It’s our first show!!
This is it people! Our first show!
We introduce ourselves and talk about when disobeying military orders is the right thing to do. We use examples from recent Battlestar Galactica episodes.
Come discuss the show in the forums.
Show notes
Introduction
Who we are
Kevin introduces himself as the regular host. He is recording in Atlanta, GA. Kade will be joining us for at least the next few shows, he’s broadcasting from Phoenix, AZ. (Actually Tempe,AZ)
What the show is about
Kevin explains that the show will examine ethical situations in sci-fi media such as in television, movies, books and comics.
Most quality sci-fi includes moral or ethical conflicts that parallel our own lives.
Why we care
Kevin talks about why he’s doing the show. He says that he likes current sci-fi coverage but it doesn’t deal directly with the issues that are brought out by the writers. He talks about how sci-f was an important source of moral teaching growing up.
While he was preparing for the show and looking over a Wikipedia list of ethical issues, many episodes of Star Trek came to mind. He mentions books like Dune and Red Mars.
Kade agrees and notes that sci-fi has the power to examine more ethical dilemmas under a stronger microscope because the genre has fewer limitations than many others. That early on this was taken advantage of as one of sci-fi’s great pull; just think of the controversial ethnic make-up of the original Enterprise’s crew. He describes how that’s changed over the years.
Format of the show
Kade and Kevin outline the show format for new listeners.
Audience participation
Kevin encourages audience participation the forums or leave voicemail at (678) 999-2140.
Kade explains that if this is long distance, you can use Skype to leave us a message: AlienEthOS. If you leave an entertaining or thought provoking message in our forums or on our voicemail we’ll make you a part of our show!
Charity of the month
Each month we will choose a new charity and tell you a little more after each show.
Disclaimer
Kade explains our disclaimers.
- We are not experts, we do not hold degrees specific to our topic so make your own decisions.
- The opinions expressed here are not necessarily the opinions of your hosts. We are attempting to simply explore the issue from all sides, so one or both of us will often play devil’s advocate.
- Spoiler alert! The nature of the show requires that we talk about the events in detail so if you hate spoilers and are not familiar with the material please pause us and go watch or read the source.
Introduction of topic
‘ Military Ethics ‘
We ask the question of when orders should not be followed.
Battlestar Galactica
Battlestar Galactica had many examples where defying orders has ended up being for the best. President defies Adama by not resigning her presidency. Lee ‘Apollo’ Adama defies his father by pulling a gun on Colonel Tigh. Starbuck goes AWOL with a cylon raider.
Even though, there are a few times when it was a bad idea to break the chain of command. When Zarek’s man Meier defies order to end plot against Apollo, he ends up being killed. And Chief defies Tigh by having a relationship with Boomer.
Observation
Kade makes an observation about what tends to happen when the ‘good guys’ break command as opposed to the others.
Discussion of topic
Galactica
Kevin spends some time detailing the events and speculates on the motivations of President Roslyn.
Kade talks about Starbuck going AWOL and her motivations for doing so. He also discusses the relationship between Starbuck and Adama in light of her history.
Kevin talks about Apollo and his actions on Colonial One. He is established as being the “white knight” of the series.
Connections
Kevin talks about how these issues reflect ongoing issues today. He quotes Thomas Jefferson. “Whensoever the general Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force.” Thomas Jefferson
Kade refines the question to that of legal and illegal orders.
Kevin introduces the history of conscientious objectors in America.
Kade mentions the same thing going on in Israel and quotes
The soldiers charge that they “were issued commands and directives that had nothing to do with the security of our country, and that had the sole purpose of perpetuating our control over the Palestinian people…. We, who sensed how the commands issued to us in the territories, destroy all the values we had absorbed while growing up in this country….”
Source: Published in the February 15, 2002 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.
Kade talks about Star Trek and how it was on the leading edge of ethical issues.
Concluding statements
Kevin talks about how the legality of the war is important, However, the objectors are doing what they think is right and that’s what’s important.
Kevin quotes:
But the legal authority of command depends on adherence to the rule of law. As sailor Pablo Paredes noted recently, the U.S. Military Code of Justice says that, while soldiers are obligated to obey all legal orders, the same soldiers have a right, even a duty, to disobey illegal orders. That is the essence of the legal case for military resistance.
