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 Conscience of the King” See this for a plot summary
A fairly political episode, but there’s little for me to quote or build upon. Kodos was, of course, comparable to a war criminal. I wonder if he might be compared in some ways with Pol Pot.
I give it two stars out of five.
“Balance of Terror” See this for a plot summary.
There is some political stuff here, basically two categories. First, when the crew of the Enterprise learn that their Romulan enemies look very similar to Vulcans, at least one of them becomes very bigoted towards Spock. Kirk makes it clear that that sort of thing has no place on the bridge.
The commander of the Romulan ship is not as positive about war as the Romulan state and many of the men under his command are.
I give this episode three stars out of five.
“Shore Leave” See this for a plot summary.
A non-political episode. I give it two stars out of five.
“The Galileo Seven” See this for a plot summary.
A very non-political episode, but there are a couple things to comment on:
1) One of the shuttles is called “Columbus.” It’s at odds with the overwhelmingly liberal-left politics of ST.
2) Although this existed a bit in some other episodes, this one contains much dialogue where Spock’s subordinates speak dis-respectfully to him. This is usually in the form of negative comments about his dominant Vulcan half. This kind of bigotry seems to be tolerated by Spock and the other main characters.
I give this episode two stars out of five.
“The Squire of Gothos” See this for a plot summary.
A very non-political episode, with one exception. Briefly Kirk asserts that StarFleet is on a peaceful mission and that they only fight when needed. This is at least almost totally true.
I give this episode two stars out of five.
“Arena” See this for a plot summary.
The story, or at least the last five minutes of it, is fairly political. Basically it’s about the same topic I mentioned in the “Squire” above. This time around Kirk is looking for a battle in space; and on the ground he comes very close to killing an alien when it wasn’t necessary. When Kirk starts acting like a StarFleet officer again, the representative of an advanced alien race is impressed and talks about a future friendship with humanity.
I give this episode 2 stars out of five.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
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.
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.
Monday, March 28, 2011
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.
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.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Star Trek: The Original Series Reviews A
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 Man Trap” See this for a plot summary.
A non-political episode. I give it two stars out of five.
“Charlie X” See this for a plot summary.
A non-political episode. I give it one star out of five.
“Where No Man Has Gone Before” See this for a plot summary.
A non-political episode. I give it one star out of five.
“The Naked Time” See this for a plot summary.
There is one thing that probably needs to be mentioned- I believe this is the first episode where we hear about Spock’s mom being human (in one earlier episode it was mentioned that some of his ancestors were human, but I can’t remember which episode). This takes ST’s multi-cultrualism a bit further than normal.
I give it two stars out of five.
“The Enemy Within” See this for a plot summary.
A non-political episode. I give it two stars.
“Mudd’s Women” See this for a plot summary.
I found this to be a fairly sexist episode (although the series in general, as far as I can tell, makes some progress on this, it is still fairly-very sexist).
UPDATE 11/17/11
I wrote the following in the most recent review:
"UPDATE 11/9/11 I think that with this post and maybe a couple others where I accused ST *TOS* of being sexist I went a little too far. I mean, there ARE two statements by kirk that are sexist, and I think the whole women crewmembers wearing skirts (or dresses?) thing is sexist. But when it comes to Kirk and in this case also Scotty, referring to adult female crewmembers as "girl" or "lass" I have to wonder, how often has kirk called adult male crewmembers "boy?" I think probably rarely or never, but I'm not going to re-watch the series anytime soon, so I don't know. It is possible I'm being too harsh with the characters and writers over the use of "lass" and "girl." And I could be wrong about the skirts."
I cannot remember much from this episode ("Mudd's Women") but wouldn't be surprised if I have mis-judged it and it's writers too. Especially if the only sexism came from Mudd, who is close to a villian in this episode.
I give it one star out of five.
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 Man Trap” See this for a plot summary.
A non-political episode. I give it two stars out of five.
“Charlie X” See this for a plot summary.
A non-political episode. I give it one star out of five.
