Several things I noticed about FF's "verse" by Allronix

Allronix makes some fascinating points, particularly about the status of women. Inara's station in life seem inspired by the classical Greek hetairai -- the flute-girls who provided intelligent conversation as well as sex for Greek men who treated their wives like possessions and kept them uneducated (except for memorizing Homer) and unskilled.
Also hadn't noticed that the throaway line about "[The reavers are] pushing out fartther all the time" in the 2-hr piot suggestsx the Alliance is stretched wayyyy to thin. If true, that could have opened up a seriously interesting plot thread in Firefly.
The big question, to my mind, is: does the Alliance know what's going with River? Are the guys with blue gloves officially sanctioned? OR are they a rogue black ops unit? If they've got clearance from the ighest levels and official comlicity, then the Alliance has got to go 'cause it's The Fourth Reich. I mean, we're talkin' Josef Mengele stuff here.
On the other hand, if the blue glove boys did not have official clearance for their torture-experiments on River, then the possibility exists for reforming the Alliance from within.
That would also offer an interesting plot thread. Suppose, after Simon and River expose the blue-glove boys, Alliance brass gave Mal & his crew carte blanche to root out other rottenness in the post-civil-war 'verse?
Several other aspects of the Firefly 'verse that particularly struck me as innovative:

[1] Firefly has no weapons! And no force fields! This is a real breakthrough for ship-based film or TV science ficiton. None of that hackneyed ridiculous "the shields are holding" or "fire main phasers" stuff. Once again, as in the real world, if someone shoot at 'em, they die. No magic force fields. No fairy-tale energy screens. No press-a-button-and-we're-all-safe nonsense.
That was a daring decision on Joss Whedon's part and I strongly applaud it. Giving Firefly no weapons creates a lot more tension and many more plot possibilites, IMHO. Mal can't just tsnd there with his shields up and thumb his nose at the bad guys. Without weapons and without forcefields, the crew of Serentiy has to _engage_ the enemy.

[2] The deliberately huge contrast between the Core systems and the outlying worlds. Was this Joss Whedon's way of commenting on the currently immense gap twixt life in the Third World and in rich developed countries here on earth? If so, works great. Seeing Mal & company going from a super-rich Core system city to a dirt-poor rim world really hits you in the face with the obscene gap twixt rich and poor on our planet. Reminds you of the shocking fact that 50% of the people on earth live and die without ever seeing anything as hi-tech as a telephone. Some 60% of the population of our planet survives on an annual income of less than $100 U.S.
Firefly deserves high praise for being socially conscious in that regard. Like Roddenberry Trek, Firefly seems to have had strong elements of this kind of social commentary -- a pity the show didn't last long enough to devcelop more on this theme.
One of my favorite scenes in the show occurred when Kaylee is rooting around the junk pile near the hospital. Her eyes glow as she finds valuabel ship comenents the rich folks on that planet have just thrown out. Great stuff! When was the last time we saw anything like _that_ on TV science fiction? Hey..on TV period?

[3] The not-so-subtle contrast between the decency of the dirt poor ordinary folks like Mal and Zoe (with the exception of the townspeople in "Safe") and the cruelty and ice-cold creepiness of all the high-class folks on the wealthy Core systems (particularly Simon and River's creepy parents). I've noticed that on TV and in the movies over the last 20 years in America, the heroes seem increasingly to be rich guys. That's distinctly un-American, since for most of American history the villains and butts of the jokes have traditionally been rich folks while the heroes have been average folks. Check your Mark Twain for examples aplenty. There's a long tradition of this in America, especially in the screwball comedies of the 30s, where all the rich folks are portrayed as either evil crooks or half-wits, or both.
Firefly offers a welcome return to that American tradition. After the grotesque abberrant period in the 80s and 90s where we made heroes out of CEOs who turned out to be corrupt thieves, Firefly's portrayal of ordinary dirt-poor folks like Mal and Zoe and Kaylee as heroes and all the rich guys in the Core systems as corrupt crooks is refreshing... At least to me. If I see another billioniare on the cover of TIME magainze being praised to the skies, I think I'm gonna puke.

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Monday, December 23, 2002 1:44 AM

RAULENDYMION

You could even go as far to say that the crew are Anarchists, it is nice to see Anarchism portrayed in a way that is true to its real message, co-operation, personal autonomy, and volentary association.

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Monday, December 23, 2002 9:09 AM

JOHNNYREB

I wouldn't go so far as to call the crew anarchists. Mal and Zoe fought for a different government than the Alliance, so they do feel there is a place for government--just not the Alliance's government. Inara openly supported unification, and the Shepherd is more concerned with The Lord,I think, than with toppling the powers that be. Jayne on the other hand...

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Tuesday, December 24, 2002 12:02 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by xed:
Firefly offers a welcome return to that American tradition. After the grotesque abberrant period in the 80s and 90s where we made heroes out of CEOs who turned out to be corrupt thieves, Firefly's portrayal of ordinary dirt-poor folks like Mal and Zoe and Kaylee as heroes and all the rich guys in the Core systems as corrupt crooks is refreshing... At least to me. If I see another billioniare on the cover of TIME magainze being praised to the skies, I think I'm gonna puke.

I'm not so sure I'd call it an American tradition. After all, stories making heros out of the poor and portraying the rich as evil come from the old world.

In fact, the formation of a majority middle class in the US, is the reason that many stories that take place in modern times (say, post 1950 US) don't necessarily link wealth to hero status. Heros can be rich or poor, so can the bad guys.

But with Firefly, gone is the "pure" democracy and capitalism that has made the US the most powerful nation on Earth. Gone is the ideal that all men are created equal. And with that I assume we can say that the World has taken a step backward to the times when money and power weren't created, they were stolen.

Joss has made a powerful statement to compare our current situation with this potential future.

As for your other statements... not quite sure what you have against the wealthy. I suppose each person has their own experiences and we can all become jaded when we learn of someone becoming successful in an unethical manner. But, I'm constantly impressed with the creation of wealth in the U.S. How over half of our millionaires weren't born rich, but made their own wealth. To me, it's proof that in the U.S., anyone can make it.