Source: Published on Tuesday, May 3, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
US War Crimes and the Legal Case for Military Resistance
by Paul Rockwell
Kade concludes with the idea that objecting is a problem because a soldier may not have all the information he needs to make his or her decision.
Next show
The next show will be back in the Battlestar Galactica world. We will attempt to deal with the concepts of betrayal and forgiveness among the show’s characters.
Small disclaimer
Don’t worry, it won’t be a habit to do two shows on the same source.
Charity of the month
Hurricane Katrina has just passed by New Orleans and has begun flooding.
Help by donating to American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund
Legalese
The music you heard in the intro was ‘QuAd DaMaGe’ by Intrabyte from the PodShow Podsafe Music Network.
Transcript of “alienEthOS: The Ethics of Sci-fi #001 8/30/2005.mp3″
Hello out there and welcome to Alien Ethos, where we examine the more serious side of science fiction. I’m your host Kevin Pratt, coming to you from Atlanta, GA. I’ll be here every week, unless someone decides to do this for me. But with me here today is Kade Hutchinson, from Phoenix Arizona, he’ll be joining me from Phoenix Arizona. He’ll be here for at least the next few shows. We’ll see how his schedule permits. Say hello there Kade.
Hi there, Kevin. How are you doing?
*laugh* I’m good.
Well, um, for the record, I’m actually in Tempe, Arizona, not Phoenix.
*laugh* Well, in this show we will be talking about ethical situations in sci-fi media. In television, movies, books, and comics. Me and Kade have both come to the conclusion that most quality sci-fi includes these issues. And, often often parallel in our own lives. Now, why are we doing this at all? Well, I like the way that current sci-fi coverage is going on, It’s real entertaining and you find out about what’s coming up and you laugh and you cry and all that junk. But, it doesn’t really deal with a lot of the real issues that are a little bit more hot button inside science fiction itself. And I found that I didn’t really realize until I started doing research for this show that it really was an important source of the moral teaching when I was growing up. I was looking at a wikipedia list of ethical issues and every ethical issue that came up, there was a Star Trek episode that came to mind. *laugh* So, this kind of explains why I think a little bit differently than the other people I know. I mean, along with Star Trek and other books like Dune and Red Mars. What about you Kade?
That actually resonates very strongly with me as well. I vividly remember, when I was in high school, I had to write a paper called “What I Believe” but I quickly realized that I couldn’t get further than a page into that paper without talking about Star Trek. *laugh* You know when you start watching something when you’re eight years old you definitely learn things from it. So, that’s a, was very important for me as well. You know, I feel like sci-fi has the power to examine more ethical dilemmas under perhaps a stronger microscope because there’s fewer limitations on the the story lines.
As opposed to what? Modern-day fiction?
Well, I mean, when you’re Earth bound and stuck on one planet at one time, it seems like you can only get into so much trouble.
Yea, only so much there, that makes sense.
*laugh* Well, as far as Star Trek goes, you know back in the beginning when the show first came out, it was clearly very into dealing with ethical issues. I mean the ethnic makeup of the original Enterprise’s crew was quite controversial and now modern day Star Trek is not in any way controversial, very middle of the road. And for many years it’s sort of over did it’s role, I mean every single show had a different moral. I think people kind of actually got tired of it, to the point where they started looking towards shows that completely avoided trying to teach a moral every show, like say, Stargate Sg-1. Which is a show that I adore, but they definitely don’t tell you about morals.
That’s true, it’s more about the adventure, exploration and solving problems. Technobabble, Yay for technobabble. *laugh*
Now lets talk a bit about the format of this show. Each show is around 40 minutes long. Now, our first show is going to be a little bit longer because we are trying to give you an introduction of who we are and why we’re doing what we’re doing. But, 40 minutes is what we’re going to try to stick to. Taking a particular instance ethical conflict in a particular source. Whether is be Dune, Star Trek, Star Wars…
Kim Stanley Robinson.
*laugh* Kim Stanley Robinson, don’t forget him. Anything that comes along, that comes our way that we want to talk about. We want to have like a common page to start on, if you’ll forgive my pun., so that we can talk about a particular conflict. And we’ll talk about how it was dealt with inside the sci-fi. And we’ll try to segue that into our own lives and how we can… how it’s important and what lesson they’re really trying to address when they are talking about these things.
