Star Trek: SNW Reviews D

I am now starting to do “reviews” of episodes of the new Star Trek series “Strange New Worlds.” Unlike earlier ST review posts this time I’ll be doing, at least MOST of the time, one relatively long essay for a single episode that merits some significant commentary (I wouldn’t be surprised if out of a final total of 46 episodes I’ll do one or two posts that are very brief). I’ll be focusing almost exclusively on the political aspects of the episodes but will usually not comment on the pervasive multiculturalism and gender equality of ST.

“The Serene Squall” Episode Seven, Season One. See this for a plot summary.

There are three political themes to mention.

They/Them/Theirs (LGBTQ+)

Although it could possibly be construed as hostile to non-binary people because the character who makes some good statements about being yourself turns out to be the bad guy, it’s actually pro-LGBTQ+ because the prominent doctor she is impersonating IS non-binary and a good guy. This (the pro-LGBTQ+ statement made by the existence of a character who is a popular Federation doctor and is non-binary) gets a little sharper when there is some talk about how Spock, who is half human and half Vulcan, doesn’t need to choose between being Vulcan and being human:

ASPEN: Spock, you know, all species put things into boxes. It’s like you’re either this or you’re that and sometimes we act a certain way to fit people’s expectations, but that’s not necessarily who we are. And sometimes, like on the bridge just now, it can limit us.
SPOCK: You are proposing I better balance my human and Vulcan natures.
ASPEN: I’m saying maybe you’re neither.
SPOCK: That is nonsensical. If I am not human or Vulcan, what am I?
ASPEN: That’s not my question to answer.

First of all, I think this episode counts as pro-LGBTQ+ and I think that “Dr. Aspen’s” statements above are pretty well written.

I am going to use this as an opportunity to get a little long-winded and also a little personal. On one hand, I have been a fairly good or very good ally of what I call the LGB, since 11th grade. On the other hand, for some reason I have been kind of slow to see what I call the TQ+ as important. I go into a little more detail here when discussing the “Broken Rhymes” episode. This is the first time I have commented on the non-binary part of the population (I have watched every season of Discovery an average of three times (including the last three seasons that include a non-binary main character) but I have yet to do “reviews” of that show- something I’ll do in about a year).

First, if “Dr. Aspen” is talking about Spock identifying as equally human and Vulcan, that seems like a better idea than identifying 100% one way or the other. In The Original Series I believe that Spock identified mostly or overwhelmingly as Vulcan. If “Dr. Aspen” meant creating some kind of brand new identity I have tried to grasp what that would be and it has slipped through my fingers or has been as ethereal as smoke, dispersing into nothingness as I try to grasp it. There’s a good chance I am overthinking this and/or I need to get a firmer grip on the LGBTQ+ identities, so I think I will just move on very soon. The good news is that I think that in the process of typing this I DID improve my grasp of the LGBTQ+ identities.

A Clockwork Red??? (Rehabilitation of Convicts)

(Although I was a fan of “A Clockwork Orange” in 9th grade I don’t think I have watched it since then. Wikipedia’s explanation of the term “clockwork orange” doesn’t help, but it sounds like what some assortment of society and government leaders want people to be upon leaving prison, and I believe we need a progressive view of rehabilitation of convicts)

There’s a brief part of the episode that’s about criminal rehabilitation on Vulcan. It sounds pretty good. When I think of that issue in reality in America, I think it’s probably a really good thing, although it must have some short-comings. Although therapy and vocational opportunities and education and such in prison CAN help with some of what’s wrong in our society, I think that a huge majority of convicts wouldn’t be there if they weren’t poor and I would add a similar statement about an overlapping large minority of convicts who wouldn’t be there if they weren’t people of color. In the next three paragraphs I will offer an abridged explanation of exactly what I mean by that.

I simply assume that there are innocent people in prison- and I mean completely innocent- I will say something about the others soon. This belief is partly just a vague one based on being engaged with American liberalism and progressivism for roughly 35 years. It’s also influenced by a work of non-fiction (The Innocent Man) and at least two works of fiction (The Confession and The Guardians) by the author John Grisham. Although I don’t look for this, about once a year I stumble on to a story about someone being declared innocent years after their conviction- I assume that for every such case I hear about there’s probably something like 100 I don’t hear about. There was at least one statement by a main character in the TV show Law and Order: SVU about there being innocent people in prison. And then there’s the people who are sort of guilty but don’t deserve to be convicted - i.e. abused women who killed their abuser, 18yos who had sex with a 17yo in some of the nation’s states, the character Carl Lee Hailey in Grisham’s A Time To Kill, etc.

To a large degree the majority of inmates who wouldn’t be there if they weren’t poor don’t need rehabilitation. Many are completely innocent and would have been acquitted if they hadn’t been represented by an over-worked, under-resourced Public Defender. Many more wouldn’t have committed a crime if not for one or more poverty-related factors that drove their criminal behavior (i.e. they wouldn’t have stolen a loaf of bread for their family if they weren’t penniless, or they wouldn’t have gotten work selling marijuana if they had been able to afford college). In general, POVERTY, not bad morals or a lack of civic values, is why they committed a crime.

To a large degree the majority of those inmates who wouldn’t be there if they weren’t people of color don’t need rehabilitation. They’re there because a racist cop framed them, and a jury fell for it, or they’re guilty but it’s because the racist nature of this society alienated them from trying to work within the system, because the people criticizing crime were the same ones brutalizing their community economically, physically, institutionally, etc. What I’m talking about is well illustrated in the 1996 non-documentary film “Set It Off” starring Queen Latifah and Jada Pinkett Smith. One of the four Black women turns to crime partly because her racist bank employers fire her after a man from her neighborhood tries to rob the bank. Another of the four women turns to crime after her brother, an innocent and unarmed man, is killed by police. There is of course the aforementioned overlap between the population of non-white convicts and the population of poor convicts.

It’s likely that some or most of the convicts I write about above could benefit from therapy and/or vocational and/or educational opportunities while in prison. Ideally there may, in theory, be some way for that to be progressive- i.e. if convicts get therapy and/or college degrees in prison, is the education or therapy compatible with their experiences as (for example) working-class Black Americans? I also wonder how radical books collected by progressives and donated to prison libraries fare when they’re examined by whatever prison official looks at them. When I think about this stuff I worry that at this point, with increasing politicalization outside prisons because of George W. Bush and now Donald Trump, prisons are not creating opportunities for progressive values to be learned or explored or weaponized (depending on which prisoners we’re talking about).

