Paradise Lost very precient

[Mygaffer]

Did anyone else see how applicable the story from the Paradise Lost two part episode is to today's America? We may not have armed soldiers on the street but we are taking off our shoes at the airport and strip searching children.

 

[MacLeod]

Not quite the same, the key is to balance liberty against safety. After all what price Liberty?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

And the problem of changeling infiltration is at least as dangerous, perhaps more so, than anything we face in the world today, and thus it can be argued that it requires extraordinary measures.

 

[Lena]

Safety is sometimes only to make everyone more dependant and less free. And it happens also in Europe not only America.

 

[Navaros]

I agree with you, Mygaffer.

We could also add how by default, they zap everyone with radiation, in order to see under his/her clothes.

DS9 also makes the same point in another episode, when Odo says that he could ensure that no security breaches occur if they let him do everything he wanted, but Kira tells them not to give Odo everything he wants because the price is too high.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

[/B]We could also add how by default, they zap everyone with radiation, in order to see under his/her clothes.

You forgot about the part where the amount of radiation they "zap" you with is LESS than what everyone is exposed to every time they fly, just by being on the plane in flight.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Nothing prescient about. They observed what has happened in the past and what happens again and again.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Yep. Neither what is happening now in the name of "freedom" nor what happened on DS9 is new.

 

[NKemp3]

Did anyone else see how applicable the story from the Paradise Lost two part episode is to today's America? We may not have armed soldiers on the street but we are taking off our shoes at the airport and strip searching children.

I'm more willing to say an ep such as "In the Hands of the Prophets" says more about America today than it did back in 1992. We seem to have an increase of voices of those who want to take real science out of the classroom and replace it with religious teaching (aka creationism or whatever it is called).

 

[Knight Templar]

Did anyone else see how applicable the story from the Paradise Lost two part episode is to today's America? We may not have armed soldiers on the street but we are taking off our shoes at the airport and strip searching children.

Did anyone else see how applicable the story from the Paradise Lost two part episode is to today's America? We may not have armed soldiers on the street but we are taking off our shoes at the airport and strip searching children.

I'm more willing to say an ep such as "In the Hands of the Prophets" says more about America today than it did back in 1992. We seem to have an increase of voices of those who want to take real science out of the classroom and replace it with religious teaching (aka creationism or whatever it is called).

Both of you are reaching big time.

 

[NKemp3]

Did anyone else see how applicable the story from the Paradise Lost two part episode is to today's America? We may not have armed soldiers on the street but we are taking off our shoes at the airport and strip searching children.

Did anyone else see how applicable the story from the Paradise Lost two part episode is to today's America? We may not have armed soldiers on the street but we are taking off our shoes at the airport and strip searching children.

I'm more willing to say an ep such as "In the Hands of the Prophets" says more about America today than it did back in 1992. We seem to have an increase of voices of those who want to take real science out of the classroom and replace it with religious teaching (aka creationism or whatever it is called).

Both of you are reaching big time.

Oh, really? Do tell. From where I stand there are an increasing amount of unhinged, Vedek Winn-like religious zealots who are growing in power in this country. And they are becoming more bold in terms of how they influence politics and education.

Of course none of the topics that DS9 dealt with were brand new issues when the show aired. Nonetheless the show is in a way ahead of its times in dealing with such loaded topics, especially considering it was essentially a sci-fi family show:

-Terrorism
-Nation building
-Religious intolerance, corrupt religious power
-Religion vs science
-Power of state using fear to justify reduce liberties during war/threats of war
-A separatist group that forms in part because it feels its government has turned against them and has overstepped its bounds
-The uneasy alliance between the very fundamentaliist people of a war-stricken, impoverished state and their more secular colleagues from a distant "super power"
-The question of if the ends justifies the means during times of war

I may be forgetting a couple of topics. Regardless the point is not that DS9 was necessarily prescient which is defined as "perceiving the significance of events before they occur". Rather it is that DS9 was a show that may be even more topical today than it was when it aired. It is hard to argue against that IMO.