Then after we’re done arguing our way through all that, each person will take a moment and conclude without having to be interrupted or argued against. Then we’re going to do something a little bit different that I’m hoping will turn out well. We’re going to announce the next show’s topic and source. We’re going to try to encourage audience participation as much as we possibly can. We’re going to have a forum…
It’s gonna be kind of like Oprah’s book club.
Yea sort of like. *laugh* We’ll have a forum where all of you can talk to us. And we want you to talk to us about the show before we do the show. We want you to help us with the research. We want to read your comments on the show. It’s going to be a new topic for each show coming up so we’ll keep it all separate along with the general stuff.
That way, also, it’s not just it’s not just our two perspectives.
Yea, we definitely want things from other people, and hopefully I’ll be having some guests later on. Also we decided to go ahead and set up a voicemail. You can actually call in and hopefully call in before the show because this isn’t live— so we can’t let you call in during it. But, call in before the show if you have a rant about a particular issue in what we’re about to talk about please call in at 678 - 999 - 2140. If that’s long distance for you, that’s not really a problem. If you know how to use Skype at Skype.com you can leave us a message at AlienEthos, all one word. And we’ll give you credit and we might play your segment or read your segment from the forum and you get to be on the show too. Also, finally, at the end of each show we’re going to have a charity of the month that we’ll talk about. We’ll talk about how they’re progressing, what’s going on and we’ll encourage you to donate because we’re really just donating our time here. We’re not really trying to make a whole bunch of money off of this or anything, but, you know, so I’ll know something good is coming of it. If you could please go donate to our charity of the month. I think I’m going to let Kade here read our Disclaimers. Because we need some here. *laugh*
Alright, for the legalese, well, we just want to state, you know, that we are not experts and we don’t hold degrees in anything specific to our topic. So, please make your own decisions, you know, this is kind of a “don’t try this at home.” *laugh* And also, keep in mind that at certain times the opinions by your host or hosts may not necessarily may not actually be the opinion of the person speaking. They may just be playing the devil’s advocate, because we are trying to deal with all the issues from as many sides as possible. So, definitely, I’m sure that somebody will have to play devil’s advocate at some point. Also, let’s put out a spoiler alert here. The nature of this show requires that we talk about the events in specific books and television show episodes and movies specifically in detail. So, if you want to avoid that you should pause us. You should go read or watch whatever beforehand.
Well, this is the meat of it; this is where it all starts. This is the inaugural discussion. And this is our topic today; we are going to talk about…
And we’ve decided to start with something easy.
Yes very easy, pretty straightforward.
*laugh*
It was really hard, we had lots and lots of topics to choose from. But, of course, we’re going to continue to have lots and lots of topics to choose from. But, we chose to start with military ethics. And specifically inside military ethics, when orders should and should not be followed. What’s the deal there? How does that work? Because in sci-fi we see them all the time. They’re like “don’t do that” and they do it anyway. Sometimes it works out well. Sometimes it doesn’t. And Kade has something, probably wants to tell you about that a little bit later. But, *laugh* how that works out…
Right, right. This week we chose Battlestar Galactica because they’re usually all over the ethical issues. And, especially for the last few episodes, they have visited upon the military ethics quite heavily.
Definitely. There’s two different ways. Sometimes not following orders is a good thing, you don’t want to follow an order that is going to bring down the destruction of the entire human race or anything like that. And, we’re gonna use some particular examples. We have the President, President Roslyn defies Adama— talking about whether or not to stay on Cylon occupied Kobal, risking the fleet. We have Apollo who takes the side of the President when Adama tries to terminate the presidency. We have Starbuck who also takes the President’s side and believes in the President when she finds out that Adama was lying about knowing the path to Earth. And then we have the Chief who defies Crashdown when Crashdown pulls a gun on petty officer, no Crewman Specialist Cally. There’s also some times with some bad outcomes. Such as I don’t know, Kade what do you think?
Well, I was thinking, just in the most recent episode, Tom Zarek’s co-conspirator Meier, in the end, defies Zarek’s order, request, whatever, that they not continue to plot against Adama… Lee Adama’s life. In the end, because of his refusal to stop plotting he gets killed.
