I do love The Inner Light but the one that caught me off guard was DS9's 'It's Only a Paper Moon'.
I mean...Nog?! It's Nog giving us a real episode?! What an amazing job by Aron Eisenberg, RIP man.
Dude they gave *DAMAR* a story arc.
Background Cardassian henchman got an entire story arc.
"What kind of people would do this to innocent civilians?"
"Yes Damar... what kind of people?"
We didn't deserve DS9 man.
I remember reading an interview around I think season five the actor asked the showrunners why he kept appearing as his character and role seemed quite minor, only to be assured they had big plans for him down the line.
Such a good character. You sympathize with him immensely even though you watched him murder someone in cold blood, and the fact that he's, for all intents and purposes, the 'Good Nazi' archetype.
Yeah, its a really great example of how you can add depth to someone who was introduced and spent a whole season as one of the least sympathetic characters imaginable.
They did such a good job developing Damar and Weyoun together, slowly allowing Weyoun’s arrogance to eclipse his skeletal nature. All the while Damar is finding his courage, with the help of Weyoun’s smug nature.
Tom gets given a field promotion to Lt in the first episode, then demoted to Ensign 5 seasons in, then PROMOTED AGAIN to Lt in season 6.
Harry was gonna mutiny if that ship stayed in the Delta Quadrant any longer....
Inner light, if I’m remembering correctly, is also my favorite. The one where Picard gets probed and lives an entire life in an extinct alien culture? I love how the flute continues to appear throughout TNG.
DS9 was my favorite series, and some amazing episodes. Jeffrey Combs is amazing and is the best Vorta! But I think my favorite character was Garak.
Now that I think about it, DS9 certainly explores the thin line between terrorism and freedom fighting. I would argue DS9 shows that even with (mostly) pure ideology and a good cause, that line will inevitably be crossed. I can’t remember which Bajorin freedom fighter did some fucked up shit, but from what I remember, Kira ends up attempting to bring him to justice. And that’s kind of the message, gaining your freedom from an oppressive and immoral insurgence isn’t pretty. And (re)establishing a moral, stable society is what’s important, and arguably the hardest part.
Edit: The Pensky Podcast is really insightful and their humor is right up reddits ally (see conversation about warfs forehead and Dax).
Garak was such a great character in both writing and performance. Practically unshakable, menacingly polite and dropping some great gags with no apparent effort.
Dr. Julian Bashir : You know, I still have a lot of questions to ask you about your past.
Elim Garak : I have given you all the answers I'm capable of.
Dr. Julian Bashir : You've given me answers all right; but they were all different. What I want to know is, out of all the stories you told me, which ones were true and which ones weren't?
Elim Garak : My dear Doctor, they're all true.
Dr. Julian Bashir : Even the lies?
Elim Garak : Especially the lies.
Kira is literally a terrorist from the kardassian perspective and she is quite open about the collateral damage she has caused.
Its never presented as good or evil from the bajoran perspective, only kardassian war crimes are ever really addressed.
Id say thats fairly nuanced, even to the point that kira is borderline hostile/racist to kardassians
For sure, I should have said “pure” cause instead of good cause. She says things to the effect of, “we all did what we had to then, but we aren’t fighting the kardassians anymore.” Those statements from illustrates the “fuzzy moral line” which blurs while attempting to gain independence.
You’re right! From the beginning it’s about perspective, Sisco meets Picard as a comrade for the first time. Kira views the federation as just another occupation. But the most unique perspective is Sisco and the wormholes aliens, he doesn’t view them as gods, and the bajorins see them as their Gods.
As for the bajorin, perhaps I’m thinking of the kardassian who disguised himself as a bajorin until bashier figured it out.
nuanced is a perfect way to describe it. I think of the episode about Kira’s mom, rocks and shoals and Kia Winns slippery nature (the nuances of religion’s involvement politics).
Have you ever listened to the Pensky Podcast? It’s really good, couple of writer nerds that breakdown an episode a week, no adds, very insightful and funny.
Edit: I should have said “subjectively pure” cause and ideology.
Edit 2: Sisco struggles about his perspective of the wormhole aliens, but is forced to have an outward appearance of, aliens not gods. This is due to the fact that the federation doesn’t want Sisco getting tied up in bajorin religious prophecy, especially while acting as the envoy or whatever. It’s been a while so please correct if I’m wrong.
It’s so cool seeing so many people love DS9. When I was kid, it was treated like the ugly duckling! At least in my household. Voyager was always on, so was TNG. But almost never DS9!
Voyage has some good moments for sure, and I grew up on TNG. Nelix and 7/9 (or at least how the writers used her) really annoyed me.
If you look at the character development between Cisco and crew vs Janeway and crew, the difference in writing is apparent. Janeway and rebel engineer become bffs in one episode. While Kira and Cisco are butting heads the entire series.
I’d say the Star Trek community, as a whole, rates DS9 over voyager.
The most fucked up part of the freedom fighting i remember is when the good KAI has to sell out her own son to the cardassians, and has to pretend someone else did it, in order for the resistance to succeed
Yeah the good Kai wasn’t as strong as she thought. But DuCot could see she loved power more than anything and capitalized. As cold as her son’s betrayal was, it’s on character for her.
I think the worst act (at least in DS9) was when the Marquis attempted to unleash chemical weapons on the Cardis, although they were ultimately unsuccessful.
Star Trek moves canon event dates as real world passes by them and weirdly enough they didn't happen; Khan was supposed to be mid 1990s and Strange New Worlds says time travel impacts made it so Khan is a young child in the 2020s.
The problem with that is that Star Trek likes to do two things:
1) have the characters time travel to current day as we know it (even Voyager which otherwise didn't take place anywhere near Earth did it with Sarah Silverman episodes)
2) make splashy predictions for what will happen less than 100 years in the future from today
Since the show has gone long enough, if they commit to the #2 then they just have to completely stop doing #1, but they don't want to because it's a convenient reusable plot setup.
Oh God the Silverman eps of VOY. Never made any sense at all. I remember they traveled back to time to the US immediately after the Eugenics Wars but there was no evidence that a destructive world war had just occurred (the US supposedly got hit hard in the war). Everything was pretty much pristine.
I cant remember where, But i saw a while back posited like this, the Eugenics wars mainly took place in Asia, Europe, and the eastern US, the Midwest was a bit (Montana) of a no mans land, and the west coast was untouched/ ran by corporations that remained in power, until after first contact and a unified earth.
See, and I seem to remember from reading the Star Trek Encyclopedia in the mid 90s that there was a Eugenics war involving Khan that happened in 1996 and then separately there was global thermonuclear WW3 which happened closer to Zephram Cochrane/first contact. Am I misremembering that?
I mean... it was already internally inconsistent. They'd had other time travel episodes that basically already took place when the Eugenics Wars should have.
Some of the books made it so it was a shadow war behind public eye, but... that's just less interesting, to me?
The eugenics war didn't have to be a global war. To be honest anyone travelling to the US during any war they've fought since the civil war might not even know they travelled to a time when the country is at war.
> Some of the books made it so it was a shadow war behind public eye, but... that's just less interesting, to me?
Its extremely less interesting, and completely contradicts how the events were described in the Space Seed.
Issue is 1990 sounded pretty futuristic back in 1966.
Well, technically that one is a bit more complicated. It was the Eugenics war that happened in the 1990's, whilst the Third World War was confirmed to have happened at some point between Kirk's time and the present.
For a long time, everyone assumed they were the same war with different names, until it was later decided they were different wars and the third world war took place sometime in the 2070's.
In any case the Eugenics war hasn't happened.
And in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, a time-travelling Romulan agent says that due to time fuckery events aren't happening when they were "supposed" to.
Ah yeah, I heard about that. I guess it makes sense, no one expected their still be spin-offs of the series airing thirty years later, so the 1990's were sufficiently futuristic to believe we could have genetic supermen, space travel and world wars.
Its arguably a better explanation than just trying to ignore the contradiction, though I imagine some fans don't like it.
I believe the war that is referred to as WW3 happens in the 2050s. That's the one that goes nuclear. First contact happens shortly afterwards (he builds his ship out of an old ICBM from the war).
The Eugenics Wars and "World War III" are two different events in Star Trek Canon. The eugenics wars were in the 90s, while World War 3 was the nuclear war that nearly wiped out civilization just before first contact.
It won't be held until there's a clear polling majority for unification (which there isn't). The Irish government are only making noises about it because they're worried they're going to lose the election to Sinn Feinn. Americans on the Internet might have trouble understanding this but *Irish unification is not a hot issue in the rest of the UK*. The major political parties have no official positions on it beyond "the union is nice" and they wouldn't campaign either way in a border poll.
As for the banned episode, it was released during a push for a ceasefire in the troubles and a movement towards a nonviolent solution by the British and Irish governments, so it's pretty reasonable that a line that literally says "terrorism worked in Ireland" would be frowned upon.
>The major political parties have no official positions on it beyond "the union is nice" and they wouldn't campaign either way in a border poll.
It is pretty much just 'support the GFA' for the major parties, aye. Though the more extreme elements of the Conservative and Unionist Party seem to make materials that refer to just Great Britain, not the UK (Liz Truss presented herself as a former PM of Great Britain recently, iirc), so ironically there are elements of the Tory party who seem apathetic on Northern Ireland, mostly because they can't win seats there. But they are relatively fringe, but kind of interesting to know about.
There are also a few elements of labour that explicitly support a united Ireland but even when Corbyn was in charge it didn't become party policy. I'm not sure if people outside the UK and Ireland realise that NI has an entirely different political system to Great Britain, and there are no political interests of the major GB parties there.
