Law and Order Reviews B

I have done reviews of many episodes of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit and published some more general thoughts about it here. In that post I offer a smaller number of general thoughts about the original Law and Order show (the one that went from 1990-2010). Although I do not like L&O as much as I like the SVU version, I do like it. There’s some liberal or even progressive stuff here and there and they’re good detective stories, and they’re homicide detectives- if they were narcotics, I’d probably be a lot less fond of the show.

Although I’m not sure I have done and will do this consistently, with the original Law and Order show I will make a note and maybe offer some comments when the issues that are at the core of Law and Order: SVU appear on this show.

“Life Choice” Season 1. See this for a plot summary.

Although it’s a little mixed, this episode leans heavily towards being pro-choice.

“A Death in the Family” Season 1. See this for a plot summary.

In this episode the detectives and the ADAs see things differently. The ADAs ask if the life of a cop is worth more than the life of a civilian. They find themselves investigating the death of a corrupt cop. Most damning of all, the senior ADA says that a lot of cops carry an untraceable gun that they can plant on someone if they shoot a suspect and it turns out the suspect was not armed.

“Mushrooms” Season 1. For a summary see this. 

The Black woman whose sons are killed or wounded doesn’t get along perfectly with the police. But that’s just realistic (MANY people of color don’t get along with cops) and I don’t think it dilutes what I’m about to say- she’s not seen as a suspect or an enemy of the police or something (you’re supposed to sympathize with her). She says at one point that her supervisor (she’s a janitor) wouldn’t allow her to go to the morgue and the hospital about her two sons. First, that’s just messed up in general. But people of color are more likely than white people to be in a financial situation where they cannot afford to lose their job in a crisis like that. Poverty is a more common problem among people of color than it is among white people. Part of this means that they are less likely than white people to know someone who can loan them some money until they get a new job after they lose their job (for leaving work during a family emergency). And, even more damning of some supervisors and employers, in some cases like this it’s a job that probably can be skipped for a day.

“The Troubles” Season 1. See this for a plot summary.

This is largely about N. Ireland. There are so many statements that are demanding I comment on them that this review would be about 3,000 words if I commented on all of them. The short version is that there’s a lot of nonsense.

There is one thing I’m going to comment on, something that, for some weird reason I haven’t really commented on before. One of the two cops buys the IRA member’s PR effort for America, and is sympathetic to him, basically because he (the cop) is Irish-American. Does law enforcement and the intelligence community in America go easy on the IRA because the vast majority of IRA supporters here are white Irish-Americans? First, as I explain here and here, the IRA was not a terrorist organization, and that has nothing to do with their skin color or their political goals. Second, the US government was largely on the side of the British, as I explain in note #17 of the poem here.                              

Are there or were there racist NYPD cops who supported the IRA but not the armed wing of the African National Congress? Yes, and there may have been a few FBI agents like that (although probably just a few- I imagine the FBI was less tolerant of IRA supporters than the NYPD were). Was there something racist about the fact that the IRA was never on any US list of terrorist organizations? Although I’m not real familiar with those lists, as I explaIn above, the IRA were, objectively, not terrorists.

If you look beyond the white privilege of most IRA supporters in America, globally their supporters were mostly what we would call in America “progressive.”

Babylon 5 Reviews I

Years ago I did what you might call “reviews” of Star Trek episodes. I mostly just briefly noted what progressive politics were involved and sometimes used that as an excuse to talk about similar situations in reality.

Last year I finally watched all five seasons of Babylon 5, another sci-fi show, one I had thought of watching once in a while stretching back a couple decades. It isn’t as political or as progressive as ST but there’s some good stuff there- in fact, on one issue, a progressive take on the working-class and/or labor movement, B5 is better than ST. Because there is so little progressive material, I’m going to do one post for every four episodes reviewed, and only mention the episodes that have some progressive political stuff. I might ignore some of the more minor and/or less unique stuff about conflict resolution because from what I remember, it’s very common in this series. Also, although less so than is the case with Star Trek, multiculturalism is a big part of Babylon Five and I will also only be commenting on that when it goes further than usual. There are issues raised about telepaths- I’m going to completely ignore stuff about telepaths when reviewing these episodes. I also will probably say nothing about the conflict with the evil race the Shadows- sure, I could say Trump is as evil as they are or compare them to Nazi Germany, but that’s kind of silly (I’m sure there is nothing political about the Shadows, they’re just evil, like the Borg or the Empire). And I might skip most of the stuff about the conflict between B5 and the Earth government- I don’t remember it involving stuff like a strong capitalist agenda or racism or something.


**Season 4 Episode 8 “The Illusion of Truth”** See this for a plot summary.

This episode is about the presidential propaganda TV station doing a story about Babylon 5, promising to be relatively objective and expose viewers to B5’s point of view. What is broadcast though is a dishonest attack on B5.

Some things worth noting as they stand out more than the general lies and propaganda of the story about B5:

1. A report that gov’t forces on Mars are making progress against  the resistance there.

2. In a newly reconstituted senate, there is a McCarthyist  “Committee on Anti-Earth Activities." Apparently some or many or most caught up in the witch-hunt are “hospitalized” so that they can “one day return to society [as] active and productive citizen[s].”

The story about B5 is so full of nonsense that I’m not going to cover all of the details or explain what was done by referring to the scenes being filmed in the first half of the episode. The main theme is that in general the B5 rebels are self-hating humans who believe they are inferior to aliens in every way and that is why they are (the show alleges) subservient to aliens.

A last few notes on economic justice on B5. Lennier is showing the journalists “Down Below” and they have a conversation about it, most of which is new information:

Lennier:“ Babylon 5 has always had an under-class. People who come here in search of a better life and find themselves stranded when they run out of money. They become a cheap workforce for some of the less reputable businessmen.

Journalist: So, they’re exploited.

