"The Party of Lincoln"

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

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

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

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

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

Tom

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

Tearing Down the Swastikas- A New Poem!

I almost never publish just one poem at a time, but this might be my very best poem and I want to publish it, so here it is. For an explanation of how I write these poems see this. The rest of my poems can be found by clicking on the "lyrics" label at the bottom of this post. There's about seven pages so click on "older posts" at the bottom of the first lyrics page.

“Tearing Down the Swastikas,” based on “Tearing Down Red Flags” (or something like that) by Razor’s Edge. Original lyrics are here.

1. It’s set roughly during the last 5 or so months of the war in Europe.

2. I get the impression that the plotters of the 1944 attempted coup by part of the German military were far from ideal. They were happy to fight the Soviets and wanted an alliance with the West in doing that. And the coup’s leader was not as politically attractive as they make him look in the Tom Cruise movie, but I imagine he and the others would have called off the Final Solution if they had succeeded.

3. Himmler was head of the SS. UPDATE 4/22/18 I changed Himmler to Eichmann. although Himmler was head of the SS, I have gotten the impression that he didn't have much to do with the Final Solution, so it now refers to Adolf Eichman, who was the main person responsible for the Final Solution.

4. Davis was Jefferson Davis, head of the Confederacy during the American Civil War.

5. I don’t believe in Hell, but the way I mention  it here I think  creatively makes a good point- if there IS a hell, I’m sure people like Hitler and Davis are there.

6. It’s a little more about the Western Allies than it is about the Soviets (that is, the 4th line of the 1st verse isn’t about the Soviets). I guess that line also is just about the campaign inside Germany (and maybe Italy and maybe some of the western countries that briefly had fascist puppet regimes and were liberated by the British and Americans (and maybe towards the very end, by the French)). 

7. Everything except 1st person statements is about the Nazis.

8. The half a line about the red, white, and blue (the American flag). It exaggerates how patriotic I am (in another poem (Oh, No, Here Comes a Republican) I attacked about 5-20% of the US population partly in connection with them displaying the flag (I tried coming up with something better that rhymed, but that line was the best I could come up with)). In general I have mixed feelings about the flag. I am fairly proud of the role that the US played in the defeat of Nazi Germany (in another poem I write: "And although the Allied leaders are not consistent/Defeating the fascist states is important.”). In this poem I am saying something nice about the flag in connection with the defeat of Nazi Germany, not in general.

9. The line about wankers. Obviously the US wasn’t tons better than Nazi Germany when it came to gay people, but there was some difference. There was a bigger difference when it came people of color but still not a huge difference, and I’d probably say there was an almost huge difference when it came to Jewish people.

**10. 57% of this version is me, and 43% is the original.

11. I give this poem 5 stars out of 5.
UPDATE 5/27/17 I added "attempted" to the second line of the 3rd verse. 
UPDATE 5/21/18 I think that "breaking" is rarely defined the way I'm using it without adding the word "down," but I think you know what I mean.

You fly your swastika flags, your symbols of war-making.

Don't you f*cking realize, that Nazism is breaking

We're tearing down swastikas, all the way to Berlin.

In their place the transformation to democracy will begin

 (Chorus)

We're tearing down the swastikas- we'll banish Europe's shame.

We're tearing down the swastikas - we’re kicking ass and taking names

We're tearing down the swastikas - we're never giving in.

We're tearing down the swastikas - we're gonna f*cking win.

German soldiers still fighting back, they haven't learned at all.

Don't they f*cking realize, it’s an anti-fascist free-for-all

They're just a bunch of wankers, who hate jews, blacks and gays

Well here's some headlines for you, "your defeat is on it's way".

 (Chorus)

You fly your red, white and black, we fly the red white and blue

It’s too bad Hitler survived the 1944 attempted coup

We're tearing down the swastikas, and we'll tear Eichmann up as well.

And all the Nazis can join Davis in the bigot’s fiery hell.

Babylon 5 Reviews C

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 is more significant than usual. Lastly, there are issues raised about telepaths- I’m going to completely ignore stuff about telepaths when reviewing these episodes.


**Season 1 Episode 15 “Grail”** See this for a plot summary.

After some serious criminal activity, the stations’ security chief wants to do a sweep through a high-crime area that, of course, is also a very poor area (A: Earth and B5 aren’t utopias like the Federation  is on Star Trek, and B: the security chief seems to be a mixture of different political tendencies whereas the commander is  more consistently progressive (the doctor, and, maybe, the second-in-command are also progressive)). The Commander rejects that request and says: “most of them are just people with no where else to go. They come here looking for a new life, a new job and when they don’t find it they can’t afford transport back.”