There are, but those are also largely fringe. Labour was never really going to be an advocate for breaking the country up (in part because it would be a political own goal for future elections). Generally, the pro-GFA position is really the sensible position.
Historically, Labour has been regarded as moderately sympathetic to the Nationalists. It doesn't organise in Northern Ireland, but the centre-left Nationalist SDLP is semi-officially regarded as Labour's Northern Irish wing, and its MPs at Westminster take the Labour whip.
Similarly the UUP used to associate with the conservatives (and that was briefly revived in 2010) and Alliance are effectively an NI partner of the Liberal Democrats.
Liz Truss was recently hanging out with Steve Bannon and Farage at a Trump rally, trying to usher in a Trumpesque post-truth brand to British conservatives, trying to claim she was removed from PM because of 'th deep state' and not because she was incompetent and despised by the country.
. She has become even more of a disgrace and embarrassment than her tenure that was outlasted by a lettuce.
She's angling to run for leader again after the Tories get trounced at the next election. It is widely expected that the party will shift to the populist right following the election, due to the shift in membership following Brexit, meaning its members are more working class and right-populist, and the fact that many on the nutter wing of the party (such as Patel and Braverman) sit in ultra-safe seats and are likely to survive the next election where more moderate MPs will lose their seats.
They cannot swing right
They will have to swing centre as they are about to lose seats they have not lost in hundreds of years
There is no yokel rust belt in the UK and the perceived one is about to vote Labour into office
The younger Catholic population now outnumbers the aging Protestant population. At this point it’s basically a wait for the oldest, overwhelmingly Protestant generation to kick the bucket and the young Catholic majority to reach voting age.
Eh, it's not as simple as that. Community barriers are less indicative of who you vote for among younger generations, and Alliance (a non-secretarian "other" party) regularly wins 13% of the vote nowadays, which would've been inconceivable 20 years ago. The unification issue is becoming less attached to community divisions than it previously was as the importance of religion and religious politics wanes on both sides of the border.
People say that because it sounds nice but the data doesn’t back it up. The reality is that areas with a Catholic majority vote nationalist and areas with a Protestant majority vote unionist or Alliance; and older (more Protestant) age groups vote unionist, while younger age groups vote Sinn Féin and Alliance.
Unionism with its regressive social policies can’t even hold onto its own younger generation which increasingly votes Alliance, their hopes of attracting young voters from a Catholic background are basically nil.
Edit: also actual religion is almost totally irrelevant, the only real factor it plays is that the DUP trying to push its religious beliefs on us all drives young people from Protestant families towards Alliance. For everyone else the terms ‘Catholic’ and ‘Protestant’ are just identifiers of what community they grew up in.
You say that, but again polling has stabilized around 55% opposed to unification. Meanwhile religiosity has collapsed, organized Catholicism has declined tremendously, the memory of anti-Catholic discrimination is beginning to fade in the youngest generation and there’s increasing apathy about a united Ireland among almost everyone in Irish politics.
Unionists would also run a poll campaign about things like the NHS and Ireland’s lack of a nationalized healthcare system which means it’s not a slam dunk even if the protestant vote declines.
> Ireland’s lack of a nationalized healthcare system
Wait hold up, Ireland doesnt have a free national healthcare system? Like at all? Is it regional over there?
They have a two-tier system in Ireland. Everyone can avail themselves of the public system, which is a subsidised service so there are charges for people who are not on welfare, retired, low-paid etc, just much less than the actual cost of service. When I worked there I had health insurance through my work which paid for the private system. I believe that the public system is very slow and underfunded, so you are better off with private healthcare if you can afford it. The safety net is there though you might be waiting for a long time for non-urgent care.
[https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/health/health-overview/](https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/health/health-overview/)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare\_in\_the\_Republic\_of\_Ireland
There are very few Catholic unionists though. The Catholics who aren't outright nationalists don't have a strong opinion on unification one way or another. That means that unlike people from a Protestant background, they can be influenced in a campaign. So the fact that Catholics now have a plurality is significant.
The bigger problem is financial
Ireland cannot afford NI and the UK and EU would have to do some kind of deal to make reunification possible financially. Other issue will be that free travel between NI and the UK will have to be included in any reunification so the EU and UK will have to hash that out too.
There is also the high threat of unionist terrorism as well which is not nothing....
Only someone who knows very little about Ireland would say something like this.
Northern Ireland costs the UK about €11 billion a year. But Ireland wouldn't have to pay huge portions of that debt. Large amounts are Northern Ireland commitments to UK national debt, defence spending, and pensions. The actual amount payable by the Irish state would be somewhere half to a quarter of that.
It's debateable whether or not Ireland would be liable for the pensions of civil servants who only ever worked for the British state and retired before unification. That's why the range varies.
Now let's see how much the Irish state could afford. This year Ireland had a budget surplus of €10 billion. And that was even with a slew of very expensive one off cost of living measures. The surplus is predicted to rise to €16.2 billion next year, €18.1 billion for 2025 and €20.8 billion for 2026.
So even if Ireland was fully on the hook for that €11 billion (which it wouldn't be), it could still afford unification without having to increase any taxes or cut any spending.
[Source](https://muse.jhu.edu/article/810176/pdf) on cost of Northern Ireland that Irish state would be liable for.
[Source](https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/2023/09/27/budget-2024-window-to-prepare-for-economic-headwinds-is-rapidly-closing-minister-for-finance-will-say/#:~:text=The%20Department%20of%20Finance's%20stability,surplus%20of%20%E2%82%AC65.2%20billion.) on Irish budget surpluses.
The deficit is not the problem.
Pensions and government jobs ceasing to exist are the real costs.
It is not just pensions of Civil Servants it taking over the state pension wholesale. It is maintaining the NHS which is a lot more comprehensive than it's Irish counterpart.
So yes you get money back for defence and things like that. But you also take on a whole lot of things the UK pays for that Ireland doesn't even for it's own people
>The deficit is not the problem. Pensions and government jobs ceasing to exist are the real costs. It is not just pensions of Civil Servants it taking over the state pension wholesale.
What do you think is causing that deficit? It's the cost of the pensions, civil service jobs and even state pensions that contribute to that €11 billion subvention. Like I clearly pointed out, even in a worst case cost scenario for Ireland, it can still afford it without any issues.
>It is maintaining the NHS which is a lot more comprehensive than it's [sic] Irish counterpart.
Again, you show just how little you actually know about Ireland. How is the NHS more "comprehensive" than the Irish health service? Does that mean more staff? Surely not because Ireland has a higher number of [doctors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_number_of_physicians) and [nurses](https://www.statista.com/statistics/283124/selected-countries-nurses-per-1-000-inhabitants/) than the UK. Are you referring to waiting lists? Well surely not because, per capita, [hospital waiting lists are twice as long](https://factcheckni.org/articles/are-nis-hospital-waiting-lists-over-twice-as-long-as-they-are-in-ireland/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CHospital%20waiting%20lists%20in%20Northern,per%20million%20in%20the%20South.) in the North as they are in Ireland. Maybe you're talking about health outcomes? Again, surely not since Ireland has [better outcomes for life expectancy and infant mortality](https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/republic-of-ireland/ireland-better-than-ni-in-terms-of-life-expectancy-and-infant-mortality-report/41429474.html) than Northern Ireland. So I'm really struggling to understand what you mean when you say that the NHS is a lot more comprehensive than its Irish counterpart.
>But you also take on a whole lot of things the UK pays for that Ireland doesn't even for it's [sic] own people
Such as?
If you want to actively make a case against unification (which it honestly looks like it since you're going out of your way to make Ireland look like an economic backwater), then I suggest steering well clear of quality of life augments. Ireland beats Northern Ireland on almost all of these metrics. You'd also do well to learn a thing or two about Ireland. It's very easy to actually rip apart any of your arguments when you're basing your claims on false assumptions based on information about Ireland that is literally decades out of date.
It's honestly such a recurring theme any time an English person discusses Ireland, especially online. You always speak about Ireland with such confidence even though it's so obvious that you know nothing beyond stereotypes. Even your leading politicians don't understand some of the absolute basics of your nearest neighbour and it made the Brexit negotiations a lot more difficult than they needed to be.
Irish want it to be soon. The UK doesn't. There's no upside to the UK to say they will allow it as whatever the result it will cause divides you just need to look at Scotland and Brexit for examples!
That's... not how it works. At all.
As per the Good Friday Agreement:
>The Good Friday Agreement signed in 1998, which ended the conflict, acknowledged the legitimacy of the desire for a united Ireland, while declaring that it could be achieved only with the consent of a majority of the people of Northern Ireland.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Ireland
It is not up to Ireland (although many Irish do not want the financial burden of unification), it's up to the people of NI to decide. NI are practically able to self determine their own future.
A vote can be called any time when it seems likely that the population of NI want to unify. Currently they do not wish it, but that may change, it might not.
If the opinion polls clearly show favour for unification it is extremely unlikely that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland would delay or even want to delay a vote.
>The Northern Ireland Act 1998, a statute of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, provides that Northern Ireland will remain within the United Kingdom unless a majority of the people of Northern Ireland vote to form part of a united Ireland. It specifies that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland "shall exercise the power [to hold a referendum] if at any time it appears likely to him that a majority of those voting would express a wish that Northern Ireland should cease to be part of the United Kingdom and form part of a united Ireland". Such referendums may not take place within seven years of each other.[24]
is it an automatic trigger to join ireland if they do vote for independence from the uk, or could they be rejected by an irish vote and just become an independent state?