*laugh* Back to that little observation, you had sometimes when the good guys break the chain of command and you had sometimes when the bad guys break the chain of command. And what happens?
I’d wryly like to observe that on our sci-fi shows when the good guys do it they somehow wind up being heros eventually. When the bad guys *laugh* do it on our shows, they usually wind up dying really horrible deaths.
*laugh* Yea, just so you know, it depends on if you’re a good person or a bad person. *laugh* That makes a big difference in these discussions.
Right.
Well, let’s get into a little bit more…
Well, we’ve got people defying orders all over the place so we have a field say to work with here. In the beginning President Roslyn, you know, she has a vision of the road to Earth and how to get to Earth. Which is important because she knows that Adama doesn’t actually know…
Right. Exactly. But, unfortunately Adama doesn’t even believe in prophecies at all and certainly doesn’t believe that Roslyn has a vision. So…
So that’s something, yea.
That’s another show altogether; when to be skeptical and when to believe. *laugh*
*laugh* Right. Another favorite sci-fi topic for sure. But, he insists that it is not safe and they will not be going back to Kobol to try to find this road to Earth. And, this is where we start to see the seeds of discord being sown. When Roslyn believes in her vision and that going with it is more important than Adama’s chain of command, which of course, he takes issue with.
I think in this last episode we kind of more of an idea of what’s going on in Adama’s head when this was going on. He actually did like and trust Roslyn. Then she went behind his back and ordered his own people not to follow his orders. It’s a personal betrayal, not just a military betrayal.
Right.
I think that might have added to some of the emotional height to it all. Where he did actually sort of overreact…
And the same can be said for her. That she reacted to him being authoritative in a way… I mean she is the Commander-in-Chief so, for him to just say flat out no, was a bit out of line.
Yea. Well, when you’re talking about the survival of the human race it’s a little bit more difficult…
Absolutely. If it were cut and dry and black and white it wouldn’t have made a very good episode.
No it wouldn’t have. But, he did have his reasons. Then we have Starbuck, I mean, Starbuck worships Adama. This is the father of the two men that well…. maybe we’re not so sure yet…
Right.
At least one of the men that she loves. And…
Probably another if we had to guess.
Another, we’ll see how that goes…
It is probably, from what we know of her history, her abusive, her child abuse history that she was…
Right.
…abused by her own real father. And in all likelihood, probably, thinks of this man as more like a real father to her than anyone else has ever been.
Right. Right. I think we’ve gotten a little bit of that story. I mean we’ve gotten hints where she’s screwed up and he’s kind of covered it up or let it go or, you know, just gave her the basic punishment without really going too hard on her. But then, what do you when someone that you care and you idolize like that lies to you? And tells you that, even for the best intentions, tells you that he knows the way to Earth.
Right, and not only does it, is it bad that it’s coming from him, but it’s a piece of bad news period. This is the only thing that these people have been hanging their hopes on, this is their, Last Best Hope *laugh*
*laugh* For the survival of the species. I’m not sure what their purpose is in trying to find earth is exactly. What would keep them from settling on another planet? I guess they’re trying to find backups…
Right. I think that they’re assuming that the 13th tribe that has gone to Earth will have developed technologically as well, and will be capable of helping them out both militarily and with a place to live that there aren’t any Cylons.
That’s true, well okay, back on topic… well Starbuck suddenly has her beliefs shattered. And what do people do when their belief is shattered? They latch onto somebody else. *laugh*
Right. So this sets her up quite nicely… well I guess it was actually Roslyn that told her this in the first place. Which primed her.
Yea. I think Roslyn knew what she was doing.
Clearly. So this primed Starbuck to be receptive to Roslyn’s request. Which is to go get the Arrow of Apollo from Caprica.
Right. So she takes this cylon raider that she’s, you know, learned how to operate; the only person in the whole fleet who can do it.
Well I can believe that they actually were supposed to use the thing for something…
Right, well she goes off to get it and of course Adama is not pleased. Especially when he finds out that Roslyn was behind it all.
Right.
*laugh*
In fact, when he learns this, this is when the u-know-what hits the fan. And calls it incitement of mutiny because Starbuck has actually deserted, technically.
Right. A W O L, a wall. I’m a dork, go ahead.
