Trust me!
"Well take this for what little it will profit you. As I look at you, Ambassador Mollari, I see a great hand reaching out of the stars. The hand is your hand. And I hear sounds. The sounds of billions of people calling your name."
"My followers?"
"Your victims."
— Elric, the Technomage, Babylon 5:A Geometry of Shadows (From Wiki)
Fop.
Drunk.
Fool.
Affable, inept, wastrel heir to past glories he could never hope to live up to.
Until the crisis came.
Then agents of darkness came to him and offered him all his heart desired.
And he made a pact with the darkness.
It gave him all the raw power he had ever dreamed of.
And lacking the prudence, compassion, skill and intellect to use it wisely, he instead abused it in exactly the way the darkness had always intended.
He stopped being a fop. A drunk. And a fool.
And instead became a monster.
Great maker! My mother warned me about reading the NYT while watching reruns of “Babylon 5”, but did I listen?
Noooo.
Science fiction: Escapist my ass.
13 comments:
I think that Bush more closely resembles another science fiction character - Zaphod Beeblebrox from Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."
Reason?
Zaphod's purpose as President of the Galaxy (unknown to all but six beings) was not to wield power, but to distract away from it.
And that's Bush. He's not the Decider, he's the Distracter.
One of the quotes that keeps me going through this administration is this quote from Vir:
"I'd like to live just long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price. I'd look up at your lifeless eyes and wave like this. Can you and your associates arrange it for me, Mr. Morden?"
That which they wish to ignore, they first call escapist...
so which of the neo-cons is Mr. Morden?
Good comparison. However, I can't imagine Londo getting going on imperial tour and having his wristwatch lifted right under the noses of his guard detail (seriously -- about 55 seconds into the video, the POTUS's watch becomes a souvenir for some Albanian street punk).
Mark Twain would have had a field day with this rube.
The main difference, of course, is that Londo eventually redeemed himself.
I scan nothing comparable on Dubyah's horizon. Although the thought of Dubya and former-enemy-turned-bodyguard Joe Lieberman strangling each other and dying in each others' arms DOES have some appeal....
I think maybe anonymous is right - Junior Pantload is a huge distraction from Darth Cheney and the other minions of oh, about the 7th circle of hell. They only let him think he decides.
Londo didn't believe Morden and his 'associates' were that powerful when he made his shaitan's bargain. He was speaking half-rhetorically...and then found out that they meant every word, and then some. Yes, he redeemed himself...many years later...but his people payed a terrible price along with him, first on his assumption of power at the Drakh's insistence, and the long period of isolation and ostracism afterwards. The lessons for us should be quite clear; I've been saying that Reality has been imitating Art for some time. How many good TV series have been on in the past, warning about how easily the American political system could fall prey to the kinds of fascism we were warned about in school? Even that lousy one called V of 24 years ago was making that point, one the media of the day gave much more credence about the vulnerability of the news media to being manipulated than they do today.
but, but, but, there's a white woman missing somewhere!
Babylon 5, my fav sci fi tv show of all time, bar none.
Well, I DID like that one with the Space Marines (name escapes me), who flew starships from a satellite ops base somewhere. The GREATEST episode of that series was when they alluded to Baron Manfred Von Richtoven as the mystery bad guy enemy fighter that mysterioiusly appeared out of nowhere-Chiggie Von Richtover, I think it was . . . The Chigs were the bad guys.
Now we are the bad guys, and have been, for too long. Paybacks are gonna be rough, mama nature abhors a pendulum that swings only one way.
Dick Cheney as Lord Refa. Remember when Refa said the interstellar treaty banning the use of mass-drivers was just "ink on paper"? Boy, does that sound familiar! I think President Clark is the perfect fit for President Bush. The Shadows made the same deal with Clark as with Londo. I hope Bush doesn't rain down nuclear missiles on the U.S. on his last day in office!
Space: Above and Beyond? on the 'bad guys are the chigs' thing? That's the name that immediately leaps into my brain, but I could be wrong
They tried to be vorlons...looking all righteous but just as responsible for the wars as the shadows
"we cannot interfere" ya..riiiiight!
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