"Star Trek predicted the Teabaggers..."

[krispos42]

[div class=excerpt style=background:#AFEEEE]BorgiaGinz:



Star Trek predicted the Teabaggers--a tribe of warlike, ignorant creatures who swear fealty to a piece of cloth without having any understanding of its meaning or origin.

http://www.fark.com/comments/7015876/Ladies-Gentlemen-I-present-to-your-left-a-review-links-to-hot-new-magazine-Conservative-Teen-to-your-right-a-column-of-wtfamireading-jpg-pics?startid=75812789




ETA: for the young'uns...

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/The_Omega_Glory_%28episode%29

[TexasTowelie]

1. The scary part was that they were taken over by the Asians.

Certainly ties into a lot of the fear out there in Liptonland.

[Ecumenist]

5. LOL!! LIPTONLAND!!! LOL!! OOOH, I can't breathe!!

[DirkGently]

2. Isn't that the one where they got into a proxy war with the Klingons?

[JHB]

11. Different one...

No Klingons in that episode.

You're probably thinking of the ep 'A Private Little War'.

[pokerfan]

3. From the subject line

I was thinking of the Pakleds...





The Pakleds were a space-faring race of fat morons who swiped all their technology from more advanced races. Nonetheless, they managed to kidnap Geordie La Forge in the Next Generation episode "Samaritan Snare" because, as an engineer, he was able to "make the ship go." Fortunately, after the Enterprise flashed a few bright lights at them, they returned Geordi and ran away.

[krispos42]

24. I found this one and laughed my ass off

[BootinUp]

4. Female teabaggers:

An Eymorg was any of the female inhabitants of the subsurface complex on Sigma Draconis VI.

Approximately 8000 BC, the civilization of that world, advanced beyond even 23rd century Federation capabilities, was cast into ruin by the return of a glacial age. At that time, a vast complex was constructed for the women, while the men remained on the surface. Within the complex, everything the women could need or want was provided, all administered by the Controller, an advanced computer that they revered. The women themselves existed at a low intellectual level. Doctor McCoy theorized that disuse of their intellectual faculties had led to atrophy.

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Eymorg

[freshwest]

6. No kidding, I remember that! They didn't understand their 'holy words.' Kirk had to explain them.

There was a LOT in that original series that was just like what's happening now. Makes you wonder that Roddenberry was privy to, other than some of the great science fiction writers.

It commented on war and many other social issues, but indirectly, to get past the censors of those days.

[oldhippydude]

7. yes

the yangs and the coms... the yangs had holy words...(the pledge of alegiance) that episode has always been stuck in my mind..

i remeber my father being pissed because he didnt expect flag waving from star trek..he missed the whole irony, of being bombed back to a neolithic subsistance.. one has to remember that this appeared about the time Curtis Lemay wanted to "bomb North Veit Nam back to the stone age"

[freshwest]

9. They had an episode that obliquely referred to Vietnam, supposedly.

Somewhat like Ursula LeGuin's 'The Word for World is Forest' that the movie Avatar resembles.

There were analogies to that, hollow Earth stories, the peace movement, entities using fear to feed off from and promoting war and hatred, parallel worlds like quantum physics, lot of stuff.

And they presented a world society that was egalitarian, generally protected self-determination and civilizations being left alone with the Prime Directive, and a lot of things that were good.

They failed at times and had political problems but they also made analogies to the MAD meme of the time, racism, and stuff like that. It was somewhat sexist by modern terms, but a lot of science fiction of that era was.

As far as the militaristic elders of that generation, with that bomb them back to the stone age (Goldwater's slogan of 'in your heart you know he's right' was countered by mentioning the stone age remark and saying 'in your heart you know he's nuts.') it was unavoidable. Having come out of WW2, the McCarthy era, and then Korea, it appeared to be the best way to deal with it.

I think it was then, as now, very difficult for people to contemplate that the wars were not always in America's interest, considering the personal price so many had paid. Right now I see the younger generation as being much more military minded than say, the Vietnam generation was at that time.