Adama learns that she was, that Roslyn was behind Starbuck’s desertion and really goes bonkers, insists on her resignation, Roslyn’s resignation. And Roslyn is determined more than ever…
Of Course.
And so he arrests her, and calls it termination of her presidency, for incitement of mutiny…
Right. No presidency for you! Sorry. *laugh*
Right, ah… So, then she’s behind bars.
Well, now, something else happens before that happens, though.
Ah, that’s true. There’s more defiance before she’s behind bars…
This is the most interesting one because then we have father against son and son against father. it’s a little bit iffy here.
I believe what happens is, she’s on Colonial One and Adama…
She’s like “Hell no, I won’t go. Hell no, I won’t go.” *laugh*
*laugh* Right, right, right. Adama orders, like, a SWAT team to take over her ship basically. And Lee Adama, Apollo, of course, is along on this mission being the CAG. But then, this is where the problem comes along. Because he believes in democracy and he believes in…
Right.
So at first he’s following orders, but…
And then in the end, Colonel Tigh… There’s really a lot of tension here. And, what it comes down to is, like, She’s like, “I’m not going.” and he says, “yes you are” and she repeats, “I’m not going” and he’s like, “Arm, *laugh* aim, ready” and then all of the sudden Adama just whips out a gun. He’s like, “Un-uh, not happening, You’re not going to kill these people. This is wrong” I remember him saying that “it can’t happen this way.” And, he pulls a gun on Colonel Tigh’s head. And Colonel Tigh was not happy about that. He holds that over Apollo for a while there. And then…
Right, well…
Of, course. Of course, Apollo doesn’t want any bloodshed, when it’s all… what is he supposed to do? So he, of course, once Colonel Tigh agrees to put down his weapon, he put down his weapons. And, he ends up in chains… ends up in… I don’t know what’s they’re called. They’re called cuffs. But, they’re a bit different in the galactical world.
*laugh* Shackles…
*laugh* Yea, I guess that’s what they’re called. They never gave them a name, I don’t think. So you have the President and the son in the brig, in jail! it’s sort of one of those things, I mean, Apollo went peacefully so it reminds you of Ghandi and King. If you’re going to break the law you have to accept the consequences of breaking it. You can’t break it and expect to get away with it.
Right, yea, he definitely didn’t expect that, probably. His sterling honor, his image of honor.
I would have been highly disappointed if had like not done anything but… *laugh*
I would have been not true because a few of us would have thought you should have shot Tigh when you had the chance. *laugh*
*laugh* Yea, come on! Idiot! I don’t know maybe Tigh will redeem himself at some point. I don’t know.
Mmmhmmmm we’ll see. Or, he’s going to be a problem because of his wife.
Yea, his wife… I think his wife is a Cylon.
Yea, I do too.
That’s my suspicion, I think she’s a Cylon. I don’t think people are just that evil. *laugh* Only cylons can be evil. *laugh* Oh, we’ve been brainwashed. Oh, only the enemy can be evil.
Alright, well, now that we’ve done enough recapping. Let’s talk about how this actually… how is this relevant to us? I mean, there’s a lot of things going on in the world today. There are a lot of things that are big hot button issues that are dividing nations and the whole world. And this really does touch on these.
Mmmhmm, quite a few of them pop into my mind.
*laugh* Well, I always loved Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin, and our founding fathers. I have the upmost respect for them. You know, they had their flaws but you know, whatever. So I’m going to start with a quote here from Thomas Jefferson. It is actually from an article dealing with an issue we’re talking about. “Whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, it’s acts are unathoritative, void and of no force.” So, yay Thomas Jefferson. Basically saying that if the government doesn’t represent you, then it’s not your government anymore. And I think it’s the same thing when you commander no longer represents what you’re there for, then it’s no longer your command.
