MattyBeRad

He did not say that!

Libertarians do not often criticize nation states for failing to feed the poor. They do not often criticize overly harsh prison sentences for property crimes. There is a much better version of the show where nus is a capitalist extorting the federation or whatever. Instead he put it on trial.

The writers chose to have him use a left wing framing for his 'trial' of the federation. That was a choice they made. Nus does not exist, he was invented and his words were made up by writers.

I agree the writers are trying to make an analogy to where we currently are but I think that sucks for a few reasons. None is as important to me as the choice to make the villain of the show use leftist rhetoric, while being villainous and deeply naive.

I love trek where the federation is a (flawed) ideal and the people they interact with are allegories for problems we face today. Academy & Picard made the federation directly an allegory for today, which means either idealizing our current political economy or demonizing the federation.

A lot of people are saying that's not a critique of leftism but I think that's pretty silly. The main way media attacks the left is by making us into villains whose claimed good intentions hide incompetence or malevolence. Trek could (and has!) choose other aesthetics or ideologies for the villain.

intentionally or knowingly starving planets and firing on civilians. The former is true but excused by the federation's poverty (long story there) and the latter is apparently not true. The ultimate effect is to have the villain use leftist language to hide a sinister or at least naive agenda.

in the final episode the show goes out of its way to explain why it was actually just and understandable to charge the mom stealing food for her son with a felony because the show villain who was with her killed a nice federation officer. That villain makes a speech accusing the federation of...

The central arc and tension is that the show starts with the main character & federation charging a woman with felony murder (a charge almost unique to the USA today and notably evil because you can get a harsh sentence for a misdemeanor). It pretends that that was a bad thing to at first, but...

Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks are very good an deserve a watch.

Startfleet Academy, new show, has some great characters and good episodes but it's (for me) ruined by a political message that boils down to "The federation is just space USA and space USA is good because they want to be."

That's an extremely generous reading. Choosing to have the big bad "use the aesthetics of anarchism" and close out the series with a full throated defense of charging people with felony murder is, well, a choice

Now we get a defense of felony murder as a concept. Really cool. Star trek reduced to an explanation for why a better world actually isn't possible.

Just completely tragic for star trek, a show written by a socialist, to become pure apologia for capitalism. The villain of an entire series is now a militant anarchist. What a fucking message.

Really pretty maple wood bowl

This is the most beautiful bowl I've ever turned. I honestly can't believe I made this. The picture doesn't really do it justice.

Screenshot from the Planet of the Bass Tiktok where lyrics on screen say "Women are my favorite guy"

Screenshot from the Planet of the Bass Tiktok where lyrics on screen say "Tell the world 'stop the war'"

This song feels incredibly relevant today.

"Disproportionately young and conspiratorial" man the government is actually just run by pedophiles are we supposed to not be

It is unfortunately true that dem leadership has been unwilling and unable to take advantage of trump's incredible and increasing unpopularity.

Really shows how incompetent or complicit our opposition party is.

Yoon and Prince Andrew wishing they had a friend like John Roberts.

Things dems did 40 years ago mostly, before the neoliberal turn.

In the far future of star trek: academy they've forgotten the rare technology of "self destruct to stop them from stealing your tech." In fairness it was only mentioned in dozens of episodes of 90s trek.

People supporting those policies call themselves centrists and think dems are too far left.

All available evidence shows voters just call themselves centrists and accuse parties of being extreme without paying any attention to actual ideology.

Look at polling on universal healthcare, ubi, raising taxes on billionaires, ending wars etc. Most left wing policies are extremely popular.

Democratic fundraising need not and should not depend on the oligarchs. If democrats manage to win big despite their leadership (unlikely in my view) it will be a hollow victory because dem leaders are failures. I know this because it's what happened after dems won in 2018 and 2020.

They're low turnout. Low turnout elections favor highly motivated voters who tend to be highly partisan. It's a problem for dems that they are only up 5 in the generic ballot despite trump's approvals and scandals being horrible.

American media is incapable of criticizing cops

The Lincoln Lawyer is a show about how prosecutors and the criminal justice system are evil but also some prosecutors are cool and you should marry them

Yes. Dsa members all pay dues.

But special elections are ultra low turnout and usually insulated from party approvals.

We can't beat trump with the same leaders who lost to him.

That's manifestly incorrect. Dems are registering historic disapproval with their party and the generic ballot is in their favor but not nearly as much as it should be with a historically unpopular president (who dem leaders managed to lose to.)

They've have good special elections (cont)