Spartacus (Slavery)

Although it turns out to be a red herring deployed by the bad guy, at one point the crew of the Enterprise thinks that they’re going after slave traffickers. It would be a good story if there WAS an ST episode about going after such scum. About 3-6 years ago I watched the movie “The Birth of a Nation,” which is based on a true story of a major slave rebellion in the American South, and it is a really good movie. I also watched, about 6 years ago, the movie “Harriet” about the Underground Railroad, and I have it in my collection. ST has reminded us of the issue of slavery several times in it’s life, but an episode just about fighting slavery would be great- one story possibility would be a StarFleet crew helping maintain a sci-fi version of the Underground Railroad. About 33 years ago I read a The Next Generation novel called “Spartacus” about the Enterprise encountering a ship adrift with a bunch of android slaves.

Letter-to-the-editor on Trump and the Confederacy

This was published in the Boulder Weekly Jan. 26th 2023, here. The column I'm responding to is here.

Editor,

As much as I usually love Dave Anderson’s columns, his latest, about the Civil War, could have been better. I’d like to offer some facts that Dave at least kind of left out. In recent years I have frequently gotten the impression that a LOT of Americans are confused about the Civil War. People think it was about states’ rights and not slavery and racism. In recent decades many people in the Republican Party who were either closet racists (or had been fooled by them) thought it was fine to have the Confederate flag displayed wherever people wanted to display it, including as part of state flags.

The Confederacy and it’s symbols were and are about slavery and racism. The Confederacy was NOT about state’s rights as some have claimed. Those who pushed for it’s creation complained that northern States had anti-slavery laws. At one point, the Confederacy’s leaders briefly considered ending slavery to get military support from Europe- support that probably would have resulted in victory against the Union. They decided to keep slavery, meaning that slavery was more important to them than independence from Washington D.C. And there was at least one incident where Black Union soldiers captured by the South were executed instead of being taken to POW camps as were the White Union soldiers.

When Donald Trump needed a new Secretary of Veterans Affairs in 2018, the position was filled by Robert Wilkie, a man with a history of involvement with the Neo-Confederate movement. In 2020 Trump passionately opposed re-naming military bases named after Confederate military leaders, including one responsible for the incident where Black POWs were executed. In 2017 Trump talked about the Civil War and said that the former President Andrew Jackson would have handled the slavery issue better than Lincoln did and the Civil War would have been avoided. Jackson was a passionate opponent of abolitionists and would have compromised with the South and slavery would have continued with (at most) minor changes to it's geographic scope and/or life time and/or there may have been minor changes in how slaves were treated. Or he may have done absolutely nothing about slavery- if it were up to Donald Trump, slavery might still exist today.

As Dave said, the Neo-Confederate view is part of the MAGA movement.

Tom Shelley
Boulder

Law and Order: SVU Reviews G

This is a set of reviews of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episodes. My general thoughts about that show are here. I’ll often do no more than make brief notes about an episode, although occasionally I’ll go deeper. Also, often there are dissenting main characters on almost any political issue, but you can usually tell what the general position of the show is. All the rest of the reviews are available by clicking on the l&osvu label at the bottom.

(Now that I’m getting into some of the episodes that involve the character John Munch, I’m going to ignore most of his political statements)

“Hate” Season 5. Wikipedia summary is: “The team find themselves threading on a thin line when a man (Reynaldo Rosales) murders two Arabs (plus a third while in custody) and claims his genes and biology enforced the hatred and violence in him. However, Detectives Benson and Stabler discover a different reason for his Islamophobia and are determined to discredit his claims of genetic predisposition to violence.”

 

Hate Crime Laws

I’m not going to say anything about the psychology involved, but this is a pretty good episode about hatred. One thing it touches on is the racist theory that the “others” are getting all the economic opportunities. It does suggest a theory that hate crimes laws could be used on, for example, black people that kill KKK members. I think that’s ridiculous, it’s completely different than the other way around. I think hate crime laws are a good idea. Hateful violence is more terroristic towards the community targeted than violence in general and is certainly closer to being genocidal, which is a special crime and deserves special laws (if we’re talking about murder or attempted murder, you could say it’s inching towards being genocidal).

“Ritual” Season 5. Wikipedia summary is: “A young boy is killed in a ritualistic manner which Fin identifies as that of Santeria and the detectives question the leader (Barry Shabaka Henley) of a local chapter. Their attention turns elsewhere, however when they learn that the victim was one of many slave children smuggled from Nigeria.”

 

Modern-day Slavery

This has a little to say about modern-day slavery. As far as I can tell it happens outside the world of SEX slavery trafficking, which is the kind of trafficking that the detectives found when they found the killer. It’s very similar to the kind we’ve studied in history books- slaves are separated from their family members and it seems that there is no schooling of slaves who are children, possibly in part to keep them from rebelling. it also appears in this episode to be racial, although there’s at least one other SVU episode about slavery and that one focuses on a different kind, where a white woman is brought to America by a single individual and not a network of criminals. At the end the highest member of the network they get their hands on is a Nigerian and I think it would have been better and perhaps even more realistic if it had been a white American.

“Lowdown” Season 5. Wikipedia summary is: “A prosecutor (Dean Strange) is found dead with HIV in his system. Suspicion points to another attorney (Michael Beach) who was secretly in a sexual relationship with his co-worker. Casey Novak puts her job on the line and involves the suspect's wife (Bethany Butler) to get a confession.”

This episode is about homophobia, especially in the Black community.

The Stars and Bars II

Recently great attention has been placed on symbols of the Confederacy in our nation. It almost seems like there is a near consensus that such symbols belong in museums and nowhere else. But Trump, who is still supported to one degree or another by a large minority of the population and might be re-elected, passionately believes that there is nothing wrong with such symbols.

I have named this post “The Stars and Bars II” because I did a post about 11 years ago called “The Stars and Bars.” It’s about how legitimizing the Confederate flag contributed to a woman (whose story I read about in the publication of the Southern Poverty Law Center) becoming a Nazi skinhead.

A lot of people believe that the Confederacy was about independence from tyrannical Washington DC rule instead of being about slavery. But when they considered ending slavery to get military support from Europe and win the war, they decided not to. Slavery was more important to them than independence.

When people invoke states rights in connection with the Confederate cause, what they don’t know or ignore is that the Confederate states were unhappy with those northern states that passed laws interfering with the Fugitive Slave Act and which banned slave-owners from bring slaves with them while inside those states. They were against individual states passing anti-slavery laws.

The Confederacy didn’t believe in freedom. According to the movie “CSA: The Confederate States of America” (which is a fake documentary looking at an alternative history where the South wins), they intended to colonize Latin America if successful.

The idea that the South was oppressed by the North is ridiculous. In two ways their voting population was over-represented in the US government.

First, as I explain towards the bottom of this post, the way the US Senate works is undemocratic to the benefit of the smaller states. I have yet to create a 100% fool-proof argument, but take the number two for two Senators and divide it by the population of Wyoming, the smallest state and do the same thing with California. The tiny percentage of a vote that residents of the former have in the Senate is MUCH bigger than the same for Californians, about 67 times bigger. There is nothing wrong about small states being out-voted by big states, it’s not like living in a small state puts you in a protected class and you need some sort of Affirmative Action. I’m willing to bet that the population of the average Confederate state back then was probably about 1/10 the size of the population of the average Union state (UPDATE 9/4/23 I just found a way to sort of nail this down without a lot of work- the average Confederate state had 5.25 congressional districts and the average Union state (including the border states) had 7.4 congressional districts).

