tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4400152815785368447.post3057997668302212663..comments2024-03-15T07:28:47.064-05:00Comments on Treknobabble: Deep Space Nine, Season 3: Past Tense, Part IUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4400152815785368447.post-9525086970336084072023-05-14T13:01:53.015-05:002023-05-14T13:01:53.015-05:00This episode is spot on. If you can look at the wo...This episode is spot on. If you can look at the world today (or even in the 90s when NAFTA devastated manufacturing jobs and turned swaths of working regions in the mid west into the third world ) and think this is not the inevitable outcome of capitalism, then you have not paid attention. It is not that the writers of Trek were especially prescient. It's that what we see in this episode is the inevitable end game of capitalist policies. They can only go one way, no matter how much you polish it. <br /><br />Which is why I found it ridiculous when Sisko said people had "given up" trying to address economic destitution. Like it was a natural disaster that is out of your hands. Of course that is the myth being perpetrated so the system can continue as it is. Truth is, poverty and homelessness are policy choices, they are not inevitabilities. This type of framing lets those in power off the hook because it takes away the onus from those who perpetrate this system (and benefit from it) to imply that cosmic inevitabilities beyond anyone's control have just created such a system. That is how you manufacture consent for a status quo that is devastating to the environment and workers while benefitting only a few on top (and their handlers in politics). <br /> <br />But as I said, what we see here is what happens when you live in a capitalist hellscape run by oligarchs who siphon the wealth of the working class to the top and who would have you believe that political leaders are helpless, powerless entities who just do not know how to end any of this. <br /><br />We have become accustomed to seeing homeless people. Or destitution. As the number of mental health facilities decreased, the number of prisons increased. As Chris Hedges said, a poor black man in Camden, is worth nothing to the state. Incarcerate him and that is over 50,000 a year in prison contracts. <br /><br />Poverty is already being penalized in many ways (and even criminalized). The average American spends nearly $1100 a year on military contractors while only a meager $200 on K-12 education. That is a choice. <br /><br />Bezos, Bill Gates Buffett — now have as much wealth as the bottom half of the U.S. population<br /><br />That is a choice. <br /><br />We have more warheads than hospital beds. <br /><br />That is a choice. <br /><br />60% of people cannot afford a $500 dollar emergency. Hundreds of thousands of people die each year due to being under or uninsured. People are drowning in medical debt, student loan debt...the minimum wage is still 7.25 while the wealthy have seen their wealth increase astronomically and keep getting bailed out by tax payers every 5-6 years. <br /><br />These are all choices. <br /><br />You can fall into the trap of the duopoly blame game and say it is the fault of my team or your team (both of whom are funded by the same billionaires, Wallstreet and corporate elites by the way). But to say it is just something none of them had no clue or power over on how to address is just a lie. <br /><br />Ellenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4400152815785368447.post-41445602079513140062017-10-09T09:21:30.441-05:002017-10-09T09:21:30.441-05:00Four intervening years of Paul Ryan would make me ...Four intervening years of Paul Ryan would make me amend my above statement to "I think Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan *think they care* just as much as Barack Obama or Nancy Pelosi"matthewweflenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07540521459703556959noreply@blogger.com