GatorMarc

Eat 'em up, chomp, chomp.

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Tuesday, December 24, 2002 12:51 PM

HJERMSTED

Quote:

But, I'm constantly impressed with the creation of wealth in the U.S. How over half of our millionaires weren't born rich, but made their own wealth. To me, it's proof that in the U.S., anyone can make it

This belief, in my mind, is actually what is ruining the U.S. There may have been a time when "anyone could make it" big in this country, but short of the occasional janitor winning the lottery, those days are long gone.

The wealthy have their money and, understanding what a finite resource it is, have no plans on sharing it with anyone. For most the dream of wealth is just that, a dream. It's the carrot at the end of the stick that keeps us all from noticing our whole lives we've been fighting over the scraps left by the uber wealthy.

Soon we will have the world's first trillionaire. It'll make the front pages and some will look upon this individual as some kind of genius or hero. I guarantee you on that day, the world's poverty level will reach an all time high as well. You might see that article on page 16. The massive wealth of the few and the poverty of the many are permanently intertwined.

Despite all this, I don't have any real problem with some people being richer than others. That is after we've guaranteed everybody has the following: Food, a roof over their head, healthcare, access to a decent education. After all of this is achieved and cannot be interfered with in any way, then let the rich be the rich.

mattro

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Tuesday, December 24, 2002 1:39 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Hjermsted:
This belief, in my mind, is actually what is ruining the U.S. There may have been a time when "anyone could make it" big in this country, but short of the occasional janitor winning the lottery, those days are long gone.

That is absolutely incorrect... just the fact that half of our millionaires as I mentioned above, are first generation is proof of that.

Quote:

The wealthy have their money and, understanding what a finite resource it is, have no plans on sharing it with anyone. For most the dream of wealth is just that, a dream. It's the carrot at the end of the stick that keeps us all from noticing our whole lives we've been fighting over the scraps left by the uber wealthy.

There is no doubt that "old-money" still exists, however, today, like no other time in the history of the world, they are being outnumbered by new money. And of course, without some financial planning, "old-money" gets depleted too.

Quote:

Soon we will have the world's first trillionaire. It'll make the front pages and some will look upon this individual as some kind of genius or hero.

How soon do you think that will be? The current richest man is more than a magnitude away from that.

Quote:

I guarantee you on that day, the world's poverty level will reach an all time high as well. You might see that article on page 16. The massive wealth of the few and the poverty of the many are permanently intertwined.

But that isn't reality. Less people live in poverty than every before... less people are starving than ever before... and more people are wealthy than ever before!

It is part of the litany of socialism that we are on a downward trend when reality shows the exact opposite.

Quote:

Despite all this, I don't have any real problem with some people being richer than others. That is after we've guaranteed everybody has the following: Food, a roof over their head, healthcare, access to a decent education. After all of this is achieved and cannot be interfered with in any way, then let the rich be the rich.

I think the problem is you feel that the two are mutually exclusive. Wealth is not a finite entity that must be spread out (take from the rich to give to the poor). The creation of wealth has played a huge role in creating bare minimums for the poor that were unheard of 100 or 200 years ago.

GatorMarc

Eat 'em up, chomp, chomp.

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Tuesday, December 24, 2002 3:45 PM

Gatormarc makes what seems to me an excellent point about how Joss Whedon draws some harsh comparisons twixt the Firefly 'verse and today's America.
Chances are we're not gonna resolve the F. A. Hayek laissez faire vs. J. K. Galbraith social responsibility debate anytime soon, 'specially as regards the last 20 years in America.
However, regardless which way ya slice it, the stats do seem to show a drastic increase in the gap twixt poorest & richest quintile in America from 1973 to now. (You could argue that is due to the fact that the 1945-to-1973 period was bizarre because all the other industrialized nations had been blown up by WW II, leaving America to supply 50% of the world's GDP -- or you could argue as Ralph Nader does that it's due to the corrupting power of concentrated modern monopolies, but that's neither here not there as regards the point in question.) Irrespective of _why_ it happened, this massive gap twixt top and bottom quintiles today is historically more typical of most of American history. Some of us believe that's a bad thing, others (the Hayek "Road To Serfdom" crowd) will doubtless find it spiffy.
But if your point is that Joss seems to be poking us in the eye with the social consequences of this wealth gap in America today, that seems to be true. I'd noticed it but hadn't given it much thought until you mentioned it.
BTW, I don't have anything against rich people in America per se as long as they didn't start their fortunes with some heinous crime. Sadly, all too many of 'em did. (Specific examples include BASF, Bayrische Analine Soda Fabrik, which made a fortune manufacturing hideously mustard gas and chlorine gas weapons for the Kaiser in WW I. And then there's the Bush family fortune...kick-started when George Herbert Walker Bush's dad laundered money for the Nazi munitions firm Thysen so their war profiteering assets couldn't be seized when the Allies won. G. H. W. Bush's dad received a hefty bribe in 1945 in payment for his little side job of Nazi money laundering.) Of course there remain the Bill Gateses and the Sam Waltons of America, and they deserve nothing but praise. Recently, however, for every Sam Walton we seem to have 2 Jeff Skillings crawling out of the woodwork. If you want the skinny on why, check out Kevin Philips' latest book "Wealth and Democracy." The charts are fairly eye-popping. He ain't no bleeding-heart lib-er-al, neither; Philips a long-time hard-core coservative from way back... So if Kevin Philips is bugged by this wealth gap, there just might some social pathology behind it.
Anyhoo, Joss' social commentary on America's backslide into an earlier era of Social Darwinist wealth gap offers another reason why I miss Firefly so much. Most prime-time TV shows seem to assume everyone is doing great, living in cushy zillion-dollar apartments and half-million-dollar homes, yet with no visible means of support. (Eactly how *do* the people in Friends afford their deluxe living quarters, pray tell...? For that matter, there's the nagging issue of how Buffy manages to keep up property tax payments on her mom's house in one of the highest-priced real estate areas on the planet even though she doesn't seem to actually have much a job. Unless you count that stint in the burger place where the demon tried to eat her... Do the math as I may, still can't figure how Buffy provides food on the table plus health insurance plus property taxes plus car insurance plus school supplies plus tuition plus water & electric bills for a 4-bedroom house, all on minimum wage in a fast food burger joint.)
I don't think I have yet seen a prime-time TV show centered around a working family that has to live in a trailer 'cause they can't afford rent on apartments in the city where they work. Rings of such working-calss poor people surround all America's major cities today. We have yet to see one (1) on series TV. Such working poor families subsist in trailers or vans or even cardboard boxes, and rings these families surround most of America's major cities today. In Brazil the cardboard shanties are known as favelas. There, it's an old pattern. In America this social paradigm is still new, unless you count the brief rise of the Hoovervilles in the mid-30s. Check out Barbara Ehrenreich's book "Nickel and Dimed" for more details.
If you think about it, though, Firefly is exactly a mobile trailer full of working poor people. F. A. Hayek would soil his undies, methinks.
Firefly poked a short sharp stick in our eye to remind us that capitalism doesn't always give you Adam Smith's entire invisible hand -- sometimes, all you get is the finger.
In any case, the "real" era in which Firefly is set clearly seems the 19th century. No discernable government regulation. Plenty of robber barons. The fact that Joss came out with such a show at this particular time in our history tends to open one's eyes.
I wonder -- any connection with Cameron's recent "Titanic" (a very mordent class struggle drama) and "Dark Angel" (a similarly Social Darwinist future universe) and Scorsese's brand-new "The Gangs Of New York" set specifically in the 1860s...?