There’s also the 3/5 Compromise, where in terms of allocating US House districts, each slave was counted as 3/5 of a person. I’m sure in some Confederate states before the Civil War, this meant at least an additional House seat.

So, the states that formed the Confederacy had MORE power per non-slave resident than the States that remained in the union. They were not oppressed by the North. Even with their inflated political power, they were often just out-voted. Considering that the Constitution gives every state an additional two votes in the Electoral College based on having two Senators, which creates a small and false degree of equality between the states, that statement applies to the election of Lincoln as well.

They were also, if it’s not obvious, just racist. One example of that is that some Black Union soldiers captured by the Confederacy were killed instead of being held as POWs and more generally Black POWs were treated differently than white POWs.  One of the military installations that Trump wants to keep named after a Confederate general, Fort A.P. Hill, is named after someone who had his men execute Black POWs. According to this (two other things in this post come from there), when Texas seceded, it was explicitly in favor of the idea that the white race is superior.

The Confederacy was all about racism and slavery and had no legitimate claim to being oppressed by the North. The Confederate flag is a symbol of racism and should be removed from anything official and military bases named after Confederate generals should be renamed and statues etc. about the Confederacy should be removed to museums where they belong.

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit Reviews A

This is a set of reviews of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit episodes. My general thoughts about that show are here. I’ll often do no more than make brief notes about an episode, although occasionally I’ll go deeper. Also, often there are dissenting main characters on almost any political issue, but you can usually tell what the general position of the show is. All the rest of the reviews are available by clicking on the l&osvu label at the bottom.

The first episode is a two-parter, the first called “Man Up” and the second part called 
“Man Down.” The wikipedia summaries are:

“The Special Victims Unit is called in after a fifteen-year-old boy (Bryce Romero) is sexually assaulted. Despite having evidence, he is too scared to name his attacker (Dylan Walsh), making things complicated for the detectives. When the identity of the attacker is discovered, the detectives do their best to protect the teenager from being abused again. Meanwhile, Rollins talks things through with her ex-boyfriend who cheated on her with an escort and also confides in Benson that she is pregnant for a second time. Benson expresses concern to Tutuola that she is not as strong or fast as she used to be.”

and

“The case involving a teenager who was sexually assaulted continues and Stone takes the rapist to court. However, an unexpected verdict comes back, shocking everyone involved. The victim ends up making a tragic decision which results in several people dead and injured and the Special Victims Unit must charge the victim. An upset Stone along with the rest of the squad decide to try their best to charge the boy's rapist as well in order to get justice for all the victims who were killed or injured in the attack. Meanwhile, Rollins starts having doubts about her pregnancy.”

 

Feminism

There are two feminist aspects of this. Overall it’s slightly about taking the idea of pushing someone to “man up” to a point where it becomes sexist. There’s also a moment when Benson says to Rollins about abortion: “This is your decision to make, alone, and I will defend to the death your right to make it, but regret is an awful thing to live with.”

 

Gun Control and Politics

The main element of the second half is a school shooting and this brings up the issue of gun control, something I largely support. I was in college when the Columbine incident took place in 1999 and I think if the “gun show loophole” had been closed it might not have happened. I was surprised to learn recently that in recent years increasingly law enforcement opposes gun control, which seems to me to mean that more than usual they have a double standard and want guns out of the hands of some of the population but are fine with conservatives having guns. They continue to introduce people of color, disproportionately, to the criminal justice system, which seems to usually have a negative effect on your second amendment rights, and search Black people for weapons more than white people, and shoot Black people who don’t even have a gun, but generally are okay with “open-carry” and more specifically treat white people who pose an armed threat to the State with kid gloves while they call for Antifa to be declared a terrorist organization (Antifa and it’s predecessor, the Anti-Racist Action Network, without arms focuses(d) on grassroots fascists (in the past that usually meant Nazi skinheads), not cops).

 

Homophobia

There’s also two bits about homophobia. First, in the first half, the father suggests that if someone is gay they need counseling. In the second half the son is interviewed by a psychiatrist who refers to her wife and the son just says he isn’t gay, but without any hostility, like he rejects his dad’s homophobia.

“Zero Tolerance” Season 20. Wikipedia summary is: “A nine-year-old girl (Scarlett Lopez) is taken from her mother at the U.S.–Mexico border and ends up in a child sex trafficking ring in New York, which quickly comes to the attention of the Special Victims Unit. Benson and Stone try their hardest to reunite the girl with her family within the court system but meet many obstacles along the way. Eventually, Stone decides to ask for help from an old friend. Meanwhile, Rollins decides to give her rocky relationship with Pollack another chance.”

 

Immigration

Even before the main story about immigrants kicks in, there is one minor pro-immigrant thing. Probably an average of 5 times a season, the detectives make it clear that they’re not “la migra” (immigration) when seeking witnesses, and that sort of thing happened here. It just occurred to me that it would be good if about 20-30% of the time that involved white immigrants who are undocumented because it wouldn’t hurt if white people understood that amnesty would benefit, for example, undocumented Irish.

The main story is about separating undocumented children from their undocumented parents, something that became a hall-mark of Trump immigration policy in recent years. The show is extremely critical of that. When someone from the Office of Refugee Resettlement comes to take the girl back to a camp, he is identified as the one who took her from her mother’s arms and Benson has him arrested for kidnapping. It doesn’t survive the courts of course, but it’s still a powerful statement.

As usual there is some probably realistic disagreement among the detectives about the issue. The Black detective (“Finn”) is less than totally pro-immigrant and unfortunately when the “we’re all the descendants of immigrants” argument is made, he (kind of reasonably) describes Black history. I think that when it comes from pro-immigrant black people, it’s a reasonable response to a flawed pro-immigrant argument, but otherwise it’s a bullshit response to a flawed pro-immigrant argument. He DOES make a good point about how Black people are treated today (but again, it really has nothing to do with a less-than-totally pro-immigrant position). (a colleague refers to immigrants “yearning to breathe free” and then Finn says “I still can’t breathe free,” likely a reference to the last words of Eric Garner, a black man who was killed in a chokehold by the NYPD)

“Exile” Season 20. Wikipedia summary is: “The Special Victims Unit is called in to investigate the sexual assault of a young homeless woman (Aimée Spring Fortier). The squad soon realizes that the woman has a dual personality which makes things complicated. However, when she goes missing, the squad becomes challenged to not only uncover her whereabouts but also her real identity. The detectives later discover that someone from her past may be responsible and that the assault may have happened a long time ago. However, the squad meet a dead end in their investigation and Benson makes a generous decision to help the victim recover from her ordeal.”