“Where No Man Has Gone Before” See this for a plot summary.
A non-political episode. I give it one star out of five.
“The Naked Time” See this for a plot summary.
There is one thing that probably needs to be mentioned- I believe this is the first episode where we hear about Spock’s mom being human (in one earlier episode it was mentioned that some of his ancestors were human, but I can’t remember which episode). This takes ST’s multi-cultrualism a bit further than normal.
I give it two stars out of five.
“The Enemy Within” See this for a plot summary.
A non-political episode. I give it two stars.
“Mudd’s Women” See this for a plot summary.
I found this to be a fairly sexist episode (although the series in general, as far as I can tell, makes some progress on this, it is still fairly-very sexist).
UPDATE 11/17/11
I wrote the following in the most recent review:
"UPDATE 11/9/11 I think that with this post and maybe a couple others where I accused ST *TOS* of being sexist I went a little too far. I mean, there ARE two statements by kirk that are sexist, and I think the whole women crewmembers wearing skirts (or dresses?) thing is sexist. But when it comes to Kirk and in this case also Scotty, referring to adult female crewmembers as "girl" or "lass" I have to wonder, how often has kirk called adult male crewmembers "boy?" I think probably rarely or never, but I'm not going to re-watch the series anytime soon, so I don't know. It is possible I'm being too harsh with the characters and writers over the use of "lass" and "girl." And I could be wrong about the skirts."
I cannot remember much from this episode ("Mudd's Women") but wouldn't be surprised if I have mis-judged it and it's writers too. Especially if the only sexism came from Mudd, who is close to a villian in this episode.
I give it one star out of five.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
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.
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.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Star Trek: Enterprise Reviews S
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).
“Daedalus” See this for a plot summary.
A non-political episode. I give it two stars out of five.
“Observer Effect” See this for a plot summary.
A non-political episode. I give it three stars out of five.
“Babel One,” “United,” “The Aenar” See the links for a plot summary.
There are a small number of political aspects to this episode:
1) Shran again expresses a willingness to torture people, which is fairly disturbing because he is generally seen as an ally of Archer’s.
2) One thing I like is the unity created between the different alien races, which will lead eventually to the formation of the Federation. I generally support such moves (i.e. (after making some changes) increasing (in small steps over a number of decades) the power of the United Nations).
3) So far I don’t have a complete picture of the Romulan political system and how democratic or undemocratic it is. In this episode we learn that dissident members of the Senate can be expelled.
I give this three-parter two stars out of five.
“Affliction” and “Divergence” See this and this for a plot summary
There are two sort of political things in this episode.
First, we hear (probably not for the first time) that Klingon society is a caste-based society.
Secondly, there is the appearance of Section 31. I discuss Section 31 here while discussing the episode "Inquisition."
For the most part a non-political episode. I like how it explains the appearance of Klingons in The Original Series. I give it two stars out of five.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Irish-Americans, N. Ireland, and YDS
I’m going to do one post here that’s a new sort of post for me, there might be some more on the same theme in the next weeks and/or months. To a small degree it’ll involve me getting a little personal (something I have overwhelmingly avoided while doing this blog), but will be mostly political and in-line with the themes of this blog. And for now I will provide only the most relevant information, I will give basically zero background and won’t mention other things related to the topic. I am doing this because I believe there are a lot of people out there who really don’t like me, mostly because of a failure on my part to explain things.
In June of 2001, I was a very active member of the Young Democratic Socialists, youth wing of the Democratic Socialists of America. I had been a member of DSA since 1994-1995 and was often active. During those first seven years I was involved to some degree with about 25 events. Not counting about five events (i.e. events in Denver, or in the dorms) there was an average of 65 people at each event I organized. (I resigned my membership in DSA in May of 2002) I think that is basically all the background you need.
In June 2001, Sinn Fein overtook the Social Democratic and Labour Party as the largest party of the nationalist community. This was in two elections on the same day- local elections using Single Transferable Vote and Proportional Representation and British parliamentary elections that are First Past the Post. I sent something about the results to the YDS-Discussion list. Someone responded and asked if YDS had a position on N. Ireland.
