Re: Star Trek background (was... something else)

David Brewer wrote:
> 
> In message <3411B464.230B@earthlink.net> "John D. Hamill" writes:
> 
> > The NAC explanation isn't silly, just needs to be better explained.
And
> > your universe IS a lot better than the "faschists with smiley faces"
of
> > Star Trek.
> 
> Fascists? Surely you mean communists. They seem to have abolished
> all money, get from people according to their ability, give to
> them according to their needs etc.. The Federation seems to be an
> idealised version of what the Soviet Union used to pretend to be.
> (Have you ever read the old Soviet constitution?)
> 
> Remind me... didn't McCarthy run all the commies out of Hollywood?
> 
> American children are being corrupted. Cool.
> 
> [B5, OTOH, is just the same thing the other way round. Earth =
> America with all the bad-juju conspiratorial trimmings that are
> fashionable. Black helos become black starfuries, even...]
> 
> --
> David Brewer
The reason I call them faschists instead of communists is the
overwhelming inability of Federation humans (which means pretty much the
entire Federation) to let people have free will. If you'll notice the
episodes of DS9 in which the Maquis are shown, the former Starfleet
officers are given extreme cold shoulders, as if the dworst thing that a
person could do is to leave Starfleet. The other thing that you see is
political reeducation camps, although they aren't called that of course.
The culture is heavily militarized (but Starfleet is always shown in the
best light), but the iron fist of the Federation is always covered by
the velvet glove of pseudo-psychological gobbledegook.