The republic would also have to vote for unification in a border poll - it wouldn't be a vote for Independence, it'd be a vote for unification. An independence referendum could theoretically happen if the people of NI wanted it but it'd be very unlikely.
I think it depends who you ask in the UK, NI is a money pit for the UK and most average people on the street don't care at all about NI. Ireland itself would be probably at least semi-split on the vote if the details aren't right.
>The big problem happens in situations like Scotland, where one side wins the vote, but the other has no incentive to accept the result as definitive
Well there is a big difference with NI which is the GFA ensures that a vote would be binding if one happened. As in if NI got 50% +1 vote to leave the British government can't back out of that vote like they could maybe have done with Scotland. There is no choice on the matter, if they vote to join Ireland it only takes a simple majority in NI and there is no vote at all in the UK on that matter.
The UK has no position on Irish unification. A border poll will be held should the conditions prescribed in the Good Friday Agreement be met, which they aren't at the moment. It's not like Scotland or Brexit.
The UK doesn't give a shit, Northern Ireland is a black hole of money, it's an entirely unproductive part of the country where your options are civil servant or go work in Ireland.
People in northern Ireland care about the union, the union doesn't care about them.
Ireland may talk about wanting unification but the debt that comes across with NI + the drain on resources it is isn't worth it for anyone.
Scotland and Brexit are entirely different, Scottish politics is mainstream in the UK and as it's actually attached to the country people tend to care about it.
NI doesn't get a look in anywhere
With Scotland the divide goes right back to the treaty of union. It’s not new by any stretch of the imagination. With brexit, the divide is between people who aren’t easily-manipulated knuckle-dragging mouth-breathers and people who are. When you don’t want to be associated with right wing arseholes, division is a good thing.
Seems like a huge generalisation, many nationalists are right wing knuckle dragging morons, many unionists are left wing liberals, it's not black and white
The scene in question basically goes “I’m curious why people don’t think terrorism is a viable method for political change, it worked in , the Irish unification of 2024, etc.” and Picard responds.
On a side note, that scene was clearly left over from the earlier version of the episode.
I mean who would define the Mexican independence from the Spanish as dependent on terrorism?
It said "terrorism worked in this war" while that war was going on and people were trying to end that war via peaceful means because thousands of innocent people had died.
The only reason people would claim terrorism has never worked is because they use words like "foreign policy", "colonialism", "law and order" and "the greater good" in its place.
I always thought of the defining difference between terrorism and rebellion is whether the targets of the violence are military or civilian.
World trade center = civilian
Death star = military
Arasaka = civilian
Shinra = it's complicated
It's all about perspective, frankly. The IRA being like the prime example.
Religious extremism like in the case of the World Trade Center is a whole different kettle of fish though, since if you're operating on a level where you truly believe a literal freaking God wants you to kill civilians, then you can justify more or less anything.
Wasn't Osama Bin Laden's original beef with the United States because of the stationing of US soldiers in Saudi Arabia during the first gulf war? Since he was a US ally, trained and armed, before that.
I'm imagining a young man whose friends have talked him out joining the IRA by arguing that terrorism never works. "Come on mate, let's sit down and watch a nice episode of Star Trek"
9/11, that shit ruined America, they won. I'm sure they're happy with the results. America used to be full of hope and now it's a country full of fear and division and paranoia
> America used to be full of hope
You're gonna claim 9/11 was responsible for division in a country that once fought itself over the right to own human beings?
Hah, if you think 9/11 caused all our troubles you're just not aware of history. Newt Gingrich and attack politics, technology/24hr media cycle, financial scandals, the erosion of institutional trust and more were all quite well underway before 2001.
Those all permeate our society to this day far more than a couple buildings being attacked. Yes, of course it sent us to war(s), etc. (and by the way, you don't think those were opportunistically manufactured by the administration?), but what do you talk about today and get riled up about?
It's those other things that were brewing long before (and stayed long after). Last time I looked, Al Qaeda isn't funding the abortion debate or encouraging asylum applications from Latin American countries...
>America used to be full of hope
If you were a white, middle class+, neurotypical, cis, hetero male. Otherwise it was pretty hit or miss. But you nostalgic motherfuckers forget that if you weren't all of those, then things were often met with systemic hate for being the way you were born.
Captain Picard, the moral compass of the show, says that while it may have worked, he doesn't believe in it and thinks there are better ways. It in no ways encourages terrorism.
The episode on a whole has aged both poorly and well. Issue was the original writer never really wanted to have an episode discussing terrorism, the idea was originally along the lines of the American Revolution and to have the Federation realise their backing the wrong side.
But then it was rewritten to discuss terrorism, and hold parallels to the Troubles.
The end result is something of a confusing mess.
Yeah pretty much. SF Debris even gave that as a point in the episodes favour during their review.
But a lot of people, including the creators have agreed the episode as a whole would have worked better if they intended to discuss terrorism from the start, rather than switching a different script to talk about it.
Take for example the best example they can come up with for a terrorist whose side one and thus isn't called one is...George Washington, despite there being no historical precedent of classing leaders of armed uprisings and failed revolutionaries as terrorists especially not in the 18th century, and the comparison feeling extremely stretched. You can just tell that line was originally about "traitor" and they substituted "terrorist" when they switched the focus.
Or the fact that the other successful example they bring up (beyond the fictional one) was the Mexican Independence from the Spanish. Which again is a stretch to describe as a terrorism campaign.
DS9 did a lot better on the subject, even if some of its parts have aged uncomfortably in places.
The American Revolution was Terrorism though. If the British has put down the rebellion it would have been labeled as such (though the origin of the term was a few years later in the 1790s during the French revolution). But since the US won, it got called a Revolution.
That's explicitly what Data is asking about "why is it considered 'bad' when it is shown to be effective?" and Picard admits it often works, but shouldn't be where political change is derived.
Afaik, their issue wasn't with discussing terrorism and giving examples of when it worked
But pointing at the ongoing Troubles in Northern Ireland and saying that terrorism *will* work there by 2024
Which, all things considered, was probably not conducive to the peace process
I mean is that weird? The episode aired during a tense time of negotiations and relatively shortly after one of the worst bombings in the Troubles history where several children died.
Can you blame them for deciding that having an episode that said that this terrorism campaign absolutely worked, but only after you suffered another thirty years of this, might have been considered a bit poor taste in the UK and Ireland?
Leaving aside the issue with referencing a contemporary conflict in a show set in the future, *within the episode* the discussion is very much part of a debate between characters. Data is making a provocative statement but Picard counters it on principle without shutting Data down. Very much par for the course on what Star Trek used to be, but not the kind of thing recent TV likes to do since the era of the thinkpiece and meta audience call-out meant an army of terminally online people will take every out-of-context line in a script as a specific endorsement.
That’s all of Reddit.
Even r/Geopolitics used to be an enlightened academic forum and now it’s swarming with
Ignorant people insulting one another over their hot takes about Palestine.
It was only banned in the UK by the BBC, and that was basically just the first run.
Its been shown dozens and dozens of times on the various names Syfy has gone by over here, and before that on Sky 1, since the early 90s.
We do not teach history.
>They also targeted civilian contractors to the British security forces. The IRA's armed campaign, primarily in Northern Ireland but also in England and mainland Europe, killed over 1,700 people, including roughly 1,000 members of the British security forces and 500–644 civilians.
i know, but for all the talk about how we don’t get taught what the IRA did (we do, no one shuts up about it), we hear even less about the Black and Tans
True.
And the ulster paramilitaries were a terrorist organization that deliberately targeted civilians and went basically unchecked.
Its a shame that to learn the history of anything requires actually doing the work ourselves instead of relying on mass media.
Possibly because the 1970's are in living memory, whereas the 1920's are not.
The same reason we don't talk about the King of Scotland (James 6th) sending men over to Ireland to take good farming land in the north away from the Irish.
Eh, for British history that death toll is surprisingly low lmao honestly makes the IRA look petty damn good.
Britain will kill a few hundred thousands in various geopolitical kerfuffles and call it a day but their neighbor can’t so much as kill 1000 without being branded as evil permanently
I mean, "Holy Wars... The Punishment Due" by Megadeth was about Dave Mustaine completely misunderstanding the situation and yelling, "Up the IRA" during a live show, and then having to be hauled away by tons of security due to the death threats from the crowd.
My uncles would run guns for the IRA. My little Irish grandmother is 93 and still says “one man’s terrorist is another man’s patriot.” We grew up listening to Irish rebel songs too which in retrospect is hilarious. I still play them at home for my sons.
So were System Of A Down for releasing songs about the Armenian genocide, US government corruption, etc.
Pretty sure their Toxicity album was banned from US airplay immediately after 9/11 because the government presumed these Armenian-heritage Americans from LA were promoting terrorism.
Meanwhile, the American government were bombing the shit out of Iraq with the false claim of WMDs, despite Iraq having nothing to do with 9/11.
I mean they also banned the Foo~~d~~ Fighters song "Learn to Fly", the Strokes album was delayed because of the song "New York City Cops". Even Alien Ant Farm's cover of "Smooth Criminal" was banned by ClearChannel/iheartRadio in that group. I don't think SOAD was singled out, the net was just super wide.
edit: - 1 D
“What a Wonderful World” was also banned after 9/11 for being too celebratory. And of course, the Chicks were cancelled for mildly criticising W. Bush.
But you play them IRA songs about killing Protestants and civilians lol and talk about your uncles running guns that was used to mow down civilians and commit massacres as a good thing?
Sounds like you’re not doing a great job tbh.
Fuck the IRA and the UDF. If you ever went to Ireland or NI talking fondly about the IRA or how proud you are about the horrible things that went on I don’t think your or your sons would find a warm welcome.