Now it's considered a choice, but with little prospects for education or jobs outside a commitment to the military, I'd say it's not really a choice. Naturally in the era we're talking of, there was less choice, because of the draft.

And there is less activism now against war because there is no draft. Back then, every young man had to decide if what was going on in Southeast Asia was worth dying for. It was not foreseen that ending the draft would not end the wars. But the all-volunteer services has taken that necessity away.

Going to sleep now...

[eppur_se_muova]

13. In your heart you know he's right ...

Far Right.

[hifiguy]

25. It was "in your guts you know he's nuts" IIRC. nt

[freshwest]

27. Yeah, was going to sleep when I typed. That was it.

[1monster]

18. Memory is a strange thing...

I thought the "holy" words was the Preamble to the Constitution. There's a memory of Kirk translating the early English sounding words into "We the People.

But it has been somewhere between thirty and forty years ago that I saw that episode.

[freshwest]

23. Some memory is subjective, the rest media memes, perhaps.

Without common memories, memes or trophisms, no matter what the original source or intention for them, it can be hard to communicate at times. My kid was chatting to a store clerk and thought they'd found a media connection, the Stargate SG1 series. My kid thought she knew the characters, then she revealed she'd only seen one episode but never followed it. That derailed the chat.

[hifiguy]

20. Roddenberry was a very interesting guy.

WW II bomber pilot, LA cop after the war before he became a TV writer. He was also an atheist and a democratic socialist, which accounts for his mileu of the future, which was egalitarian and non-theistic.

The best SF writers observe what is around them and spin out the logical possibilities and extensions into the future.

[freshwest]

22. Thanks, didn't know Roddenberry's bio. I prefer his vision instead of the religious dystopia being

Promoted by the Koch/Teabaggers.

IMHO, we are living science fiction.

We can't put it back on the shelf for later or assume some things will never happen.

[Redneck Democrat]

8. I was thinking of Landru

The computer that told his "followers" what to think and do. Remember that one?

[byronius]

10. 'It is the Red Night! Rejoice in the Will Of Landru!'

Ah, the darkness they harbor.

[villager]

12. "Come for the festival, ay-uh?"

[freshwest]

14. That was some scarey stuff. Computer driven society. There was another one about two planets who

Were waging an endless war, with people walking into disintegrators to match the war game figures. Kirk complained how they'd made war so sanitary, and less costly to their civilization so they kept it going. He said the reason wars ended was because of the great suffering and the threat to the end of their way of life. Kind of what I think some countries have been doing for a long time; making war and not seeing it here, so the public sees no reason to really end it, they don't see the costs. In that case it was on both sides, but with drones, remote killing, and the sanitation of the war coverage, the media not showing it all, and the bodies being hidden away and numbers fudged; it's easier to make it seem painless. There were so many themes there.

[WCGreen]

15. They called it Usa....

Nice find. I remember that one when it was first broadcast in 67

[drm604]

16. That wasn't a prediction.

It was a reflection of the period it was made in.

[malthaussen]

17. Probably the most embarassingly awful

... episode of the entire first Star Trek. Worst of all, it was written by Rodenberry himself.

-- Mal

[eShirl]

19. Oh, there's a lot of competition for that title.

COUGHspectreofthegunCOUGH
COUGHspock'sbrainCOUGH

[mainer]

21. Oh yes, it was awful.

Which is why I remember it so vividly.

[freshwest]

28. It was grotesque. I try to forget that one!

[mainer]

26. You know what's sad? I mentioned "spock and kirk" to a 20+ reporter, and she said, "Who's that?"

It was during an interview, and I must have looked shocked by her response. She said she'd go back to her desk and look up the names on Wikipedia.

[malthaussen]

29. Sic transit gloria mundi

... and Tuesday ain't much better.

Last summer, the cops in New Jersey picked up Bob Dylan because he looked suspicious. They had no idea who he was.

-- Mal