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Tuesday, December 24, 2002 8:28 PM

XED,
While discussing the wealth gap, many people get lost in the stats and fail to see the whole picture.

It's that old example of which society is better off:

Society 1:
The poorest individual makes $20,000
The richest individual makes $100,000

Society 2:
The poorest individual makes $30,000
The richest individual makes $300,000

Those that just look at the gap would actually claim that Society 1 is better off than Society 2, despite the fact that everyone in Society 2 is better off than their counterparts in Society 1.

GatorMarc

Eat 'em up, chomp, chomp.

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Tuesday, December 24, 2002 11:13 PM

Excellent point about statistics, Gatormac. You've convincingly made the case that stats alone don't tell us much pro or con a society. However, many lines of evidence converge on theconclusion that the neo-con economic delusions of the 80s and 90s are now dead as a doornail.
You'll notice I mentioned a lot more than stats. I didn't see you trying to rebut Barbara Ehrenreich's points, probably because they can't be rebutted. Ditto Lester Thurow's remarks on the laissez faire extremists, and on general economic trends over the last 30 years.
The recent rash of CEO crime and corporate corruption and the immense impoverishment of the general public in the resulting stock market collapse has put the permanent lie to the always-kooky claims of the neo-cons that "if we only unleash the free market, life will improve for everyone." Despite that glaringly obvious reality, it's startling that people continue toe parrot the Hayek neo-con line as though Enron and Tyco and Worldcom never happened...as though the general public didn't lose trillions, while the corporate CEOs made trillions.
Another way of phrasing that intellectrually bankrupt neo-con argument is "A rising tide lifts all boats." We now know that's just not true. Since John Kennedy uttered those words in his 1961 inaugural speech, the U.S. real per capita GDP rose 36% from 1973 to 1995, but the real wages of the vast majority of the workforce fell 14%. The tide rose, and 2/3 of the boats sank.
The exact statistics don't matter. What counts is the overall trend, which cannot be argued out of existence no matter how hard the Chicago School of economics kooks try.
Lester Thruow, dean of the MIT Sloan School of Management, has talked about these social trends in detail. Forget about stats. Just look around -- you'll see a lot more homeless people on the streets than 30 years ago. We didn't see that prior to the election of the senile unindicted co-conspirator Reagan and his den-of-thieves administration (by far the most corrupt in American history, if you count number of per capita indictments). And what was the single most notable economic policy of the should've-been-impeached criminal Reagan? Vastly lowering taxes on the top quintile while immensely raising taxes on the lowest quintile (by enormously raising the FICA tax).
Sadly, examples like the senile criminal Reagan's administration and the recent vast improverishment of the public in the stock market swindles of hte 90s prove that when we unleash the power of the free market by removing all gummint oversight, the only thing that happens is that robber barons run amok. Of course American history teaches us this same sobering fact, so we shouldn't be surprised.
The free market works best if it's not completely free. Some external oversight is needed. The neo-cons who claim otherwise are stooges for corporate thieves who merely view society as a giant jewelry store window to smash-and-grab.
The extreme liberals who advocate massive amounts of social control are equally delusional. History shows extreme social bureaucracy doesn't work in combatting poverty, illegitimate birth, etc.
Bottom line?
Both the extreme laissez faire supply side wackos AND the fringe lunatics of the extreme left who think it's a great idea to shut down dams to save snail darters are advocating social schemes that just don't work. Reality is more complicated. The Chicago School of Economics headed by Milton Friedman and the Rational Economics clique headed by Riker have both made fools of themselves with pervasively false economic predictions and crackpot economic schemes that don't even pass cursory scrutiny by a small child.
The startling fact that these lunatifc fringe extreme laissez faire elements of economic theory have managed to capture the policy-making apparatus in Washington spells real trouble, and we're living through the ugly consequences right now. As a result I predict a populist bakclash in America, and soon.
The constant mindless mantra by the neo-cons "reduce capital gains tax rates" hasn't done diddly-squat to reduce poverty or make health care more affordable in this country or reduce malnutrition rates among children in this country. And there's no evidence to show that crackpot schemes like reducing taxes on the rich below the already astoundingly low rates in America (by far the lowest marginal tax rates on the top quintile anywhere int he developed world) will produce more affordable health care or reduce the shockingly large percentage of malnourished kids in America (again, the largest percentage in the developed world).
Kooks like Milton Friedman and crackpots like Arthur Laffer have so thoroughly discredited themselves that no reasonable person can take the extreme laissez faire ideology seriously nowdays -- not after the orgy of coporate corruption of the 80s and 90s, adn certainly not after the ugly consial consequences of the Reagan tax cuts on the rich.
Lester Thurow's 1996 book "The Future of Capitalism makes these trends pellucidly clear:
"By the turn of the century the real wages for non-supervisory workers will be back to where they were at mid-century, fifty years earlier, despite the fact that the real per capita GDP more than doubled over the same period of time." (pg 6)
In the 1980's all the gains in U.S. male earnings went to the top 20% of the workforce only, with 64% going to the top 1%. I don't care how you slice that statistically, you can't turn it into an argument that "a rising tide lifts allboats." The general public may have been stupid enought to elect both t he senile criminal Reagan and our current Cokehead in Chief, but they're not *that* stupid that they can be deluded into believing a decline is actually an increase. If you use incomes rather than earnings, the top 1% get 90% of the total income gains. (pg 21) The real per capita GDP rose 36% from 1973 to 1995, but the real wages of the vast majority of the workforce fell 14%. (pg 2).
Once again, doesn't matter which particular stats you use -- the trend sihce 1973 is unmistakable. Once again, even an electrorate so gullible they got bamboozled into voting for an imbecile who said things like "We must ask the question: is our children educated?" and "The solution to the economic problem is to make the pie higher" aren't so gullible they can be brainwashed into believing that real wages for the bottom 80% of the American workforce have actually risen in inflation-adjusted terms sicne 1973. The average person knows better just by living in our society from day to day.