 

[Knight Templar]

Did anyone else see how applicable the story from the Paradise Lost two part episode is to today's America? We may not have armed soldiers on the street but we are taking off our shoes at the airport and strip searching children.

I'm more willing to say an ep such as "In the Hands of the Prophets" says more about America today than it did back in 1992. We seem to have an increase of voices of those who want to take real science out of the classroom and replace it with religious teaching (aka creationism or whatever it is called).

Both of you are reaching big time.

Oh, really? Do tell. From where I stand there are an increasing amount of unhinged, Vedek Winn-like religious zealots who are growing in power in this country. And they are becoming more bold in terms of how they influence politics and education.

For example?

I take it you've never studied U.S. History from the 1930s or 1950s?

 

[NKemp3]

Both of you are reaching big time.

Oh, really? Do tell. From where I stand there are an increasing amount of unhinged, Vedek Winn-like religious zealots who are growing in power in this country. And they are becoming more bold in terms of how they influence politics and education.

For example?

I take it you've never studied U.S. History from the 1930s or 1950s?

I know my US history well enough regarding that time. But what is your point? I didn't write that these current debates in the US are new. Everything is cyclical. Have you not paid attention to the last ten years?

My point remains that in the 90s when DS9 aired these topics weren't as much in the forefront in our everyday society as they have become in our current time. Hell, before 2001 terrorism was such an afterthought to the vast majority of Americans that DS9 could have a main character, a HERO, who was a former terrorist and unapologetic about it to boot. Could a family Trek series today have such a prominent character who at one time relied on terrorism to defeat her enemies? I don't think so, especially not during the immediate years after 9/11.

 

[Knight Templar]

Oh, really? Do tell. From where I stand there are an increasing amount of unhinged, Vedek Winn-like religious zealots who are growing in power in this country. And they are becoming more bold in terms of how they influence politics and education.

For example?

I take it you've never studied U.S. History from the 1930s or 1950s?

I know my US history well enough regarding that time. But what is your point? I didn't write that these current debates in the US are new. Everything is cyclical. Have you not paid attention to the last ten years?

My point remains that in the 90s when DS9 aired these topics weren't as much in the forefront in our everyday society as they have become in our current time. Hell, before 2001 terrorism was such an afterthought to the vast majority of Americans QUOTE]

Really? In the 1990s I remember Oklahoma City quite well and Timothy McVeigh.

In the 80s I remember bombings of American embassies, kidnappings of Americans, and quite a few other things.

Though barely a memory, in the 1970s, I remember a great deal about airliner hijackings (or at least I've read about them).

And I've read old magazines that indicate in the 1960s, organizations such as the Weather Underground and Black Panthers were a significant concern.

Deep Space Nine could get away with Kira as a "terrorist" by pretending the Cardassians were Nazis and saying they deserved it.

 

[NKemp3]

In the 80s I remember bombings of American embassies, kidnappings of Americans, and quite a few other things.

9/11 put terrorism in the forefront of the American consciousness that nothing before had ever done. Bombings overseas, plane hijackings, embassy takeovers and hostage takeovers were small by comparison. 9/11 chaned America in a way that nothing else before it did. And after that incident, the thought of having a good guy be a former terrorist would have been a no-no.

And as for McVeigh....there were at least a portion of Americans (typically extreme right-wingers who despised government and the FBI) who sympathized with him. As monstrous a shis actions were he would never be demonized in the public or the media as the foreign terrorists of 9/11 were.

And I've read old magazines that indicate in the 1960s, organizations such as the Weather Underground and Black Panthers were a significant concern.

It seems to me that you may have a distorted/slanted view of history. The Black Panthers were never a "significant concern". Not to the stability of our nation or the government. The Panthers talked a big game and, yes, they had a hand in a handful of deaths but they were a small time operation. Despite their militant views they were more effective, when they ahd their act together, at feeding a few poor families on neighborhood blocks then they were at putting together any coherent strategy to improve the plights of black people (and let's not forget they were formed as a result of black people being treated like third class citizens in the USA). Truth is there was so much petty infighting amongst the Panthers that they essentially did in themselves. The US government was more concerned about commies and the Civil Rights Movement (at first) turning the US upside down than they ever were about the Panthers.