I’m going to skip some details at this point. I said I would type something up (I was a member of the leadership at that point). After a month, with a fair amount of discussion and a fairly (possibly very) good job done by me, I withdrew it. There were too many problems with it.
The main point of me typing this up is to explain one of the arguments I offered in support of YDS taking a position on N. Ireland (of course that position would have to be more or less (possibly very less) in support of Irish Republicanism for this to work). I felt like the good that could be done with such a resolution (encouraging people to work on that issue to one degree or another (from one person signing a petition that’s going around to a YDS chapter doing an event on this issue)) was obvious, so I unfortunately didn’t say much if anything at all about that (I said a lot about the background to the conflict, but not, “this will help...”). One of the reasons that I DID offer was that it would help us attract a certain part of the population- Irish-Americans (depending on what the resolution said, we’d probably be talking about people who are more or less Sinn Fein supporters). Without further explanation by me, this must have sounded questionable, and that’s probably what a lot of YDSers thought; or thought it was even worse than questionable. Here are some things I should have mentioned:
*I was thinking overwhelmingly about I-As who are already liberal (liberals who are in transition towards the left), progressive or left-wing. (UPDATE 11/8/20 My thoughts about the word "liberal" are here; my brief definition of a liberal is someone to the left of the Clintons and to the right of Sen. Elizabeth Warren)
*There’s a good minority of those Americans who work on this from the right perspective who are not Irish-American, and about 1/2 of such people are people of color. I was also thinking it would attract some of them. For more of my thoughts on that, see this, this, and this one is also relevant.
*Going back to attracting people interested in N. Ireland, which would at least often if not mostly mean Irish-Americans, I should explain that even with the latter group, I don’t see the harm, although I can sort of understand people thinking I’m an idiot or an ass-hole. But YDS and DSA wanted to attract more members (**which would include attracting people to an anti-racist agenda**) and I saw that as the icing on the cake of making an important statement on an important issue.
*On a related note, the issue of N. Ireland can be used to drag Irish-Americans towards the Left (talk with them about how N. Ireland is not the only place with bigotry, national oppression, etc.). That would be most successful if it involved a left-wing group that appreciated the importance of the N. Ireland issue ( I explain why it’s important for American political activists in this post (starting about 1/3 down with the paragraph starting "Was S. Africa much worse?").
I think that should clarify what I meant.
Tom
UPDATE 2/6/13 About a month after my proposed statement was discussed among YDSers online, I spoke briefly with two senior members of DSA about this. I didn't say much, certainly not everything i've typed above, but I said something that made my idea sound better than when I first mentioned it in that online YDS discussion. One of these senior members agreed with me, and maybe the other one too, at least to a small degree.
UPDATE 11/6/20 A related and much higher-quality post about my interest in Irish-American activism is here.
Monday, February 28, 2011
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.
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.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Star Trek: Enterprise 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’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).
“Storm Front” parts 1 and 2 See this, and this for a plot summary.
In some ways it’s completely political, as it’s largely about World War II. There are a few elements I’d like to comment on:
A: There’s a bit of Nazi propaganda at one point. Part of it talks about the Nazis taking down the capitalists that were responsible for The Great Depression. This raises the question of whether the Nazis were left-wing or right or a combination of the two. It makes much more sense to put them solidly on the right. The Nazis economic policies were mixed in terms of their treatment of capital. But their policy on labor was not mixed- they got rid of the unions at the very beginning of their reign. Also, they emphasized nation and race much more than class. Lastly, it was conservative politicians that let the Nazis into government in 1933 (and for some years after that, conservatives were still involved in the Nazi state). (I go into more detail here)
B: A Suliban from the 22nd Century says that he didn’t know humans could be as war-like as they were during WWII, based on his knowledge of humans in the 22nd Century. Referring to humans on Earth who have not been at war with each other for many decades is a good idea. He also says that while searching for the Xindi and their weapon, Archer behaved in a way comparable to the humans during WWII (if he was referring to the Allies, that sort of makes sense, but if he was including the Axis, it makes no sense at all). I’m going to say more about this in the next review (below) (“Home”).