There are two main aspects of this that are abnormal (normal being about sex crimes).

 

Homelessness

First, it touches on homelessness. Like almost everyone I’m concerned about homelessness. I have done very little to help the homeless compared to what I’ve done to help those who just have food insecurity (the last 8-10 years I have spent an average of about 4-6 hours a week volunteering at a food-bank) but about 1% of that work was for the benefit of homeless people and probably a lot of food bank clients would become homeless if not for the food bank, and then the resources available for homeless people would have to be shared by a lot more people than is currently the case- i.e. there would be more competition for beds in shelters.

It also touches a little on the subject of homeless people with mental illness. I think that’s a major cause of homelessness- even moderate (let alone severe) mental illness makes it difficult to function and work and pay bills and stuff. Without Social Security disability programs SSI and SSDI there would be even more homelessness. Also, mental illness can be made worse by anxiety, stress and depression and I’m sure gets worse with becoming homeless. (I describe my mental illness here)

 

Marijuana Legalization

The subject of legal marijuana comes up, and the show expresses support for this when Finn buys a legal marijuana snack. I can’t believe that there are still states where even medical marijuana remains illegal. And when it comes to recreational marijuana, I believe there are still federal obstacles for businesses, especially when it comes to banking. Marijuana is much less deadly than alcohol or tobacco and I believe it is less addictive, although driving stoned is probably as stupid as driving drunk. In general I fully support medical and recreational marijuana, especially the former. I can’t believe how many people our nation sentenced to the hell that prison must be for marijuana-only non-violent “crimes.” It’s sick.

Lastly, the gay or bi-sexual psychiatrist working with the DA’s office has a brief appearance.

"The Party of Lincoln"

I first read about Trump's thoughts on the Civil War in an article on the BBC News site. I found another article there about it, where historians are asked to respond to what Trump said. In an analysis piece for the Washington Post, the author of that piece wrote: "Update: Trump clarified Monday night that he didn't actually think Jackson was alive during the Civil War, but he stood by his larger contention that Jackson somehow would have prevented it." That doesn't change anything at all about how what he said was offensive, as I'll explain below.

I need to point out a couple things that might not have gotten the huge amount of attention they should get- or at the very least, I want to say them too (the more the merrier). It's very important that the racism of what he said. gets exposed. The third item below seems to have gotten almost no attention at all.

1) He thought there should have been some negotiated resolution of the conflict around slavery, which, even though he hasn't said this- would have meant slavery continuing in some form, some where in the US for some number of years.

2) Andrew Jackson was a slave owner and a passionate opponent of abolitionists. If he were the one negotiating with the South, I guarantee the compromise would have meant slavery continuing with (at the most), VERY minor (if any) changes in it's treatment of slaves, and/or it's geographic scope, and/or and it's life-span. (

3) We now have another good response when members of the GOP say that their party is the party of Lincoln! : )

Tom

UPDATE 4/23/20 Bearing in mind that criminal "justice" reform is a issue of racism, see this.

Gerry Adams and the n-word

Gerry Adams, President of SF, recently created a controversy with a tweet that many would describe as racist. He wrote: “Watching Django Unchained- A Ballymurphy N----r!” but he spelled out the n-word (Ballymurphy is part of west Belfast, and is a republican area Adams apparently lives in). Although I haven’t seen it yet, according to the BBC, it’s a movie “set before the American Civil War and focuses on racism, slavery, violence and murder.” Please read the BBC article for Adams’s response to the criticism of his tweet.

Although I of course believe that there are strong similarities between the oppression of Northern Catholics (referred to hereafter as "Catholics") and the oppression of American Blacks (referred to hereafter as "Blacks") in the last century, and I think an argument can be made that the former are not white, I think Adams was out of line with this statement (and if we're talking specifically about slavery in America, that's VERY different from what Adams has experienced as a Catholic, even if we look back to the Stormont era). Although he might not be white in the N. Ireland context, he’s not a person of color and to one degree or another, outside N. Ireland, he’s sort of white (crucially, in multi-racial yet (at least fairly) racist societies like America and the Republic  of Ireland (where he’s a TD (member of parliament))).

On the other hand, the ways Catholics have been treated since partition are similar to the ways Blacks have been treated since Reconstruction. I’m going to assume the reader, especially if they’re American, is familiar with how Blacks were/are treated and focus mostly on the Catholics part of this comparison. In N. Ireland (this is not an exhaustive list):

(the Stormont era refers to 1921-1972, when there was a devolved government there and The Troubles were roughly from 1969 until somewhere around 2005)

1. There were laws (during almost all of the Stormont era) about voting for local government which, without mentioning Catholics, were anti-Catholic and could be compared to poll taxes and literacy tests, etc. that were used to keep Blacks in the South away from the polls (for local, state, and federal elections). Also, certain kinds of businesspeople, who were disproportionately Northern Protestant, had MORE than one vote in local and regional elections.
2. Although it wasn’t formal, there was segregation in housing- crucially, Catholics in mixed areas were often intimidated out of their homes (Stormont era and The Troubles) (of course some things very similar happened (and might BE happening) to blacks).
3. There was clear evidence of widespread discrimination in employment during both periods (towards the beginning of The Troubles Catholics were 2 times more likely than Northern Protestants to be unemployed and in 1988 they were 2.5 times more likely to be unemployed) (in recent decades Blacks have experienced an unemployment rate consistently about twice what the white one is (see this))
4. There was clear evidence of discrimination in the allocation of public housing in the Stormont era (partly because of that it was incredibly common during the Stormont era for more than one Catholic family to be living in a small home and this may have continued to a small degree in the 70s and 80s, although apparently DISCRIMINATION stopped in the very early 70s) (there was and is also housing discrimination against Blacks).
5. The police were vastly disproportionately Northern Protestant and very bigoted (both Stormont and The Troubles) (there was and is also a similar problem in America with police racism). In The Troubles, the British Army also behaved violently towards Catholics or at least harrassed them.
6. There was sectarian murder of Catholics civilians (including murders by the British Army) even at times when there was little or no armed activity by republicans (most of the Stormont Era and the last 19 years) (not that such activity justified such murders). During The Troubles, it probably was (on a per-capita basis)  5-10 times worse than what Blacks experienced during the same time period (since the end of the Troubles it's probably worse in America (part of the difference during the Troubles was that the "rebellion" in America was a lot less militaristic and that appears to be a factor in terms of what kinds of repressive tools are used)). (UPDATE 2/18/20 although the asymmetric chronology of this comparison is starting to frustrate me, I should say that in the decades before the Troubles, with lynching in the American South, it was probably worse for blacks)
7. To be fair, the informally but VERY segregated nature of the education system in the North is something the Catholics actually welcomed, whereas, of course, in the American South it was formal and a huge part of the problem (third level education (i.e. universities) in N. Ireland haven't been segregated at all for decades now, but besides that there's a high degree of segregation).
8. I am almost certain that Catholics haven’t had anywhere near the same problem with mass incarceration that Blacks have had in America, but the use of internment, non-jury courts, etc. is kind of similar.
9. Considering the poverty and unemployment that Blacks disproportionately experience and the horrible health-care system we have, I have to point out that Catholics benefit from the UK's National Health Service.

