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The Radicalization of Luke Skywalker: A Jedi’s Path to Jihad

110 points by kushti 11y ago

wmeredith 11y ago
I was wondering when this aspect of Star Wars would start getting batted around in the main stream. It's very interesting watching America square the never ending war on terror against our rich cultural history of glorifying rebels, particularly in light of our nation's birth. There's a reason that the Iraqi rebels were branded as "insurgents" during that war. I'd venture a guess that referring to them as rebels or any form of the word would be enough to get a Fox news employee fired. Orwell would have a field day with our modern linguistic contortions to allow ourselves to remain the scrappy beacon of individualism and personal liberty in our minds.
- seren 11y ago
  To be fair most founding myths are about a "hero" revolting against the current status quo : Zeus, Odin, Prometheus, Gilgamesh, etc. So I don't think this is only an "American" things, or related to individualism. But obviously Daesh is using that same proto-myth to appeal to potential recruits : be a hero fighting to overthrow an evil empire, and establish a new golden age
- seivan 11y ago
  Mostly becuause the insurgents in Iraq killed Iraqis and Kurds more than they killed American soldiers. Calling them rebels because some pampered ideological college twat wants to relive the anti-Vietnam hysteria they read so much about is a disservice not only to American soldiers but also Iraqi and Kurdish soldiers and civilians who got to live amidst radical jihadis who take sex slaves and commit public executions of non veiled women branded as adulterers.
  - RobertoG 11y ago
    Are you implying that all the Iraqis fighting against USA just after the invasion were radical jihadist? I feel genuine curiosity because that was not my impression at the time.
- RobertoG 11y ago
  Well, I remember thinking that "insurgents" was an improvement from the narrative of the time, that was that they were "terrorist".
  - seivan 11y ago
    They were and still are terrorists who torture the civilian population. Admiration from the liberal west won't change that.
- rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
  I cannot understand why you were downvoted. Your comment made excellent sense. I think the benefits of the empire are overlooked when compared to the romantic fantasy of rebellion. Then, in a galaxy far, far away, as now, I must wonder what alternatives may have been avoided by imperialism, such as secretarian civil wars or intragalactic economic warfare, such as the blockade of Naboo.
  - wmeredith 11y ago
    Or control by organized crime like the Huts. We were shown first hand what their brand of justice looked like. brutal dismemberment at the hands of animals for entertainment's sake.
    - rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
      The question is whether that was outlawed in Imperial space, or if it was tacitly given a pass for the sake of the larger order, like the CIA overthrow of Guatemala's elected government at the behest of the United Fruit Corporation.
  - acqq 11y ago
    Can anybody demonstrate any advantages people of Libya have from the West supported removal of Gaddafi? As far as I understand, before it was at least peace in the land, now it's a second home of ISIS.
    - rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
      Gaddafi enabled state-sponsored terrorism. The West has wanted him gone for ages. In their eyes, it was better for him to be gone and have their own people safe than to have a stable Libya that could participate in terrorist activity. It doesn't justify what they did, but it is worth knowing the overthrow was not primarily done for the sake of your everyday Libyan.
      - acqq 11y ago
- Aqueous 11y ago
  A big difference, in fact, the critical difference, between a 'rebellion/revolution' and 'terrorism', at least between a just rebellion and an un-just rebellion, is that a rebellion attacks (or intends to attack) military targets. Terrorists attack unarmed civilians.
  - scarmig 11y ago
    Can you name a rebellion or revolution that didn't target civilians? There aren't any, and I think that distinction ultimately reduces to "terrorism is what's done by bad guys, revolution/rebellion by heroes!"
    - Aqueous 11y ago
      The American Revolution was primary a fight between the Continental Army (a military) and the British infantry in the colonies. This is not to say that all of the English that were killed were military, and I'm sure you'll come back of examples of terrorism committed by the Contintental Army or associates, but the strategy of the Contintental Army was to push the British army out of the Americas. And it worked.