C: I realize there weren’t very many white, American characters in the Brooklyn parts of the two-parter, but I think it would have been more appropriate if there had been something that would briefly touch on the racism that people of color faced back then (one of the members of the resistance is a black woman). Also something about Jews being rounded up by the Nazis would have been nice.
Overall, I have mixed feelings about this two-parter. I am very interested in WWII, but so far I generally don’t like Star Trek stuff about WWII. I give it three stars out of five.
“Home” See this for a plot summary.
This episode was surprisingly full of political stuff. There are two subjects: How exploring the galaxy requires an ability to fight; and bigotry.
First the bigotry. There are basically three scenes for this. On Vulcan, T’pol’s mother gets upset about the idea of Trip and T’pol getting married and having children: “Do you really believe that a human and a vulcan can have a future together. Imagine the shame your children would endure.” This is probably a reference to their kids being part human and part Vulcan and being rejected by both Vulcans and humans.
As a result of the Xindi attack, many people on Earth became xenophobic about aliens, and Phlox encounters this. Travis and Malcolm stand up to the bigots, which results in a fight. Later, Hoshi is talking with Phlox about going down to Earth:
Hoshi: So you’re going to stay on the ship because of some loud mouth in a bar?
Phlox: My presence could provoke another incident- someone could get hurt....
Hoshi: This isn’t the way to deal with prejudice. The best thing is to show your face and remind people that there are aliens who don’t want to blow up the planet.
Phlox: I can’t blame those men for the way they reacted. Earth has survived a horrific attack. It’ll take time for the trauma to heal.
As far as how to respond to bigotry, I lean towards agreeing with Hoshi. But I’m open-minded about this and would respect the feelings of those who are the targets of bigotry.
On a related issue, I can’t agree with Phlox’s last words. I don’t believe that it was okay for people to express hostility towards Arabs and Muslims after 9/11.
Archer has a lot to say about the need for firepower while exploring. In general I would sort of agree with him, but some of what he says doesn’t make much sense to me. First, when the Captain of the second ship like Enterprise asks him for advice on which StarFleet officer would be best for Tactical (which covers both the weapons systems and the security force), Archer suggests filling that position with a member of the military (apparently StarFleet is not considered part of the military). He then also suggests having a team of military riflemen on board, as he did when he went after the Xindi. It seems like StarFleet can produce people like Archer’s tactical officer- it’s totally unnecessary to fill that position with a rifleman. On the other hand, having a squad of riflemen in addition to the tactical officers and crew is probably a good idea- it seemed to work well for Enterprise. It would probably make sense to have the Tactical officers and crew handle security on-board, and the military would help in the event of being boarded but would normally be available for away missions.
More generally Archer at one point advocates for a more isolationist policy, where StarFleet would stay close to Earth as a defensive force. He doesn’t seem to really mean it.
In the last post (while discussing the episode “Zero Hour”) I talked about how Archer did some things that were immoral during the mission to find the Xindi weapon. I basically said that although he shouldn’t be tossed in jail or even tossed out of StarFleet, he should get some punishment, to make other officers understand that there are consequences for breaking or bending the rules, even for hero Captains, and they should only do so when very necessary. There is nothing about him getting in any trouble in this episode, nor the three after it (I sometimes do reviews at a slower pace than I watch the episodes at). At the end of his de-briefing, the Vulcan ambassador says that he (Archer) did some immoral things, but says they were necessary for his mission to succeed.
It turns out that in some ways, Archer is doing what needed to be done about his immoral tactics. Mountain climbing with a fellow Captain (Erika Hernandez), Archer explains why he wanted to go climbing.
Archer: I figured this was the last place I’d run into anyone who’d want to shake my hand or take my picture or tell me I’m an inspiration to their children. If they knew what I’d done...
Hernandez: You did what any Captain would have done.
