Chancellor Gorkon [to Captain Kirk]: You don't trust me, do you? I don't blame you. If there is to be a brave new world, our generation is going to have the hardest time living in it.
I'm an old skool Trekkie. Give me Captain Kirk and Spock or give me death!
Okay, not really, but I'm a die hard fan of the original cast and series of the scifi franchise.
"To boldly go where no man has gone before". I just loved the idea as a kid watching that sixties series going to other worlds and other time periods -- the idea of going into space -- that final frontier.
I was totally thrilled when the cast reunited for the first Star Trek movie installments. Although I didn't care for the 1st movie or the 5th one, the ones in-between were classic Star Trek episodes played out on the big screen.
So you may ask, what does this have to do with DK'ers?
Follow me ov'r...
The sixth and last installment of the Star Trek movie series that featured the original television cast was Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered County. In my research for this diary, I learned that the legendary creator of Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry, not only died days after the movie's 1991 premiere, but that he was dead set against the storyline of the sixth installment. It was reported that he didn't care for the dark militaristic themes as well as the undertones of bigotry coming from the characters, especially that of the Starfleet.
Yet this movie was a fine example of what set-in anger, fear, and long held beliefs can morph into if gone unchecked.
In episode VI, Captain James T. Kirk was in no mood to be a champion for a peace treatry between the United Federation of Planets and the Klingon Empire. After all the Klingons had murdered his son -- a son he had recently learned existed -- as a result of an affair he had with a beautiful young science officer some twenty years eariler. His son died over a skirmish involving 'Project Genesis', a scientific device that set off a nuclear bomb-like effect on a dead planet, transforming it into a new one.
Or as Captain Spock would say, the old planet was destroyed in favor of its new matrix.
Now the Klingon's world was dying due to its own shortsightedness in overproducing in that their planet's moon that was used for energy production had exploded, ripping a hole in their home planet's ozone layer. The Klingons needed to refugee to the United Federation's territory and that meant that a peace deal had to be brokered.
The idea of peace between the Klingons and the Federation was a bold, new and necessary concept that many feared.
So much so that the Klingon Chancellor was assassinated and it was made to look like it was at hands of Captain Kirk. The murder of the Klingon leader had many of them calling for war, despite their perilious position. When the new Chancellor was named (his daughter), she decided to push forward with the peace negotiations. Another plot was devised to assassinate the President of the Federation and the new Klingon Chancellor to force an act of war.
Of course in the end, Kirk and his crew uncovered the plot and discovered that it was a cabal of Federation, Klingon, Rumulum and Vulcan officers who decided that peace was not in their best interest of hate and division.
Azetbur: you've restored my father's faith.
Captain James T. Kirk: and you have restored my son's.
They say that politics make for strange bedfellows.
Yes indeed. For when the basic structure of political course is altered, there are those who fight hard to maintain the status quo.
The status quo is recognizable. It's comfortable. It's understandable.
Any changes to that construct often produces feelings of discomfort, confusion, and fear. And sometimes that fear turns to anger and the longer one feels that way, the harder it is for them to consider any other path.
The Republican Party and all of its various factions is an easy to recognize example. Some of them are so committed to their ideology that they would rather destroy this country than to concede one inch for the betterment of the people who they represent.
But what's worse are those within the GOP who although may be conservative on many policies, go along with the extremist elements of their party out of fear of reprisals or exclusion. They don't want to be 'branded'. They don't want to be an 'outcast'. They wish to maintain their membership of inclusion and acceptance.
To go against the grain is to risk not being 'one of them'. Not being liked. Standing alone.
We talk about our freedoms in this country, yet we grativtate toward the comfort of 'group think' and sometimes it becomes so powerful that it morphs into attitudes and actions that work against our better logic or even common sense.
Progressives are not immuned from the 'group think'.
A popular DK member, whose own diaries often lands on the rec list said this in one of my earlier diaries this week:
There is a chasm between how some see the same words or events. Each side claims a privileged view based on one argument or another (not just identity).
There are some on both sides who do not want reconcilement; they want total victory and will especially fight any middle who seek unity, because that undercuts their struggle.
Some people and even politicians can only define themselves in terms of the 'struggle'. If there is no 'struggle', there is no 'movement' and if there is no 'movement', then there is no use for them. The 'struggle' becomes bigger than the solutions designed to overcome them.
Or the argument becomes more important than the areas of agreement.
Captain James T. Kirk: Captain's Log, stardate 9529.1.: This is the final cruise of the Starship Enterprise under my command. This ship and her history will shortly become the care of another crew. To them and their posterity will we commit our future. They will continue the voyages we have begun, and journey to all the undiscovered countries, boldly going where no man... where no one has gone before.
To me, the undiscovered country is change, for the only constant is change. We can choose to face that undiscovered country bravely or we can choose to lie stagnant in space. But change is inevitable and if you resist it, you will be swept up and carried in a direction that you have no control over. Or, you can help steer the currents.