  - kuschku 11y ago
    > Terrorists attack unarmed civilians. One of the most striking stories my grandmother always told about WWII (she was born in '34) was how, when she walked to school, very often US fighters shot at the children walking there. There was no way this was a mistake – they were still children, the road only led to the school, no one else was walking there at the time. And still, every few days fighters shot at them, and they had to jump in a drainage canal, or similar to hide. Seeing your friends from school being shot by fighters in front of your eyes can hurt a child a lot. Many old people here still hold a grudge towards the allies, despite all the amazing things they did after the war to rebuild. But if attacking civilians is the measure, then the US is a terrorist state. And has been for decades. ---------------- EDIT: I’m not saying the US is bad, or good, I’m trying to say there is no "good" side in a war. No one in a war is innocent. There is a side that gasses jews, and a side that nukes civilians. There is a side that bombs hospitals, and a side that blows themselves up at a concert in Paris. There’s a side that massacres disabled people, and a side that shoots children. We can’t compare, or even weigh up the sides against each other, and doing so would miss the point. But we can’t say "only terrorists kill civilians".
- golergka 11y ago
  I have a slight hope that may be, just may be, this will result with people stop using labels and actually digging deeper to the substance of each issue. Especially if they try to pass moral judgement and assign such labels as "good" and "bad" go very complex situations.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > There's a reason that the Iraqi rebels were branded as "insurgents" during that war "Insurgent" means about the same thing as "rebel" and has no more negative connotation in modern American English usage (which is why the name is frequently applied to, and embraced by, perceived underdog political campaigns,)
- cwyers 11y ago
  Insurgency is a specific word with specific meaning -- it's an attack against a recognized authority (in the modern context, recognized typically means recognized by the United Nations) by a party not recognized (again, in the modern parlance, by the UN) as a belligerent. In Iraq, the insurgency didn't hold territory, for instance, or have any of the other trappings of a state actor in a military conflict. Counter-insurgency tactics are very different than a straight-up fight in a civil war. It's not Orwellian to use words to describe the things the words are intended to describe.
  - unclesaamm 11y ago
    This loses meaning when we realize that the US is a huge force behind defining who is "recognized" or not anyway. Also this doesnt change the fact that during the American Revolution, the British were much more "recognized" in the international space than America -- so why were we rebels and not insurgents? But let's not over glorify the terrorists either. I think Naomi Klein said it well that if you had to choose on a deadly multiple choice questionnaire between American imperialism and fundamentalist terror, the correct answer is "none of the above."
    - cwyers 11y ago
      Recognized is a binary; you either are or you aren't. The colonies behaved like a nation-state during the Revolutionary War -- they had ambassadors to multiple European nations during the conflict, for instance. The American revolutionaries also raised an army, for instance. They wore uniforms, etc. Similarly, during the Civil War, the Confederacy was not an insurgency and we didn't treat it as such.
      - coldtea 11y ago
        >Recognized is a binary; you either are or you aren't. Diplomacy is much more nuanced. While you might or might not be recognized in the official sense, there's a broad spectrum or relationships and attitudes that imply recognition. E.g. there are players that are not official, but nethertheless have relationships with state players, and are thus recognized for discussions, negotiations, etc.
- vdnkh 11y ago
  >Orwell would have a field day with our modern linguistic contortions As much as I like NPR, they're consistently guilty of this. I have never heard the Confederate flag called a "battle flag" before the whole fracas around getting it banned.
  - vectorpush 11y ago
    > I have never heard the Confederate flag called a "battle flag" before the whole fracas around getting it banned. This is just a coincidence. I've heard the confederate flag referred to as the battle flag for years and almost exclusively by those who support (or are at least sympathetic to) flying that flag. With that stated, I agree that NPR is guilty of "linguistic contortions" but I can't think of a single news source that isn't guilty of it. If you can think of some exceptions, I'd be genuinely interested in a recommendation.
  - chrisoverzero 11y ago
    Irrespective of what you have ever or never heard, the pattern commonly flown -- and the pattern over which there was controversy -- is the pattern of a battle flag[0]. The national flags of the Confederacy were different, though some of them incorporated that pattern. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flags_of_the_Confederate_States_of_America#Battle_flag https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flags_of_the_Confederate_State...
  - apozem 11y ago
    That is literally what it is- the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia. It is most technically accurate (and will slow down angry calls from readers who trying to correct you) to call it a battle flag, regardless of common usage.
- jhallenworld 11y ago
  Well I think a lot has to do with the role of religious fundamentalism. American Revolution? Not so much.. Daesh? It's everything. Now for Star Wars.. is Jediism a religion? The 7th most popular faith in the UK according to this: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9737886/Jedi-religion-most-popular-alternative-faith.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9737886/Jedi-religi...