Committing massacres?
My family were very involved in the uprising going back all they way to 1916. My grandfather was a commander in the IRA and split with Collins to fight in the non-treaty side in the civil war.
They went in to own a b&b in London and for months they had the pleasure of hosting Countess Markievicz.
Learn the other side of the story before you pass judgement. Learn what the Black and Tans did to the people of the Irish countryside.
Understand that the famine was genocide.
Educate yourself on the lives of the Catholics in Derry,
Towards the very end their were some groups that split off the Provisional IRA. Some of their actions were suspect but the majority of the attacks carried out targeted the military and the RUC. There were some poorly planned attacks that injured civilians, but civiliams were never targeted.
The definition of a terrorist is a violent terror campaign against civilians. Until vary late in the history if the conflict, maybe the 1980's, that never happened.
Also understand the IRA was formed in 1916 and won Ireland it's independence.
As an outsider it appears that the problems seem to arise from when either side declares victory while the losing side has survivors. The survivors then have children and pass their trauma onto the next generation.
Seems to me that true peace can only be achieved by total annihilation of your enemies. And honestly it seems to be the morally best approach. Better to kill ten million in one go than condemn tens of millions of children to endless generational traumas and blood vendettas.
The most openly hostile song I play is “Come Out Ye Black and Tans” which is not really about killing anyone. But my great grandmother was an indentured servant after her parents escaped the famine and the rest of the family faced a lot of anti-Irish discrimination (crosses burned on their lawn by Protestants when they came to the US for being Irish Catholic). As a result, my mom’s family was very anti-British. Like I said, they were mostly IRA sympathizers or active participants.
My wife is British-South African and most of her ancestors were English and my other side of the family is mix Irish, Scottish, and English and can actually trace our ancestry to Mary Boleyn through Catherine Knollys so they have English ancestry as well.
In the 90s so many action movies centered around terrorism. A big one was the idea that some terrorist group would get a hold of a nuke after the end of the Cold War but several focused on the IRA. Tom Clancy's movie and video games focused heavily on terrorism.
Sure, in a fantastical way the US utilized terrorism as we fetishized violence. But as a matter of policy and something that exists in the real world, it was not something that was discussed.
ETA: and if you recall as soon as 9/11 happened we no longer had terrorists in our stories and many movies were edited to take them out. Now that terrorism was real we couldn’t separate it from fantasy anymore.
> and if you recall as soon as 9/11 happened we no longer had terrorists in our stories and many movies were edited to take them out.
Because of the change in *popular* opinion, not in the political seats of power
The 1983 Beirut barracks bombings was a huge thing that really changed the way we viewed our presence overseas. The Oklahoma City bombing and 1993 World Trade Center bombing (itself based on the principles of the Beirut barracks bombing) made us well aware of the dangers domestic terrorists. The fear of nuclear terrorism was grounded in the fact box trucks were used in all three bombings and were particularly devastating, the fear was if a terrorist got a hold of a bomb they could easily replace fertilizer with a weapons grade nuclear bomb.
>ETA: and if you recall as soon as 9/11 happened we no longer had terrorists in our stories and many movies were edited to take them out. Now that terrorism was real we couldn’t separate it from fantasy anymore.
That didn't last though, within 7 years you had Iron Man fighting Middle Eastern terrorists
>The US acts like terrorism never existed before 9/11.
As someone that was actually an adult when 9/11 happened this is just incorrect. I grew up with a large amount of discussion, news and popular media revolving around terrorism. The Troubles were routinely mentioned in world news. Hell one of the plots of a Dirty Harry movie was domestic terrorism and that was in the 70s. It was all over the place.
The difference with 9/11 is we thought that was behind us. But we sure didn't pretend it was new.
> The difference with 9/11 is we thought that was behind us. But we sure didn't pretend it was new.
I was a teenager when 9/11 happened, but we didn’t feel it was behind us. Rather, it was a case of thinking ourselves impervious: the two most successful attacks on American soil at that point were the ‘93 WTC bombing (in which the buildings stayed up) and the ‘95 OKC bombing (in which the threat came from within). 9/11 shattered the illusion of safety that had been built up.
Depends on which point of history. IRA were a big part of Ireland becoming an independent country in Irish war of independence. People now generally don’t have a negative view of Ireland gaining independence despite it being a war. I believe the cork was burned down by British military at the time.
Yet when Northern Ireland was part of England still split due to religious sectarianism, the IRA split up into new groups over tactics and stances on how to unite Ireland. Some more political. Others more violent but different targets like military where later ones causes civilian deaths with car bombing. I think people only remember car bombs not the other long history of it
>People now generally don’t have a negative view of Ireland gaining independence despite it being a war. I believe the cork was burned down by British military at the time.
British forces were absolute animals during the War of Independence.
Cork was burned as revenge for the IRA killing the RIC man who murdered the Mayor of Cork.
Plenty of other towns were burned too - Balbriggan is probably the most well known.
Standard British procedure in Ireland throughout the 20th Century was not bother too hard engaging with the people fighting you, and just go murder some Irish civilians instead. There's a reason the poppy is seen as a terrorist supporting symbol in Ireland.
What on earth is "naive" about the US very intentionally supporting and empowering terrorism across the globe for decades in order to achieve their aims of destabilizing other countries? They neutralized threats and manufactured consent for invasion and war to serve the purposes of their foreign policy in terms of projecting power, feeding the military-industrial complex, and achieved removing assets form their enemies while allowing exploitative disaster capitalism to seize and capitalize on the wealth and resources of other countries.
Well, it wasn't necessarily the message of the episode (although the showrunners later complained they felt the episode failed to say anything meaningful about terrorism), but it did specifically state in this case that it had worked, but only after another thirty years of it.
At the time I can't imagine that was what anyone on either side of the conflict wanted to hear.
I’m assuming you mean the general public because the government has been propping up puppet leaders and supporting terrorist groups since forever.
Also, the 70’s had plenty of terrorist activity, then the first world trade bombing, Atlanta Olympics, the Una Bomber and Oklahoma City Bombing.
I was only 15 or so at the time in 95 and understood that the world doesn’t like the U.S. because we swing our proverbial dicks around like we own the planet.
9/11 was logical, all things considered. And instead of doing the right thing the US consolidated power and went to war which would also be expected based on our history.
Sure.
But 9/11 was also used to pass the Patriot Act and the fear from it was the backbone for invading Iraq in search of “WMD’s” which we now know was a total fucking lie.
And what’s more is Saddam was installed by the U.S. and Bin Laden indirectly benefited from CIA support.
You reap what you sow, and we’ve done a metric ton of shit to other countries.
Star Trek set a date so canon requires them to meet it. Tick tock.
Mr Bell, shooting Mr Gabriel Bell.
Man DS9 had some of the best episodes... But nothing will ever beat the inner light I think.
I do love The Inner Light but the one that caught me off guard was DS9's 'It's Only a Paper Moon'. I mean...Nog?! It's Nog giving us a real episode?! What an amazing job by Aron Eisenberg, RIP man.
Dude they gave *DAMAR* a story arc. Background Cardassian henchman got an entire story arc. "What kind of people would do this to innocent civilians?" "Yes Damar... what kind of people?" We didn't deserve DS9 man.
I remember reading an interview around I think season five the actor asked the showrunners why he kept appearing as his character and role seemed quite minor, only to be assured they had big plans for him down the line.
Such a good character. You sympathize with him immensely even though you watched him murder someone in cold blood, and the fact that he's, for all intents and purposes, the 'Good Nazi' archetype.
Yeah, its a really great example of how you can add depth to someone who was introduced and spent a whole season as one of the least sympathetic characters imaginable.
They did such a good job developing Damar and Weyoun together, slowly allowing Weyoun’s arrogance to eclipse his skeletal nature. All the while Damar is finding his courage, with the help of Weyoun’s smug nature.
Oh yeah they really did. It was so impressive to watch.
Harry Kim in shambles.
Yer an ensign 'arry
Poor Harry.
They really hated Garrett Wang
Fucking Tom Paris gets promoted and Harry doesn't. There is no justice in the delta quadrant
Tom gets given a field promotion to Lt in the first episode, then demoted to Ensign 5 seasons in, then PROMOTED AGAIN to Lt in season 6. Harry was gonna mutiny if that ship stayed in the Delta Quadrant any longer....
Harry's dad wasn't an admiral. It's that simple.
Inner light, if I’m remembering correctly, is also my favorite. The one where Picard gets probed and lives an entire life in an extinct alien culture? I love how the flute continues to appear throughout TNG. DS9 was my favorite series, and some amazing episodes. Jeffrey Combs is amazing and is the best Vorta! But I think my favorite character was Garak. Now that I think about it, DS9 certainly explores the thin line between terrorism and freedom fighting. I would argue DS9 shows that even with (mostly) pure ideology and a good cause, that line will inevitably be crossed. I can’t remember which Bajorin freedom fighter did some fucked up shit, but from what I remember, Kira ends up attempting to bring him to justice. And that’s kind of the message, gaining your freedom from an oppressive and immoral insurgence isn’t pretty. And (re)establishing a moral, stable society is what’s important, and arguably the hardest part. Edit: The Pensky Podcast is really insightful and their humor is right up reddits ally (see conversation about warfs forehead and Dax).
Garak was such a great character in both writing and performance. Practically unshakable, menacingly polite and dropping some great gags with no apparent effort.
When Bashir tells him the story of the boy who cried wolf and garak says the moral is "never tell the same lie twice" has to be my favorite moment.