**Season 1 Episode 16 “Eyes”** See this for a plot summary.

At one point the chief of security, a male, refers to God with a female pronoun.


**Season 1 Episode 17 “Legacies”** See this for a plot summary.

Commander Sinclair agrees to take part in a memorial service sort of thing for a late military leader of the Minbari who was a hero of the Earth-Minbari war Sinclair had fought in. He says that it would help with the reconciliation between the two alien races. I think that sort of approach is often a good idea. Possibly not when it comes to WWII (I think that had it been tried after WWII it might have made de-Nazification less successful, and it might have contradicted the message that Hitler’s wars of aggression were war crimes). On the other hand, I think that it would have been acceptable and helpful after the American Revolution and the American Civil War, for example; and I am fairly okay with the actions taken by mainstream republican leaders to advance the N. Ireland Peace Process by meeting with people like the Queen, or Prince Charles, or (on a similar note) by marking the Battle of the Somme (something important to Unionists), etc. etc.


**Season 1 Episode 21 “The Quality of Mercy”** See this for a plot summary.

There are about four issues raised by this episode:

1. I can’t remember what we learned about this in earlier episodes, but it seems that B5 doesn’t believe in juries. On the other hand, a judge refuses to allow the sometimes right-wing security chief to go on a “fishing expedition” in relation to a criminal who may have committed more murders than he was charged with and convicted of.

2. Aside from mutiny and treason, the death penalty is not used anymore (well, they CAN sentence someone to having their mind wiped, which seems at best a little bit less offensive than killing someone, but the show still makes a good statement against the death penalty as we know it today)

3. Although this is unclear, we might learn in this episode that one of the main characters is both male and female. This positive statement is slightly diluted by the fact that A) he’s a “bad guy” for the most part; B) he’s an alien; and C) the character he outs himself to is at least a little uncomfortable with it.

4. The very best thing about this episode is that it promotes free health-care. As I’ve said, Earth and B5 aren’t utopias like the Federation on Star Trek. There’s a lot of poverty on B5 and the head doctor there spends some of his time running a free clinic in the poor area of the station. He even gets the second-in-command, Ivanova, to help him with it. UPDATE 5/17/17 In the season 2 episode "A Race Through Dark Places" the doctor says that he was using the free clinic to help telepaths who were on the run. So, I guess it's not nearly as impressive a political statement as I thought it was (on the other hand Ivanova DOES agree to help him, thinking that it's a free clinic for "normals.")

New Poems: Saorsie is Irish for Freedom

Three new poems. In the next few months you'll see a lot more poems (as well as "reviews" of Babylon 5 TV show episodes and maybe a long essay) here. I explain some stuff about the poems here.

The rest of the songs/poems can be found by clicking on the "lyrics" label (there are four pages worth of posts, so click on the "older posts" at the bottom of the first page).

“Saoirse” based on “Freedom” by Brutal Attack, original lyrics are here.