- presidentender 11y ago
  Bravely register your drone and wear your seatbelt, free individual!
leereeves 11y ago
Pro-Imperial writers so often ignore the bombing of Alderaan.
- strictnein 11y ago
  Completely justified. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2015/10/29/the-destruction-of-alderaan-was-completely-justified/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2015/10/29/t...
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - moron4hire 11y ago
    Completely not http://sean-mcbeth.tumblr.com/post/134608041510/neoconservative-post-hoc-rationalization-of http://sean-mcbeth.tumblr.com/post/134608041510/neoconservat...
    - strictnein 11y ago
      I think that author took this all just a little bit too seriously. It's all obviously fairly tongue-in-cheek. I mean, his title is "Neoconservative Post-Hoc Rationalization of Genocide". He must be a blast at parties.
      - moron4hire 11y ago
        Actually, I am a blast at parties.
- seivan 11y ago
  Pro-Jedis never discuss the countless of lives lost during the Mandalorian wars because the Jedis ineptitude in fighting a brutal enemy while the Galatic Republic waste time with bickering. Jedi scum!
  - 11y ago
gd1 11y ago
"The Empire’s accidental harming of Luke’s Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen can be directly compared to the casualties of President Obama’s drone campaign, whose body count terrorists capitalize upon for recruitment." Uh-huh. And I suppose Alderaan was like Hiroshima, they were just forcing the rebels to surrender without risking stormtrooper lives with a ground invasion. Or something like that.
- jameskilton 11y ago
  Actually, yes. That's exactly right. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2015/10/29/the-destruction-of-alderaan-was-completely-justified/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2015/10/29/t...
  - masklinn 11y ago
    Not even that. The Empire had a population of >100 quadrilion, Alderaan killed about 2 billion people. That's a difference of 8 orders of magnitude (50 million), that's equivalent to killing ~140 earth humans. In relative scale, it doesn't come close to Hiroshima, it's closer to having bombed a large wedding.
    - tehstone8 11y ago
      I'm not sure it's fair to argue that it would scale in such a way. Sure numerically it's an insignificant portion of the population but the Death Star still literally destroyed and entire planet and every living being on it. Rather than comparing it to bombing a wedding, I think it's more accurate to compare it to destroying every trace of some micro-nation and then cleansing any plant and animal life native to that nation.
      - masklinn 11y ago
        > I'm not sure it's fair to argue that it would scale in such a way. Sure numerically it's an insignificant portion of the population but the Death Star still literally destroyed and entire planet and every living being on it. Between core worlds, protectorates, governorships and colonies, the empire is estimated to cover close to 70 million inhabited worlds, and billions of uninhabitable planets. > Rather than comparing it to bombing a wedding, I think it's more accurate to compare it to destroying every trace of some micro-nation More like a small town taken over by entrenched terrorists. > then cleansing any plant and animal life native to that nation. A firebombing would do that, and that's an unfortunate side-effect more than the purpose of the act.
strictnein 11y ago
All of this "Empire as the good guy" stuff started out as amusing, but I'm starting to agree with it. One of my favorite takes: "How to Talk About Star Wars at Thanksgiving With Your Ignorant, Rebellion-Backing Uncle" http://freebeacon.com/blog/pilgrims-were-the-original-rebels-that-is-to-say-racist-religious-freaks/ http://freebeacon.com/blog/pilgrims-were-the-original-rebels...
- skoczymroczny 11y ago
  It's kind of funny, but my first introduction to the Star Wars franchise was the TIE Fighter game. I really thought Empire was the good guys that fight terrorists. Even today, after learning the truth, I still prefer Empire and "peace and order throughout the galaxy".
  - strictnein 11y ago
    Yeah, I could definitely see that. Great game too. Wish they could somehow recreate that magic.
- vinceguidry 11y ago
  Don't stop with Star Wars. Just about every morality play can be analyzed this way. It's a trope that goes all the way back to antiquity. It's one of the first things I think about when I watch such a movie. Is this political order really something that needs to be destroyed? My answer winds up almost always being 'no'. My favorite is this treatment of The Dark Knight: https://www.reddit.com/r/FanTheories/comments/3insgr/joker_is_the_hero_in_the_dark_knight https://www.reddit.com/r/FanTheories/comments/3insgr/joker_i... I enjoyed the otherwise-awful movie The Seventh Son because of the playfulness they take with world-building. The heroes and their quests all wind up being a part of the broader political structures of the world rather than those structures being the stakes. I like it when the very plot doesn't take itself seriously.