The other major social/economic trend surging in the bottom 80% of the American workforce that Thurow documents is rising unemployment and a structural change in the composition of the working class. He shows that the real US unemployment rate is at least 14% (the official figures, 5.7% plus those unemployed but not counted, 4.6% plus involuntary part-timers, 3.4%). There are also another 4% who have dropped out of the official economy. This brings unemployment to 18%. In addition there is another 14% who are either in temporary jobs, or who work sporadically "on call", or self-employed independent contractors, many of whom have been forced out of their jobs in downsizing and are scrambling to make a living. This represents a third of the workforce either unemployed or living precariously in unstable and iffy work situations. European figures are far higher. Many countries are officially in double digit numbers, and the average official unemployment rate in Europe is double the US's. (That fact, incidentally, contradcits the extreme left-wing claims about economics, just as current trends debunk the laissez faire claims,) In Japan, unemployment approaches the EEC official numbers, as idle workers are kept on the payroll since their lifetime guarantee of employment has replaced a government social security system.

The US is different than other OECD countries, according to Thurow --

"America is uniquely a first world economy with a third world economy inside of it.. . .American corporations operate with a skill structure very different from that found in Japan or the European continent. They essentially use more managers and professionals (11.5% of the workforce in the US versus 5.7% in West Germany) to deskill the production process. This allows US firms to employ fewer mid-skill workers and more unskilled workers than would be the case in either Germany or Japan. Americans 'dumb down' the production process. German firms operate with fewer managers and professionals by 'skilling up' the bottom of the workforce." (pg 173)

Whichever stats you use, the trends show clearly the Brazilianization of America. To put it bluntly, the Americn economy is a goldmine, with the top 20% fo the workforce getting the gold while the bottom 80% of the American workforce has gotten the shaft over the last 30 years. Statistical quibbles just can't hide this glaring trend. This is the big problem the neo-cons can overcome right now. More cries of "reduce the capital gains tax rate!" and "Let's have a flat tax!" cannot disguise the fact that the working poor have surged neormously in both absolute numbers and in percentage terms over the last 40 years in America. This tells us something is broken in our society.
Question is: what new economic and social ideas will rush in displace the vacuum left by the factually and hsitorically discredited neo-con "unleash the free market and life will get better for everyone" delusions and the equally debunked left-wing "throw money at the social problem and it'll go away" delusions?
Firefly suggests that things will go back to 19th century robber barony and the general public won't utter a peep in protest. That, I find unlikely. Convincing young husbands and wives that it's reasonable to ask 'em to live in a trailer becuase rents and house prices have spiralled far out of reach for the working class doesn't sound like a tough sell. It sounds like an impossible sell.

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Wednesday, December 25, 2002 7:04 PM

SOLETA

Quote:
Originally posted by GatorMarc:
It's that old example of which society is better off:

Society 1:
The poorest individual makes $20,000
The richest individual makes $100,000

Society 2:
The poorest individual makes $30,000
The richest individual makes $300,000

Okay, honestly - in what society does the poorest individual make $20,000?

- soleta

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Thursday, December 26, 2002 7:07 AM

KURUKAMI

Gates is worthy of nothing but praise? After creating a monopolistic giant with seriously deficient and buggy software that buys out or crushes other innovations in the programming world and looks to expand its monopolistic ambitions into every aspect of modern high-tech life?

I'm sorry, but he'll not get any praise from me for that. For charitable donations, perhaps, but certainly he'll not receive "nothing but praise".

History doesn't always repeat itself. Sometimes it merely shouts "Weren't you listening the first time?!?" and lets fly with a club.

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Thursday, December 26, 2002 8:01 AM

HJERMSTED

Honestly though, none of the world's ills are going to be cured until we deal - honestly - with the big ill: global overpopulation.

And before anyone tells me about "all that open space in Montana" global overpopulation isn't about physical space. It's about spread of disease, consumption of natural resources and pollution.

Overpopulation is also very much about economics and exploitation of segments of the populace.

I don't pretend to have the answers, but I am concerned that the U.S. (the number one over-consumer of the world's resources) has moronic leadership. It's time to get educated people back in the White House and our legislative bodies. Right now all I see in power here are paranoid people that aren't all that smart.

We've also had more than twenty years of moderate to conservative leadership. All this talk of "liberal" this and "liberal" that is fallacy. There hasn't been a progressive reform in the U.S. since the '60s! (Civil Rights) I honestly believe it's time we actually moved the U.S. political machine Left of center instead of opining how horrible it would be to do so, thus shooting the idea out of the sky as if it had no merit. You have to try it to know whether it would work or not.