10. UPDATE 6/1/21 When I first did this comparison, I left out one aspect of oppression. And that is what might be called pogroms (bigoted riots against minorities), in this case not against Jews but against Northern Catholics or Black Americans. I had almost no knowledge of that when it came to Blacks and I didn’t want to imply that it happened to Catholics but not Blacks. It did happen to Catholics, crucially in the first few years when N. Ireland was being established in the early 1920s and then again at the beginning of the Troubles in Aug. 1969. In July, Aug, and September 1969, and mostly during a period of 2-3 days, in Belfast, 1,505 Catholic families fled their homes (probably something like 18% of Belfast’s Catholic population, probably something like 1.8% of the North’s Catholic population). In one night alone 650 families were burnt or at least forced, out f their homes. There were some smaller-scale pogroms at other times in N. Ireland. In America, I’ve been aware for decades of the events illustrated in the movie 
“Rosewood.” And for at least a year now I have been aware of what happened in Tulsa OK in 1921. What prompted me to do this update is that CNN created a sort of interactive report on all the times there have been race riots in America. It’s here.

On a related note, there have been, historically, strong person-to-person and organization-to-organization contacts between the various Nationalist and/or Republican and/or anti-Unionist struggles in British occupied Ireland and the various struggles among Black people in America. I go into that more here.

Are Northern Catholics white in N. Ireland? There are two crucial ways in which they aren't:

1) You can sort of say they don’t have white privilege. IN NORTHERN IRLEAND (until the last 10 years or so when things improved for them) they had it worse than people of color IN NORTHERN IRELAND. I’m not sure of the exact history of the growth of that population, but in 2001 they were about .7% of the population and in 2011 they were about 2% (Chinese people were arriving in the 1960s and Vietnamese “boat people” were arriving in the 1970s). But on a per-capita basis there were more (or a LOT more) sectarian murders of Catholic civilians (by loyalist paramilitaries frequently with some degree of help from the security forces or by the security forces (including the British Army) than racist murders (as far as I can tell there wasn’t a single racist murder). As far as I can tell, unemployment among Catholics was also higher than that among people of color in N. Ireland. I found a table that touches on this, in a  book partly available on-line thanks to Google called “Divided Society: Ethnic Minorities and Racism in Northern Ireland,” by Paul Hainsworth. 21% of the general population, 2% of the Chinese population, 7% of the Pakistani population, and 3% of the Indian population “had no paid job within the last ten years” (p.195) (that was in 1992 (and back then Catholics would have been a lot more likely to be unemployed than the general population)). According to the same book (p. 7), in 1997 Baroness Denton said in the House of Lords, while a Northern Ireland minister, that employment “is not a current problem” for ethnic minorities in N. Ireland. In general, based on doing searches for two words in the book, and skimming through the pages available on the web and looking for the word “unemployment” or the word "unemployed" highlighted, unemployment was an absolutely tiny part of the book- and with one possible exception, none of the references to unemployment (or the unemployed) suggested that it is or was a problem among people of color there as seriously as it was a problem for Catholics.

Some people would say that the lack of racist murders is not because racism is less widespread and less deep there than sectarianism is, but because people of color stayed out of the conflict and would have been slaugtered if they hadn't. If they had suffered civilian deaths for standing with the Catholics, that would have been because they stood with the Catholics, not because of racism. If they had stood with the Protestants, civilian people of color would have been less likely to be killed by republicans than Protestant civilians were, and very few Protestant civilians were killed because they were Protestant (primarily because of what I write below and some stuff here, it should be accepted that republicans were incredibly anti-racist, IN N. IRELAND (I could also point to support from people of color in America and good relations with the ANC, but that is probably less convincing)). I'm not sure what effect involvement in the conflict would have done to unemployment among people of color. If they sided with the Protestants, it wouldn't have mattered since Catholics did not control a large part of the economy. If they sided with the Catholics, they probably would have been less prosperous (possible boycotts by Protestants, etc.).

2) Although I’m not very familiar with this sociological process, it could be said that many if not most Catholics are not socialized to identify as white. I’m not saying that message never gets through, or that there aren’t racist Catholics there. But a frequent message from many of their political leaders, many of their community organizations, and some of their schools is to identify with people of color throughout the world. For example, MANY of the numerous murals in republican areas stress anti-racism, celebrate African-American political figures, express solidarity with struggles in the “developing world,” or compare the experiences of Catholics with those of people of color elsewhere.

Lastly, I need to stress that Gerry Adams is not a racist. SF, under his leadership, has an impressive record (in IRELAND, and kind of in America) of opposing racism. I offer some examples of that here. (the America part is briefly discussed here).

The Irish, Slavery, and Racism Today

On the blog of the Southern Poverty Law Center there was a very prominent post where they interviewed an Irish scholar about a new racist meme on the Internet. For the most part I'll just encourage you to read it yourself. It's fascinating and could come up as something anti-racists have to deal with while doing our work.

This is fairly embarrassing, but earlier there were three posts on this blog that claimed that Cromwell sent 10s of thousands of Irish people to the Caribbean to work as slaves. First of all, I never said or even thought, not even briefly, any of the offensive claims about slavery attributed to racists in that article (that is, the following: "that “Irish slaves” were treated far worse than black slaves; that there were more “Irish slaves” than black slaves; that “Irish slaves” were worth less than black slaves, that enslaved Irish women were forced to breed with enslaved African men, and that the Irish were slaves for much longer than black slaves;" or, "overtly racist statements, e.g. 'yet, when is the last time you heard an Irishman bitching and moaning about how the world owes them a living?' ”). But after discussing it with three knowledgeable people, I know now I was wrong to refer to the Irish in the Caribbean as slaves who were treated the same as African slaves. I'm not sure where I got that from. They were more or less forced into indentured servitude, although they would have worked in slave-like conditions and many or MOST died before earning their freedom (they lasted about 3-7 years). Their children did not become slaves (I somehow got the idea that 1-2 generations would have been born slaves and then that practice would have died out somehow (I could see the British doing that for 1-2 generations and then a majority of decision-makers deciding that the Irish were white enough that their forced labour shouldn't be hereditary- that that would apply only for Africans)). In fact, a friend knowledgeable about this told me that some of the Irish, after earning their freedom, became overseers of the slaves or even slave owners themselves.

One of the three references to this issue on this blog was in a poem and it made the most sense for me to remove the issue from that poem. The other two I fixed a bit and left them there.