Right. I think that there’s a case of… there’s this classic question of legal orders and illegal orders…
Our military doesn’t recognize that *laugh* It’s in their manual but they don’t really…
They say that they do; they say that they do. And theoretically you sign up to be in the armed forces with the assumption, which is not implicit at all, it is an explicit assumption I believe in the contract. That the orders that you’re going to be obeying are not not going to be making you do things that are illegal. So, there are definitely some times…
I mean, if you aren’t willing to shoot someone you shouldn’t join the military, I have to give them that one though. I mean, you need to obey orders at some point; but if you’re not wiling to deal with death and war, you really shouldn’t have signed up. But there should be a reason for it, you should be able to believe in the reason you’re doing that. I’m doing this because…
Right. And yet like, with Adama, he is basically, I mean Lee “Apollo” he is refusing in this situation, because what his father is doing, basically, it’s a military coup d’état, which is not legal. And, one way that Apollo has been consistently characterized is as Champion of Democracy, really. As much as, as much as Roslyn. In this respect he’s almost like the archetype of a queen’s champion, you know, like Lancelot to Guinevere…
Yea, the white knight. Well you know, she definitely sets him up as that. And he gets rewarded for being supportive. And, definitely Zarek sees that he’s going to be rewarded for this. He’s going to be the second hand man. He’s going to take Adama’s place.
Ok, well, we’ve got a lot of situations in our country’s history at least. I know some other situations— many throughout out history where there’s been conscientious objectors to wars. We had Vietnam, we had— especially in drafts, because that was a big deal. Because if you objected, you ran off to Canada. But now, what happens when you sign up and you say I’m going to do this and this is voluntary. And then, suddenly, you change your mind and you’re not going to go to war. I know that’s how a lot people think of it. You signed up to do this, you shouldn’t be… Oh, we didn’t actually clarify, we’re talking about conscientious objectors to the war in Iraq. It’s a big issue right now.
Right, again, this is a situation where they signed up for something that’s not really what they signed up for. They signed up for… is this war legal is the question…
It’s a question that I’m not going to to try to answer it here…
Certainly not…
This is not a political show. Although, I’m sure that if you’re a careful listener you can guess our views on these things. But I don’t want to make it political. It’s not what this is about…
However, every now and then we will have to touch on things that have a political timbre, just because we are speaking of ethics and morality.
And ethics is an important aspect of politics, or at least it should be. *laugh*
*laugh* Right… And it’s not just in the U.S. We see recent examples of this. I mean, you have Iraq and people not approving of or believe the war in Iraq to be legal. But then we also have um, an example in Israel, them having fighter pilots refusing to take bombing and other actions in occupied Palestinian territories. Because… the soldiers charge… they’ve released a document that 50 of them started out signing. It reads, that they “Were issues commands and directives that had nothing to do with the security of our country, and that had the sole purpose of perpetuating our control over the Palestinian people.”
Ooo, sounds like a little bit of an echo there huh? *laugh*
Right, exactly.
I’ll leave that one alone…
Right, well, the point is, there are other examples of this all around. So, In some way it’s interesting to think that maybe the writers of the show are pretty in tune with the times. Which, I think, is one of the signs, I think, of a really good show period.
I mean, take for example the original series of Star Trek. Those writers really had their fingers on the pulse of current events. People went home from work, watched the news, and it was full of things about Russia and about China. And then, a few hours later, they turned on Star Trek and there you had Klingons… which was clearly emblematic of Russians. Had Romulans which could easily have been a metaphor for China. So, it made the show more impactful to the viewers. Because every episode was a mirror where the characters and the plots were… they were taking current events and translating them into the sci-fi idiom right in front of them. So, what happened is, Star Trek became an allegory. And that was its great power was its allegorical nature. And, think of the civil rights movements that was going on right in this time period. You turned on this show and there in front of you was an ethnically diverse crew working together smoothly. And broadcast television’s very first interracial kiss between Kirk and Uhura, which was highly controversial. This show was cutting edge. It was on the forefront of social commentary. I think that was, perhaps, it’s greatest strength. And, we have unfortunately strayed from that in more modern sci-fi. Which is very unfortunate. But I’m hoping, I believe, I hope that with Galactica, for example, we are gradually heading back in that direction. Which, brings me back to our actual discussion about military ethics and how Galactica has been dealing with that. And that’s been something that’s been in our news.
I think we should actually go ahead and conclude. How about I go ahead and do my conclusion and you do yours and we’ll call it a day for that huh?
Yea.
