Philip Hornsey <74053.2101@compuserve.com> asks:
> Don't you think the "Traitors Can't Escape" poster was a bit over
> the top for *public* consumption (on the wall in the bar area)?

It's not always as simple as that. You also take a uniquely
Western perspective. Look around at Russia, Cuba, 1930s Germany and
the beer hall putsch, Iraq, Iran...a leader can survive all kinds of
opposition if he has sufficient control of the armed forces. After the
Gulf War, it was generally assumed that Saddam would be gone within a
few months; now his position is stronger than ever.

Also, Clark didn't (ostensibly) declare martial law to protect
himself, he did it because of an imminent alien threat which was
detected long before these allegations came out, we just had Ganymede
attacked and that's spitting distance from the primary Earth jump gate
at Io...there is indication of collaboration and conspiracy among some
in the Joint Chiefs (and in fact that's correct, from his point of
view, given Hague's activities)...there's enough ammo there to justify
martial law. Dissolve the Senate? Just happened a couple years ago in
Russia, when we had tanks firing on the Senate building. Some might say
that Yeltsin was in the same position as Clark in that his motives
might be saving himself.

(The majorit of our posters, btw, are taken from genuine WW II
propaganda and war-support posters that were actually in use. We make
some slight modifications, but the gist is there. Yes, we do fall for
these things, we do go for these things. We always have.)

As for the USA-western perspective...during WW II we saw
Japanese civilians interned in camps along the West Coast...afterward
we saw people prosecuted for being Reds, saw careers and lives
destroyed by even the hint of "commie" influence. If you look at
newsreels and documentary footage from the time, you see a populace,
fresh out of a war, who survived by focusing on the Enemy, given a new
enemy. Might they have gone along with some kind fo martial law if
they thought that if they *didn't* cooperate, the nation might be
vulnerable to Russian nukes or invasion? I think the climate was
perfect for it.

Could it happen right here, right now? No, because the
surrounding climate isn't right. Could it happen if the conditions
*were* right? Of course it could. We're not genetically or
evolutionarily different from the Germans or the Russians or the Cubans
or the Iraquis. If we think we'd never fall for that, we place
ourselves in *exactly* the position of guaranteeing that we *will* fall
for it. Because we won't recognize it when it happens. We can justify
and rationalize it as something else.

Yeah, people back on Earth still have guns. What of it? Right
now, with martial law, the streets are quiet, the news is more positive
than usual for a change, the quarrelsome jerks in the senate have been
given a good kick in the butt, the president's getting things *done*,
we've all still got our jobs, the muggers are hiding out, life goes on
except for the lawbreakers. You gonna go out on your own and start
shooting at Earthforce troops armed to the teeth with *vastly* more
advanced weaponry? On whose behalf? The aliens? The troublemakers?
What're we rallying for? Or against? This'll blow over soon, it
always does. It never lasts. Right now, just ride it out, wait and
see what happens. Who knows...maybe Clark's right? Who wants to be
perceived as a traitor?

Those are the thoughts of any populace in this situation. Just
as when Yeltsin declared martial law in Moscow, as when Mayor Daly sent
in the shock troops in Chicago, on and on.

Here's the number one rule: a population will always stay
passive for as long as they perceive that they stand to lose more by
opposing the government than by staying quiet. It's when they have
little or nothing left to lose that they rise up; the politicos first,
then, more reluctantly, the general population.

jms

Philip Hornsey <74053.2101@compuserve.com> asks:
> Can the President dissolve the Senate, as Parliments may
> sometimes be dissolved, prompting new elections? What is the
> procedure for removing the President from office? Can the
> President declare Martial Law over the entire nation without the
> consent of the Senate? Can the President suspend the Constitution?
> HOW IN *GOD'S NAME* CAN THE MILITARY SUPPORT THIS!?!?!?

Wait for the next episode, then we'll see.

jms

Philip Hornsey <74053.2101@compuserve.com> asks:
> Should I not be?
> How do you do business when you suddenly live in a dictatorship
> and you use to be a democracy?

Thanks. No, I understand the point, I'm just getting into the
details a bit. One last point I forgot to mention was that even for
the US, there has never yet been a situation where we as an entire
*species* stood on the brink of extinction by an alien race. That'll
definitely affect your mindset a bit....

jms

Jon Wolf <76103.2541@compuserve.com> asks:
> Did somebody goose him?
> Save the eye and change your fate?
> Morden?
> Anna?
> Or will there be a time travel twist here?

"I watched hte first month of Space A&B,and I liked the grim,
gritty atmosphere. I wish this show had more of that."