Archer: Does that include torture or marooning a ship full of innocent people- Cause I don’t remember reading those chapters in the handbook.
I’m still disappointed that he didn’t receive some kind of punishment, but that exchange is better than nothing.
Overall I give this episode three stars out of five.
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).
“Storm Front” parts 1 and 2 See this, and this for a plot summary.
In some ways it’s completely political, as it’s largely about World War II. There are a few elements I’d like to comment on:
A: There’s a bit of Nazi propaganda at one point. Part of it talks about the Nazis taking down the capitalists that were responsible for The Great Depression. This raises the question of whether the Nazis were left-wing or right or a combination of the two. It makes much more sense to put them solidly on the right. The Nazis economic policies were mixed in terms of their treatment of capital. But their policy on labor was not mixed- they got rid of the unions at the very beginning of their reign. Also, they emphasized nation and race much more than class. Lastly, it was conservative politicians that let the Nazis into government in 1933 (and for some years after that, conservatives were still involved in the Nazi state). (I go into more detail here)
B: A Suliban from the 22nd Century says that he didn’t know humans could be as war-like as they were during WWII, based on his knowledge of humans in the 22nd Century. Referring to humans on Earth who have not been at war with each other for many decades is a good idea. He also says that while searching for the Xindi and their weapon, Archer behaved in a way comparable to the humans during WWII (if he was referring to the Allies, that sort of makes sense, but if he was including the Axis, it makes no sense at all). I’m going to say more about this in the next review (below) (“Home”).
C: I realize there weren’t very many white, American characters in the Brooklyn parts of the two-parter, but I think it would have been more appropriate if there had been something that would briefly touch on the racism that people of color faced back then (one of the members of the resistance is a black woman). Also something about Jews being rounded up by the Nazis would have been nice.
Overall, I have mixed feelings about this two-parter. I am very interested in WWII, but so far I generally don’t like Star Trek stuff about WWII. I give it three stars out of five.
“Home” See this for a plot summary.
This episode was surprisingly full of political stuff. There are two subjects: How exploring the galaxy requires an ability to fight; and bigotry.
First the bigotry. There are basically three scenes for this. On Vulcan, T’pol’s mother gets upset about the idea of Trip and T’pol getting married and having children: “Do you really believe that a human and a vulcan can have a future together. Imagine the shame your children would endure.” This is probably a reference to their kids being part human and part Vulcan and being rejected by both Vulcans and humans.
As a result of the Xindi attack, many people on Earth became xenophobic about aliens, and Phlox encounters this. Travis and Malcolm stand up to the bigots, which results in a fight. Later, Hoshi is talking with Phlox about going down to Earth:
Hoshi: So you’re going to stay on the ship because of some loud mouth in a bar?
Phlox: My presence could provoke another incident- someone could get hurt....
Hoshi: This isn’t the way to deal with prejudice. The best thing is to show your face and remind people that there are aliens who don’t want to blow up the planet.
Phlox: I can’t blame those men for the way they reacted. Earth has survived a horrific attack. It’ll take time for the trauma to heal.
As far as how to respond to bigotry, I lean towards agreeing with Hoshi. But I’m open-minded about this and would respect the feelings of those who are the targets of bigotry.
On a related issue, I can’t agree with Phlox’s last words. I don’t believe that it was okay for people to express hostility towards Arabs and Muslims after 9/11.
Archer has a lot to say about the need for firepower while exploring. In general I would sort of agree with him, but some of what he says doesn’t make much sense to me. First, when the Captain of the second ship like Enterprise asks him for advice on which StarFleet officer would be best for Tactical (which covers both the weapons systems and the security force), Archer suggests filling that position with a member of the military (apparently StarFleet is not considered part of the military). He then also suggests having a team of military riflemen on board, as he did when he went after the Xindi. It seems like StarFleet can produce people like Archer’s tactical officer- it’s totally unnecessary to fill that position with a rifleman. On the other hand, having a squad of riflemen in addition to the tactical officers and crew is probably a good idea- it seemed to work well for Enterprise. It would probably make sense to have the Tactical officers and crew handle security on-board, and the military would help in the event of being boarded but would normally be available for away missions.