1.This is about a loose collection of Irish political elements that might be described as “non-republican/non-nationalist but anti-partitionist, radical and fairly militant anti-Unionists.” It would, to one degree or another, include the late group Peoples Democracy, and probably around 50% of the Civil Rights Movement and probably somewhere around 25% of the movement in support of republican prisoners around 1980. It is basically set between the beginning of the civil rights movement (around 1967) and the 1981 Hunger Strike. (actually if it weren’t for some talk of socialism and the bit about Blacks, I would be on very safe ground attributing the positions in the poem to the nationalist community which would also include many of the people I referred to above (UPDATE 4/24/17 I'm increasingly unsure why I DIDN'T do that- I guess I wanted to do something a little bit different- there ARE people who are neither nationalist nor republcian but who still have very good positions on issues very central to the search for equality, justice and freedom for the nationalist community, AND who are also DEFINITELY VERY socialist and DEFINITELY VERY anti-racist (somewhere around 50-85% of the nationalist community is anti-racist and/or socialist, but ALL the miscellaneous people I'm thinking of are SOLID anti-racists and socialists)))
2. Orange parades should stay out of Catholic areas. For a good set of reasons why, see this.
3. The starry plough is generally the flag of republican socialism but there are non-republican groups that use it as well.
4. During the conflict frequently city centers were off limits to anti-unionist marches and rallies.
5. The RUC were the police until late 2001.
6. The anti-internment march attacked on Bloody Sunday was part of the civil rights movement. Although many of the original demands of that movement had been conceded, the existence of “emergency” legislation was also an issue addressed by that movement since it’s beginning.
7. Kent, Ohio is where the Kent State massacre took place in 1970. (Four anti-war college students were killed by the National Guard)
8. Squaddies is a term for British soldiers.
9.Bread is a term for economic justice.
10. In the mid and late 70s a struggle between republican prisoners and the prison authorities developed around whether they were prisoners of war or criminals. After about 2-4 years the prisoners had a majority of the nationalist community behind them. For more see the middle third of this starting at “For 3-4 years in the 1970s….”
11. When internment was phased out in the 1970s it was replaced by a series of mechanisms collectively described as a “conveyor belt.” This included the power to hold suspects for 7 days without charge, and non-jury courts.
12. “Bourgeoisie” is a term for the upper-class.
13. The original is by a British band that supported the Unionist and British causes in N. Ireland.
**14. 69% of this version is me and 31% is the original.
15. I give this poem 4 stars out of five.
16. Saorsie is Irish for freedom.
17. The second to last line, I’m not envisioning something where 100% of the people on the island are black. To a large degree it was just me being a smart ass twisting the lyrics of the original. It could be a future where Ireland is roughly 2-5 times as diverse as it is now and most of the relatively white population are less than 100% white.

when we don’t want an Orange parade on our streets the police won’t ban it
And take a look at history, the British began it.
Yeah, they’re afraid of us because we tell the world
As we stand up to them with the Starry Plough unfurled
My patriotic heart for my country feels so proud
But when we want to march in the city center we’re not allowed

Chorus
We want freedom from poverty and the British Empire
They’ve joined forces and against us they conspire
London can try to suppress us with their army and the RUC
we will emerge victors against the British bourgeoisie

the Civil Rights Movement marched in Derry against internment
We were shot down by state terrorists just like those in Kent
We don’t want no squaddies, and yes most of us are reds
We’ll resist, the Unionists, and push for universal bread

So let’s keep organizing, the prisoners need political status
We will not tolerate the British “conveyor belt” apparatus
We want a country full of reds, and why not a country full of blacks
we want a United Ireland with a progressive income tax

******

“Irish Revolution” based on “Final Solution” by No Remorse, original lyrics here.

1. The first verse is basically about the decades before the deployment of massive numbers of British Army soldiers in 1969. To a large degree British politicians were reluctant to get involved with the N. Ireland issue. The Tories especially deferred to the Unionists, who were part of their party. In the first 5 decades of N. Ireland, there were many protest efforts, political, or violent, or non-violent and the hands-off attitude of Westminster and #10 Downing St. contributed to the explosion of violence in 1969.
2. I believe that the use of force by the IRA did get London to briefly negoatiate with the republican movement in 1972. And I believe that two decades of IRA actions are part of why the combination of the Good Friday Agreement and the political scenery behind it was better than the combination of the 1974 Sunningdale Agreement and the political scenery behind IT.
3. The chorus is sort of influenced by the slogan “No Justice, No Peace.”
4. Some of the statements are about the IRA, not the nationalist population in general (I’m defining that as including northern republicans). Those are: Verse 1, line 1; verse 2, line 1 is about the IRA and rioters; same with the first half of verse 2, line 2; second half of Verse 2, line 4; first half of verse 3, line 1.
5. Based on what might be called a fairly scientific look, only about .2% of the IRA's operations intentionally resulted in civilian death.
6. As I explain in the middle third of a post here, what I wrote about global support was a bit off or something- huge chunks of the world didn’t want to be educated or be involved even though they should have.
7. The last two lines are about the protest among republican prisoners. There’s more about that in the middle third of this.
**8. 66% of this version is me, 34% is the original.
9. I give this poem four stars out of five.
10. No Remorse were British and supporters of the British and unionist causes in N. Ireland.
11. This poem is set basically in the decades before 1969 and ends roughly in the late 1970s.

