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

In message <Pine.OSF.3.96.970908142048.30371A-100000@alpha1.csd.uwm.edu>
" writes:
> On Mon, 8 Sep 1997, David Brewer wrote:
>  
> > 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?)
> 
> <RANT>
>	That's the main thing that always rubbed me the wrong way about
> Trek.  Obviously the writers of the show have a progressive ax to
grind by
> making entrepenuers into backstabbing Ferengi. They turn the military
into
> warmongering Kligons and Cardassians.  

Or is that vice versa? Are you turning back-stabbing Ferengi into
entreprenuers? (etc.)

I think the big problem with Star Trek has always been a tendency
towards lazy writing and an unfocused storyline. Good Old Star
Trek was always very military in it's veiwpoint and commerce never
really got a look in. When the Next Gen came along it was easy
just to project the society on board Enterprise outwards to cover
the whole Fed... perfectly functioning, uncorrupt, meritocratic,
everybody-does-their-bit, everything-provided-for-you, yatta, 
yatta.

The Ferengi popped up in one episode as a cardboard adversary for
the Trekkers (with one joke: "I'm all ears, Picard"). Now Trek is
saddled with these comical space hobbits as capitalism's only 
representative. That's just lazy.

> Does anyone remember that awlful
> DS9 episode were Worf and Dax went to Risa and were forced to save the
> Federation from a bunch of Evil social conservatives. Meanwhile they
make
> millions of dollars in flithy capitalist lucur. Aren't the Hollywood
Left
> a consistant bunch? ;-) 
> </RANT>

I missed that ep. Are social conservatives always capitalists 
then? Is there a Hollywood Left? Hollywood strikes me as a
*somewhat* capitalistic environment...

-- 
David Brewer

"Richard did and said nothing about the princes, and thereby confirmed 
the general belief that he had had them put to death (a belief since
accepted by the great majority of historians)." - Prof. Charles Ross