  - strictnein 11y ago
    Saw someone bat around the idea of Ursula being the good side in The Little Mermaid. Strong independent female fighting against the two patriarchal monarchies, etc etc.
deleted 11y ago
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- iandanforth 11y ago
  Radical light-siders believe that killing should be done in a calm and focused state of mind. Remember, anger is part of the flesh, and they believe they are non corporal luminous beings temporarily trapped in flesh ... possibly by xenu.
jerf 11y ago
It's 10-12 hours of pulp-grade movie. You can project a lot onto it, because in the end, there isn't much there to either draw conclusions from, or contradict your interpretation. This gets squared (or exponentiated) if you, like some people have done, decide that the films may themselves be unreliable narration. Which I think is not a useful decision, because you pretty quickly run smack up into the fact that these are just fiction anyhow in this case; the films were not written to stand up to that interpretation. I think it's particularly difficult to draw any sweeping conclusions because it's not clear to me that the movie universe is written carefully enough to justify them. For every Jedi epigram, you can find a Jedi violating it, or for some epigrams, it's hard to find anyone actually doing the thing. Jedi, for instance, repeatedly act in a way that can be described as "fearful"; is the Jedi proscription against fear simply referring to the brute emotion, or anything that can be described as fearful? Honestly, the best answer is probably that it was not written to be able to answer that. Are the Jedi "hypocrites", or is the writing just too clumsy? Especially after the prequel trilogy, I can't help but think it's the latter. (And I do not mean that as a fashionably-snotty thing to say; I really don't think they were well-written. But they don't necessarily deserve the opprobrium heaped on them; they were not especially bad by Hollywood standards. I'd call them pretty average on that front. Most Hollywood movies are philosophically and ethically really quite mushy.) One must also bear in mind that from a "hard science fiction" point of view, the concrete and scientifically-proved existence of "The Force" may change things. In our real world, I think almost everything that Yoda says is gibbering nonsense, but in his world it may be entirely true that fear inexorably and directly leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering. There's a mechanism for it to do so that doesn't exist in our universe, and we should expect that if "The Force" is real that it means that there are things that are perfectly true in Star Wars that aren't true here, making it even harder to draw sweeping conclusions. The conclusion I come to is that this is a fun movie series that, in the end, simply doesn't stand up to this level of analysis, as evidenced by the fact the analyses always seem to simply be the analysis' author writing about exactly what they already believe, dressed in Star Wars trappings.
- leereeves 11y ago
  This isn't really about the movies.
acqq 11y ago
> Let's remember what's being fought for From the perspective of ISIS, they fight for the final peace of the whole world under the only real God, and if they live they win slaves, if they die in fight they win the heaven and 72 virgins each (no matter what they did before, that would push them to hell, like forgetting to pray often enough or drinking beer). And they have the book that has the "actual words of God" to support them (the whole book instead of pithy 10 commandments), and the bunch of the books describing how their role model ("a messenger of God") did what they do now (including beheadings). And the highest values of their faith aren't "freedom" (and especially not "democracy"). The name of their religion means "submission" (to the God) and the meaning of the name of the followers is "the submitted." The important part of the religion is showing the submission often enough, even before and after visiting the toilet. And even more convenient, the book confirms that their enemies, directly and explicitly named as unbelievers, Christians and Jews will surely burn in hell and that God hates them. And it does that repeatedly, so much that removing the pages with such content would reduce the book to a few pages. How can that be countered, apart from pointing that the religious founder cleverly invented all that for his own gains, as even documented by their own books, and just mentioned by one novelist who was to be assassinated in 1989 and lived in hiding for decades. If you try to do that you'd be with a high probability now considered as somebody spreading religious hatred (insulting "everyone" who are of that religion). Because "all this has nothing to do with the religion that can't be named." The reality starts to be weirder than fiction. On another side, the "empire" really did a lot of nasty things in these areas.
- astazangasta 11y ago
  Yes, actual geopolitics are more complicated than the world of Star Wars.