Most of the Brits never listened Until the guns were in our hands
They read the Unionist papers and Ignored our democratic demands
We Nationalists protested for equality or fought to secede
London left it up to the Unionists, No matter where it would lead

Chorus:
Irish revolution
As conflict resolution

Our strategy is not to rock the boat We've got to blow it out of the sky
Got to make their nation tremble Expose and challenge all their lies
We’ll educate the world and isolate the British Tory scum
They may ignore our speeches But they'll listen to the gun

Chorus

As we gain momentum, The People continue to let loose
words, rocks, petrol bombs the BA and RUC are showered with abuse
As the blanketmen start the protest, the support starts to grow
The nationalists need defenders, they don’t want the IRA to go

Chorus

******

“Free Occupied Ireland” based on “Still Occupied” by Razor’s Edge, original lyrics are here.

1. In late 1968 the civil rights movement in N. Ireland seemed very strong. They had had two major marches, one of which was attacked in such a way that it generated a lot of anger among Catholics. The Prime Minister had made some moves towards meeting some of their demands and he SEEMED to have the support of the Unionist grass roots in doing so.
2. The RUC were the police until late 2001. A “game changer” march in early 1969 was attacked directly and indirectly by the RUC and the B-Specials (a semi-military force that could be described as a cross between the State Patrol and the National Guard in American states). In Aug. of 1969 the RUC and loyalist mobs joined together and unleashed a couple days of anti-Catholic pogroms or attempted anti-Catholic pogroms in Belfast and Derry.
3. The march that was attacked on Bloody Sunday was a civil rights march. The initial response to the massacre was a flurry of demonstrations, but in general the civil rights movement kind of ended shortly after BS and the Provisional IRA’s campaign intensified and became the dominant response to unionism and imperialism.
4.  James Connolly was Ireland’s greatest republican-socialist, Collins was a major leader of the IRA during the war of Independence and has been credited with developing urban guerrilla warfare, and
5. Che is Che Guevara, who has been credited with developing rural guerrilla warfare.
6. “West Brit” has multiple meanings- indigenous/relatively indigenous Irish people sympathetic to the unionists/British in relation to Ireland, friendly to the British monarchy, hostile to Irish culture, friendly to British culture (that last one isn't necessarily so bad, in this poem it refers to the others, especially the support for unionism/the British in relation to Ireland).
7. Green Tories are basically centre-right nationalists (in the South that refers to a political instead of community identity).
8. Most of the time, in most parts of the North there was intense conflict between republicans and the Church.
9. The Stoops are the Social Democratic and Labour Party, Sinn Fein’s more moderate rival in the Nationalist community. For more on them see this.
10. In 1974 a brief power-sharing attempt to resolve the conflict was made. It was aimed partly at destroying the IRA politically. Among other problems, the first half of the Sunningdale period PSF was a banned party, and when that was fixed, the UVF (a loyalist paramilitary) was legalized for about 1.5 years.
11. In recent decades and I think in the 1970s as well, republicans have been very supportive of the Palestinians.
12. Lines that end with * are referring to just the IRA.
13. I ignored a non-rhyming line at the end of both verses of the original lyrics.
**14. 80% of this version is me, 20% is the original.
15. I give this poem three stars out of five.
16. Estates are basically neighborhoods.
17. UPDATE 7/8/17 Calling N. Ireland a dictatorship (before the GFA) isn't the most accurate thing you could say, and to a large degree fascists were not among the most immediate enemies of Catholics in N. Ireland- the British government and Unionists weren't fascist, it's just a statement against fascism and dictatorship.
18. Razor's Edge were British and supporters of the British and unionist causes in N. Ireland.

in ’68 the future looked so bright,
It seemed we were so close to getting our civil rights
But then the RUC and loyalist mobs invaded our estates
Because for our civil rights we dared to demonstrate
The civil rights movement was shot off the streets by the BA
And now we’re fighting in the spirit of Connolly, Collins, and Che *

Chorus
Still occupied, we're not free -
But we are definitely off our knees!
Still it’ll be hard, hard to defeat *
the crown forces patrolling on our streets! *

The Brit, west brit, and green tory propaganda begins
to the priests conducting mass our resistance is a sin. *
The stoops are trying Sunningdale, but it’s just one big mistake
And we are fighting on for Irish freedom, whatever it takes. *
We're against fascism and dictatorship
We’re for freedom and justice, in the North and in the Gaza Strip

Babylon 5 Reviews B

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 is more significant than usual. Lastly, there are issues raised about telepaths- I’m going to completely ignore stuff about telepaths when reviewing these episodes.