More generally Archer at one point advocates for a more isolationist policy, where StarFleet would stay close to Earth as a defensive force. He doesn’t seem to really mean it.
In the last post (while discussing the episode “Zero Hour”) I talked about how Archer did some things that were immoral during the mission to find the Xindi weapon. I basically said that although he shouldn’t be tossed in jail or even tossed out of StarFleet, he should get some punishment, to make other officers understand that there are consequences for breaking or bending the rules, even for hero Captains, and they should only do so when very necessary. There is nothing about him getting in any trouble in this episode, nor the three after it (I sometimes do reviews at a slower pace than I watch the episodes at). At the end of his de-briefing, the Vulcan ambassador says that he (Archer) did some immoral things, but says they were necessary for his mission to succeed.
It turns out that in some ways, Archer is doing what needed to be done about his immoral tactics. Mountain climbing with a fellow Captain (Erika Hernandez), Archer explains why he wanted to go climbing.
Archer: I figured this was the last place I’d run into anyone who’d want to shake my hand or take my picture or tell me I’m an inspiration to their children. If they knew what I’d done...
Hernandez: You did what any Captain would have done.
Archer: Does that include torture or marooning a ship full of innocent people- Cause I don’t remember reading those chapters in the handbook.
I’m still disappointed that he didn’t receive some kind of punishment, but that exchange is better than nothing.
Overall I give this episode three stars out of five.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Star Trek: Enterprise Reviews P
This is one of my posts where I “review” Star Trek episodes. I will be giving each one a star rating. I sometimes will make some comments about non-political parts of them that I like or don’t like. I’ll sometimes use the issues raised in the episode to discuss similar issues in real life. And I will sometimes simply high-light the progressive politics of ST. ST is in-line with the three original themes of this blog, as I explain in the first ST post where I offer some general thoughts about ST.
I’m not very familiar with The Original Series and there might be some small amount of material there that would affect what I say about Star Trek (i.e. how often religion is mentioned)
Lastly. multi-culturalism is such a pervasive theme in ST that I only comment on it when it goes beyond the norm (i.e. inter-species partners).
These episodes are more or less part of the Xindi story line 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 story line, see this where I discuss the episode “The Expanse” (which is the last episode of the 2nd season).
“e2” See this for a plot summary.
A non-political episode. But it’s a very interesting episode. I like the part where some of the crews of the two Enterprises meet each other. I also like the “generational ship” aspect. Reminds me of Star Trek: Voyager.
I give it five stars out of five.
“The Council” See this for a plot summary.
At this point there’s almost nothing new that’s political- aside from the alliance Archer has made with some of the Xindi.
There is one thing I wanted to high-light. Trip’s sister was killed by the probe that attacked Earth at the end of the 2nd season (seven million were killed). A Xindi named Degra designed that weapon and is also the first senior Xindi to accept what Archer is telling him- about how humanity is not the enemy of the Xindi. He interacts with Trip about 2 times when Trip is very hostile towards him. At one point, they have the following exchange:
Trip: Do me a favor- don’t try to get on my good side.
Degra: I understand you and I will always be enemies.
Trip: You got that right
Degra: I can’t change what happened to your sister, or any of the 7 million. But I am risking my life, I am risking the lives of my family. I’ve killed members of my own species. All because I’m trying to save both ours worlds.
Later on they build on that improvement with Trip acknowledging that Degra has taken some serious risks for peace between the Xindi and humanity.
I give this episode four stars out of five.
“Countdown” See this for a plot summary.
Aside from being a part of the Xindi story line, there’s basically nothing political here. Even Archer’s efforts at convincing Xindi that humanity isn’t their enemy are basically over.
I give it four stars out of five.
“Zero Hour” See this for a plot summary.
Aside from being a part of the Xindi story line, there’s not much political here. Even Archer’s efforts at convincing Xindi that humanity isn’t their enemy are over.