Lennier:Sometimes, yes. The captain stops it when he hears of it. He’s instituted work programs so that they can earn money while helping to repair the station.

…..

Lennier: This is Doctor Stephen Franklin. He operates a free clinic for these people.


**Season 4 Episode 9 “Atonement”** See this for a plot summary.

This episode is overwhelmingly about the Minbari.

In an earlier review I defended Delenn against allegations she was something comparable to (you might say) a leader of Al-Qaeda and I said some nice things about the Minbari. Although my defense of Delenn stands (she DID transform herself into a hybrid of human and Minbari and she IS in a serious relationship with a human), apparently Minbar officially bans inter-species marriages. Her clan (part of the religious caste) didn’t approve of her transformation and seem inclined to oppose her taking a human as a mate. For that reason she must do a ritual called the “dreaming” where she is confronted with elements of her past.

The leader of the Minbari (in her memories that are explored), Dukhat, says that humans are reportedly primitive and dangerous. Considering that Earth is not comparable to the Federation of Star Trek, this is a fairly progressive statement. The Grey Council (the leadership of the Minbari) all argue that they should not make contact with Earth for different reasons:

1) The workers caste worried about competition with another source of food. The specific reference to food is a little weird but in general it's far from unheard of- a massive chunk of the American working-class, even large chunks of the labor movement, do see foreign workers as competition. In reality (and maybe in the world of Babylon 5) that’s a very unhelpful stance to take. I’m not saying it’s totally unreasonable for workers to feel that way, but it can often fuel racism which is even less helpful and there are better ways to create and protect jobs here.

2) The religious caste is “worried about the impact of strange, primitive ideas.” This erodes my opinion that they are not conservative, but also could be relatively harmless (relative to clear-cut xenophobia).

3) The warrior caste believe they should not associate with “inferior” cultures. Again, more or less xenophobic, but the warrior caste has never been illustrated as a positive part of Minbari society.

A big part of this episode revolves around the opening shots of the Earth-Minbar War. In addition to not speaking the other’s language, part of the explanation is that the humans didn’t recognize the traditional warrior caste approach with gun ports open (i.e. ready to fire). They mean it as a non-threatening “gesture of strength and respect”- the approach is “open-handed.” In general it might not be totally ridiculous for the warrior caste to see that as something unlikely to start a war. But when they describe it as “open-handed” it’s just not true. Open gun ports is like showing a fist.

Earlier in the episode Delenn supports a course of action in relation to humans that is fairly constructive and diplomatic. But after Dukhat is killed, she wants blood and casts the tie-breaking vote in favor of war. Later after that first battle was over she reverts back to her earlier stance and tried to pull a blood-thirsty nation and military back from the abyss of war. Another member of the planetary leadership, demanding blood minutes earlier, now seems to have followed Delann and says that they should have made contact with the humans BEFORE a war started.

At the end we learn that a historical political/religious/military leader of Minbar (who was not Minbari but human) fathered children with a Minbari woman. 1,000 years later his descendants can’t be counted they are so numerous. Delenn uses the fact that before her transformation she already had human DNA inside her (so it doesn’t matter if she has children with a human (they wouldn’t be completely Minbari anyway)) to defend her plans with Capt. Sheridan.


One other detail about the episode. Sheridan sends two of his men to Mars to establish contact with the resistance there. I remember the first time I watched this show I wasn’t very interested in that part of the Earth Civil War, but I have changed my mind.


**Season 4 Episode 10 “Racing Mars”** See this for a plot summary.

There are two small progressive political items.

1. First the two men meeting with the Mars resistance are given cover stories that involve them being married to each other. To be honest I wouldn’t be surprised if the writers put that in there partly for some laughs, but considering the episode they did about HIV/AIDS I think it’s safe to also see it as a serious statement against homophobia.

2. At one point the Pope is referred to as a woman!


**Season 4, Episode 11 “Lines of Communication”** See this for a plot summary. 

There are three political aspects to this episode.

1. We learn that the caste system on Minbar is breaking down. At it’s extreme, the warrior caste in one city left the religious caste to die by expelling them from the city, thus forcing them to walk through the elements to the nearest city. The warrior caste are also creating their own leadership to replace the Grey Council.

2. Captain Sheridan’s emissary to the Mars resistance tells them that after the Earth Civil War is over, Mars will be independent.

He also criticizes them for bombing civilian targets. It’s unclear exactly what he means. That comment seems inspired by a bombing at a hotel that was aimed at members of the security forces but which was carried out in a way that unsurprisingly killed 10 civilians as well (it’s not known how many members of the security forces were killed). I go into more detail about whether or not IRA attacks were terrorism here, but briefly, even if the targets of a bomb are combatants in very close proximity to civilians, if no effort is made to avoid civilian death it sounds more or less sort of like terrorism to me.

Sheridan’s representative says that civilian casualties turn off people, including those who should be supporting a struggle for liberation. I think that’s very true. But it seems like many western progressive supporters of Hamas (the party in the Palestinian territories) don’t get that. Hamas’s military wing, in their offensive activities (their operations) largely targeted civilians (and seem to have allowed other factions in Gaza to target civilians). As far as I can tell, their rival, the PLO, seems to have failed miserably to achieve victory for their people in the Peace Process, and I get the impression a lot of progressives criticize them for that and some other stuff. To those who focus on that failure and who then turn to Hamas, I say that whatever mistakes the PLO have made that weakened the Palestinian struggle, at least they didn’t damage it as much as Hamas' military wing has because of attacks on civilians they carried out or permitted.

"IRA Terrorists?"