- ZeroGravitas 11y ago
  If you have a genuine problem with Islam, my suggestion would be to not "accuse" it of stuff that Christianity does or did. It's just rhetorically weak. Even if you yourself are athiest or Hindu or whatever, its just plain odd to single out a religion for having a concept of hell to which unbelievers are sent, for being aimed explicitly at a "chosen people" or for praying, which the western leaders who wage war in the middle east from the crusades up till now talk about quite a lot. In context of the article it would be like a Sith accusing the Jedis of believing in the force, and it would be rank hypocrisy. And yet you seem surprised that this way of talking about Islam might be viewed negatively. That everyone is protecting Islam due to some politically-correct conspiracy rather than a basic sense of treating people with respect and equality.
tehwebguy 11y ago
Great, I clicked on this from an airport lounge and it was blocked. Hope I am allowed on the plane!
chappi42 11y ago
Luke wouldn't blow himself up in the middle of a market. Neither do to Yazidis.. you know it. Bad article, [x] check
astazangasta 11y ago
There's a lot of quaint cherry-picking of evidence going on in these arguments which is really cheesing me off, but I want to highlight the importance of what I think is the fundamental issue, what is always the fundamental issue: what we're fighting for. I think some of these parallels are correct: we can compare Luke Skywalker to a terrorist and the Galactic Empire to (presumably) the US. Why does this comparison work? Because the US IS a fucking evil empire, and there IS genuine outrage and injustice to be fought. The drone campaign is not mere "justification" for terrorists to use to fight their battles, it is an actual injustice, as was the invasion of Iraq, its starvation before that, the ongoing bombing of Yemen, the support of autocrats who oppress ordinary people for decades, etc., etc. This is not mere "recruiting material", this is stuff worth fighting over. The reason people revere Osama bin Laden as a hero is because he is fighting the dark power that has oppressed them - literally, with bombs and guns - for a generation. No doubt people will find this comparison uncomfortable, while the inverse tee-heeing over the Empire is amusing. Let's remember what's being fought for: a democracy versus an autocracy based on raw power. The Empire, after all, rules through fear, mediated by an army of storm troopers, and replaced a democratic government that responded to its constituents with the rule of one man. This is closely modeled on the actual events in Rome, where a thousand(ish) years of Republic, with genuine democratic struggle for the rights of ordinary people an ongoing feature for most of its history (Brutus deposing the kings, the Gracchi becoming the first tribunes) devolved into an Empire ruled by pure thuggery, men like Caesar and Crassus who used their enormous wealth and influence to amass enough personal power to simply take control of the state. There WAS a rebel who fought against the advent of this Empire to preserve a Republic, who died hunted down and killed by the army of the first emperor - Brutus. We might also call him a terrorist for his attempted assassination of Caesar. But in the balance we must judge these men - all men - who exercise brutality on what they are fighting for. What is the order they are seeking to preserve or rebuild? What are its principles? This is the distinction that matters.
- devinhelton 11y ago
  Let's remember what's being fought for: a democracy versus an autocracy based on raw power...replaced a democratic government that responded to its constituents with the rule of one man. Except that is an unbelievably naive way of looking at the world. Popular power is always limited, even in a "democracy", thanks to the Iron Law of Oligarchy. Most people are too busy living their own lives to understand how the levers of power actually operate, or to understand the complicated ways in which they are getting screwed. And even when they do participate in politics, people are usually whipped into a frenzy based on envy, fear, and bigotry. Correspondingly, autocracy does not automatically mean "bad". Many powerful leaders actually did bring order to their realms, and allow people to live decent lives, free from internal strife. See Augustus, or the four good emperors of Rome. And often removing a strong ruler simply brings the realm into chaos. See the aftermath of the Arab Spring, the aftermath in Iraq and Libya. Or look at what happened after Brutus killed Caesar -- there were twenty more years of civil war until once again someone could win definitively. I wrote much more in depth on this topic here: http://devinhelton.com/2015/08/dictatorship-and-democracy http://devinhelton.com/2015/08/dictatorship-and-democracy
aikah 11y ago
Unlike the real world, the force actually exists and has practical applications within the Star Wars universe. Who wouldn't want to master that power? Same cannot be said for some "other thing" in the real world which people believe in...