The self professed "greatest country ever" and "envy of the world" hasn't tried anything politically new in almost 40 years! Instead there's been a concerted effort to move us backwards in time intellectually. I'm just glad this effort isn't 100% effective (see: reaction to Trent Lott's "slip up").

Here are "new" things I would love to see in the U.S. (the following mechanisms are already in place in governments throughout the world):

1. Majority Preferential Voting-a voting mechanism used in Executive position elections... President, Governor, Mayor, etc...
Voters choose their top three choices in order of preference. This system would give us candidates that actually reflect the general population's desires particularly in close elections. After the first nationwide vote tally came up with no clear victor, only the ballots where definitive electoral losers (Nader, Buchanon, etc) were the #1 choice would be recounted...this time moving to the second choice on those ballots. To put this into imaginary play, Nader voters would most certainly have picked Gore as their second choice in 2000 thus sparing us the non-elected president situation we now "enjoy". All that Florida recounting would have been rendered moot with this automatic safety valve built into the system.

2. Binding National Referendums- The citizens of the U.S. vote bindingly on the big issues at the Federal level. Dozens of democratic nations around the world enjoy this voting mechanism.
Let Congress figure out how/where to spend the $$ and let the Prez be our figurehead. But let the people be the steering committee. I personally would have loved to vote at the polls against NAFTA. I would love a shot at this Star Wars fantasy missile shield. In other words, I would love to see this republic infused with more democracy.

3. Proportional Representation- Make the representation in the legislative bodies (Congress, State Houses, City Councils, etc) match the actual population's idealogical leanings... some refer to this as "parliamentary politics" but that's really just one method of proportionalization.
If a political party has support of 5% or more of the voting public, they get the same percentage of seats in the Congress. This would elminate the need for voting districts and put the focus on the parties themselves. This would also flood the legislative bodies with new ideas. Presently we are stuck with the limited imaginations of two idealogies: Democrats (corporate philosophy -- moderate to conservative) and Republicans (corporate philosophy -- conservative to reactionary). More parties equals more ideas and I maintain my assertion above that the U.S. hasn't had a non-market based new idea since the '60s.

4. Tweaks to the Constitution
This must be added to our "to-do" list as we will obviously need to tweak the U.S. Constitution to allow for this greater voter empowerment (#s 1-3). This point shouldn't be taken lightly... it takes a vote of 2/3 of the States to change the U.S. Constitution. Of all the world's Constitutions, the U.S. of A.'s is the slowest evolving and most resistent to change. One small tweak I would suggest right off the bat: Drop the super-majority (2/3 vote) requirement for new amendments back to a 51% requirement.

5. Financial incentives to Voters In the form of tax breaks for people who vote or hefty fines levied against those who do not vote
I know I know I know... Americans don't vote. Personally I feel this is due to our current system making voting seem futile (see: Election 2000, Florida and decades of Dems and Repubs having the same debates over and over and over and over and...). But you know what? Waaaa! You have to vote. It's the price of freedom. Get over it. Get off your ass. Get to the polls. It's the least you can do for this country you profess to love. Putting ideas #1-4 into effect should be enough to increase voter turnout in the U.S. alone. However if it isn't, we'll need to add a financial incentive like Australia has ($50 fine if you don't vote... 80+% voter turnout ever since).

6. Eradicate the "that won't work here" mentality within you
I cannot express how sick I am of people shooting down ideas before they've been tested and thus maintaining the status quo. Yes all of the above is social engineering. So what? That's what politics is. Social engineering. And what are we if not social engineers? I'll tell you what: spectators in our own lives.

There's no guarantee that any of the above would make America a better place. However it wouldn't jeopardize our security any more than our current system.

mattro

"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich"
--Napolean

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Thursday, December 26, 2002 8:24 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by soleta:
Quote:
Originally posted by GatorMarc:
It's that old example of which society is better off:

Society 1:
The poorest individual makes $20,000
The richest individual makes $100,000

Society 2:
The poorest individual makes $30,000
The richest individual makes $300,000

Okay, honestly - in what society does the poorest individual make $20,000?

- soleta

Yes, yes. Aparently in his world everyone who makes less than 20,000 just don't count. Isn't that convenient. Don't you love it when the opposition makes your argument for you? Guess the argument wouldn't make any sense if it read:

The poorest individual makes $0
The richest individual makes $100,000

and

The poorest individual makes $0
The richest individual makes $300,000

or how about something a little closer to reality

The poorest individual makes $0
The richest individual makes $40,000,000,000

???

Getting back to the ahem topic at hand, ain't it great how Firefly can get us talking about real world issues?

And another thing...anyone else see parallels between an extraordinarily rich unopposed superpower exporting soft drinks to every backwater in the 'verse and our own perilous position atop the politico-economic (I think I just made that up) food chain? Anybody else worried about that old "Absolute power corrupts absolutely" thing? Anyone think Joss Whedon is the antichrist?

And remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Thursday, December 26, 2002 8:55 AM

ALLRONIX

Gee, a political debate where I'm not the one tossing napalm.

No, seriously. On the Earth: Final Conflict fans' main hangout, the political debate section knows me as the Socialist/Pagan American who gets rather aggressive in a debate.

America...based on the myth that everyone can make it, and the fact that only 1 in 100 has a prayer.

Think the Core Worlds/Frontier debate here. The Frontier lives in squalor, disease, and leftovers. But the shiny, high-tech core worlds is dependant on them for cheap labor, raw materials, etc. The Core cannot allow the Frontier to become prosperous, either. Otherwise, how will they get the labor cheap?

And since the nature of capitalism is expand, devour, discard (or die)...terraforming allows it to continue unchecked. Why question our use of resources when we can just get another rock, drop off the poor (so we can't see them and question it that way), and continue ad nauseum.

Fandom, BTW, is how I try to RELAX from politics. (I'm involved with several Seattle-area activist groups, and was technically a WTO protestor, even if I was not near the tear gas. .