There is some discussion of the future formation of the Federation which is political and very inspiring. In general, with some exceptions, I think political mergers are a good thing. On a similar note, I like the involvement of Shran and the Andorians in attacking the Xindi weapon.
In general season three was sort of what I had remembered from watching it about 13 months ago. It’s inspired by a non-progressive response to 9/11. But there was also more progressive elements than I remembered, and as I said earlier, the darker side of Archer’s efforts is probably more or less realistic (that that sort of thing would come up in his mission). It’d be nice if StarFleet had, after the mission found some way to give Archer a slap on the wrist for the immoral things he did. I’ll learn for sure soon as I start watching the 4th season, but I don’t remember that happening (a slap on the wrist of some sort would be good- overall Archer has been a great StarFleet officer and he shouldn’t be tossed away in jail or something; but some punishment would remind other officers that they need to try and come up with alternatives before doing something immoral)
I don’t like the ending where they’re all sent back in time- although I might change my opinion of that after I watch the first two episodes of season four, it just seems like a bad end to the Xindi story line, when they’re supposed to return to Earth as heroes.
I give it four stars out of five.
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 story line 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 story line, see this where I discuss the episode “The Expanse” (which is the last episode of the 2nd season).
“e2” See this for a plot summary.
A non-political episode. But it’s a very interesting episode. I like the part where some of the crews of the two Enterprises meet each other. I also like the “generational ship” aspect. Reminds me of Star Trek: Voyager.
I give it five stars out of five.
“The Council” See this for a plot summary.
At this point there’s almost nothing new that’s political- aside from the alliance Archer has made with some of the Xindi.
There is one thing I wanted to high-light. Trip’s sister was killed by the probe that attacked Earth at the end of the 2nd season (seven million were killed). A Xindi named Degra designed that weapon and is also the first senior Xindi to accept what Archer is telling him- about how humanity is not the enemy of the Xindi. He interacts with Trip about 2 times when Trip is very hostile towards him. At one point, they have the following exchange:
Trip: Do me a favor- don’t try to get on my good side.
Degra: I understand you and I will always be enemies.
Trip: You got that right
Degra: I can’t change what happened to your sister, or any of the 7 million. But I am risking my life, I am risking the lives of my family. I’ve killed members of my own species. All because I’m trying to save both ours worlds.
Later on they build on that improvement with Trip acknowledging that Degra has taken some serious risks for peace between the Xindi and humanity.
I give this episode four stars out of five.
“Countdown” See this for a plot summary.
Aside from being a part of the Xindi story line, there’s basically nothing political here. Even Archer’s efforts at convincing Xindi that humanity isn’t their enemy are basically over.
I give it four stars out of five.
“Zero Hour” See this for a plot summary.
Aside from being a part of the Xindi story line, there’s not much political here. Even Archer’s efforts at convincing Xindi that humanity isn’t their enemy are over.
There is some discussion of the future formation of the Federation which is political and very inspiring. In general, with some exceptions, I think political mergers are a good thing. On a similar note, I like the involvement of Shran and the Andorians in attacking the Xindi weapon.
In general season three was sort of what I had remembered from watching it about 13 months ago. It’s inspired by a non-progressive response to 9/11. But there was also more progressive elements than I remembered, and as I said earlier, the darker side of Archer’s efforts is probably more or less realistic (that that sort of thing would come up in his mission). It’d be nice if StarFleet had, after the mission found some way to give Archer a slap on the wrist for the immoral things he did. I’ll learn for sure soon as I start watching the 4th season, but I don’t remember that happening (a slap on the wrist of some sort would be good- overall Archer has been a great StarFleet officer and he shouldn’t be tossed away in jail or something; but some punishment would remind other officers that they need to try and come up with alternatives before doing something immoral)
I don’t like the ending where they’re all sent back in time- although I might change my opinion of that after I watch the first two episodes of season four, it just seems like a bad end to the Xindi story line, when they’re supposed to return to Earth as heroes.
I give it four stars out of five.
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