I’ll be publishing one of these each time I get about 4 reviews done.


**Season 1 Episode 8 “And The Sky Full of Stars** See this for a plot summary

This episode briefly touches on the use of biological weapons, disapprovingly. A xenobiologist (B5's chief Doctor, Dr. Franklin) says that he refused to turn his notes over to the government because they would be used for developing such weapons for use against an alien race.


**Season 1 Episode 9 “DeathWalker”** See this for a plot summary.

This episode is about what we would call crimes against humanity. A leader of a planet roughly comparable to Nazi Germany is arrested on Babylon 5 and Sinclair reluctantly tries to send her to Earth, where the government has made her an offer for a serum she created that gives people immortality. However her primary victims, the League of Non-Aligned Worlds, learn of this, stop Sinclair, and get him to make an effort to have her tried for her crimes. When that doesn’t work, he arranges a compromise where she would do the medical work for Earth and as soon as Earth is fully educated about the serum, she would be put on trial.

Sinclair does the right thing when he is (physically and politically) blocked by the League from carrying out his orders. On the other hand, at one point he says that “she can make the deaths she caused have meaning” (among other crimes, living sentient beings were experimented on, something that contributed to the development of her serum). This sounds wrong- almost like he’s saying “maybe what she did wasn’t that bad after all.” I believe that, even IF it’s acceptable for medicine to benefit from such experimentation, that should be done without the cooperation of the criminals responsible, who should be in prison for the rest of their lives.

There are two other problems with this episode.

1. The Minbari vote against trying “DeathWalker”, ostensibly because they were not a party to the conflict she was responsible for (the real reason is that a part of their military caste sheltered her after the war). If that were really their reason, that doesn’t make any sense. If anything, neutral 3rd-party worlds/nations should be more involved with that sort of thing (so it's less likely to be seen as justice of the victor).
2. At one point “Deathwalker” says that humans will carry out atrocities as bad as hers. Nothing is said about the atrocities carried out by humans (in reality), in, for example, Native North America. I’m not sure how many peoples opinions about such matters are CHANGED by seeing them mentioned like that in a TV show or movie, but it can’t hurt.


**Season 1 Episode 10 “Believers”** See this for a plot summary.

This is about respecting different religious beliefs when those beliefs are in serious conflict with your ethics. I lean towards sticking to my ethics in at least some of the scenarios where this would come up- for example, how women are treated, including how they’re treated in many Muslim societies and communities. It’s especially about religious and ethical beliefs in connection to medicine and in the context of a relatively neutral space station dedicated to multiculturalism and dialogue between alien races as part of conflict resolution. In that specific context I believe that Sinclair was right to side with the child’s parents.

In a slightly different way, religious acceptance independent of medicine is also a theme. At one point Sinclair says “if any religion is right, then maybe they all have to be right.” I’m not sure exactly how this works when we include polytheistic religions, but I believe that Christians, Muslims, and Jewish people pray to the same God, and I would be happy to say something similar about those three plus polytheistic religions if I can figure out how to phrase it. Obviously there are still differences even if we agree that Jews, Muslims and Christians pray to the same God, but unless it’s done constructively, I don’t believe in focusing a lot on the differences between those religions. (UPDATE 4/2/17 I am not sure where Buddhism fits in this, but I believe that Buddhism deserves as much respect as the others) (I'm  not going to cover every single religion out there, but my thoughts are more or less the same about respecting all of them)


**Season 1 Episode 12 “By Any Means Necessary” See this for a plot summary.

This is a special episode. Not only is it about labor unions, it might go further than Star Trek’s Deep Space 9 episode “Bar Association” did.

A space dock worker is killed in an accident after a long period (months or years) of the dock hands being very understaffed, over-worked, forced to break safety rules in order to work faster, and dependent on old and failing equipment (although not central to the events that take place, they are also very under-paid). It’s revealed by the fairly sympathetic command staff of B5 that the lowest-bidder contractor responsible for some of the work building the station used inferior micro-chips which contributed to the death. Sinclair has requested a bigger budget to spend more money on the dock work force and equipment, but the most recent budget didn’t do anything new to help the docks. And Sinclair says that the government that employs the dock workers treats them poorly because their contracts don’t allow them to strike.

