing about it, I don’t know if it was connected to me organizing an event in support of the Palestinians (no one showed, there was another event on that issue, the same night). I’ve continued supporting the Palestinians, and the speaker I got, I have since learned is very much against anti-semitism, although possibly a little soft on Hamas, and I don’t think I was thinking at the time that he was anti-semitic.
About 3 years later I was organizing Students for Justice in N. Ireland at CU-Boulder with a Jewish woman as a fellow co-chair. Obviously it was not a great leap for me, my problem was pretty mild. I think what did it was that when I spent some time doing an AFL-CIO internship called Union Summer, the assistant site coordinator was Jewish (later on we were kind of friends at college) and there was an Irish-Catholic guy and they did this Catholic/Jewish rivalry thing for laughs, I’m not sure how to describe it, but about 5 years ago on Comedy Central Jon Stewart and Colin Quinn did it.
Not exactly the Angela King story, but I thought I’d mention it.
tom"
****
and
****
"#
Tom Shelley said,
on May 21st, 2009 at 4:28 pm
(apparently the comment I’ve been trying to post is too long. It’s been suggested that I edit it down, but I don’t know what the limit is, and I kind of hate doing that anyway, so I’m doing it in two parts, hope that’s okay)
I actually found the Pacifica Forum web-site, and found some things that contradict what I thought and some things that support what I thought, so I’m basically where I was earlier. Some things that contradict what I thought (or with the last one, makes them look okay, I mean, how many groups do that?):
1) Several links to progressive sources.
2) A link to jewishvoiceforpeace.org (of course for all I know they ARE self-hating, but I doubt it)
3) Fondness for United for Peace and Justice (if they’ve gone bad I probably would have heard about it unless it was the last 6 months)
4) probably 2-3 other minor things.
5) A willingness to feature links to articles critical of them and statements by former members who are critics.
stuff that supports the charges:
2) They had a speaker talk about his passion for the swastika. As far as I can tell it was the traditional swastika, but you do things like have David Irving speak and then have a pro-swastika event, you can’t complain if people connect the dots.
3) Attacks on Naomi Klein, Noam Chomsky, and Amy Goodman. Must be a coincidence that they’re all Jews. They support the Palestinians, but they’re attacked anyway. With Chomsky it’s specifically because he believes it’s possible that Israel can be preassured to change, but he doesn’t get it that Zionist hate is in the genes (or the talmud, or whatever these sick people at Pacifica think) (as I’m sure those three would agree, the point is that it’s possible to convince Jewish Israelis and their Jewish supporters elsewhere that Israel must dramatically transform how it relates to the Palestinians, and that is very possible- sort of likely, and will be more likely when those supporting the Palestinians make it more clear that anti-semitism is not tolaterated in their ranks). (I’m actually not a big Chomsky fan, Klein seriously annoys me, but I used to love Democracy Now, my not listening recently isn’t a protest).
4. The following is from a page on their site: “‘It is an inconvenient truth that for a section of the Western public, an increase in anti-semitism would lead to a decrease in support for Israel, so Zionism and anti-semitism are sometimes on opposite sides of the fence, rather than two sides of the same coin. It follows that it is impossible to be equally opposed to Zionism and to anti-semitism.’” This is clearly aimed at getting supporters of the Palestinians to be anti-semitic, and could easily be interpreted as hoping for an upsurge in incidents.
to be continued
#
Tom Shelley said,
on May 21st, 2009 at 4:30 pm
part 2 of my comments above
5. I don’t feel like throwing myself into this, but will make a few comments on the page https://pacificaforum.org/posts/10
A: “Real fascists are against Zionism. Their genuine opposition to Jewish supremacy should be openly discussed, not slandered and suppressed.” Sounds like they’re friendly to fascists to me, although elsewhere the author claims to be against fascism, while at the same time making a major attack on anti-fascism (https://pacificaforum.org/mass).
B: “Britain’s main extreme right-wing party, the BNP, embraced Zionism at the same time it abandoned the last trace of anti-semitism - yet the left still calls it ‘Nazi’” This contradicts his claim that anti-fascism is pro-Jewish. I’m not sure how far the BNP has moved on anti-semitism and Israel, I mean, American Renaisance conferences had Jewish speakers as racist allies and anti-semitic speakers at the same time, but events have shown that they liked the anti-semites more than the racist jews, so they were basically anti-semites while providing kosher meals for their racist Jewish friends. Anyway, it does contradict the idea, ridiculous to begin with, that anti-fascism is pro-Jewish- it’s anti-hate, it’s pro-democracy, it’s pro-diversity etc. Also, his statement sounds like he’s complaining about people criticizing the BNP, like he’s still sort of fond of them even after they (to one degree or another) stopped being anti-semitic. It’s possible that without the anti-semitism, fascist is a more appropriate term for the BNP than Nazi, but who cares? The difference is so small that I’m not going to care when someone on the far-right uses that to criticise anti-fascists.
#
Tom Shelley said,
on May 21st, 2009 at 4:31 pm
part 3
6. In a post at https://pacificaforum.org/posts/23 the pacifica writer writes: “I remember the folk singer Leon Rosselson once making a comment at one of his gigs along the lines of
“if you’re of Jewish origin but you’re not religious and you’re not a Zionist there’s not really much point in calling yourself a Jew”.
Unfortunately, he then fudged the issue by claiming to believe in some kind of ‘Jewish spirit’ and then sang a song about it.”
In general the post seems aimed at a method of genocide similar to what happened with American Indians and boarding schools, turning Indians into white people. And it’s stupid. As far as I can tell, (I got this largely from a Jewish-American who was a fellow Ethnic Studies major) being Jewish is also an ethnic/cultural identity, at least for some majority- some are atheists and identify that way solely. There are some others I’m iffy on, but I know of one Jewish person who is an atheist, identifies as Jewish, and supports the Palestinians. Of course she had to throw a wrench into this by telling me she identifies as a religious Jew, but that’s stupid and the facts are the facts: A) she doesn’t believe in God (this is all based on when we were friends about 7 years ago) B) she changed her first name to a traditional Jewish one, C) she talks about Israel by using the word Apartheid. So as far as I can tell, you can be a secular Jew who supports the Palestinians (I suppose to some tiny degree she might call herself a Zionist, but probably not and she does talk about Israeli Apartheid).
7. In that piece on anti-fascism, he makes all sorts of excuses for the killing of Seraw, the Ethiopian killed in Portland OR by boneheads in the late 1980s. More generally he suggests that hate crimes are often something other than hate crimes.
I think that’s about it. I might read more. Like I said, I’m still where I was before, although it was interesting to get some more details. There are basically two Pacifica sites which link to each other. https://pacificaforum.org/ and
http://www.geocities.com/pacificaforum/
Tom"
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