The same could be said about the Weather Underground who also inflicted relatively minute damage (a few bombings, a few deaths). Not justifying their actions, just pointing out the truth. They were small time and while some folks on the right were a bit paranoid about them, the US government wasn't overly concerned with those folks. Sounds like you have been watching too much FOX News and listening to too much right wing talk radio. Only those folks get overly bent out of shape about the Black Panthers (including the mostly non-existent current version) and the Weather Underground. You realize who was a greater terrorist threat back then? The KKK. Is the damage done by the Weather Underground back in the 70s any worse than the damage inflicted by the zealots who bomb abortion clinics and murder abortion doctors in our modern times? Think the US goverment is significantly worried about anti-abortion zealots?

Deep Space Nine could get away with Kira as a "terrorist" by pretending the Cardassians were Nazis and saying they deserved it.

Uh, not really. If DS9 was made after 9/11 she would have simply been referred to as a "freedom fighter" and likley would have never been involved in any random bombings that led to the deaths of innocents. The term "terrorist" would have been stricken from the show. It was too painful a time for the country for most to sympathise with anyone with that tag IMO.

We will have to agree to respectfully disagree on these topics I guess. Peace.

 

[Tosk]

If DS9 was made after 9/11 she would have simply been referred to as a "freedom fighter" and likley would have never been involved in any random bombings that led to the deaths of innocents. The term "terrorist" would have been stricken from the show. It was too painful a time for the country for most to sympathise with anyone with that tag IMO.

If DS9 premiered in 2002, I'd agree with you. If it came out in 2011 I think it'd be closer to what we originally got.

The first few years after 9/11 seemed to be filled with overreactions to just about anything even remotely tied to the event.

 

[SuperXPS]

The theme is similar but the threat they are facing is NOT.

Pale Moon light and Paradise Lost can't be applied to terrorism.
Paradise lost can be to an extent in that we don't know whos a changeling v whos not [whos a terrorist v whos not] but thats more a problem in a mixed place like Palestine/Isreal than most other places.
Also with Pale Moon Light you gotta appreciate the Dominion had the capability of ending the federation, wiping them off the map, not even the most powerful terrorst group could change the nature of what a nation is, in the case of Al Quida the US destroyed its own principles and the nature of the nation all by itself, AQ can just set off bombs, the Dominion could have wiped out entire worlds


If you wanna look at a DS9 ep that has more relevance to today I'd say look at the Bell Riots episode, our social problems now, even in Europe, are far worse than anything that episdoe portrayed.

 

[MacLeod]

Did anyone else see how applicable the story from the Paradise Lost two part episode is to today's America? We may not have armed soldiers on the street but we are taking off our shoes at the airport and strip searching children.

I'm more willing to say an ep such as "In the Hands of the Prophets" says more about America today than it did back in 1992. We seem to have an increase of voices of those who want to take real science out of the classroom and replace it with religious teaching (aka creationism or whatever it is called).

Both of you are reaching big time.

Oh, really? Do tell. From where I stand there are an increasing amount of unhinged, Vedek Winn-like religious zealots who are growing in power in this country. And they are becoming more bold in terms of how they influence politics and education.

Of course none of the topics that DS9 dealt with were brand new issues when the show aired. Nonetheless the show is in a way ahead of its times in dealing with such loaded topics, especially considering it was essentially a sci-fi family show:

-Terrorism
-Nation building
-Religious intolerance, corrupt religious power
-Religion vs science
-Power of state using fear to justify reduce liberties during war/threats of war
-A separatist group that forms in part because it feels its government has turned against them and has overstepped its bounds
-The uneasy alliance between the very fundamentaliist people of a war-stricken, impoverished state and their more secular colleagues from a distant "super power"
-The question of if the ends justifies the means during times of war

I may be forgetting a couple of topics. Regardless the point is not that DS9 was necessarily prescient which is defined as "perceiving the significance of events before they occur". Rather it is that DS9 was a show that may be even more topical today than it was when it aired. It is hard to argue against that IMO.

Terrorism was occuring long before DSN, true maybe not so much in the USA but else where in the world.