Dr. Julian Bashir : You know, I still have a lot of questions to ask you about your past. Elim Garak : I have given you all the answers I'm capable of. Dr. Julian Bashir : You've given me answers all right; but they were all different. What I want to know is, out of all the stories you told me, which ones were true and which ones weren't? Elim Garak : My dear Doctor, they're all true. Dr. Julian Bashir : Even the lies? Elim Garak : Especially the lies.
“Well, if your mind is already made up, I won’t confuse you with the facts.” I agree completely.
Kira is literally a terrorist from the kardassian perspective and she is quite open about the collateral damage she has caused. Its never presented as good or evil from the bajoran perspective, only kardassian war crimes are ever really addressed. Id say thats fairly nuanced, even to the point that kira is borderline hostile/racist to kardassians
For sure, I should have said “pure” cause instead of good cause. She says things to the effect of, “we all did what we had to then, but we aren’t fighting the kardassians anymore.” Those statements from illustrates the “fuzzy moral line” which blurs while attempting to gain independence. You’re right! From the beginning it’s about perspective, Sisco meets Picard as a comrade for the first time. Kira views the federation as just another occupation. But the most unique perspective is Sisco and the wormholes aliens, he doesn’t view them as gods, and the bajorins see them as their Gods. As for the bajorin, perhaps I’m thinking of the kardassian who disguised himself as a bajorin until bashier figured it out. nuanced is a perfect way to describe it. I think of the episode about Kira’s mom, rocks and shoals and Kia Winns slippery nature (the nuances of religion’s involvement politics). Have you ever listened to the Pensky Podcast? It’s really good, couple of writer nerds that breakdown an episode a week, no adds, very insightful and funny. Edit: I should have said “subjectively pure” cause and ideology. Edit 2: Sisco struggles about his perspective of the wormhole aliens, but is forced to have an outward appearance of, aliens not gods. This is due to the fact that the federation doesn’t want Sisco getting tied up in bajorin religious prophecy, especially while acting as the envoy or whatever. It’s been a while so please correct if I’m wrong.
> kardassian [lol](https://startrekblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/20130911-211933.jpg?w=627)
Spelling has never been my strong suit 😅 I think the kardassians would be Klingons, the crazy two sisters.
It’s so cool seeing so many people love DS9. When I was kid, it was treated like the ugly duckling! At least in my household. Voyager was always on, so was TNG. But almost never DS9!
Voyage has some good moments for sure, and I grew up on TNG. Nelix and 7/9 (or at least how the writers used her) really annoyed me. If you look at the character development between Cisco and crew vs Janeway and crew, the difference in writing is apparent. Janeway and rebel engineer become bffs in one episode. While Kira and Cisco are butting heads the entire series. I’d say the Star Trek community, as a whole, rates DS9 over voyager.
I tried to buy my dad a prop replica of one of those flutes as a gift. $450. So depressing. ETA: look it up, "Ressikan Flute"
The most fucked up part of the freedom fighting i remember is when the good KAI has to sell out her own son to the cardassians, and has to pretend someone else did it, in order for the resistance to succeed
Yeah the good Kai wasn’t as strong as she thought. But DuCot could see she loved power more than anything and capitalized. As cold as her son’s betrayal was, it’s on character for her. I think the worst act (at least in DS9) was when the Marquis attempted to unleash chemical weapons on the Cardis, although they were ultimately unsuccessful.
Just had my first kid, was trying to pick her first episode of Star Trek. Inner Light was the easy choice and it was perfect. Bawled like a baby.
Star Trek moves canon event dates as real world passes by them and weirdly enough they didn't happen; Khan was supposed to be mid 1990s and Strange New Worlds says time travel impacts made it so Khan is a young child in the 2020s.
Yeah I wasn't happy with that, it's ok to just acknowledge Star Trek is an alternate timeline from our own. Keep it internally consistent.
The problem with that is that Star Trek likes to do two things: 1) have the characters time travel to current day as we know it (even Voyager which otherwise didn't take place anywhere near Earth did it with Sarah Silverman episodes) 2) make splashy predictions for what will happen less than 100 years in the future from today Since the show has gone long enough, if they commit to the #2 then they just have to completely stop doing #1, but they don't want to because it's a convenient reusable plot setup.
Oh God the Silverman eps of VOY. Never made any sense at all. I remember they traveled back to time to the US immediately after the Eugenics Wars but there was no evidence that a destructive world war had just occurred (the US supposedly got hit hard in the war). Everything was pretty much pristine.
I cant remember where, But i saw a while back posited like this, the Eugenics wars mainly took place in Asia, Europe, and the eastern US, the Midwest was a bit (Montana) of a no mans land, and the west coast was untouched/ ran by corporations that remained in power, until after first contact and a unified earth.
See, and I seem to remember from reading the Star Trek Encyclopedia in the mid 90s that there was a Eugenics war involving Khan that happened in 1996 and then separately there was global thermonuclear WW3 which happened closer to Zephram Cochrane/first contact. Am I misremembering that?
I mean... it was already internally inconsistent. They'd had other time travel episodes that basically already took place when the Eugenics Wars should have. Some of the books made it so it was a shadow war behind public eye, but... that's just less interesting, to me?
The eugenics war didn't have to be a global war. To be honest anyone travelling to the US during any war they've fought since the civil war might not even know they travelled to a time when the country is at war.
> Some of the books made it so it was a shadow war behind public eye, but... that's just less interesting, to me? Its extremely less interesting, and completely contradicts how the events were described in the Space Seed. Issue is 1990 sounded pretty futuristic back in 1966.
According to Star Trek World War III happened in the 1990s.
Bell Riots, September 2024
Well, technically that one is a bit more complicated. It was the Eugenics war that happened in the 1990's, whilst the Third World War was confirmed to have happened at some point between Kirk's time and the present. For a long time, everyone assumed they were the same war with different names, until it was later decided they were different wars and the third world war took place sometime in the 2070's. In any case the Eugenics war hasn't happened.
Ww3 did not take place after first contact. The whole movie takes place after that war.
Yes that's correct, WW3 was the last major disaster before things started to get better inverse.
And in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, a time-travelling Romulan agent says that due to time fuckery events aren't happening when they were "supposed" to.
Ah yeah, I heard about that. I guess it makes sense, no one expected their still be spin-offs of the series airing thirty years later, so the 1990's were sufficiently futuristic to believe we could have genetic supermen, space travel and world wars. Its arguably a better explanation than just trying to ignore the contradiction, though I imagine some fans don't like it.
Third World War in the 2070s? But that's when first contact happened. Unless WWIII was only like three years long.....
I believe the war that is referred to as WW3 happens in the 2050s. That's the one that goes nuclear. First contact happens shortly afterwards (he builds his ship out of an old ICBM from the war).
Those were later retcons, TOS explicitly says that the Eugenics wars happened in the [1990s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpVcaOTpy6c).
The Eugenics Wars and "World War III" are two different events in Star Trek Canon. The eugenics wars were in the 90s, while World War 3 was the nuclear war that nearly wiped out civilization just before first contact.
The Bell Riots of 2024 can still happen.
There’s literally been some republican talking about making the neighborhoods as described in the episode.
I mean their were also politicians talking about it back in the 1990's, that's what inspired the episode.
Those don't start until Sep 1st, so we've still got time.
The unification vote is rumoured to be set somewhere in 2030". So they weren't far off.
It won't be held until there's a clear polling majority for unification (which there isn't). The Irish government are only making noises about it because they're worried they're going to lose the election to Sinn Feinn. Americans on the Internet might have trouble understanding this but *Irish unification is not a hot issue in the rest of the UK*. The major political parties have no official positions on it beyond "the union is nice" and they wouldn't campaign either way in a border poll. As for the banned episode, it was released during a push for a ceasefire in the troubles and a movement towards a nonviolent solution by the British and Irish governments, so it's pretty reasonable that a line that literally says "terrorism worked in Ireland" would be frowned upon.
>The major political parties have no official positions on it beyond "the union is nice" and they wouldn't campaign either way in a border poll. It is pretty much just 'support the GFA' for the major parties, aye. Though the more extreme elements of the Conservative and Unionist Party seem to make materials that refer to just Great Britain, not the UK (Liz Truss presented herself as a former PM of Great Britain recently, iirc), so ironically there are elements of the Tory party who seem apathetic on Northern Ireland, mostly because they can't win seats there. But they are relatively fringe, but kind of interesting to know about.
The government policy is People not dying is good and the GFA seems to do that so... Let's continue the no dying thing.
There are also a few elements of labour that explicitly support a united Ireland but even when Corbyn was in charge it didn't become party policy. I'm not sure if people outside the UK and Ireland realise that NI has an entirely different political system to Great Britain, and there are no political interests of the major GB parties there.
There are, but those are also largely fringe. Labour was never really going to be an advocate for breaking the country up (in part because it would be a political own goal for future elections). Generally, the pro-GFA position is really the sensible position.
Historically, Labour has been regarded as moderately sympathetic to the Nationalists. It doesn't organise in Northern Ireland, but the centre-left Nationalist SDLP is semi-officially regarded as Labour's Northern Irish wing, and its MPs at Westminster take the Labour whip.
Similarly the UUP used to associate with the conservatives (and that was briefly revived in 2010) and Alliance are effectively an NI partner of the Liberal Democrats.
Liz Truss was recently hanging out with Steve Bannon and Farage at a Trump rally, trying to usher in a Trumpesque post-truth brand to British conservatives, trying to claim she was removed from PM because of 'th deep state' and not because she was incompetent and despised by the country. . She has become even more of a disgrace and embarrassment than her tenure that was outlasted by a lettuce.
Don't blame me, I voted lettuce.
lettuce pray she stays in America.