A lot of people believe in the phrase “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” It’s a useful phrase here and there. For example, (racist and hypocritical) Irish-Americans who supported the IRA but not the ANC’s military wing. But I believe “terrorism” should be loosely defined as an armed campaign that targets civilian life an unacceptable percentage of the time. There will be disagreements and shades of gray:

1) what’s unacceptable? I’d say that starts at 5% of the time, if not much closer to about 2% of the time (depending on which, if any, civilians are being killed intentionally; and operations that target civilian property but are planned to avoid civilian deaths are kind of relevant (i.e. 2% for the intentional deaths and about 40% for the bombings just described, would be VERY close to deserving the label of terrorism, considering that such bombings can have a mildly terroristic impact)) and gets more offensive as it goes up.

2) As I explain below, there are some shades of gray when it comes to which people are legitimate targets.

3) Are bombings that are planned to spare civilian life but which nonetheless risk loss of civilian life terrorism?

Some people on the Left seem comfortable using the word "terrorist" to refer to groups that they like. But I have difficulty seeing former members of the ANC’s military wing or of the IRA describing themselves as terrorists. And I believe there are groups out there that should be labeled as terrorist, to one degree or another.

The IRA was not one of those groups. (I am speaking of the IRA which has been on cease-fire for about 16 years now). Only a very tiny percent of their operations intentionally resulted in civilian death (I'm defining "operations" as attacks on the security forces, bombings of civilian property, attacks on civilians not suspected of crime or informing to the security forces; but NOT feuding with other republicans, or defending their communities from what might be called incursions by loyalists or the security forces (these incidents would largely be found in the first three years of the conflict when there were no-go areas) or intelligence gathering, etc.). I would say the same thing about unintentionally killing civilians.

As I more or less prove below, .2% of the time their operations intentionally resulted in civilian death, .1% of the time they unintentionally resulted in civilian death, and .1% of the time they tried unsuccessfully to kill civilians. I then explain that many of the civilians they intentionally killed were less than totally innocent or were in very close proximity to legitimate or semi-legitimate targets.

In typing this up I am relying heavily on Malcolm Sutton’s Index of deaths which is a database of all the people who were killed in connection with the conflict that filled most of the last 45 years. It’s part of the CAIN web-site, which is part of the University of Ulster and part of INCORE and ARK. CAIN gets it’s funding from various sources listed here.

I took official figures from the Police Service of N. Ireland (which I found on the CAIN site here) made some adjustments (below) based partly on the Sutton database and partly on many, many hours studying the conflict. Throughout this post the numbers that are marked with * are at least approximately what I found in the Sutton Database but might be off a little (probably no more than about 1% if at all). First, the total number of gun incidents in N. Ireland during the conflict (1969-1998) was 35,458. I deducted the following numbers of such incidents because they weren't offensive operations of the Provisional IRA (these are not meant to be absolutely precise, they are estimates, probably pretty good estimates but I don't think they need to be absolutely precise- we're not entering them into a computer of a spaceship that will take people to Mars and back (for better or worse that's how I was thinking of it- the only significant apparent flaw I have found is that my figures might imply that the OIRA and INLA had a higher rate of success than the IRA but that's probably not true, and my estimates below might say that to a very small degree but NOT to a large degree (the figure for the OIRA and INLA includes shooting civilians and loyalist paramiltaries in addition to attacks on the security forces, while the estimate about the IRA succeeding once out of 51 attempts at killing soldiers or police in attacks on the security forces is about only ATTACKS ON THE SECURITY FORCES)).

-950 loyalist sectarian attacks (Loyalists killed about *692 Catholic civilians; sometimes they killed more than one Catholic civilian at a time, and I’m sure that sometimes they failed to kill any (and some of those Catholic civilians were killed by bombs))

-190 republican feuding. (although this is only partly about feuding (the rest would be premature bomb explosions) there were *187 deaths that were republican-on-republican, so maybe about 65 were successful gun attacks, and then another 125 for unsuccessful attempts)

-165 loyalist feuding (there were *94 loyalist-on-loyalist deaths, and probably no more than 14 were from premature bomb explosions; adding some for unsuccessful attempts, probably about 165)

- 400 republican punishment attacks (although it’s not solid, as far as I can tell, about *10 alleged criminals were killed by republicans and I would be very surprised if there were more than about 390 non-lethal gun attacks on alleged criminals).

-160 loyalist punishments (I can only find one entry in the Sutton database that is an alleged criminal killed by loyalist paramilitaries in a punishment attack. Between that and the fact that probably around 2/3 of the unionist population completely supported the police during the conflict I doubt the total was higher than 160)

-900 other republican gun-attacks (there were about *150 (total) civilians, security force members and loyalist paramilitary members killed by the INLA and the OIRA, organizations that were, towards the beginning of the conflict, waging armed campaigns of some significance. Those deaths probably are the result of about 75 gun attacks and a very small number of bomb attacks that are separate from this) (probably about 825 gun attacks that didn’t kill anyone)

-1,500 republican and loyalists interface incidents (found a very small number of deaths resulting from these, but probably about 1,500 incidents total)

-1,000 The IRA defending nationalist areas from security forces (mostly, for example, manning barricades for no-go areas) (a similarly weak estimate like the one right above, but probably pretty accurate)

-8,500 Incidents where the security forces fired at someone and arrested someone, but it was not a result of a republican or loyalist attack (there are vague and incomplete stats on the number of people charged with terrorist and other serious offenses. For the period of 1969-1998 there were something like 19,000 arrests. I’m sure about 2,000 (1/4 of that with gunfire) involved loyalists instead of republicans, and about 9,000 would have involved nationalists and republicans but not weapons being fired, so I think it might be as low as 8,000 arrests of nationalists and republicans with shots fired)

-100 Incidents where the security forces killed someone but there was no arrest.

-155 Loyalist operations against republican paramilitaries and the security forces (Loyalists killed a combined total of *55 republican paramilitaries and British security forces; probably about 40 gun attacks and about 5 bombings accomplished that plus a lot of unsuccessful attacks)

-35 shootings of suspected  and probably actual informers in the nationalist community (there were about *30 such shootings that resulted in death, probably only about 5 that didn’t)

-20 informers in the loyalist community (there were *16 informers killed by loyalists).