Okay. Well, we have our conscientious objectors to the war in Iraq. And, these people are people who honestly believe, that is I hope they do, honestly believe that the war in Iraq is wrong. And they’re not going to go and they’re not going to kill innocent people. They’re not going to be an occupier in a country that doesn’t want them there. They’re not going to… let’s see, as sailor Pablo Paredes said recently “The U.S. military code of justice says that, while soldiers are obligated to obey all legal orders. The same soldiers have a right, even a duty, to disobey illegal orders. That is the essence of the legal case for military resistance.” That was taken from “U.S. War Crimes and the Legal Case for Military Resistance” by Paul Rockwell from Commondreams.org. That’ll be in our show notes if you want to check that out. These people believe that they have… they really do not need to be in that war and they really do not need to fight it. But they’re being court-marshaled and they’re being thrown in the brig. If actually think that you shouldn’t follow orders that you don’t believe in, whether or not they’re right or not, whether or not we shouldn’t actually be in Iraq, the actual issue of truth and falsity of that particular thing, doesn’t really matter if they don’t think it’s right. And they shouldn’t betray what they think is right and wrong. So in that case I have to commend them, just because they are standing up for what they believe in, whether it’s right or wrong. It’s what they believe and what they think is right. If we don’t do that then we’re all kind of lost aren’t we? With that I’ll just rest my case.
Well I think that it’s the foundation, supposedly, what should be the foundation of our society. That we all progress forward by each of us standing up for what we believe in. It almost seems like these people almost don’t have a choice—that they really have to in order to be true to the democratic principles. On the other hand, there’s the standpoint of the military commander’s viewpoint. Which is, if everyone is… takes issue with something… with some of his orders. The real problem there is that in order to make those sorts of judgement one has to have all of the information. But, due to security purposes… you know a lot of soldiers are given orders because they don’t need to know, on a need to know basis. The don’t need to know, so you’ve got this big problem. This is the moral dilemma, this is the real dilemma that people are trying to make decisions on whether this is the right thing to do or this is not the right thing to do when there is this big gaping whole in fact. Like, maybe, they’re… they think, if i plunge into this battle at this point in time in this location, all of my men are going to get killed. This is the stupidest thing. It’s suicide. It’s not right. it’s illegal. And yet, what he doesn’t know is that there’s another platoon just around the corner that going to swoop in from behind. They’re gonna get them in a pincers maneuver, or something and save the day. So the problem is, if people start making decisions not to follow orders, based on maybe lack of information, then you’ve got a breakdown of the military being a well-oiled machine doing what it’s supposed to be doing. So question is, which one of those, for you, as a person, is the worst potential outcome. If it were me, anyway, and I was standing out on that battlefield, I would be asking myself, okay, I can obey this or I can not obey this. And ask myself, okay is there there something I don’t know and I screw something up by not doing this, am I going to feel like that was a more wrong thing to do, is that less of a right thing to do than if I just go on what I know. So do you go on what you know or do you not? Anyway, I don’t exactly have a conclusion because this is a difficult moral dilemma that I can’t solve for anyone.
*laugh* it is.
Especially since i’ve never been on the battlefield personally.
Right, because we’re not soldiers. We’re all speculating. Well, I think this is the point where we say we’re done with that and we go on to our next show. Drum roll please here…
*laugh* The next show, guess what, we’re going to be back to Battlestar Galactica.
Brrrrrrlrlrlrlrrlrlrllr
We promise not to make a habit of of doing more… the same show or thing twice, two shows in a row. However, there’s just so much to work with on Galactica at the moment.
Yea. it’s just so hot, it’s so right there. And, we’re all watching it and rooting. So, we decided to stay with it…
Just one more week…
We’re actually going to continue this topic slightly. But it’s going to be more of a personal way, move out of the military world and into betrayal and forgiveness. We’re talking about the individual betrayals between Adama and his son and Starbuck; and his friend Roslyn. You know, just these personal betrayals. We’ll talk about that there and how maybe some people feel betrayed because their friend is sleeping with the enemy! *laugh* But, we don’t actually know exactly what we want to talk about. So please, please go to our forums. Talk about it. Contact us. But first, before we, I promise to give you every single bit of contact info that we can possibly give you, but first we want to talk about our charity of the month.
Right now Hurricane Katrina has passed and we’ve got some pretty good storms going up north. But the hurricane’s over and it wasn’t too pretty.
Levee’s broken…
Did you hear what all is happening in New Orleans? I haven’t happened to see it.
Yea the levee’s broken. Big problem, the whole city’s underwater.
The whole city?
Yeah, yeah.
Man, there’s no place to go home.