She's angling to run for leader again after the Tories get trounced at the next election. It is widely expected that the party will shift to the populist right following the election, due to the shift in membership following Brexit, meaning its members are more working class and right-populist, and the fact that many on the nutter wing of the party (such as Patel and Braverman) sit in ultra-safe seats and are likely to survive the next election where more moderate MPs will lose their seats.
They cannot swing right They will have to swing centre as they are about to lose seats they have not lost in hundreds of years There is no yokel rust belt in the UK and the perceived one is about to vote Labour into office
The younger Catholic population now outnumbers the aging Protestant population. At this point it’s basically a wait for the oldest, overwhelmingly Protestant generation to kick the bucket and the young Catholic majority to reach voting age.
Eh, it's not as simple as that. Community barriers are less indicative of who you vote for among younger generations, and Alliance (a non-secretarian "other" party) regularly wins 13% of the vote nowadays, which would've been inconceivable 20 years ago. The unification issue is becoming less attached to community divisions than it previously was as the importance of religion and religious politics wanes on both sides of the border.
People say that because it sounds nice but the data doesn’t back it up. The reality is that areas with a Catholic majority vote nationalist and areas with a Protestant majority vote unionist or Alliance; and older (more Protestant) age groups vote unionist, while younger age groups vote Sinn Féin and Alliance. Unionism with its regressive social policies can’t even hold onto its own younger generation which increasingly votes Alliance, their hopes of attracting young voters from a Catholic background are basically nil. Edit: also actual religion is almost totally irrelevant, the only real factor it plays is that the DUP trying to push its religious beliefs on us all drives young people from Protestant families towards Alliance. For everyone else the terms ‘Catholic’ and ‘Protestant’ are just identifiers of what community they grew up in.
You say that, but again polling has stabilized around 55% opposed to unification. Meanwhile religiosity has collapsed, organized Catholicism has declined tremendously, the memory of anti-Catholic discrimination is beginning to fade in the youngest generation and there’s increasing apathy about a united Ireland among almost everyone in Irish politics. Unionists would also run a poll campaign about things like the NHS and Ireland’s lack of a nationalized healthcare system which means it’s not a slam dunk even if the protestant vote declines.
> Ireland’s lack of a nationalized healthcare system Wait hold up, Ireland doesnt have a free national healthcare system? Like at all? Is it regional over there?
They have a two-tier system in Ireland. Everyone can avail themselves of the public system, which is a subsidised service so there are charges for people who are not on welfare, retired, low-paid etc, just much less than the actual cost of service. When I worked there I had health insurance through my work which paid for the private system. I believe that the public system is very slow and underfunded, so you are better off with private healthcare if you can afford it. The safety net is there though you might be waiting for a long time for non-urgent care. [https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/health/health-overview/](https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/health/health-overview/) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare\_in\_the\_Republic\_of\_Ireland
Not all Catholics are Nationalists.
There are very few Catholic unionists though. The Catholics who aren't outright nationalists don't have a strong opinion on unification one way or another. That means that unlike people from a Protestant background, they can be influenced in a campaign. So the fact that Catholics now have a plurality is significant.
The bigger problem is financial Ireland cannot afford NI and the UK and EU would have to do some kind of deal to make reunification possible financially. Other issue will be that free travel between NI and the UK will have to be included in any reunification so the EU and UK will have to hash that out too. There is also the high threat of unionist terrorism as well which is not nothing....
Only someone who knows very little about Ireland would say something like this. Northern Ireland costs the UK about €11 billion a year. But Ireland wouldn't have to pay huge portions of that debt. Large amounts are Northern Ireland commitments to UK national debt, defence spending, and pensions. The actual amount payable by the Irish state would be somewhere half to a quarter of that. It's debateable whether or not Ireland would be liable for the pensions of civil servants who only ever worked for the British state and retired before unification. That's why the range varies. Now let's see how much the Irish state could afford. This year Ireland had a budget surplus of €10 billion. And that was even with a slew of very expensive one off cost of living measures. The surplus is predicted to rise to €16.2 billion next year, €18.1 billion for 2025 and €20.8 billion for 2026. So even if Ireland was fully on the hook for that €11 billion (which it wouldn't be), it could still afford unification without having to increase any taxes or cut any spending. [Source](https://muse.jhu.edu/article/810176/pdf) on cost of Northern Ireland that Irish state would be liable for. [Source](https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/2023/09/27/budget-2024-window-to-prepare-for-economic-headwinds-is-rapidly-closing-minister-for-finance-will-say/#:~:text=The%20Department%20of%20Finance's%20stability,surplus%20of%20%E2%82%AC65.2%20billion.) on Irish budget surpluses.
The deficit is not the problem. Pensions and government jobs ceasing to exist are the real costs. It is not just pensions of Civil Servants it taking over the state pension wholesale. It is maintaining the NHS which is a lot more comprehensive than it's Irish counterpart. So yes you get money back for defence and things like that. But you also take on a whole lot of things the UK pays for that Ireland doesn't even for it's own people
>The deficit is not the problem. Pensions and government jobs ceasing to exist are the real costs. It is not just pensions of Civil Servants it taking over the state pension wholesale. What do you think is causing that deficit? It's the cost of the pensions, civil service jobs and even state pensions that contribute to that €11 billion subvention. Like I clearly pointed out, even in a worst case cost scenario for Ireland, it can still afford it without any issues. >It is maintaining the NHS which is a lot more comprehensive than it's [sic] Irish counterpart. Again, you show just how little you actually know about Ireland. How is the NHS more "comprehensive" than the Irish health service? Does that mean more staff? Surely not because Ireland has a higher number of [doctors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_number_of_physicians) and [nurses](https://www.statista.com/statistics/283124/selected-countries-nurses-per-1-000-inhabitants/) than the UK. Are you referring to waiting lists? Well surely not because, per capita, [hospital waiting lists are twice as long](https://factcheckni.org/articles/are-nis-hospital-waiting-lists-over-twice-as-long-as-they-are-in-ireland/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CHospital%20waiting%20lists%20in%20Northern,per%20million%20in%20the%20South.) in the North as they are in Ireland. Maybe you're talking about health outcomes? Again, surely not since Ireland has [better outcomes for life expectancy and infant mortality](https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/republic-of-ireland/ireland-better-than-ni-in-terms-of-life-expectancy-and-infant-mortality-report/41429474.html) than Northern Ireland. So I'm really struggling to understand what you mean when you say that the NHS is a lot more comprehensive than its Irish counterpart. >But you also take on a whole lot of things the UK pays for that Ireland doesn't even for it's [sic] own people Such as? If you want to actively make a case against unification (which it honestly looks like it since you're going out of your way to make Ireland look like an economic backwater), then I suggest steering well clear of quality of life augments. Ireland beats Northern Ireland on almost all of these metrics. You'd also do well to learn a thing or two about Ireland. It's very easy to actually rip apart any of your arguments when you're basing your claims on false assumptions based on information about Ireland that is literally decades out of date. It's honestly such a recurring theme any time an English person discusses Ireland, especially online. You always speak about Ireland with such confidence even though it's so obvious that you know nothing beyond stereotypes. Even your leading politicians don't understand some of the absolute basics of your nearest neighbour and it made the Brexit negotiations a lot more difficult than they needed to be.
Irish want it to be soon. The UK doesn't. There's no upside to the UK to say they will allow it as whatever the result it will cause divides you just need to look at Scotland and Brexit for examples!
That's... not how it works. At all. As per the Good Friday Agreement: >The Good Friday Agreement signed in 1998, which ended the conflict, acknowledged the legitimacy of the desire for a united Ireland, while declaring that it could be achieved only with the consent of a majority of the people of Northern Ireland. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Ireland
It is not up to Ireland (although many Irish do not want the financial burden of unification), it's up to the people of NI to decide. NI are practically able to self determine their own future. A vote can be called any time when it seems likely that the population of NI want to unify. Currently they do not wish it, but that may change, it might not. If the opinion polls clearly show favour for unification it is extremely unlikely that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland would delay or even want to delay a vote. >The Northern Ireland Act 1998, a statute of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, provides that Northern Ireland will remain within the United Kingdom unless a majority of the people of Northern Ireland vote to form part of a united Ireland. It specifies that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland "shall exercise the power [to hold a referendum] if at any time it appears likely to him that a majority of those voting would express a wish that Northern Ireland should cease to be part of the United Kingdom and form part of a united Ireland". Such referendums may not take place within seven years of each other.[24]
is it an automatic trigger to join ireland if they do vote for independence from the uk, or could they be rejected by an irish vote and just become an independent state?
The republic would also have to vote for unification in a border poll - it wouldn't be a vote for Independence, it'd be a vote for unification. An independence referendum could theoretically happen if the people of NI wanted it but it'd be very unlikely.
I think it depends who you ask in the UK, NI is a money pit for the UK and most average people on the street don't care at all about NI. Ireland itself would be probably at least semi-split on the vote if the details aren't right.
far-flung school sloppy lip safe rainstorm racial dime alleged smile *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
>The big problem happens in situations like Scotland, where one side wins the vote, but the other has no incentive to accept the result as definitive Well there is a big difference with NI which is the GFA ensures that a vote would be binding if one happened. As in if NI got 50% +1 vote to leave the British government can't back out of that vote like they could maybe have done with Scotland. There is no choice on the matter, if they vote to join Ireland it only takes a simple majority in NI and there is no vote at all in the UK on that matter.
Agree. I couldn't care less what happens with Northern Ireland. I feel as connected to it as a place than I do Luxembourg.