Tom

Star Trek: The Original Series 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 have been more or less ignoring this- the need for me to become familiar with The Original Series. In general I don’t like much of what I’ve seen. In any case, I am now watching it and will be doing reviews of those episodes. I will be giving pretty low scores, probably no higher than three stars out of five- I just don’t like TOS.

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 Cloud Minders” See this for a plot summary.

This episode is basically about privilege. You could also mention national oppression, but privilege seems more appropriate (“elitism” is also very accurate). At one point Spock says: “this troubled planet is a place of the most violent contrasts. Those who receive the rewards are totally separated from those who shoulder the burdens. It is not a wise leadership.” You could also use the phrase “environmental racism.”

There is a scene where torture is being used. Although Kirk and Spock make it very clear they and the Federation won’t stand for that, the planet which is witnessing the use of torture by the government is IN the Federation. The torture is stopped and Kirk ends up leaving the planet when he is ordered to.

So, it is largely about inequality. At the end it appears that progress is being made, and there are moves towards equality.

I give it one star out of five.

"The Savage Curtain” See this for a plot summary.

This episode contained a lot of political or at least sort of political stuff.

At the end, there is the question, from an alien culture’s point of view (without these concepts)- which is stronger, Good or Evil?

The alien concludes that both use the same methods, and achieve the same results. In the battle that the alien had just watched, as far as I could tell, the methods were largely the same, although one fourth of Kirk’s team tried to resolve the conflict non-violently and was killed by the other side. There’s a large amount of truth that in war, most methods are used by both sides. The majority of the time, I’d say there’s no problem with that- the problems arise with things like torture and intentionally killing innocent civilians. In response to a series of sectarian murders of Catholics in south Armagh, some republicans (likely the PIRA (now known simply as the IRA)) killed 10 innocent (and possibly ANTI-sectarian) Protestant civilians. That (the "Kingsmill Massacre") was incredibly wrong (it was also the sort of thing the IRA absolutely or almost absolutely never did (there may have been about 5 times when a much smaller number of people were killed in resprisals for the sectarian murders of Catholics, but even with that, only about .2% of the IRA's operations intentionally resulted in civilian death)). As far as results go, there’s always or usually some (at the very least) large differences (I think you have a good idea of what I consider “Good” and what I consider “Evil,” so I won’t explain that here).

Some other items worth mentioning:

1) Lincoln. In general I have pretty good thoughts about Lincoln. I’m reading an article about how he was friendly to labor and got along via letters with Karl Marx. Although he wasn’t an abolitionist, he leaned in that direction for years before the Emancipation Proclamation- he often was critical of slavery and as President took some earlier steps in the direction of ending slavery.

2) There is one conversation involving Lincoln and Uhura which at first I thought was problematic in a racist way, but a friend convinced me it was was basically saying that the 23rd Century was more enlightened than the 19th Century.


I give it three stars out of five.

“All Our Yesterdays” See this for a plot summary.

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

“Turnabout Intruder” See this for a plot summary.

There are a few things I wanted to note in this review.

First, it’s said that there are no female Captains. Kirk doesn’t disagree with her on this, although we know that in ENT there was a female Captain. It seems likely that even though she was kind of wrong, there WAS a big problem with equality for women in StarFleet (looking at the main characters of all the series also suggests that problem, although it’s only a very serious problem if we assume that in the future women will be half of the military instead of a minority of it (I've been meaning to ask several women what they think about that, I might change my mind about that and assume that they WILL be about half))

There is one line that stands out- a woman says something about the “indignity of being a woman.” After looking at the definitions of the word “dignity,” I’m still not sure what she meant. It almost sounds as if she’s saying that women don’t deserve esteem or respect. I’ll be honest, I’m not as familiar with gender studies and feminist theory as I should be, but if that is what she’s saying, that’s obviously untrue, but beyond that statement I’m not sure what else to say.

We also are reminded that with one crime as an exception, the death penalty is abolished in the Federation. Connected with that, we see something sort of close to a mutiny by some officers, including Chekov and Sulu. That’s fairly inspirational.

This is the last episode of the series, and apparently they didn’t feel like doing something special. Anyway, I give it three stars out of five.

Star Trek: The Original Series 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 have been more or less ignoring this- the need for me to become familiar with The Original Series. In general I don’t like much of what I’ve seen. In any case, I am now watching it and will be doing reviews of those episodes. I will be giving pretty low scores, probably no higher than three stars out of five- I just don’t like TOS.

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 Ultimate Computer” See this for a plot summary.

This is generally about automation of jobs that humans do. In general I believe that technology CAN be used for good in the workplace. It is probably involved in addressing some safety issues; probably is involved with addressing some environmental concerns. As far as technology that is used by the bosses to replace workers, I have mixed and mostly negative feelings about that. I mean, some of those jobs have been replaced by new jobs maintaining the new technology and such jobs probably pay fairly well (I don’t know about wages on the assembly line building this stuff). But in general, jobs replacing those terminated by technology tend to pay very little. They don’t have to be like that, but I don’t have much to say about why they haven’t been unionized- I’m very unfamiliar with organizing issues and it seems like it’s very difficult to organize unions ANYWHERE in the US today. So, I have mixed feelings about automation in the workplace.

There is another kind of automation that I want to discuss as well. That is in the military (well, the US military and I think a handful of other countries as well). My thoughts on the military in general are mixed, and right now I’m not going to go into a discussion about that, I’m just going to focus on this aspect of the military. I’m thinking of the Predator drones, armed or unarmed, and probably some other machines. If they start replacing aircraft that require a pilot inside the plane, it could make it easier for our government to launch unpopular wars, as the number of US service men and women in danger will go down. That will probably mean that a lot of people who might otherwise oppose the war partly because more and more Americans are dying, won’t oppose it. So, I’m worried about that as well.

I give it three stars out of five.

“Bread and Circuses” See this for a plot summary.

This episode is basically about the Roman Empire and sort of about converts to Christianity. I’m not very familiar with Rome or the early years of Christianity, so I don’t have much to say. This episode is certainly anti-slavery, and anti-totalitarian.

I give it two stars out of five.

“Assignment: Earth” See this for a plot summary.

First there’s some political stuff to at least mention. In general it focuses on the idea that 20th century humankind was not as advanced politically and socially as they were technologically, and how that could lead to disaster- for example a nuclear war that destroys the planet.

I also like the Gary Seven part of this episode. Long before I watched this episode, I read a ST book which focused on him. I might try to find that book.

I give this episode three stars out of five.

Star Trek: The Original Series Reviews B

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 have been more or less ignoring this- the need for me to become familiar with The Original Series. In general I don’t like much of what I’ve seen. In any case, I am now watching it and will be doing reviews of those episodes. I will be giving pretty low scores, probably no higher than three stars out of five- I just don’t like TOS.