Co-founder of the Evil Writing Crew - causing hell, one hero at a time!

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Thursday, December 26, 2002 9:19 AM

For me the darkest part of the show is that one line, "The earth got used up." Damn. He says it so matter-o'-fact. Given what I know about our Gaia and Her resiliance, I don't even know how that's possible. I mean, when he says "used up" I don't think he means we depleted our fossil fuels and hadda go solar. I think he means used up. Gives me a chill. And the theme song, "Burn the land and boil the sea/You can't take the sky from me." Breaks my heart every time I hear it.

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Thursday, December 26, 2002 9:51 AM

XERIAR

Quote:
Originally posted by HKcavalier:
For me the darkest part of the show is that one line, "The earth got used up." Damn. He says it so matter-o'-fact. Given what I know about our Gaia and Her resiliance, I don't even know how that's possible. I mean, when he says "used up" I don't think he means we depleted our fossil fuels and hadda go solar. I think he means used up. Gives me a chill. And the theme song, "Burn the land and boil the sea/You can't take the sky from me." Breaks my heart every time I hear it.

'Earth that was.' is certainly a mysterious line.

I'm kind of wondering just what happened - it seems that there is no faster than light travel, just fast travel (or maybe that's what the blue hands and River really are about, kinda like Dune...)

This also suggests a system with a number of planets, gas giants and moons - even richer than Sol's system we have come to so love.

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Thursday, December 26, 2002 10:26 AM

You make a buncha excellent points. In particular, the swaggering sneering contemptuous way the Alliance feds treat...well, just about everyone...sorta kinda almost, er, eh, reminds you of, oh, say, the way the rest of the planet views America, don't it?
Mind you, I'm not saying that America really acts that way. (Often it does, IMHO.) Just that hte rest of hte planet thinks we do.
The swaggering hubris in Washington has ramped up like a Hendrix solo through a stack of marshals ever since the end of the Cold War, too. I wonder if Firefly also represents a commentary on that little trend...?

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Thursday, December 26, 2002 11:02 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by xed:
...the swaggering sneering contemptuous way the Alliance feds treat...well, just about everyone...

And yet the one Alliance officer we get to know at all, the fella that gets on with Simon & River, is not a monstrous nazified sociopath but a decent seeming guy who thinks he's doing the right thing upholding the law and all. From his point of view isn't Simon's abduction of River kinda like kidnapping a heart patient from the OR? How long would River survive without "proper medical treatment?"

And for me that's one of the big red flags about America right now, because we are so absolutely, sincerely, blindly, uncomplicatedly, generously sure of our right and decency. We're just trying to help the rest of the world what can't help them selves, and if it means ridding the world of a little Evil while we're at it, well then, saddle up!

And remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Thursday, December 26, 2002 1:04 PM

HJERMSTED

Quote:

And for me that's one of the big red flags about America right now, because we are so absolutely, sincerely, blindly, uncomplicatedly, generously sure of our right and decency. We're just trying to help the rest of the world what can't help them selves, and if it means ridding the world of a little Evil while we're at it, well then, saddle up!

And now that it's no longer safe for Americans to travel abroad, we don't have to learn anything from other cultures nor see other ways of doing things! All those pesky differing viewpoints... good riddance!

Thanks, W!

mattro

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Thursday, December 26, 2002 7:16 PM

MILLERNATE

Well I'm taking a lit match to a lake of gasoline but here goes:

Quote:

Hjermsted wrote:

And before anyone tells me about "all that open space in Montana" global overpopulation isn't about physical space. It's about spread of disease, consumption of natural resources and pollution.

Well basically this isn't a question of overpopulation to me so much as wise resource usage, which can technically be a problem with any size population (though of course larger populations with unwise resource usage policies can cause problems quicker...).

Quote:

I don't pretend to have the answers, but I am concerned that the U.S. (the number one over-consumer of the world's resources) has moronic leadership. It's time to get educated people back in the White House and our legislative bodies.

Well I'm not going to address George Bush but most of the other people working in the White House are very smart. Dick Chaney, regardless of what you think of his ethics, is an intelligent man. THis is even more so with Colin Powell and Colendezza Rice (and don't I just know I misspelled her first name...). In congress I can count a decent number of educated people (particularly senators like Carl Levin and John McCain).

Quote:

You have to try it to know whether it would work or not.

This isn't a knock on your politics but rather just on this statement: If you see bad results from a policy in a similar situation then you can exposite that it would be a bad idea for you to do so. I mean, I don't have to turn into oncoming traffic to know that it would have bad consequences for me

Quote:

1. Majority Preferential Voting-a voting mechanism used in Executive position elections... President, Governor, Mayor, etc...

I'm not going to address this directly but I would advise you to take a look at the critics of Lani Guiner (who has proposed a voting system much like this) and see if their objections have merit (if you haven't done so already, which you likely have

Quote:

2. Binding National Referendums- The citizens of the U.S. vote bindingly on the big issues at the Federal level. Dozens of democratic nations around the world enjoy this voting mechanism.
Let Congress figure out how/where to spend the $$ and let the Prez be our figurehead. But let the people be the steering committee. I personally would have loved to vote at the polls against NAFTA. I would love a shot at this Star Wars fantasy missile shield. In other words, I would love to see this republic infused with more democracy.

The issue is that this takes away from the advantage of having a representative democracy. Not to mention the fact that you'd have an increased number of uninformed people voting on matters of great importance. The logistics of making it work (as these issues come up more often then our only national political race) would also be daunting.

Quote:

3. Proportional Representation- Make the representation in the legislative bodies (Congress, State Houses, City Councils, etc) match the actual population's idealogical leanings... some refer to this as "parliamentary politics" but that's really just one method of proportionalization.
If a political party has support of 5% or more of the voting public, they get the same percentage of seats in the Congress. This would elminate the need for voting districts and put the focus on the parties themselves. This would also flood the legislative bodies with new ideas. Presently we are stuck with the limited imaginations of two idealogies: Democrats (corporate philosophy -- moderate to conservative) and Republicans (corporate philosophy -- conservative to reactionary). More parties equals more ideas and I maintain my assertion above that the U.S. hasn't had a non-market based new idea since the '60s.