The total deducted is 14,075, which leaves about 20,483 being IRA operations. I couldn’t find figures for the first two right below, but I think I make a pretty good estimate for them:

+150 mortars or RPG attacks in N. Ireland.
+ 350 attacks outside of N. Ireland.

 I did find good figures for bombings.
+15,000 bombs (there were 9,873 bombs that went off and 6,337 that were “neutralized.” the “neutralized” ones count because clearly the area was evacuated before the bomb was set to go off; and probably about 1.000 were the work of other parties) (those figures are from here)

The total for IRA operations is then estimated at about 36,883. The IRA was responsible for *512 civilian deaths (according to the Sutton database at- http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/sutton/ ) (in one way it might be closer to 550, as some deaths attributed to other republican forces (or republicans in general) might have been caused by the IRA; on the other hand the #512 included about 40 deaths that were not what I counting as "operations," and I think those two cancel each other out so I just went with 512)). I have made some effort towards finding the exact number of IRA operations resulting in civilian death but I have seen many clusters of such deaths where more than one civilian was killed in an IRA operation, and I believe there were about 110 IRA operations where at least one civilian died (that would be an average of 4.65 civilian deaths per operation which caused at least one civilian death) . Using the #110  for operations that resulted in civilian death, I found that about .3% of the IRA’s operations resulted in civilian death. I am not close to nailing this down soon, but I think it breaks down to roughly .2% of their operations intentionally resulted in civilian death, and about .1% resulted unintentionally in civilian death. I imagine that about .1% of the time they tried to kill civilians and failed- that's based on the reasonable assumption that 2/3 of the time they tried to kill civilians, they succeeded, which seems likely.

Of the 15,000 IRA bombs, I would imagine about half would have been aimed at the security forces (if any more than half had been used for destroying civilian property there would be many more references to their bombing campaign in books and conversations, etc.; also IRA mines, only one kind of bomb, killed around *90 members of the security forces). And of the more than 21,000 gun attack operations, almost all of them were attacks on the security forces. You might think that and what I said about half the bombs doesn’t make sense since the IRA killed only 1009 members of the security forces and only 39 members of loyalist paramilitaries. First, I would say something about their attacks on loyalists being similar to their attacks on civilians- I doubt that the former was much more difficult than the latter, and the former would have been much easier than attacking the security forces. While reading this paragraph and the rest of this post, remember that the security forces were always or almost always wearing some kind of body armor (at least flak jackets) and (for soldiers) helmets, which would have given them some degree of protection from bullets or at least bomb fragments, and they were often traveling in armored vehicles. For every IRA operation that successfully killed at least one member of the security forces, there probably were about 50 that were aimed at the security forces but didn’t result in such deaths.



Two other aspects of this to consider when discussing whether or not the IRA deserved the label “terrorist” are how many of their civilian victims were killed more or less unintentionally, and how many of their intended civilian victims were not completely innocent. There were *512 civilian deaths attributed to the IRA by the Sutton database.

The first category is about unintentional killings. There were  about 104 civilian deaths where there is no doubt in my mind that they were unintentional. About *31 were premature explosions (this often involved those transporting the bomb being killed as well, which is pretty solid evidence that it was not intentional) and about *73 involved “inadequate warnings” that were given (from what I’ve read this often involved nervous and inexperienced IRA members making phone calls hurriedly and I’m sure there also would have been some times when the SECURITY FORCES simply screwed up). (when the IRA bombed civilian property, the plan about 99% of the time was to place the explosives, leave, call in a warning so the place would be evacuated- which is exactly what happened about 99% of the time that that was the plan)

There are also a few subcategories where it’s sort of accurate to say it was unintentional (but are part of the .2% of overall operations that intentionally resulted in civilian death). The first one contains about *35 victims and is overwhelmingly about the IRA targeting locally recruited members of the security forces when they weren’t on duty. For example many innocent victims were killed when they were covering for a part-time security force member at their civilian job. People were also often killed driving a security force member relative’s vehicle or at a security force member relative’s home.

The second subcategory is when people were more or less caught in the crossfire, almost always involving gun-battles where the IRA were fighting the security forces. There were about *34 people in this category. Besides people killed in gun battles, this included people driving past targets of intentional IRA bombings. And the third is that there were about 5 people in a miscellaneous batch of similar scenarios.

********

There is also a category for those intended IRA civilian victims who were less than completely innocent. I have two subcategories and a few divisions of those two at the next level down. With the first subcategory, although the IRA, most of the time, was wrong to kill them (the informers and criminals were probably legitimate targets, but to a very large degree no one else), they were definitely targeted for things they either did or were seriously suspected of doing- they were not randomly chosen civilians.

The first division of the first subcategory is made up of suspected, and probably actual, criminals. I have yet to do a post about this but basically the entire nationalist community, and certainly people in republican areas, rejected the police (until sometime around 7-12 years ago) and turned to the IRA to deal with crime. There are about *10 people in this category.

The second division is suspected and probably actual informers. There were  about *30.

The 3rd division is civilian employees of the security forces. There were about *31.

The 4th division is people killed in street disturbances. All but one of the *6 that I found happened during a night of anti-Catholic pogroms, and after a 11-month period that saw several such pogroms.

The 5th division is miscellaneous. Below each set of information (which is in the format used in the Sutton database) my comments will be between asterisks.

"18 December 1972    William Johnston (48) Protestant
Status: Civilian Political Activist (CivPA), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Ulster Unionist Party Councilor and member of Police Authority. Abducted from a house, Drumarg estate, Armagh. Found shot a short time later, Knockbane, near Middletown, County Armagh."

