Aboard the Imperial Star Ship Ameriprise- Heading for the Final Frontier

[Orwellian_Ghost]

On Board the USS Ameriprise

Looking back at Star Trek, more than four decades after Roddenberry's vision entered our homes, what's remarkable is how much it captured a still extant American optimism and an American cultural smugness. The optimism today has been muted, but the smugness -- not so much. After all, official American "expeditionary forces" continue to travel the "final frontiers" of our own planet, if not the galaxy, armed to the teeth with our own versions of phasers and photon torpedoes. At the same time, most of us continue to see ourselves as a peace-loving, Federation-like crew, a force for progress, for international cooperation, and above all for good.

Yes, our acts may -- these days, more than occasionally -- misfire (or quagmire), but our intentions are benevolent, motivated primarily by a desire to serve a higher purpose, even as we seek to enlarge our peaceful federation of allied nations. Unfortunately, like the Star Trek crew, Americans are meddlers. We want to help others even when they don't want our help, even when our "help" is counterproductive to the normal development of other cultures and countries.

Worse yet: Despite our aspirations, the American spaceship of state -- let's call it the USS Ameriprise -- not only resembles the USS Enterprise of the (mostly well-meaning but distinctly meddlesome) Federation, but also, on too many occasions, the Enterprise from a barbarous parallel universe pictured in "Mirror, Mirror," an episode from the show's second season.

In it, thanks to a "transporter" accident, four members of the Star Trek crew, including Captain Kirk, switch places with their evil twins and find themselves aboard the Imperial Star Ship (ISS) Enterprise. Among the ISS crew, might makes right. Alien cultures that refuse to provide scarce energy sources (the dilithium crystals that power the starship, not mundane oil as on this planet) are massacred and their resources stolen. Perceived mistakes by crewmembers are punished with "agonizers," Taser-like miniature zappers applied to the chest just above the heart. Disloyal crewmembers are tortured to extract confessions, or simply slowly tortured to death, by being placed in "the agony booth." The booth is the ultimate "stress position," without all the inconvenience of shackles or the messiness of waterboarding. Officers advance in rank by assassination, with Kirk possessing the choicest precision weapon: a device in his quarters capable of killing any person on board with just the touch of a button.

Let's recap: Alien cultures shocked, awed, and bludgeoned into submission in order to gain control over scarce energy resources; torture used liberally to extract information; precision weapons capable of decapitating the enemy and controlled from a distance via the push of a button.



http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175051/william_astore_affirming_our_prime_directive

[ConcernedCanuk]

1. Excellent read, but that graphic widens the screen so I have to scroll back and forth

.
.
.

I didn't even finish reading your post, I read it from the link.

anyway

another clip from your link:

Let's recap: Alien cultures shocked, awed, and bludgeoned into submission in order to gain control over scarce energy resources; torture used liberally to extract information; precision weapons capable of decapitating the enemy and controlled from a distance via the push of a button.

It's disturbing how closely the recent journeys of our Ameriprise have come to resemble those of that imperial Enterprise. Yet we've hardly seemed to notice, convinced as we were that our ship of state is still the good Enterprise, spreading democracy and freedom, even if meddling in other cultures as well. Perhaps we've forgotten that another way to express the wisdom contained in the Prime Directive is: "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

_____________________________________________________________________

Star Trek was an amazing creation