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).

“What Are Little Girls Made Of?” See this for a plot summary.


There is one bit of politics. The android Kirk calls Spock a “half-breed” in reference to the fact that Spock’s father is Vulcan and his mother is human. Spock says it was unsophisticated. I don’t like that definition, because it implies that “sophisticated” (i.e. fashionable) people don’t use such offensive terms, only completely backwards people use them (obviously "Kirk's" statement is backwards, but I'm sure there are people who are in some ways sophisticated but nonetheless use such language).

“Miri” See this for a plot summary.

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

“Dagger of the Mind” See this for a plot summary.

There are some political aspects to this.

First, Spock comments on humanity, war, and crime: “Interesting- you Earth people glorify organized violence for forty centuries, but you imprison those who employ it privately.” I don’t know exactly what he meant, but it is often inconsistent for people to offer unwavering support to the State while it wages an unjust war, and on the other hand, support imprisoning people for often minor acts of violence. The problem isn’t so much the latter (I think it usually makes sense to put violent criminals in jail), as it is the former (sometimes-often it is justified and helpful to criticize one’s nation’s military).

At one point Kirk refers to prison inmates as having “sick minds.” Depending on which crimes are involved, I would be okay with this or offended by it. If they’re saying that people who steal have sick minds, that’s probably nonsense most/all of the time. On the other hand, it could be that since poverty, oppression etc. have been eliminated, the only people in prisons are some of the people with mental health issues; who need and receive treatment in prison.

Then there is the general theme of the episode, a horrible form of “treating” prisoners.

I give it one star out of five.

“The Corbomite Maneuver” See this for a plot summary.

There’s only one political aspect in this episode, and it’s not an example of progressive politics in ST. Kirk complains that he was assigned a female yeoman. In general, although it made some progress in this area, The Original Series is fairly-very sexist.

I give this episode three stars out of five.

“The Menagerie” parts 1 and 2 See this and this for a plot summary.

There were three political aspects to this episode:

1) We learned that only one very specific crime carries the death penalty, which is close enough to ending it that a good statement is made about it.

2) There is some talk about slavery.

3) This episode largely contains footage from the original pilot of ST about the Enterprise 13 years earlier, when Captain Pike was in charge of Enterprise. His Executive Officer is a woman. Sometimes it seemed like she was too... passive (or something like that) as a leader, but overall she was a good officer and that makes an important statement about equality for women.


I give this episode two stars out of five.

Star Trek: Enterprise Reviews T

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).

“Bound” See this for a plot summary.


This episode brings up the issue of slavery. The Orion Syndicate traffics in slavery, although this episode makes it unclear whether or not the Orion female slaves are really slaves.

Although I kind of spaced on this the last time I discussed the slavery of the Orions, it reminds me of the trafficking in slaves, often of a sexual nature, today. I’m not familiar with that, but hopefully some progress can be made at stopping that.

One thing that was disappointing was Archer’s interest in dialogue with the Orion Syndicate. Criminals such as they should be stopped, not reconciled with.

“In A Mirror, Darkly” parts 1 and 2 See this and this for a plot summary.

In some ways it’s very political and I could write for hours about this two-parter, but I’m gonna keep this brief. It’s about an imperialistic, amoral, bigoted and more or less fascist StarFleet in a different dimension. When Archer learns of his counter-part who was important to the founding of the Federation, he says: “Great men are not peace-makers- great men are conquerors!”

Earth’s empire includes many alien species who are considered inferior to humans. Discipline within StarFleet is quite harsh and physical.

I give this two-parter four stars out of five.

“Demons” and “Terra Prime” See this and this for a plot summary.

Once again, a two-parter that I could spend hours typing about the politics involved. But I’m going to keep this fairly short. It’s largely about xenophobia and extreme hostility to people who are half-human and half-alien (obviously in real life it would be people of two or more different races).

There are three things that I want to comment on:

1) A friend of Travis apparently told him that exploration of space is a form of colonialism. In Star Trek, at least the vast majority of the time, only planets with no indigenous intelligent population are colonized by the Federation. It’s not colonialism.

2) The leader of the xenophobic organization benefits from alien medical science. When he is confronted about his hypocrisy, he says that he’s not the first leader to fall short of his own ideals. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are some situations where that’s not a big problem, but in general it is hypocrisy of the sort that should be held against the leader involved.

3) I generally like the idea of mergers between different nations and states, and I like how this episode is about an effort to establish some kind of inter-planetary alliance which will later turn into the Federation.

I give this episode four stars out of five.

“These Are The Voyages...” See this for a plot summary.

Aside from something about movement towards creating the Federation, which I referred to in the review immediately above for the episodes “Demons” and”Terra Prime” there is more or less nothing political in this episode. The part about Riker studying Tripp’s dis-obeying Archer’s order is a very creative way to end the series. It would have been better if Tripp had done something else- for example, in some battle where Archer is wounded and he tells Tripp to leave him and Tripp stays, and gets killed. Something like that I think would have been better.

I give it four stars out of five.

Star Trek: Enterprise Reviews R

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).

“Borderland,” “Cold Station 12,” “The Augments” See the links for a plot summary.

This three-parter contains one very large political theme and a couple smaller ones. The big one is the question of genetic engineering. My thoughts on this are here while discussing the episode “Doctor Bashir, I Presume?”

At one point one of the augments and Archer have the following exchange:

Malik: We were defending our right to exist.

Archer: You’ve already killed over 25 people. Your existence has a pretty high price.

Malik: It could get higher.


Obviously they are pretty much unable to co-exist with normal people, and StarFleet was right to prevent any more augments from being born.

The other issues:

1. We learn that at one point Earth space ships were nuclear-powered, something which I have negative feelings about (even in the context of ST, I believe they should have postponed further space travel until they found something better than nuclear power). Could cause serious environmental problems on Earth.

2. There’s also an element of slavery. First, when the slaves can no longer be controlled by the neurolytic restraints, they rebel, which is pretty cool.

It raises the question for me, shouldn’t StarFleet do something about the Orion slave trade? It doesn’t count as an internal issue for the Orions because they enslave outside of their race most of the time. And even if it were internal, I’m very open-minded about StarFleet intervening anyway. I have difficulty imaging that happening in the past with black slaves in America, since I don’t think there was a world power comparable to the Federation of ST. I mean, the British ended slavery in almost all of the Empire in 1833 but I’m not sure if they would have been an ideal candidate for this. Would black slaves in America have welcomed liberation in that way? I imagine they would have. And of course they did welcome liberation during and at the end of the Civil War, and of course many former slaves fought for the Union in that war.

On a non-political note, it was brilliant of them to have Brent Spiner play Soong, an ancestor of the man who created Data (The Next Generation).

I give this three-parter five stars out of five.

“The Forge,” “Awakening,” and “Kir’Shara” See the links for a plot summary.