I would advise you to look at the political stability of the countries that currently use this system. THe usual result is a coalition government that falls apart at the drop of a hat (I believe Italy has had an average government tenure of six months or less).

Quote:

4. Tweaks to the Constitution
This must be added to our "to-do" list as we will obviously need to tweak the U.S. Constitution to allow for this greater voter empowerment (#s 1-3). This point shouldn't be taken lightly... it takes a vote of 2/3 of the States to change the U.S. Constitution. Of all the world's Constitutions, the U.S. of A.'s is the slowest evolving and most resistent to change. One small tweak I would suggest right off the bat: Drop the super-majority (2/3 vote) requirement for new amendments back to a 51% requirement.

See, this is a bad idea all around. The reason that majority was put into place was to prevent frivalous amendments from clogging the constitution. So far in our history there has been only one amendment that has been thrown out (prohibition), which is partly why our constitution is considered one of the more respected in the world. This is a fail safe that must be maintained.

Quote:

5. Financial incentives to Voters In the form of tax breaks for people who vote or hefty fines levied against those who do not vote

Two problems with the idea of fines (and one of these applies to incentives):

1. Fines would be unconstitutional under the First amendment (freedom of speech could very easily be intrepreted to include freedom not to speak) and thus might not be valid without modifications to that amendment. Given that I'm pseudo-libertarian I take issue with tampering with what I veiw our most important amendment.

2. Fines and incentives could very easily lead to more uninformed voters looking to escape the fines/gain the incentives. I agree with the notion that the only situation worse than a lot of non-voters is a one of a great many uninformed voters.

Quote:

6. Eradicate the "that won't work here" mentality within you
I cannot express how sick I am of people shooting down ideas before they've been tested and thus maintaining the status quo. Yes all of the above is social engineering. So what? That's what politics is. Social engineering. And what are we if not social engineers? I'll tell you what: spectators in our own lives.

I agree with parts of this though I have objections I made earlier about the acceptance of ideas. I'm also not exactly sure that politics is really social engineering (I'll have to ask my friend with the B.A. in Political Science about that...). Otherwise in partial agreement.

Nathan
"It looks like a great adventure...That's what it is; that's what it feels like. When I saw the pilot, it was really engaging. It was exciting. It was unusual. It threw me off every now and then. I think people will be grabbed by it." - Ron Glass, on the pilot, during an interview with the Indianapolis Star

P.S. Is there a special procedure to change my e-mail for this site? Because now that I'm graduating I'm going to lose my e-mail access in awhile.

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Friday, December 27, 2002 7:21 AM

HKCAVALIER and soleta,
Obviously my example of the two societies was an example to demonstrate the concept of the "wealth gap" and how it could be used incorrectly to compare societies, and not actual figures for two societies for comparison. I'm appears that you missed the point while still trying to argue it.

XED,
Many interesting points in your posts. I cannot refute or agree with them all because you have many more specific resources at your immediate disposal on the issue. My posts have been based on the stats that I've seen but I don't have well documented research and am not readily familiar with your sources, so I will stop at saying that your points are well worth consideration even though I am not adopting them.

Very interesting discussion...

GatorMarc

Eat 'em up, chomp, chomp.

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Friday, December 27, 2002 10:52 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by GatorMarc:
HKCAVALIER and soleta,
Obviously my example of the two societies was an example to demonstrate the concept of the "wealth gap" and how it could be used incorrectly to compare societies, and not actual figures for two societies for comparison.

Marc,

You can stop banging your head against the wall on my account. I know what you meant. Of course, you weren't discribing a "real" society with your "example." It was just a poor choice of statistics.

I mean, if you're trying to make a point to an animal rights activist, you don't start off your "example" with, "Look at it this way, say you shoot a deer in the head..." As penetrating as your insights may be, you're just going to alienate your audience.

Similarly, if you make a model of a society that, hypothetically of course, discounts the existence of people who's anual incomes fall below $20,000, you gotta expect some of us are gonna pick up on the irony. There are all kinds of people who discount the existence of those who's incomes are below $20,000 a year, Marc, and they tend to be, you know, rich people!

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey. Don't be mean. We don't have to be mean because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Friday, December 27, 2002 9:34 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by HKcavalier:
You can stop banging your head against the wall on my account. I know what you meant. Of course, you weren't discribing a "real" society with your "example."

Now that's just more frustrating to me...

You understood my point in the example the entire time but chose to argue a technicality rather than the merit of the example.

Quote:

Similarly, if you make a model of a society that, hypothetically of course, discounts the existence of people who's anual incomes fall below $20,000, you gotta expect some of us are gonna pick up on the irony. There are all kinds of people who discount the existence of those who's incomes are below $20,000 a year, Marc, and they tend to be, you know, rich people!

With a simple example, I didn't feel the need to complicate it with more detailed labels. I chose "poorest" instead of some statistically significant number like "bottom 10%" vs. "top 10%" since it would be ridiculous to make up statistically significant categories if I were going to populate it with made up numbers.

Quote:

It was just a poor choice of statistics.

I disagree... it seems that I made a simple example to prove a single point - that a "wealth gap" isn't in and of itself bad - but the made up statistics were being debated instead of the actual point.

GatorMarc

Eat 'em up, chomp, chomp.

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Saturday, December 28, 2002 9:00 AM

Marc,

I'm sorry. I know it can be very frustraiting when what you think is important about a thing you said, is not what someone else thinks is important about what you said, but I'm afraid that is how it goes. Sometimes the way we say something is just as important as what we're trying to say. I'm trying to say that your rhetoric got in the way of your point, which btw I'll agree is a pretty simple, accessible point (people in America, for the most part, are better off than people in Afghanistan, for the most part, even though the income gap here is wider). But the way you made your point was more important to me than your point.