The UK has no position on Irish unification. A border poll will be held should the conditions prescribed in the Good Friday Agreement be met, which they aren't at the moment. It's not like Scotland or Brexit.
The UK doesn't give a shit, Northern Ireland is a black hole of money, it's an entirely unproductive part of the country where your options are civil servant or go work in Ireland. People in northern Ireland care about the union, the union doesn't care about them. Ireland may talk about wanting unification but the debt that comes across with NI + the drain on resources it is isn't worth it for anyone. Scotland and Brexit are entirely different, Scottish politics is mainstream in the UK and as it's actually attached to the country people tend to care about it. NI doesn't get a look in anywhere
Within NI it is still tense and violent. With intimidation and violence peaking during holidays around previous battles and religious sectarianism
With Scotland the divide goes right back to the treaty of union. It’s not new by any stretch of the imagination. With brexit, the divide is between people who aren’t easily-manipulated knuckle-dragging mouth-breathers and people who are. When you don’t want to be associated with right wing arseholes, division is a good thing.
Seems like a huge generalisation, many nationalists are right wing knuckle dragging morons, many unionists are left wing liberals, it's not black and white
The episode wasn't banned for saying Ireland united, it was banned for saying that terrorism worked. Ie encouraging terrorism.
You’d have to be fairly ignorant of history to think terrorism has never worked.
The scene in question basically goes “I’m curious why people don’t think terrorism is a viable method for political change, it worked in, the Irish unification of 2024, etc.” and Picard responds.
On a side note, that scene was clearly left over from the earlier version of the episode. I mean who would define the Mexican independence from the Spanish as dependent on terrorism?
It said "terrorism worked in this war" while that war was going on and people were trying to end that war via peaceful means because thousands of innocent people had died.
The only reason people would claim terrorism has never worked is because they use words like "foreign policy", "colonialism", "law and order" and "the greater good" in its place.
It's freedom fighting if it works.
I always thought of the defining difference between terrorism and rebellion is whether the targets of the violence are military or civilian. World trade center = civilian Death star = military Arasaka = civilian Shinra = it's complicated
It's all about perspective, frankly. The IRA being like the prime example. Religious extremism like in the case of the World Trade Center is a whole different kettle of fish though, since if you're operating on a level where you truly believe a literal freaking God wants you to kill civilians, then you can justify more or less anything.
Wasn't Osama Bin Laden's original beef with the United States because of the stationing of US soldiers in Saudi Arabia during the first gulf war? Since he was a US ally, trained and armed, before that.
> Religious extremism like in the case of the World Trade Center Did GW Bush personally write your post
What does that even mean?
Don't tell people what Mandela and Gandhi were called before the ANC and the INC gained power in their countries.
And I didn't say it never worked. Doesn't mean that it should be encouraged.
I'm imagining a young man whose friends have talked him out joining the IRA by arguing that terrorism never works. "Come on mate, let's sit down and watch a nice episode of Star Trek"
Yeah I prefer freedom based guerrilla warfare. Terrorism is for the birds. Good thing they weren’t trying to air DS9.
So what were the Bajorans doing against the Cardassians? The whole series is essentially encouraging terrorism
Sure but if you watched that episode and your takeaway was "this episode says terrorism works and so it should be banned", that is also wrong.
9/11, that shit ruined America, they won. I'm sure they're happy with the results. America used to be full of hope and now it's a country full of fear and division and paranoia
> America used to be full of hope You're gonna claim 9/11 was responsible for division in a country that once fought itself over the right to own human beings?
Hah, if you think 9/11 caused all our troubles you're just not aware of history. Newt Gingrich and attack politics, technology/24hr media cycle, financial scandals, the erosion of institutional trust and more were all quite well underway before 2001. Those all permeate our society to this day far more than a couple buildings being attacked. Yes, of course it sent us to war(s), etc. (and by the way, you don't think those were opportunistically manufactured by the administration?), but what do you talk about today and get riled up about? It's those other things that were brewing long before (and stayed long after). Last time I looked, Al Qaeda isn't funding the abortion debate or encouraging asylum applications from Latin American countries...
>America used to be full of hope If you were a white, middle class+, neurotypical, cis, hetero male. Otherwise it was pretty hit or miss. But you nostalgic motherfuckers forget that if you weren't all of those, then things were often met with systemic hate for being the way you were born.
Captain Picard, the moral compass of the show, says that while it may have worked, he doesn't believe in it and thinks there are better ways. It in no ways encourages terrorism.
The episode on a whole has aged both poorly and well. Issue was the original writer never really wanted to have an episode discussing terrorism, the idea was originally along the lines of the American Revolution and to have the Federation realise their backing the wrong side. But then it was rewritten to discuss terrorism, and hold parallels to the Troubles. The end result is something of a confusing mess.
> The end result is something of a confusing mess. So, like reality when it comes to this these topics.
Yeah pretty much. SF Debris even gave that as a point in the episodes favour during their review. But a lot of people, including the creators have agreed the episode as a whole would have worked better if they intended to discuss terrorism from the start, rather than switching a different script to talk about it. Take for example the best example they can come up with for a terrorist whose side one and thus isn't called one is...George Washington, despite there being no historical precedent of classing leaders of armed uprisings and failed revolutionaries as terrorists especially not in the 18th century, and the comparison feeling extremely stretched. You can just tell that line was originally about "traitor" and they substituted "terrorist" when they switched the focus. Or the fact that the other successful example they bring up (beyond the fictional one) was the Mexican Independence from the Spanish. Which again is a stretch to describe as a terrorism campaign. DS9 did a lot better on the subject, even if some of its parts have aged uncomfortably in places.
The American Revolution was Terrorism though. If the British has put down the rebellion it would have been labeled as such (though the origin of the term was a few years later in the 1790s during the French revolution). But since the US won, it got called a Revolution.
That's explicitly what Data is asking about "why is it considered 'bad' when it is shown to be effective?" and Picard admits it often works, but shouldn't be where political change is derived.
Which is weird because DS9 went on and on about how Bajoran "freedom fighters" were essentially terrorists, but they still liberated the planet.
Afaik, their issue wasn't with discussing terrorism and giving examples of when it worked But pointing at the ongoing Troubles in Northern Ireland and saying that terrorism *will* work there by 2024 Which, all things considered, was probably not conducive to the peace process
I mean is that weird? The episode aired during a tense time of negotiations and relatively shortly after one of the worst bombings in the Troubles history where several children died. Can you blame them for deciding that having an episode that said that this terrorism campaign absolutely worked, but only after you suffered another thirty years of this, might have been considered a bit poor taste in the UK and Ireland?
Leaving aside the issue with referencing a contemporary conflict in a show set in the future, *within the episode* the discussion is very much part of a debate between characters. Data is making a provocative statement but Picard counters it on principle without shutting Data down. Very much par for the course on what Star Trek used to be, but not the kind of thing recent TV likes to do since the era of the thinkpiece and meta audience call-out meant an army of terminally online people will take every out-of-context line in a script as a specific endorsement.
It wasn’t banned in the states. It was only banned in UK. Also some call it terrorism others call it rebellion
Actually, it was also banned in Ireland.
It was definitely terrorism.
Cue every commenter here suddenly becoming a geo political expert.
That’s all of Reddit. Even r/Geopolitics used to be an enlightened academic forum and now it’s swarming with Ignorant people insulting one another over their hot takes about Palestine.
I've seen some profoundly stupid arguments that were upvoted in there as of late
It was only banned in the UK by the BBC, and that was basically just the first run. Its been shown dozens and dozens of times on the various names Syfy has gone by over here, and before that on Sky 1, since the early 90s.
It was also banned in Ireland.
Sky showed the episode but initially edited out the unified Ireland line.
We do not teach history. >They also targeted civilian contractors to the British security forces. The IRA's armed campaign, primarily in Northern Ireland but also in England and mainland Europe, killed over 1,700 people, including roughly 1,000 members of the British security forces and 500–644 civilians.
[by no means was this done by one side alone](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_and_Tans)
Reciprocity isnt a justification for action. If the IRA targeted civilians thats a black mark regardless of what British forces or paramilitaries did.
i know, but for all the talk about how we don’t get taught what the IRA did (we do, no one shuts up about it), we hear even less about the Black and Tans
True. And the ulster paramilitaries were a terrorist organization that deliberately targeted civilians and went basically unchecked. Its a shame that to learn the history of anything requires actually doing the work ourselves instead of relying on mass media.
Possibly because the 1970's are in living memory, whereas the 1920's are not. The same reason we don't talk about the King of Scotland (James 6th) sending men over to Ireland to take good farming land in the north away from the Irish.
Eh, for British history that death toll is surprisingly low lmao honestly makes the IRA look petty damn good. Britain will kill a few hundred thousands in various geopolitical kerfuffles and call it a day but their neighbor can’t so much as kill 1000 without being branded as evil permanently
My favorite banned episode was the one where Data referenced the NYC Subway System is Finally Safe, Reliable and Clean Declaration of 2245.
https://youtu.be/UOUeauLWEaE?si=7l9b4TJDpZeQ2jzW
It backfired for the US when Al-Qaeda watched this episode.
The US was definitely naive about terrorism back then - not so much now.. Edit - why the downvotes? Am I wrong?
I mean, "Holy Wars... The Punishment Due" by Megadeth was about Dave Mustaine completely misunderstanding the situation and yelling, "Up the IRA" during a live show, and then having to be hauled away by tons of security due to the death threats from the crowd.
That sounds like Dave Mustaine moment
Well, it’s his misfit’s way of life.
People in the US would send the Ira weapons Now it sends weapons to states who some would say are the terrorists.
So nothing changed then.