And then we'd be just like SAAB. I'd rather we set our own tone.
I like the jumping from humor to dark stuff...for one thing, it keeps
the audience from collectively sticking their heads in ovens across the
country. Second, a good dramatic piece can help create tension which
laughter relieves, giving you a roller-coaster effect.

jms

Joel Hilke <102354.1702@compuserve.com> asks:
> And what's your problem with that?

"B5 has gravity defying video cameras"

Only if you consider a plane or any other reasonable technology
of flight to be gravity defying.

The video recorders are made of an extremely ultralight
material, new alloys that in total weighs less than an ounce; it has a
visible (and audible) air propulsion system, a high speed fan with a
stabalizer/gyroscope that keeps it steady, and move it forward.

jms

{original post had no questions}

Agreed. When I have to go see the dentist, the #1 item on my
fear hit parade...I'm fragging *hysterical*, in the sense that I'm
constantly cracking jokes. It's the only way I can deal with it short
of passing out.

jms

Randy Upshaw <75464.1275@compuserve.com> asks:
> I don't see that that has anything to do with the b5 story line?
> By the way were are the shadows???

"I don't believe a conservative nightwatch would be tolerated
either."

Senator Joseph McCarthy. The House Un-American Activities
Committee. You can look it up.

Also, there was a PBS documentary this past week on the
blacklist; I suggest that ANYone who thinks we would never fall for
something like the Nightwatch should take a look at it. It makes the
Nightwatch look pale by comparison.

jms

{original post had no questions}

"Even in the USSR the military would not support an attempt of
martial law."

You mean like when Yeltsin called up the military, dissolved
the Senate, and had tanks open fire on the Senate building to keep from
being ousted in a coup...you mean like that?

jms

Rae Augenstein <72752.1653@compuserve.com> asks:
> You've thought of everything, haven't you?

But of course....

jms

I dunno....dunno if I want a funny dentist....

jms

Bingo....

jms

Thanks, and the powderkeg smoldering is a good analogy.

jms

{original post had no questions}

I disagree. When even Truman was loathe to take on HUAC and
McCarthy, you've got a real problem. You make the impact sound
minimal; but people committed suicide when their careers were ruined by
HUAC and Tailgunner Joe. I personally know writers who were at the top
of their form and their careers who never worked again because they
were blacklisted or greylisted.

It was also the climate created by HUAC that threatened much
more widely than the actions of the committee itself. Take Red
Channels, a sleazy little rag published by the owner of a *SUPERMARKET
CHAIN* in which he listed those he considered -- based on whim or
divine revelation -- reds or sympathetic to reds. Even a publication
like that had tremendous destructive power. I know one of the writers
listed in Red Channels; the networks grey-listed him instantly. It was
*years* before he could work again.

The whole red-baiting hysteria of the 50s came as close to
destroying the American dream as any threatened invasion. If it had
been led by someone a little less self-destructive than McCarthy, I
hate to think what would've happened.

jms

{original post unavailable}

I appreciate that, thanks.

jms

Philip Hornsey <74053.2101@compuserve.com> asks:
> The *speed* of McCarthy's collapse with the simple words "Have
> you no decency Sir? At long last?"

Yes, but equally dangerous, Phil, is blindness or self-delusion
about real failings and real problems. Each population that marched
off to annhilation under a dictatorship did so convinced that their
values and their morals and their national fabric was supremely strong.

Pride has a tendency to goeth before a fall.

For additional reading check out "The Man Who Corrupted
Hadleyburg." Check out European history. We're not a different species
over here on this side of the atlantic; we're just as capable of being
foxed as the next guy in another country.

And your notion that the government wasn't responsible for what
happened to people during the HUAC period doesn't jibe with the truth.
It was the FBI which contacted networks and asked them for lists of
anyone considered communist; the FBI who suggested there might be
problems unless certain people were removed. It wasn't just people
who'd attended Young Communist meetings who were targeted...it was
anyone who *knew* anyone who'd been at these things, or had in fact
NEVER been to anything like this. People were called before HUAC and
asked to *name names*, and if you didn't, then you were hiding
something, being uncooperative, facing contempt charges, so you named
the names that had been named before, or made up new ones, gave up your
buddies or your co workers, whatever was necessary to keep from being
jailed or fired.

The problem was worse than just "inaccuracy." It was rooted in
meanness and cynicism. I know someone who was asked during the second
World War to make short films for the military and the newsreels, and
to do radio shows, celebrating the US and the Soviet Union working
together to defeat the Nazis. All well and good, right? Well, this
same person, after the war, was grey-listed for having produced
Communist propaganda MADE AT THE REQUEST OF OUR OWN GOVERNMENT at the
time. Meanness. Cynicism.