**His elected position, in my opinion could either help justify his death or lead me to criticize it more, depending on how extreme he was (was he saying things that were going to encourage anti-Catholic murderers?) His membership of the Police Authority I believe is very relevant to his death**

"25 January 1973    William Staunton (46) Catholic
Status: Civilian (Civ), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Resident magistrate. Died three months after being shot outside St Dominic's School, Falls Road, Belfast. He was injured on 11 October 1972."

**He wasn’t elected, yet had a lot of power and was a representative of the British state in Ireland**

"16 September 1974    Martin McBirney (55) Protestant
Status: Civilian (Civ), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Resident Magistrate. Shot at his home, Belmont Road, Belmont, Belfast."

**He wasn’t elected, yet had a lot of power and was a representative of the British state in Ireland**

"16 September 1974  Rory Conaghan (54) Catholic
Status: Civilian (Civ), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Judge. Shot at his home, Beechlands, off Malone Road, Belfast."

**He wasn’t elected, yet had a lot of power and was a representative of the British state in Ireland**

"21 July 1976    Christopher Ewart-Biggs (54) nfNIRI
Status: Civilian (Civ), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
British Ambassador to Ireland. Killed in land mine attack on his official car, Sandyford, County Dublin."

**He wasn’t elected, yet had a lot of power and was a representative of the British state in Ireland. UPDATE 5/3/14 He was involved with MI6, part of Britain's intelligence community **

"04 March 1977    Rory O'Kelly (59) Catholic
Status: Civilian (Civ), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Senior Department of Public Prosecutions official. Shot while in Little's Bar, Coalisland, County Tyrone."

**He wasn’t elected, yet had a lot of power and was a representative of the British state in Ireland**

"22 March 1979    Richard Sykes (58) nfNIE
Status: Civilian Political Activist (CivPA), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
British Ambassador to the Netherlands. Shot outside his official residence, Den Haag, Netherlands."

**He wasn’t elected, yet had a lot of power and was a representative of the British state (not in Ireland of course, so this is a little more questionable than the killing of the Ambassador to Ireland) **

"27 August 1979    Lord Mountbatten (79) nfNIRI
Status: Civilian (Civ), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Killed by remote controlled bomb on his boat, detonated when leaving Mullaghmore Harbour, County Sligo."

**Very much a representative of the British state (for example, he had been the last British Viceroy of India)**

"21 January 1981    Norman Stronge (86) Protestant
Status: Civilian Political Activist (CivPA), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) member, and former Speaker at Stormont. Shot together with his son at their mansion, Tynan Abbey, near Middletown, County Armagh."

**His elected position, in my opinion could either help justify his death or lead me to criticize it more, depending on how extreme he was (was he saying things that were going to encourage anti-Catholic murderers?) (UPDATE 5/1/14 he was killed after an assassination attempt on Bernadette Devlin-McAliskey, who was targeted after 3-4 other civilian leaders of those supporting Republican POWs were killed (for how much popular support the hunger-strikers had in the Nationalist community see the middle third of this (beginning with "For about 5 years")); There is reason to believe he was killed as a warning to the Unionist upper-class that they would be held responsible for such killings)**

"14 November 1981    Robert Bradford (40) Protestant
Status: Civilian Political Activist (CivPA), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Ulster Unionist Party Member of Parliament. Shot at Community Centre, Finaghy, Belfast."

**His elected position, in my opinion could either help justify his death or lead me to criticize it more, depending on how extreme he was (was he saying things that were going to encourage anti-Catholic murderers?)(UPDATE 5/1/14 He was connected to a loyalist paramilitary, the UVF)**

"16 January 1983    William Doyle (55) Catholic
Status: Civilian (Civ), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Judge. Shot outside St Brigid's Roman Catholic Church, Derryvolgie Avenue, Malone, Belfast."

**He wasn’t elected, yet had a lot of power and was a representative of the British state in Ireland**

"12 October 1984    Anthony Berry (59) nfNIB
Status: Civilian Political Activist (CivPA), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Member of Parliament. Killed in time bomb attack at Conservative Party Conference, Grand Hotel, Brighton, Sussex, England."

**His elected position, in my opinion could either help justify his death or lead me to criticize it more, depending on how extreme he was. And I think that since he was a BRITISH MP voting on legislation at least partly for part of Ireland it’s less questionable than the IRA killings of NI politicians**

"25 April 1987    Maurice Gibson (74) Protestant
Status: Civilian (Civ), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Chief Justice, together with his wife, killed by remote controlled bomb hidden in parked car detonated when they drove past, Killeen, County Armagh."

**He wasn’t elected, yet had a lot of power and was a representative of the British state in Ireland**

"18 October 1989    Robert Metcalfe (40) Protestant
Status: Civilian Political Activist (CivPA), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Member of Ulster Resistance. Shot at his home, Drumnabreeze Road, Magheralin, near Lurgan, County Down."

**Ulster  Resistance was a militant and armed political organization (calling them a paramilitary would be going too far) especially in the late 80s when he was killed**

"30 July 1990    Ian Gow (53) nfNIB
Status: Civilian Political Activist (CivPA), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Conservative Member of Parliament. Killed by booby trap bomb attached to his car outside his home, Hankham, Pevensey, Sussex, England.."

**His elected position, in my opinion could either help justify his death or lead me to criticize it more, depending on how extreme he was. And I think that since he was a BRITISH MP voting on legislation at least partly for part of Ireland it’s less questionable than the IRA killings of NI politicians**


The second subcategory is similar to the last one The people killed are much more innocent (most completely innocent but with someone who was at least a slightly legitimate target) than the first subcategory, but were still not randomly chosen civilians killed just to terrorize people.