This three-parter has one main theme- religious persecution, and there are several minor things that come up here and there:

I’m against religious persecution, although there would of course be some exceptions- for example if children are being abused in some way. My thoughts on religion can be found here, here (while discussing the episode "Who Watches The Watchers?"), here (while discussing the episode "Destiny"), here (while discussing the episode "In The Hands Of The Prophets").

1. At one point Archer seems to compare the different interpretations of Surock’s writing with what has happened with the Bible. The basic message I believe was that the Bible (and similar books) shouldn’t be taken too seriously.

2. The leader of the Syrrannites says that the High Command defiled the monastery of P’Jem by placing an intelligence operation there. It really is very inappropriate to use religious places for what might be called intelligence or military efforts.

3. We’re reminded that Vulcans who can do mind melds are treated poorly, and this is undoubtedly a statement against homophobia. See this when I discuss the episode “Stigma.”

4. I think this is my first exposure to the political system on Vulcan. It’s not made clear, but I got the idea that the High Command was the government; I used to think it was the leadership of the military; and what kind of civilian government leadership is known as the High Command? It also turns out that the head of the High Command (HC) organized a large-scale invasion force without the other members knowing. All members of the HC were men. Vulcan still uses the death penalty for some crimes. And lastly, there is apparently a loyalty oath that at least some Vulcans must take. Unless I’m missing something from The Original Series, I would have to say that the Vulcan government isn’t very democratic and considering most of what I wrote in this paragraph, I wonder what they're doing in the Federation? (on the other hand, it IS suggested at one point that the head of the HC was elected).

5. The leader of the HC seems to have gone after the Syrrannites because, as pacifists, they might stir up opposition to his invasion of Andoria.

6. There is one part where a Vulcan is tortured mentally instead of physically, which Vulcans can usually resist. After that the interrogator who used torture suggests that very often people being tortured will say whatever they think their interrogator wants to hear, even if it’s not true (which makes torture ineffective in addition to being immoral).

I’m not a big fan of Vulcan episodes, so I can only give this one two stars out of five.

Star Trek: Enterprise 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).

These episodes are more or less part of the Xindi storyline that lasts the entire 3rd season of Enterprise. For some introductory comments from me and a link to a plot summary of the first episode of this storyline, see this where I discuss the episode. “The Expanse” (which is the last episode of the 2nd season).

“The Xindi” See this for a plot summary.

Although it’s part of the Xindi storyline which is fairly political, this episode is relatively non-political.

I give it four stars out of five.

“Anomaly” See this for a plot summary.

This has one aspect that needs to be discussed, although it doesn’t “highlight the progressive politics of ST.”

While interrogating a prisoner taken during a devestating raid on Enterprise’s supplies, Archer first threatens torture and then actually engages in it.

The prisoner says, “I don’t think you’d be very comfortable torturing another man. You and your crew-mates are far too civilized for that, too moral.”

Archer replies, “I need what was stolen from me. There’s too much at stake to let my morality get in the way.” Then some hours later, needing another piece of information, he puts the prisoner in an air-lock and has it slowly de-compress until the very last second when he lets the prisoner out.

This sort of thing happened one other time in Star Trek. See this, where I discuss the two-parter “Equinox.” In that episode it was made fairly clear that Starfleet opposes torture- that doesn’t happen with this Enterprise episode.

I give this episode three stars.

“Extinction” See this for a plot summary.

Although it’s part of the Xindi storyline which is fairly political, this episode is relatively non-political. I give it two stars out of five.

“Rajiin” See this for a plot summary.

Two political bits:

1) There’s opposition to the trafficking in people (slaves, and in this case, specifically female slaves).

2) Archer once again indicates his willingness to violate someone’s human rights (this is not an example of progressive politics in ST; but it is the exception to the rule).

Rajiin: If I say anything else, they’ll kill me.

Archer: .... how do you know I won’t do the same?


I give this episode three stars out of five.

Star Trek: Enterprise 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).

“Cogenitor” See this for a plot summary.

This is very political, or something close to political. It reminds one of slavery, especially the part about not being taught to read. In some ways, I support what Trip did- the Cogenitor had the same intellectual capacity as the other Vissians. On the other hand, if all Cogenitors were emancipated (no longer required to act as cogenitors and no longer kept ignorant), many/most/all would probably refuse to do what they had done for centuries- play an important role in reproduction. To one degree or another that would be a problem.

There’s also the tragic ending which makes me wonder if Trip did the right thing.

I give it four stars out of five.

“Regeneration” See this for a plot summary.

A non-political episode. Something about a Borg encounter during that period in the history of Starfleet is really cool. I give it five stars out of five.

“First Flight” See this for a plot summary

A non-political episode. It does however, take us even further back in the history of Starfleet, which I like. I give it four stars.

“Bounty” See this for a plot summary.

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

“The Expanse” See this for a plot summary.

This episode kicks off the storyline that pretty much dominates the entire 3rd season. The first 1-2 times I watched it I thought it could be described as inspired by a non-progressive response to 9/11. There’s no doubt that it was inspired by 9/11 and there is one moment that comes close to endorsing torture, and in general, at first glance it’s sort of similar to the US and the War on Terror. Based on what I remember from the last time I watched this series about 13 months ago, it’s not as bad as what I thought the first 1-2 times. It’s possible I’ll say something slightly different as I re-familiarize myself with the details, but the effort Enterprise makes to stop a future attack seems like a good one. Archer makes some effort at a diplomatic solution and engages some of the Xindi in dialogue, convincing some of them that Earth is not their enemy.

This episode, which is the last in the 2nd season, ends with Enterprise entering the Expanse to look for the Xindi, gets four stars out of five.

Star Trek: The Next Generation Reviews CC

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 Perfect Mate” See this for a plot summary.

At the beginning there’s some good political talk as they discuss whether or not a woman is being transported on the Enterprise as some kind of property.

I give it two stars out of five.

“Imaginary Friend” See this for a plot summary.

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

“I, Borg” See this for a plot summary.

The main political question for this episode is, is it okay to completely and totally wipe out the Borg? Some would call that genocide. But most of the main and recurring characters in this episode are okay with doing that, until they saw that Hugh was becoming an individual and was rejecting what the Borg are about. I also would be okay with wiping out the Borg- they are inherently incapable of co-existing with other races and assimilation by the Borg is horrible, as we learned on Voyager.

There is one line which indicates that testing products on animals is a thing of the past.

After the crew start changing their minds about using Hugh as a weapon, Picard, says that if they did use him, they would be “no better than the enemy that we seek to destroy.”

I give this episode three stars out of five.

“The Next Phase” See this for a plot summary.

The only sort of political thing to mention here is that some of the dialogue indicates that Ro and perhaps Geordi as well, are better described as agnostic instead of atheist. That’s a welcome, small departure from the generally atheist position on religion that ST takes.

I give this episode four stars 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.