The Earth government sends a union-busting hatchet man who stresses the claim that if the workers were more efficient they would be fine with the equipment and manpower they have. When the situation escalates to an official (and illegal) strike by the workers, he invokes the “Rush Act” which empowers the authorities to use “any means necessary” to end the strike. Initially there is a fight between the security forces and the strikers but the the former are withdrawn and Sinclair ends the strike by, using the authority given to him by the “Rush Act,” re-allocating part of B5’s military budget to hire more dock workers and get new equipment.

Overall I think this might be more pro-labor than ST’s “Bar Association.” In the latter Sisko puts some pressure on the employer (Quark), but on the other hand, after conceding the union’s demands, Quark makes the union disband. In this B5 episode, the command staff are fairly sympathetic and the union remains at the end, but only two out of three union demands are conceded.

Babylon 5 Reviews A

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.

In late 2015 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 is more significant than usual. Lastly, there are issues raised about telepaths- I’m going to completely ignore stuff about telepaths when reviewing these episodes.


**Season 1 Episode 1: “Midnight on the Firing Line”** See this for a plot summary.


This is an episode largely about conflict resolution. A colony of the Centauri is attacked and taken over by the Narn. Decades earlier the former occupied the latter’s home world in a near-genocidal manner, and some Narn see this attack as revenge that might as well result in genocide (they’re equally hateful of each other, although apparently the centauri started it). In my study of many conflicts our world has seen in reality, I think that kind of (what might be called) mirror-image hate is fairly uncommon. The military commander of Babylon 5, Sinclair, pushes for a peaceful and multi-lateral resolution of the conflict through the Baby;on 5 Council and the League of Non-Aligned Worlds and emphasizes a blockade of Narn (but at one point he also talks about military intervention, which is disappointing even though it would be multi-lateral). This effort is defeated at one point by dishonest diplomacy by the Narn, but then Sinclair gets some dirt on the them and gets them to withdraw.

We also learn that:
1. Earth’s government is budget-cutting and isolationist and xenophobic. Sinclair seems to believe in a “Domino Theory” involving Narn aggression. Although Sinclair is mostly progressive, Earth and B5 are not utopias like the Federation in Star Trek.
2. The Minbari are known as honorable in war and also take a strong stance against the hatred between the Narn and the Centauri.


**Season 1 Episode 2: “Soul Hunter”** See this for a plot summary.

I don’t have much to say about this episode or the issue it reminded me of, but it DOES remind of an issue between American Indians and institutions of the dominant society. That is the repatriation of Indian remains and of many objects of great cultural significance back to the Indian community. I read a little about it here and here. I think I first heard of it when I heard Winona LaDuke read part of a novel she wrote at a book-reading. I think it’s one of about seven stories in the book, but it sounded very interesting. More about her book here.


**Season 1 Episode 5: “The Parliament of Dreams”** See this for a plot summary.

This episode is about a festival-type celebration of all alien religious traditions represented on Babylon 5. It was organized by Earth and sounds like a fairly good idea in terms of promoting diversity and respect for different religious traditions. When it’s Earth’s turn the military commander in charge of Babylon 5 lines up dozens of people representing Earth’s different religions and introduces alien representatives to them. Those present and mentioned before the episode ends included: an atheist, a Catholic, a Zen Buddhist, a Muslim, an Orthodox Jew, an Oglala Sioux, Greek Orthodox, a member of the Ebo tribe, a Yupik Eskimo, a member of the Jivaro tribe, a Bantu, a Taoist, an aborigine, a Shinto, a Maori, and a Hindu.


**Season 1 Episode 7: “The War Prayer”** See this for a plot summary.

Bigotry and diversity and hate crimes are the major themes in this episodes. Although nothing that seemed worth a direct quote, there are some good statements against bigotry.

Trump's Racism

There is an issue that highlights, more so than other evidence, that Trump is a racist. But it seems to have been more or less ignored by the media, perhaps because shortly after Trump made the relevant statement, everyone's attention was consumed by the release of the tape of him more or less admitting to sexual assault. It's an important thing and a BBC article about it is here. That article links to a column by Eugene Robinson here.

Tom

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

Jewish Graves Destroyed in West Belfast

On the 26th of August a group of 8 youths entered the Jewish part of a Belfast City cemetery- in a nationalist and republican area of west Belfast. They destroyed thirteen graves. Apparently there were many more youth associated with this.