"Houghton, Linda    04 February 1974 (23) nfNIB
Status: Civilian (Civ), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Killed in time bomb attack on British Army (BA) coach travelling along M62 motorway, Yorkshire, England."
AND
"Houghton, Lee    04 February 1974 (5) nfNIB
Status: Civilian (Civ), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Killed in time bomb attack on British Army (BA) coach travelling along M62 motorway, Yorkshire, England."
AND
"Houghton, Robert    04 February 1974 (2) nfNIB
Status: Civilian (Civ), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Killed in time bomb attack on British Army (BA) coach travelling along M62 motorway, Yorkshire, England."

**Were on a British Army bus with their husband or father**

"05 October 1974    Paul Craig (22) nfNIB
Status: Civilian (Civ), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Killed in bomb attack on Horse and Groom public house, Guildford, Surrey, England"

**Was in a pub apparently full of off-duty British soldiers (the other four people killed were in the British Army)**

"21 July 1976    Judith Cook (25) nfNIRI
Status: Civilian (Civ), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
British Ambassador to Ireland's secretary. Killed in land mine attack on his official car, Sandyford, County Dublin."

**Was with a fairly legitimate target when both were killed**

"02 February 1977    Jeffrey Agate (59) nfNI
Status: Civilian (Civ), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Originally from England. Manager of Du Pont factory. Shot outside his home, Talbot Park, Derry."

**Probably, depending on the details, one of the three most questionable killings in this subcategory**

"02 March 1977    Donald Robinson (56) nfNI
Status: Civilian (Civ), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
English businessman. Shot at his workplace, Lawrence Street, off University Street, Belfast."

**Probably, depending on the details, one of the three most questionable killings in this subcategory**

"14 March 1977    James Nicholson (44) nfNI
Status: Civilian (Civ), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
English businessman. Shot while in chauffeur-driven car, just after leaving Strathearn Audio factory, Stockman's Lane, Belfast."

**Probably, depending on the details, one of the three most questionable killings in this subcategory**

"03 March 1978    Norma Spence (25) Protestant
Status: Civilian (Civ), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Civilian searcher. Shot while at British Army (BA) pedestrian check point, Donegall Street, Belfast"
AND
"28 September 1978    Brian Russell (30) Protestant
Status: Civilian (Civ), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Civilian searcher. Shot during sniper attack on British Army (BA) patrol, Waterloo Place, Derry."

**I don’t know exactly what “civilian searchers” are, but they had something to do with security force checkpoints**

"27 August 1979    Dowager Lady Brabourne (82) nfNIRI
Status: Civilian (Civ), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Killed by remote controlled bomb on Lord Mountbatten's boat, detonated when leaving Mullaghmore Harbour, County Sligo."
AND
"27 August 1979    Nicholas Knatchbull (14) nfNIRI
Status: Civilian (Civ), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Killed by remote controlled bomb on Lord Mountbatten's boat, detonated when leaving Mullaghmore Harbour, County Sligo."
AND
"27 August 1979    Paul Maxwell (15) Protestant
Status: Civilian (Civ), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
From Northern Ireland. Killed by remote controlled bomb on Lord Mountbatten's boat, detonated when leaving Mullaghmore Harbour, County Sligo."

**Were with a fairly legitimate target when they were all killed. A friend believes the IRA should have killed Mountbatten with a gun, to lessen the odds of anyone else being killed**

"25 April 1987    Cecily Gibson (67) Protestant
Status: Civilian (Civ), Killed by: Irish Republican Army (IRA)
Killed together with her Chief Justice husband, by remote controlled bomb hidden in parked car detonated when they drove past, Killeen, County Armagh."

**Was with a fairly legitimate target when both were killed. A friend believes the IRA should have killed the Chief Justice with a gun, to lessen the odds of anyone else being killed**

********

I am going to be lazy and not redo the math and such, but I need to add something I forgot about. There were 57 former members of the security forces killed by the IRA. Even if we categorize them all as civilians, it would have little effect on what I’m saying in this post, and I think there’s a good chance that many of them were targeted for their membership in the security forces and the IRA just didn’t know they had become civilians. The Sutton database puts them in the security forces category.

Same thing with the use of incendiaries (not bombs). based partly on the CAIN web-page Security and Defense there was possibly around 500 such operations by the Provisional IRA, but for various reasons I’m not including that in the calculations above because the information is far from complete and is unclear. Adding 500 to the calculations above would simply make the IRA look better.

When the IRA were bombing civilian property it was (at least about 99% of the time) non-military government property and commercial property. The idea with the former was to make it difficult for the British to govern nationalist parts of N. Ireland. The idea with the latter was to indirectly pressure London via the British business community and to also pressure the Unionist business community. Both would have also been about reminding people outside N. Ireland that resistance was continuing.

*********

In conclusion, very little of what the IRA did could be called terrorism, although there’s about 20% of their operations that could SORT OF be called terrorism in that they involved significant risk of civilian casualties (that is, their campaign of bombing civilian buildings). Around 79% of their operations were against the security forces or loyalist paramilitaries. And pretty much all of their activities that I’m not calling operations were at least sort of morally inoffensive (some of those are in the list of subtracted figures (defending against loyalist mobs and (at least with no-go areas in the early 1970s) keeping the security forces out), and others are, for example, intelligence, acquiring guns, etc.).

Peter King, Muslims, Torture, and N. Ireland

(UPDATE 5/22/14 I finally did a post going into why I believe it's inacurate to describe the IRA as "terrorists" and it's here)

Peter King, a GOP US Representative from New York, has been a big supporter of Irish Republicanism and specifically Sinn Fein and NORAID, an American group suspected in the past of supporting the IRA, although it might be a lot more accurate to say that they supported and today support SF. He is very conservative and has expressed support for the use (in the War on Terror, in Iraq, and Afghanistan) of interrogation techniques that are torture (for example, see this and this). He has also spear-headed congressional hearings on the alleged radicalization of American Muslims (see this, this and this)

In the 2nd link from the bottom of the above paragraph, is a post on the blog of the Southern Poverty Law Center. In the discussion (which was deleted when they started using a different system for comments) I spent a lot of time explaining that the IRA was/is not a terrorist organization- people thought King was a bigoted hypocrite because he supported the IRA’s campaign but is hostile to groups like Al-Qaeda which a lot of people think are comparable to the IRA. Although this doesn’t have anything to do with the question of terrorism, in another way it’s relevant to point out that there are many things indicating that the IRA over the last 30 years or so has been more or less left-wing (it's probably safe to assume that, for example, if a majority of SF members are anti-homophobic, a similar majority of IRA members are anti-homophobic) (for some examples of that see most of the first half of this).