They’re all trapped in the Super-dome too. Bad stuff, bad stuff. So, we’re directing you to the Red Cross’s website in order to contribute if you can. That’s www.redcross.org. And, if you don’t have money, there are also places on there that let you figure out how to volunteer, donate time.
Oh! And they need blood…
They need a lot of blood.
So, if you can go and give blood, please go right now. Go give blood. Get on the website, they’ll tell you the next place that’s taking it I’m sure there are several. Okay, well that’s it for our charity of the month. You can go to our website, there will be a button, you can click on it and go straight there. We won’t make it difficult for you…
*laugh* We haven’t given you that yet have we? It is going to be alienethos.com. We encourage you to go there and read our show notes…
And our website is… !
You can go to the forums and leave feedback and suggestions about future shows.
Yes, you can go to this show’s forum, you can go this show’s forum and discuss what we’ve already talked about. We will try to be there as much as we can and engage you on these topics. And, we also want you to go to the topic on next week’s show and talk to us there. And hopefully we’ll spend more time on next week’s show than last week’s show. But, of course, we’ll keep an eye out. And, if you leave us a really good comment we can use your comment in our next show. We can read it out and we’ll give you credit. And if you’re really bold and you’re really outgoing, you might want to give us a call for our voicemail line which is 678 999 2140.
Now, calling and leaving that message on our voicemail you are giving us permission to utilize your recorded voice on our show.
Yes, yes. Unless you specifically say don’t do that. *laugh* Oh! If that’s long distance for you guess what you can do!
*laugh* They can go to Skype.com and find us under under the username alienethos, that’s all one word, alienethos.
And guess what, you can find us on AIM, Yahoo, Gmail and just pick a couple of others, we probably have that too under alienethos. We’ll try to keep those online so you can catch us.
And, what’s this subscribing thing, Kevin? You’re Mr. Tech Guy, what’s the subscribing stuff?
*laugh* Well the subscribing stuff… you know, a lot of people will go to the website and click on the show and download the show and listen to it, put it on their iPod or put it on their Rio or whatever it is that they have. But, you can also subscribe. We’ll have a link on our website where you can just click on it and you can use iTunes our you can use your favorite podding program like iPodderX or iPodder and all that. And we’ll give you some links to all that in our show notes and on the website. And, we’ll have a little section that will explain this to you. But, the benefit of this is that you don’t have to do any work…
It just shows up for you automatically…
Yea, and if you synchronize your iPod frequently, which I don’t. I leave it in my car, but I try to anyway. It’ll be there waiting for you whenever you’re bored and have nothing else to do, you can go listen to it.
Well, hopefully, we’re not at the very very bottom of the list, hopefully.
*laugh* Hopefully. And, oh, lets do some time traveling back, you can even email us.
*laugh* *snort*
You can actually do that too, and if you want to email me I’m Kevin at alienethos.com and…
And I, and I am Kade at alienethos.com. That’s Kade with a K.
Yes, and Kevin I think is not spelled any other way. So, we’re alright there. Let’s see, I think we’re done… Oh oh oh! Don’t forget you can vote for us…
At Podcast Alley.
Yes, at podcastalley.com. We’ll have a button there just click on it and click vote. I’m sure that if any of you listen to podcasts you’ve already heard this a million times so I don’t want to go into it too badly. *laugh* But, you vote for us, other people see us.
Right, enough said. And the music we heard? That was great stuff what was that?
Oh, yes, in the intro. It was QuAdDaMaGe by Intrabyte. I think that’s how it’s said, they don’t tell us these things. From the Podshow Podsafe Music Network.
Yea check it out at music.podshow.com. We’ll have a link on the website.
Okay, well…
Thanks, so much people for coming, we really appreciate it. I had a good time. Kevin, did you have a good time? I had a great time.
Yes I had a great time.
I look forward to doing this with you next week…
See you next show!
One Comment
- Kade / BOLDLY GOING » MY NEW PODCAST, alienEthOS replied:
[…] We’ve recorded and posted our first show, and we’ve begun promotion as well. I’m very optimistic about our chances, as we both had a great time, and improved immensely just in the course of recording one show. If anyone else out there’s a sci-fi geek, go grab it and listen! […]
September 9th, 2005 at 12:03 am. Permalink.