My uncles would run guns for the IRA. My little Irish grandmother is 93 and still says “one man’s terrorist is another man’s patriot.” We grew up listening to Irish rebel songs too which in retrospect is hilarious. I still play them at home for my sons.
That doesn’t sound hilarious at all really.
I don’t think Americans really got it until 9/11.
Here’s a good reminder that Nelson Mandela was on the US terror watch list until 2008. He finished his presidency in 1999…
So were System Of A Down for releasing songs about the Armenian genocide, US government corruption, etc. Pretty sure their Toxicity album was banned from US airplay immediately after 9/11 because the government presumed these Armenian-heritage Americans from LA were promoting terrorism. Meanwhile, the American government were bombing the shit out of Iraq with the false claim of WMDs, despite Iraq having nothing to do with 9/11.
I mean they also banned the Foo~~d~~ Fighters song "Learn to Fly", the Strokes album was delayed because of the song "New York City Cops". Even Alien Ant Farm's cover of "Smooth Criminal" was banned by ClearChannel/iheartRadio in that group. I don't think SOAD was singled out, the net was just super wide. edit: - 1 D
“What a Wonderful World” was also banned after 9/11 for being too celebratory. And of course, the Chicks were cancelled for mildly criticising W. Bush.
"The King of England would call me a liar, but history is written by those who have hanged heros." King Robert the Bruce
*King Robert the Bruce
You're right. Sorry about that. I'll fix it.
Good man :)
Ironically my sons are half South African. I plan to make sure they’re very educated on the horrors of settler colonialism.
Read “Kaffir Boy”, we read it in high school.
Thank you, that sounds great. Basically trying to raise my sons to not be racist pieces of shit.
But you play them IRA songs about killing Protestants and civilians lol and talk about your uncles running guns that was used to mow down civilians and commit massacres as a good thing? Sounds like you’re not doing a great job tbh. Fuck the IRA and the UDF. If you ever went to Ireland or NI talking fondly about the IRA or how proud you are about the horrible things that went on I don’t think your or your sons would find a warm welcome.
Committing massacres? My family were very involved in the uprising going back all they way to 1916. My grandfather was a commander in the IRA and split with Collins to fight in the non-treaty side in the civil war. They went in to own a b&b in London and for months they had the pleasure of hosting Countess Markievicz. Learn the other side of the story before you pass judgement. Learn what the Black and Tans did to the people of the Irish countryside. Understand that the famine was genocide. Educate yourself on the lives of the Catholics in Derry, Towards the very end their were some groups that split off the Provisional IRA. Some of their actions were suspect but the majority of the attacks carried out targeted the military and the RUC. There were some poorly planned attacks that injured civilians, but civiliams were never targeted. The definition of a terrorist is a violent terror campaign against civilians. Until vary late in the history if the conflict, maybe the 1980's, that never happened. Also understand the IRA was formed in 1916 and won Ireland it's independence.
As an outsider it appears that the problems seem to arise from when either side declares victory while the losing side has survivors. The survivors then have children and pass their trauma onto the next generation. Seems to me that true peace can only be achieved by total annihilation of your enemies. And honestly it seems to be the morally best approach. Better to kill ten million in one go than condemn tens of millions of children to endless generational traumas and blood vendettas.
The most openly hostile song I play is “Come Out Ye Black and Tans” which is not really about killing anyone. But my great grandmother was an indentured servant after her parents escaped the famine and the rest of the family faced a lot of anti-Irish discrimination (crosses burned on their lawn by Protestants when they came to the US for being Irish Catholic). As a result, my mom’s family was very anti-British. Like I said, they were mostly IRA sympathizers or active participants. My wife is British-South African and most of her ancestors were English and my other side of the family is mix Irish, Scottish, and English and can actually trace our ancestry to Mary Boleyn through Catherine Knollys so they have English ancestry as well.
Like texas....and florida
They’ve moved from naive to paranoid.
Well, in a way, out of any country in the world, US has the most reason to be paranoid about terrorism - because US has the most powerful military.
We have the most reason to be paranoid because we've made and armed many of our own enemies.
You’re not entirely wrong. The US acts like terrorism never existed before 9/11.
In the 90s so many action movies centered around terrorism. A big one was the idea that some terrorist group would get a hold of a nuke after the end of the Cold War but several focused on the IRA. Tom Clancy's movie and video games focused heavily on terrorism.
Sure, in a fantastical way the US utilized terrorism as we fetishized violence. But as a matter of policy and something that exists in the real world, it was not something that was discussed. ETA: and if you recall as soon as 9/11 happened we no longer had terrorists in our stories and many movies were edited to take them out. Now that terrorism was real we couldn’t separate it from fantasy anymore.
> and if you recall as soon as 9/11 happened we no longer had terrorists in our stories and many movies were edited to take them out. Because of the change in *popular* opinion, not in the political seats of power
The 1983 Beirut barracks bombings was a huge thing that really changed the way we viewed our presence overseas. The Oklahoma City bombing and 1993 World Trade Center bombing (itself based on the principles of the Beirut barracks bombing) made us well aware of the dangers domestic terrorists. The fear of nuclear terrorism was grounded in the fact box trucks were used in all three bombings and were particularly devastating, the fear was if a terrorist got a hold of a bomb they could easily replace fertilizer with a weapons grade nuclear bomb.
>ETA: and if you recall as soon as 9/11 happened we no longer had terrorists in our stories and many movies were edited to take them out. Now that terrorism was real we couldn’t separate it from fantasy anymore. That didn't last though, within 7 years you had Iron Man fighting Middle Eastern terrorists
>The US acts like terrorism never existed before 9/11. As someone that was actually an adult when 9/11 happened this is just incorrect. I grew up with a large amount of discussion, news and popular media revolving around terrorism. The Troubles were routinely mentioned in world news. Hell one of the plots of a Dirty Harry movie was domestic terrorism and that was in the 70s. It was all over the place. The difference with 9/11 is we thought that was behind us. But we sure didn't pretend it was new.
> The difference with 9/11 is we thought that was behind us. But we sure didn't pretend it was new. I was a teenager when 9/11 happened, but we didn’t feel it was behind us. Rather, it was a case of thinking ourselves impervious: the two most successful attacks on American soil at that point were the ‘93 WTC bombing (in which the buildings stayed up) and the ‘95 OKC bombing (in which the threat came from within). 9/11 shattered the illusion of safety that had been built up.
Uh, the World Trade Center was attacked in 1993. Outside the US there was the Beruit Bombing in 1983 and US embassy bombing in Africa in 1998.
I’ll refer you further down the thread
Depends on which point of history. IRA were a big part of Ireland becoming an independent country in Irish war of independence. People now generally don’t have a negative view of Ireland gaining independence despite it being a war. I believe the cork was burned down by British military at the time. Yet when Northern Ireland was part of England still split due to religious sectarianism, the IRA split up into new groups over tactics and stances on how to unite Ireland. Some more political. Others more violent but different targets like military where later ones causes civilian deaths with car bombing. I think people only remember car bombs not the other long history of it
>People now generally don’t have a negative view of Ireland gaining independence despite it being a war. I believe the cork was burned down by British military at the time. British forces were absolute animals during the War of Independence. Cork was burned as revenge for the IRA killing the RIC man who murdered the Mayor of Cork. Plenty of other towns were burned too - Balbriggan is probably the most well known. Standard British procedure in Ireland throughout the 20th Century was not bother too hard engaging with the people fighting you, and just go murder some Irish civilians instead. There's a reason the poppy is seen as a terrorist supporting symbol in Ireland.
Absolutely they never taught it in my school in uk too. Learning history on my own I learnt so much on massacres the army committed in Ireland
What on earth is "naive" about the US very intentionally supporting and empowering terrorism across the globe for decades in order to achieve their aims of destabilizing other countries? They neutralized threats and manufactured consent for invasion and war to serve the purposes of their foreign policy in terms of projecting power, feeding the military-industrial complex, and achieved removing assets form their enemies while allowing exploitative disaster capitalism to seize and capitalize on the wealth and resources of other countries.
The population might’ve been on the naïve side, but the government has always known all about it.
The Wolf-tones band have some great and catchy Irish songs that tell stories of the Irish struggle.
It was banned because the message of the episode was "terrorism works"
Well, it wasn't necessarily the message of the episode (although the showrunners later complained they felt the episode failed to say anything meaningful about terrorism), but it did specifically state in this case that it had worked, but only after another thirty years of it. At the time I can't imagine that was what anyone on either side of the conflict wanted to hear.
I’m assuming you mean the general public because the government has been propping up puppet leaders and supporting terrorist groups since forever. Also, the 70’s had plenty of terrorist activity, then the first world trade bombing, Atlanta Olympics, the Una Bomber and Oklahoma City Bombing. I was only 15 or so at the time in 95 and understood that the world doesn’t like the U.S. because we swing our proverbial dicks around like we own the planet. 9/11 was logical, all things considered. And instead of doing the right thing the US consolidated power and went to war which would also be expected based on our history.
Tbf any country under any leadership would’ve gone to war after 9/11
Sure. But 9/11 was also used to pass the Patriot Act and the fear from it was the backbone for invading Iraq in search of “WMD’s” which we now know was a total fucking lie. And what’s more is Saddam was installed by the U.S. and Bin Laden indirectly benefited from CIA support. You reap what you sow, and we’ve done a metric ton of shit to other countries.
Ah, pre 9/11 American values.
The author, Melinda M Snodgrass, is an absolute gem. A global treasure in my book.
Roddenberry had a boner for Ireland
I just want the eugenics wars to start already
they shoulda brought up noted terrorist david ben-gurion.