As I explain here, only about .2% of the IRA's operations intentionally resulted in civilian death, and only about .1% unintentionally resulted in civilian death. I think it's likely that no more than .1% of their operations were unsuccessfully aimed at killing civilians.

When the IRA were bombing commercial property, they always (or at least almost always something like 99% of the time) planned on issuing a warning. Something like 99% of the time the warning was issued, the target was evacuated and no one was killed. The goal of such operations was at least partly to inflict financial damage on the business community who, it was hoped, would then pressure the British government to withdraw from Ireland. They were probably also often aimed at demonstrating that the IRA was not beaten when the British would often claim that they were. Bombings of non-military government property were aimed at disrupting government operations, and putting pressure directly on the government (warnings were always or almost always issued and civilians were evacuated). The issuing of warnings in these two categories, and the tiny % of the time that they intentionally killed civilians and the fact that somewhere around 2/3 of their operations were aimed at the security forces, all indicate that some very large % of IRA members and leaders were not into terrorizing civilians.

I can understand people wanting to expose King as the bigoted hypocrite he is, but doing so by calling the IRA terrorists is just not accurate or helpful. What would be a great approach would be to focus on the issue of torture- torture used by the US or it’s allies in recent years, and the torture used by the British in the early 1970s in N. Ireland. King LOVES water-boarding and in general approves of the torture techniques used by the US. I know that some methods have been used in both situations. I’m not as familiar with the details as I could be and I’m not capable right now of engaging in an off-line discussions with journalists, or debate with supporters of King. But I figure some of you, or someone that one of you knows will want to have the information ready to attack King over his bigoted hypocrisy. The thing is, you can find a lot of info about the Irish part of this in a book that is (mostly) available on-line here. Although the author was very partisan as a republican, his book seems to be well respected as the web-site it’s on is very neutral and academic, and about 1/3 of the information the site offers on the subject of internment in the early 1970s was written by him.

UPDATE 5/31/11 I'm still not feeling like reading the book linked to right above to refresh my memory and learn some new details. But while reading another very good source, I found a brief description of the "sensory deprivation" techniques used on eleven of the internees during seven days. According to Michael Farrell's "Northern Ireland: The Orange State" (page 283) they were hooded the entire time; they were completely isolated, and didn't know where they were; they were severely beaten; they were forced to stand spread-eagled against walls until they collapsed; they were given hardly any food; they were subjected to "white noise;" they were prevented from sleeping. The book also refers to another torture technique used on the internees in general (apparently not the 11 I just referred to). That was taking hooded internees up in helicopters, and then, when the helicopter comes back down to something like 3-5 feet above the ground, the internee is pushed out, thinking that he's much higher up than he is. Sounds like water-boarding.

If King’s bigoted hypocrisy is highlighted and becomes an issue in America, that will make it very likely that Sinn Fein will tell him to go away. If they do that publicly, it will, to some small degree, probably affect how much support he has. Also, it will probably result in Sinn Fein changing their approach to generating support in America (in a way that both SF and the American left will benefit from).

In any case, I hope this was worth your time to read- I really think that King can be hammered on this. And maybe you or someone you know will be able to use the information about torture in N. Ireland.

Tom

UPDATE 10/8/12 Apparently there was some use of waterboarding by the security forces in N. Ireland. See this and this.

UPDATE 4/22/18 In the 1990 dramatic movie "Hidden Agenda," there is an allegation of what we now call water-boarding. I'm not sure where the writer(s) got that from, but I am also pretty sure that condemning water boarding wasn't back then the popular cause that it has been in the last 15 or so years (in the movie, they don't use the phrase "water boarding") and I wouldn't be surprised if the writer(s) included it not because they wanted to take a swipe at George W. Bush etc. but because they did some research about what torture techniques the British used in N. Ireland and found some references to that one.

Star Trek: The Next Generation Reviews X

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).

“In Theory” See this for a plot summary.

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

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

In this two-parter we hear and see more about how A: Klingon women are second-class citizens and B: Romulan women seem to be full partners with the men in government and the military.

When Data submits himself for discipline because he disobeyed Picard’s orders, Picard explains that “Starfleet doesn’t want officers who blindly follow orders without analyzing the situation.” He also says “the claim ‘I was only following orders’ has been used to justify too many tragedies in our history.”

Among other things that would be a reference to Germany in World War II. I’ve heard that in the decades since the war the German military does something that more or less gives members of the military guidance on when to disobey an order, sort of encouraging them to disobey under certain circumstances.

I give it three stars out of five.

“Darmok” See this for a plot summary.

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

“Ensign Ro” See this for a plot summary.

This episode is about the Cardassian occupation of Bajor, “terrorism” and Starfleet’s Prime Directive. for my thoughts on ST’s idea of “terrorism” see this, towards the end of the review of “Defiant.”

The episode appeared to be an effort to raise the issue of the Palestinians, as elements of the Bajoran story are also found in the Palestinian story. I’m almost certain that on Deep Space Nine there was no talk about Bajoran refugees while Cardassia occupied Bajor, and yet in this episode it’s explained that the Bajorans were expelled from Bajor by the Cardassians.

There are three items about Bajoran culture.