To be named before HUAC was to instantly get a file at the FBI
in your name. As soon as that happened, you could reliably depend on
having your phone tapped, your business associates would be questioned,
your mail would be intercepted...no, the government didn't say
publicly, "don't hire this person," but when all this starts to happen,
jobs and reputations disappear. People committed suicide over the
destruction of their careers, their *lives* being torn apart. Did
McCarthy pull the trigger? No, but the people he targeted are just as
dead as if he did.

There's the common assumption that one measures the decline of
a democracy in body counts and increasingly inconvenient laws and
regulations. But this is symptom, not cause. Laws follow norms, and
norms follow values in the political food chain. And the values of
HUAC were the values of terror, and spying on your neighbor, and
looking for the enemy beneath bedsheets. A democracy, ANY democracy,
is based first and foremost on the notion of trust, however flawed,
that the person beside you, however different his specific beliefs may
be from your own, nonetheless hews to the same notions of liberty, and
that when push comes to shove, you will be wiling to lay down your
life to protect that person's rights. Take that away in a paroxysm of
paranoia, distrust, conspiracies, hearings and vague accusations, and
everything else falls apart. The center does not hold.

To question ourselves is not to weaken our democracy, but to
strengthen it, because we know precisely what we believe and why we
believe it; we're not victims if we learn from our mistakes and thus
fail to repeat them. If we *deny* our mistakes, or try to bury them,
or rationalize them, then we create the potential for trouble. We are
at our most vulnerable when we are the most self-congratulatory and
assured. Because then we get blindsided.

"Fact is, the Red Scare tended to get two specific (and fairly
small) groups of people, Hollywood actors, writers and executives, and
people affiliated with Democratic institutions."

Yes, and the Nazis tended to get two specific (and fairly
small) groups of people, jews and communists. So I guess that's okay
too.

Any attempt at repression *always* starts by first targeting
artists, writers, and intellectuals, the ones in a position to
verbalize and explain why what's happening is *wrong*. You want to
eliminate, neutralize or destroy their credibility. This is standard
operating procedure. That's where it starts, but not always where it
ends. To assume that because we've always caught it before means we
always *will* is, again, to set yourself up for a fall.

The manipulators always go after an easily identifiable group
first, one which they can easily tar with the brush of responsibility
for society's problems. We're seeing it again today, writ smaller, in
the constant and repeated assaults on Hollywood...attacking the
*picture* of the problem rather than the problem itself.

Again, you demonstrate the problem. "Well, it's just these two
small groups, really." Then it becomes three groups. Then four. Or
you just stay with the two groups...and you harrass, chivvy, destroy,
terrorize, humiliate, bankrupt and ultimately lead to the death of many
of them. But as long as it's just a couple of small groups, it's not
that bad, really.

"Every man's death diminishes me. So ask not for whom the bell
tolls. It tolls for thee."

I'd also point out that when HUAC started, it was as the result
of accusations that there were commies in the Military and the
Pentagon; but when they found that they could get on TeeVee and the
Newsreels by bringing in actors...that's what they did. What does it
do to a nation starstruck by actors to see these same shining examples
of the American dream standing before the cameras and naming names of
other actors, business associates, others? You speak of the values of
a nation...what effect does that have on our values? What *are* our
values if we allow this to take place...or dismiss it after the fact as
having hurt only a few people, really.

It did great harm to the fabric of the nation, not in fines or
jail sentences, but in the *heart* of the nation, the way we look to
one another. Its effects reverberated long after the HUAC hearings
stopped. It bred a level of paranoia that when the youth culture of
the 60s began to pop up, many of them were instantly categorized as
commies; "Go back to russia where you came from" was a common cry to
longhairs in that time. Because to dissent was unpatriotic; the only
ones who attacked the government were the commies, end of discussion.
The parents of kids who were teenagers in the 60s had come through
McCarthy, had learned the wrong lessons of citizenship.

No executions? Perhaps Julies and Ethel Rosenberg had some
part in spying, maybe they didn't, I don't know if we'll ever know for
sure. But the Russians were working on a-bomb technology long before,
and records show that they got it pretty much on their own. They were
executed as part of the hysteria of the times, their trial a rush to
judgment.

No, we're not so weak a nation that McCarthy himself can
destroy it; WE destroy it, if we allow ourselves to be convinced to
turn one another in, to have the heart and soul of the nation sold out
to terror and paranoia. Every nation has within its breast the seeds of
its own destruction, within its own population; what some individuals
do is water that seed, and fertilize it. If it grows, it grows in us.
They don't do it to us, we do it to ourselves. And given the right
conditions, the right environment, the right soil...we could do it.
Even here.

jms

{original post unavailable}

Thanks.

There's not a lower house in the EA, in the sense that each
nation/state has its own various houses, and its own leader, but that
leader is also part of the EA senate. One per nation/state. Each
nation/state has its own constitution, but must not contravene the
larger principles of the EA constitution.

jms