- EXDIR 11y ago
  Hello. I am the Director of NEPTA. Will you please reach out to Maverickheroes/Mindblowideas. The MRF APP needs to be completed. Thank you Kindly.
rwmj 11y ago
The problem with this is that "the Force" really does have supernatural powers (in the context of the movie at least), whereas religions only claim them but can't prove it.
ttflee 11y ago
It was that George Lucas tried to protest against Vietnam war. http://nypost.com/2014/09/21/how-star-wars-was-secretly-george-lucas-protest-of-vietnam/ http://nypost.com/2014/09/21/how-star-wars-was-secretly-geor...
xmlblog 11y ago
The pro-Empire articles referenced in the piece above require the reader to turn on their irony detectors. First-rate trolling.
wildengineer 11y ago
This article and others like it ignore the context of the films. Palpatine disbanded the imperial senate. The rebels were fighting to restore the galactic republic that had stood for 1000 years.
- golergka 11y ago
  The point you're making is that it's good because it's tradition?
  - wildengineer 11y ago
    The point I'm making is the empire was a totalitarian regime that had to be eliminated. Look at it in terms of today's world. Imagine if a president disbanded the congress and held power by threat of force.
    - golergka 11y ago
      I think you're confused; "the empire was a totalitarian regime that had to be eliminated" is the thesis you're trying to prove. So, what is your argument? Your original comment contained to points for this argument: (1) Republic is old, (2) the Senate was dissolved. (1) relies on the assumption that "old = good" and (2) assumes that elimination of Senate — about which we don't know pretty much anything at the moment — is bad. Does it really look convincing to you? Oh, and Galactic Republic is/was too different from US political system for your comparison to be relevant in any way.
      - wildengineer 11y ago
        Any representative government being overthrown by a militaristic dictator is justification for war. Please argue this. I don't see how I could disagree with this, but here's your chance to convince me.
        golergka 11y ago
        > overthrown Have you seen Episodes 1-3? Palpatine has real support of the public. (Look, dude, of course he's evil as hell, I don't deny that. It's just that arguments that you choose to prove that are not working.)
peter303 11y ago
Its also creepy to watch either of the two Dune movies. Herbert borrowed a lot form Islam Jihad.
Dirlewanger 11y ago
From this cherrypicking article to various other online forums critical of them, it's pretty hilarious how recently, every single crevice of the Star Wars movies is thrown into the town square naked, and then being loudly decried for it being an inconsistency/plot hole/any other logical deficiency. All the while forgetting that in the 70s, a business man with an acumen for world-building conceived these space operas. Space operas whose largest overarching theme is a simple struggle of good vs. evil. I'm partially convinced Disney is to blame for this, most likely stoking the fire behind-the-scenes.
clock_tower 11y ago
I guess that between Luke Skywalker's lifelike radicalization, and Palpatine's seizing dictatorship through an emergency-powers clause, _Star Wars_ is the story of how al-Qaida fought the Nazis... ("You're all a bunch of damn Yankees," as the hillbilly said of the Yale versus Harvard football game, "and I hope you both lose.")
falcolas 11y ago
As with most articles, this one says more about the writer than it really does the subject. The stories are ambiguous enough that you can literally find any message you want to out of them. Scrappy little startup vs Oracle. The plight of the middle east vs the UN (or just the USA). A SF story told from another time. So, what do you take from it? What does that tell you about yourself?

110 points by kushti 11y ago

I was wondering when this aspect of Star Wars would start getting batted around in the main stream. It's very interesting watching America square the never ending war on terror against our rich cultural history of glorifying rebels, particularly in light of our nation's birth. There's a reason that the Iraqi rebels were branded as "insurgents" during that war. I'd venture a guess that referring to them as rebels or any form of the word would be enough to get a Fox news employee fired. Orwell would have a field day with our modern linguistic contortions to allow ourselves to remain the scrappy beacon of individualism and personal liberty in our minds.

seren 11y ago
To be fair most founding myths are about a "hero" revolting against the current status quo : Zeus, Odin, Prometheus, Gilgamesh, etc. So I don't think this is only an "American" things, or related to individualism. But obviously Daesh is using that same proto-myth to appeal to potential recruits : be a hero fighting to overthrow an evil empire, and establish a new golden age
seivan 11y ago
Mostly becuause the insurgents in Iraq killed Iraqis and Kurds more than they killed American soldiers. Calling them rebels because some pampered ideological college twat wants to relive the anti-Vietnam hysteria they read so much about is a disservice not only to American soldiers but also Iraqi and Kurdish soldiers and civilians who got to live amidst radical jihadis who take sex slaves and commit public executions of non veiled women branded as adulterers.