1. Bajorans identify themselves by first saying their last name and then saying their first. Ro says that many Bajorans have stopped correcting people about that because they want to assimilate.

2. Towards the beginning, Riker tells Ro to take off her earring, an item of some significance for Bajorans. At the end, it’s implied that Picard will let her wear the earring.

3. Picard says that ancient Bajorans had an advanced culture when humans were not yet standing erect.


Then there’s the Prime Directive. It’s mentioned as why the Federation did nothing to support the Bajoran resistance to the Cardassians. A Bajoran leader criticizes the Federation for that. In general I’ve got kind of mixed feelings about the PD and generally support Starfleet commanding officers when they bend or break it. It seems like in general it’s a very good thing. But the Cardassian occupation of Bajor is one situation where the Federation should have intervened, at least by giving aid to the Bajorans (I’m open-minded about the idea of Starfleet pushing the Cardassians out themselves (one of my favorite books is about Cuban forces invading S. Africa to put an end to Apartheid (I wouldn’t be surprised if, if it had happened in reality, the ANC would have objected for various reasons, but it’s still overall a good story (it’s called “Vortex” by Larry Bond)))). It was not an internal matter for Cardassia, it was an inter-stellar issue. I mean Cardassia was only able to annex Bajor through massive force (and to one degree or another expelling the Bajorans). That annexation shouldn’t be recognized as legitimate. At one point Picard says of the resistance- “arming these people is a violation of everything the Federation stands for.” Ro says that she agrees, but then explains about how her father was tortured to death while she was forced to watch. She seems fairly sympathetic to the resistance. Picard is wrong about Starfleet arming the Resistance (not long after making that statement he becomes critical of an Admiral for his sympathetic attitude towards the Cardassians).

Lastly, although it was revealed that the Bajoran resistance had not carried out the attack on the Federation settlement, I would say that trying to get attention for your cause by attacking a 3rd party is a bad idea- if the resistance had the capability, they could have found Cardassian targets in Federation territory and attacked them. The IRA attacked British targets in other European countries (Germany and the Netherlands). On one hand it seems like it had little effect on what people in those countries thought about the North; on the other (and this was probably their main reason for doing it) it does make it easier to convince people that the IRA’s campaign was largely aimed at the British security forces and specifically the British Army.

I give this episode four stars out of five.

“Silicon Avatar” See this for a plot summary.

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

Star Trek: The Next Generation Reviews N

This is one of my posts where I “review” Star Trek episodes. I will be giving each one a star rating. I sometimes will make some comments about non-political parts of them that I like or don’t like. I’ll sometimes use the issues raised in the episode to discuss similar issues in real life. And I will sometimes simply high-light the progressive politics of ST. ST is in-line with the three original themes of this blog, as I explain in the first ST post where I offer some general thoughts about ST.

I’m not very familiar with The Original Series and there might be some small amount of material there that would affect what I say about Star Trek (i.e. how often religion is mentioned)

Lastly. multi-culturalism is such a pervasive theme in ST that I only comment on it when it goes beyond the norm (i.e. inter-species partners).

“The Vengeance Factor” See this for a plot summary.

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

“The Defector” See this for a plot summary.

This could have been a really good episode, if the defector had been commenting on the grip of the Tal Shiar (like the KGB) on Romulan society or more generally democratizing the Romulan state. It’s still good (the defector wanted peace between the Romulan state and the Federation), but would have been better if the cause was democracy.

At one point there was some brief dialogue which sounded supportive of the US Army when it was fighting/massacring Indians in the 1800s. That’s disappointing, but is the exception to the rule with ST.

I give it three stars out of five.

“The Hunted” See this for a plot summary.

What the state was doing with their soldiers, programming them, is extremely questionable. What’s even worse is how those soldiers were treated after the war. The state didn’t even try to reverse the programming.

When the Prime Minister tells Picrad that it’s a matter of internal security, Picard describes that as “the age old cry of the oppressor.”

“The High Ground” See this for a plot summary.

This episode looks at what is often called “Terrorism.”

Some of my thoughts about this are here, towards the bottom of the review for the episode “Defiant.”

Some other parts to point out:

1. Picard says “history has shown us that strength may be useless when faced with terrorism.” If he was talking about the sort of people who are better called Freedom Fighters instead of terrorists, I like that statement.

2. The Rutians were keeping track of people who took part in marches and general strikes in support of the goals of the Ensada(??) (the "terrorists"). Riker doesn’t seem too worried about that, which is unusual for ST.

3. When bombs accidentally kill civilians, for example republican bombs in N. Ireland, the fact that they were not intended to kill civilians should be considered when judging the organization responsible. It doesn’t make it less of a tragedy- those people are dead and their family and friends have suffered a great loss.

4. Data, after surveying armed rebellions, says that “terrorism” (his word, apparently for any kind of armed rebellion) is often effective at forcing political change. He refers to Irish unification in 2024. The Brits didn’t like that very much as this explains

I give it three stars out of five.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Reviews M

This is one of my posts where I “review” Star Trek episodes. I will be giving each one a star rating. I sometimes will make some comments about non-political parts of them that I like or don’t like. I’ll sometimes use the issues raised in the episode to discuss similar issues in real life. And I will sometimes simply high-light the progressive politics of ST. ST is in-line with the three original themes of this blog, as I explain in the first ST post where I offer some general thoughts about ST.

I’m not very familiar with The Original Series and there might be some small amount of material there that would affect what I say about Star Trek (i.e. how often religion is mentioned)

Lastly. multi-culturalism is such a pervasive theme in ST that I only comment on it when it goes beyond the norm (i.e. inter-species partners).

“Defiant” See this for a plot summary.

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

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

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

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

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

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


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


“Fascination” See this for a plot summary.

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


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

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

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

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

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

At the end Bashir and Sisko have the following exchange:

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

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

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