After I read the two articles I found about it, first on the BBC News site and then in the Irish News newspaper, (unless you have looked at their articles recently, you should be able to read a small number of Irish News articles without a subscription) I reasonably assumed it was an anti-Semitic incident. Although this has been a little frustrating for me because it’s become really unclear, fortunately it now seems that it MIGHT not have been anti-Semitic.

In any event, Belfast Sinn Fein released the following statement:

“The individuals who destroyed Jewish graves in the City cemetery in Belfast are either nasty fascist thugs or mindless nasty thugs.

Sinn Fein in Belfast City Council will make sure these graves are restored to their original condition. Republicanism abhors sectarianism and fascism. We hope that the Jewish community in Belfast understand our abhorrence and accept our deepest sympathy.

Belfast Sinn Fein”

******** 

 
UPDATE 2/19/20 I want to add something to this. After reading the two articles I link to above, I thought the SF politicians quoted were ignoring the likely anti-semitic nature of the crime. I got an email address for one from the Belfast City Council site. In his response, he included the then head of SF councilors in Belfast and the SF MP for West Belfast. I exchanged a few emails with them. One thought it was anti-semitic, one thought it was just anti-social activity (in earlier incidents, other graves were destroyed) and one thought it was both. I was going to make an attempt at being a journalist and write a fairly professional article about it. I was worried that I hadn't done things right as a journalist, I was worried about angering  SF politicians if I did something wrong by quoting them when I hadn't explicitly said I would at the very beginning, and even though a veteran journalist said I was okay, I had a lot of depression and anxiety about it, so I decided to do the very brief post you see. Why am I saying this now? These SF politicians were so concerned about the incident that they took the time to discuss it with me. In a recent post on his blog Juan Cole talks about SF and the Palestinians and says that unlike Germany with it's Nazi history, Ireland will be able to support the Palestinians without that kind of baggage. But That is not entirely true since Ireland was neutral and the IRA accepted aid from Nazi Germany. Unless SF has admitted recently that the IRA was wrong to do that, they are vulnerable to attacks. I go into more detail about that here. But multiple things indicate that SF IS VERY much against anti-Semitism (although it's not all favorable and some of it is ancient history much of this post is about SF and anti-semitism) and I wanted to make that even clearer to people who will criticize them over supporting the Palestinians. (I just did a google search for news about SF's current stance on the IRA and Nazi Germany, and subscribed to the Irish Times and searched that site and found nothing about SF changing it's stance on this (I found something from 2004 indicating that SF was still defending what the IRA did (using Google Advanced Search, I searched SF's web-site and found nothing, although several possibly relevant documents seemed to have been moved or removed (they probably can't archive everything (I also used the search function on SF's web-site and didn't find anything)))))


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(Full) Equality Denied

Although the Peace Process is probably secure for at least the next 2-3 years, there have been some spikes recently in terms of problems with equality for Catholics that are worth a post on this blog (there have been several other such times in the last 8 years that I said little or nothing about, but that’s largely because I wasn’t reading the Irish News, with more information than you get from the BBC, until Spring earlier this year). Besides the fact that the border is still there, there is still not total equality for Catholics in N. Ireland. Although this post is not an exhaustive list of that sort of thing in recent months and years, it pretty much covers all such issues in the last two weeks or so and covers a lot of stuff if you look back further than that.

1) July 12th is a major unionist holiday in N. Ireland and the night before most unionist areas have giant bonfires. In recent years and, I think, long before that Irish flags, effigies and election posters of both SF and SDLP politicians are often placed on the bonfire material before it’s lit. Recently attention has been drawn to the approving attitudes towards this of senior DUP members. (see this (as far as I can tell, the only response from anyone in the DUP has been defiance from former health minister Edwin Poots)). Although anti-sectarianism doesn’t demand this of them, SF is so committed to good community relations and the Peace Process that it has been opposed to burning Union Jacks for at least two years if not much longer.

2) A march in commemoration of the 1971 introduction of internment, something that was leveled brutally and almost exclusively at the Catholic population, took place Sunday Aug. 7th. It was organized by dissident republicans in Belfast but when they were banned by the Parades Commission from the city center, a SF MP, Paul Maskey said that it should be allowed into the city center (where according to the Irish News loyalists have marched in recent months).

3) Although there has been very little conflict (in terms of nationalist rioting or large-scale nationalist protests) around this in recent years, there is still the problem of loyal orders (especially the Orange Order) wanting to parade more or less through Catholic areas. To a small degree they (contentious marches allowed to go ahead) still happen here and there (at least 3-4 times in the last two years), and there is potential for it to become a serious problem next year. As far as why it’s wrong for such parades to go more or less through Catholic areas, see this.

