Sfdebris.net

http://sfdebris.com/videos/babylon5/b5s1e07.php

Good review, good episode. Nice Country music close out.

Like most of the rest of the show, this episode is timeless. It's relevant no matter the era. We can look around, today, and see much of what is happening now reflected in the show but without it being too tied to the era in which it was made. Love this show so much.

Babylon 5 was the first sci-fi show I really watched but I never quite realized how weird that ending was. G'Kar was just using the same tactics as those humans he's looking down on. Delenn Knows all too well what it's like to give into hatred and let it lead you on a personal level. As the show goes on we see that her species is just as capable as humans with hatred and fear.I don't deny it was a message episode but that last it felt more like it was trying to say something else now that I've watched the review. These people are blinded to their own faults. They look down on others and say they can't understand but those they looked down on they stood where they stand.

Personally I always like the saying never get on a high horse you may looked down one day and find yourself on top of a jackass

I'm 32. I've learned in my life that human beings are terrible, awful people, far more often than not.
When I dance, it is to a purpose; to celebrate victory. One can not dance from joy when joy is a fictional concept.

yes, the above is a bit philosophical, and is over the top; but it's also generally true to how I feel. I understand chuck feels differently, but to that, I just smile, sigh, and shake my head at the youthful innocence inside him.

I disagree with Chuck on something in this episode.
I feel that racists should be beaten.

Rocketboy1313 wrote:I disagree with Chuck on something in this episode.
I feel that racists should be beaten.

I largely agree, though I'd save the violence for those who have crossed the line into advocating genocide. There are degrees of racism after all. A micro-aggression (randomly assuming any tall Black man you met must like & play basketball, etc.) probably doesn't deserve a punch in the face. Making excuses for ethnic cleansing?

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCZ19LLMRsU[/youtube]

Also, there is a discussion to be had about whether or not self-defense counts as violence. I'm reading this really interesting book about the Civil Rights movement and guns called This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed*. Before reading this I did not know that, while he never had them on him in public, MLK Jr. had guns in his home. One journalist (a pro-Civil Rights, Black journalist I might add, not some white supremacist propaganda rag) described his home as being like an arsenal. Anyway, the point is, well-meaning Northern Liberals sometimes don't realize that a lot of Southern Blacks only survived that period because they weren't afraid to display the fact they had rifles and shotguns on their porches at night whenever KKK men in trucks would roll down the street. Few of those guns were ever fired in any context beyond target practice at the range or in the backyard, but still.

* it's available on Amazon, but it's through a college press so it's a bit pricier than most paperbacks.

The reason I take such a stance is that the idea of punching Nazis became the target of various editorials a month ago. So I gave it some thought, and I took the firm stance that if you have seen the preponderance of evidence afforded to you by all of the world's modern technology and still want to hurt or kill people based on race... or if you go whole hog Nazi, then you should expect violent opposition.

Feel no obligation to follow this link to my blog on this topic.
http://rocketboy1313.blogspot.com/2017/ ... -nazi.html

One concession I will make; I don't think it should've been aliens beating up the racist asshole guy. It should've been other humans. Smarter people than me have pointed out in the case of that Richard Spencer getting punched video, it was actually very important that the guy who socked the Nazi was another white guy. It's similar logic to why Steve Rogers looked like he did in the early Captain America comics.

Arkle wrote:One concession I will make; I don't think it should've been aliens beating up the racist asshole guy. It should've been other humans. Smarter people than me have pointed out in the case of that Richard Spencer getting punched video, it was actually very important that the guy who socked the Nazi was another white guy. It's similar logic to why Steve Rogers looked like he did in the early Captain America comics.

I don't think that scene is intended as a good thing. Its not suppose to be a bad guy getting his comeuppance, but just another sign that this situation is getting out of hand and needs to be resolved soon to prevent further escalation.