What strikes me as really interesting as I reread this thread is the deeply marxist lesson sci-fi seems to teach. In Firefly we have the eternal end-game of capitalism, ever-expanding, ever-depleting, necessarily colonial. Whereas, look at Star Trek, nice homeostatic socialism with a green earth and nobody hungry. From a dramatic standpoint: rapacious capitalism--exciting; complacent socialism--boring. Capitalism looks very pretty in the shortrun, while socialism in the shortrun looks to be a beurocratic mess. But when we look at the future, capitalism seems really ugly and socialism in the long run might save the planet.

Hey, I don't know jack about economics but it seems to me that somebody has to cook up a way for capitalism to tolerate homeostasis or we will destroy whatever we touch. Can capitalism be so saved, or is socialism the only sane (albeit, boring) answer? XED seems to have done the homework asignment, maybe he knows. XED?

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey. Don't be mean, we don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Saturday, December 28, 2002 10:44 AM

DELVO

Actually, there's nothing to indicate that there's much of a capitalist theme to the Alliance, and the only major thing we know about them goes solidly against it: that they are into dominating and oppressing everything in sight, not allowing people's free wills. Meanwhile, the GOOD guys on Firefly are the ardent capitalists, trying to engage in trade whenever they can sneak it past the enterprise-squashing Alliance.

It's not capitalism that's too consumptive and needing to expand all the time. It's just any economy, at least while the population keeps going up. And socialism sure can't be the answer, because it ultimately destroys more to produce less for people, and keeps on collapsing under its own weight.

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Saturday, December 28, 2002 1:40 PM

ALLRONIX

LOL!!!!!

OK, now it's time for me to get my gloves off. The small businessman in modern capitalism is the guy who gets stiffed the worst. He has to shoulder the tax burden for the large corps that can and will squash him like a bug.

And a system with the sense to say "enough for the needy, not enough for the greedy" will require more to produce less while the "grab and gobble and crush faster then your opponent" is sustainible?

SUUUUUUUUUURRRRRREEEE.

Co-founder of the Evil Writing Crew - causing hell, one hero at a time!

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Saturday, December 28, 2002 2:16 PM

DELVO

Keep your gloves off. It'll make it easier to take notes if and when you decide to get a basic education in elementary economics or history.

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Saturday, December 28, 2002 4:19 PM

ALLRONIX

Look, Delvo. I'm not interested in turning this into Philosophy Sphere. We're here to talk Firefly, remember?

I've more than a basic education in history, and am familiar enough with economic principles. The more I learn, the more I'm staying with my Christmas-colored politics, thanks. Take me up on private e-mail (allronix@hotmail.com) if you'd like to discuss it...any of y'all.

That being said, I should have been more polite in my last post.

Co-founder of the Evil Writing Crew - causing hell, one hero at a time!

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Sunday, December 29, 2002 9:36 AM

TALLGRRL

Quote:
Originally posted by JOHNNYREB:
I wouldn't go so far as to call the crew anarchists. [snip]Inara openly supported unification, and the Shepherd is more concerned with The Lord,I think, than with toppling the powers that be.

Ni hao, y'all...

Shepherd is a mystery.
I have a theory: maybe he is a Shepherd...now.
How is it in "Safe" he gets first rate med treatment at an Allliance (or is it Fed) facility, and is released with no questions asked?
Maybe he was a high mucky-muck that left out of disgust. He never went so far as to fight with the Rebel forces.
I'm thinking something happened in the war that so disgusted him that he turned his back on The World and went into spirtual seeking.
He seems to know a lot about some things...like firearms and shooting and war('War Stories'). And he knew where a part of the ship's engine was when Kaylee was wounded and needed help in the pilot episode.
In short (yeah, too late for 'short', eh?) I don't know if he's so much concerned about the Lord as that he's maybe searching for something that he couldn't find in his previous life, and something that he didn't completely get in monastic life.

"creativity lies at the interface of discipline and chaos."

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Sunday, December 29, 2002 12:25 PM

KURUKAMI

Quote:
For me the darkest part of the show is that one line, "The earth got used up." Damn. He says it so matter-o'-fact. Given what I know about our Gaia and Her resiliance, I don't even know how that's possible. I mean, when he says "used up" I don't think he means we depleted our fossil fuels and hadda go solar. I think he means used up. Gives me a chill. And the theme song, "Burn the land and boil the sea/You can't take the sky from me." Breaks my heart every time I hear it.

But they've also referred to it, from time to time, as "Earth that was". That almost implies something like an ecological collapse... another something that seems all too likely given extrapolation from the current progression of events.

History doesn't always repeat itself. Sometimes it merely shouts "Weren't you listening the first time?!?" and lets fly with a club.

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Sunday, December 29, 2002 1:52 PM

SOLETA

Quote:
Originally posted by GatorMarc:
Quote:
Originally posted by HKcavalier:
You can stop banging your head against the wall on my account. I know what you meant. Of course, you weren't discribing a "real" society with your "example."

Now that's just more frustrating to me...

You understood my point in the example the entire time but chose to argue a technicality rather than the merit of the example.

I also understood your point, I just failed to see its relevance. Your example illustrates your point about the "wealth gap" quite well, that a "gap" doesn't necessarily mean the poorest of the poor are impoverished. So, in theory, it's a fine point. But theory is, or should be, used to explain reality. Since there is no society in which the poorest of the poor makes an annual income of $20,000, I fail to see how your example illustrates anything useful.

If you are ultimately arguing (which I suspect is the case) that when many leftist people and organizations today rail against the "wealth gap,"
they are working from an incorrect understanding of wealth distribution. However, they would be talking about a much more complicated society than a $20,000-$100,000 weath gap - a society including homeless people, people on welfare, the unemployed, etc. Furthermore, I find the example misleading and needessly simplifies today's economic reality - a common tactic in political arguments, I find (taking something to the ridiculous extreme so that your opponent is forced to concede your point, then arguing that that extreme example illustrates your argument generally).

And I chose to reply with a short provocative statement because I didn't want to write all this out unless I needed to. So there you go.

- soleta

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Monday, December 30, 2002 4:48 AM