4) In recent years Catholics have been about 50% more likely to be unemployed than Protestants. That’s much better than it was during and before the conflict, but still leaves something to be desired in terms of equality.


The Police Service of N. Ireland

A huge chunk of what I’m talking about is about the police. In general, I should say that although the 2011 census found that 45% of N. Ireland’s population had a Catholic ”background” (whether or not they believe in God, they are part of the Catholic community (they’re regarded as “culturally Catholic”)), in recent years only about 31% of police officers come from that part of the population (and only about 20% of police staff come from that community). That gap for police officers is narrower than it was during and before the conflict, but it’s still pretty large and I think one likely partial explanation for it is that there are likely still a lot of times that PSNI officers engage in “political policing” when dealing with Catholics, nationalists and republicans. That's partly based on some anecdotal evidence I've read in the recent past and partly based on a 06 June, 2016 article in the Irish News that reported on something probably relevant to this. In recent years average PSNI strength was about 7,500 officers and the Irish News said:

"In December The Irish News revealed Police Ombudsman had recommended disciplinary action or sanctions against an average of around 300 police officers in every year since 2010.

At the time the PSNI described the figure as "concerning", but added that it was working to reduce the number of Ombudsman complaints, which have averaged at around nine every day since 2010."

I don't know how many of these complaints are about hostility towards Catholics, nationalists, or republicans, but in any case it's fairly alarming.

(If you want some more of my thoughts about the police there, see this)

With that background in mind, there have been some fairly serious crises involving the police recently.

First, recently two offensive banners were put up in County Tyrone celebrating a deceased loyalist paramilitary leader- Billy Wright. One of the initial two banners referred to the killing by the UVF of three IRA members and one civilian in 1991. Despite a complaint about these banners by a member of the public, the police decided they were legal and said that some people wouldn’t be offended by them. This prompted outrage and an unheard of (in recent years) refusal by a senior SDLP politician to meet with a senior police officer (the one who had made the statement about offending people). The response of the police to these banners has also been compared with the removal by police in 2013 of a large sign in Enniskillen that was a derogatory statement about Margaret Thatcher around the time of her death.

Second, an independent (ex-SF) local councilor, Padraig McShane, was violently arrested at an Orange parade July 12th after getting into a confrontation with orange bandsmen who verbally attacked him in connection with an arson attack on his home in 2014. I haven’t heard anything about it in about 3 weeks, but the article I read said an SF assembly member was complaining to the police about the provocative behavior of the bandsmen who verbally attacked McShane.

if you want to go much deeper into this subject see the following:
https://www.policeombudsman.org/Investigation-Reports/Historical-Reports
https://www.policeombudsman.org/Investigation-Reports/Case-Studies
https://www.policeombudsman.org/Statistics-and-Research



So, the Statelet retains an Orange tinge here and there. I still believe it’s unlikely that Catholics will experience total, sustainable equality with Protestants in the British-occupied part of Ireland. Uniting Ireland should definitely still be towards the top of the agendas of progressives, republicans, and nationalists. I talk more in a post here about how Catholics have been treated and how a United Ireland would very likely not see the “tables turned” on Protestants and more generally about the argument in favor of uniting Ireland. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Black Lives Matter Is Not A Hate Group

There is an important article about the Black Lives Matter movement here. It's by Richard Cohen, President of the Southern Poverty Law Center, at least one of the top two organizations monitoring the radical right, hate groups in general and some other extremists in America. This article should hopefully convince people skeptical of or hostile towards BLM that the movement is not anti-white. The thing is, the SPLC are saying this because the issues being raised by BLM are legitimate issues of racial injustice and inequality, and I believe that motivation triumphs over the positive relationship that the SPLC has with lots of police departments- that is, the SPLC cannot be written off as anti-cop, because, for better or worse, they overwhelmingly AREN'T anti-cop. But they are very much against hate and inequality.

UPDATE 3/1/20 The Anti-Defamation League also says fairly or very positive things about BLM.

Tom

UPDATE 7/19/16 I almost forgot to include something. There's an article about support in Ireland for BLM. It's here. Although I'm not half as familiar with it as I should be, Irishcentral seems pretty mainstream in Irish-america, which makes the part of the article about the protests in Ireland a pleasant surprise.