- RobertoG 11y ago
  Are you implying that all the Iraqis fighting against USA just after the invasion were radical jihadist? I feel genuine curiosity because that was not my impression at the time.
RobertoG 11y ago
Well, I remember thinking that "insurgents" was an improvement from the narrative of the time, that was that they were "terrorist".
- seivan 11y ago
  They were and still are terrorists who torture the civilian population. Admiration from the liberal west won't change that.
rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
I cannot understand why you were downvoted. Your comment made excellent sense. I think the benefits of the empire are overlooked when compared to the romantic fantasy of rebellion. Then, in a galaxy far, far away, as now, I must wonder what alternatives may have been avoided by imperialism, such as secretarian civil wars or intragalactic economic warfare, such as the blockade of Naboo.
- wmeredith 11y ago
  Or control by organized crime like the Huts. We were shown first hand what their brand of justice looked like. brutal dismemberment at the hands of animals for entertainment's sake.
  - rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
    The question is whether that was outlawed in Imperial space, or if it was tacitly given a pass for the sake of the larger order, like the CIA overthrow of Guatemala's elected government at the behest of the United Fruit Corporation.
- acqq 11y ago
  Can anybody demonstrate any advantages people of Libya have from the West supported removal of Gaddafi? As far as I understand, before it was at least peace in the land, now it's a second home of ISIS.
  - rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
    Gaddafi enabled state-sponsored terrorism. The West has wanted him gone for ages. In their eyes, it was better for him to be gone and have their own people safe than to have a stable Libya that could participate in terrorist activity. It doesn't justify what they did, but it is worth knowing the overthrow was not primarily done for the sake of your everyday Libyan.
    - acqq 11y ago
Aqueous 11y ago
A big difference, in fact, the critical difference, between a 'rebellion/revolution' and 'terrorism', at least between a just rebellion and an un-just rebellion, is that a rebellion attacks (or intends to attack) military targets. Terrorists attack unarmed civilians.
- scarmig 11y ago
  Can you name a rebellion or revolution that didn't target civilians? There aren't any, and I think that distinction ultimately reduces to "terrorism is what's done by bad guys, revolution/rebellion by heroes!"
  - Aqueous 11y ago
    The American Revolution was primary a fight between the Continental Army (a military) and the British infantry in the colonies. This is not to say that all of the English that were killed were military, and I'm sure you'll come back of examples of terrorism committed by the Contintental Army or associates, but the strategy of the Contintental Army was to push the British army out of the Americas. And it worked.
- kuschku 11y ago
  > Terrorists attack unarmed civilians. One of the most striking stories my grandmother always told about WWII (she was born in '34) was how, when she walked to school, very often US fighters shot at the children walking there. There was no way this was a mistake – they were still children, the road only led to the school, no one else was walking there at the time. And still, every few days fighters shot at them, and they had to jump in a drainage canal, or similar to hide. Seeing your friends from school being shot by fighters in front of your eyes can hurt a child a lot. Many old people here still hold a grudge towards the allies, despite all the amazing things they did after the war to rebuild. But if attacking civilians is the measure, then the US is a terrorist state. And has been for decades. ---------------- EDIT: I’m not saying the US is bad, or good, I’m trying to say there is no "good" side in a war. No one in a war is innocent. There is a side that gasses jews, and a side that nukes civilians. There is a side that bombs hospitals, and a side that blows themselves up at a concert in Paris. There’s a side that massacres disabled people, and a side that shoots children. We can’t compare, or even weigh up the sides against each other, and doing so would miss the point. But we can’t say "only terrorists kill civilians".
golergka 11y ago
I have a slight hope that may be, just may be, this will result with people stop using labels and actually digging deeper to the substance of each issue. Especially if they try to pass moral judgement and assign such labels as "good" and "bad" go very complex situations.
dragonwriter 11y ago
> There's a reason that the Iraqi rebels were branded as "insurgents" during that war "Insurgent" means about the same thing as "rebel" and has no more negative connotation in modern American English usage (which is why the name is frequently applied to, and embraced by, perceived underdog political campaigns,)
cwyers 11y ago
Insurgency is a specific word with specific meaning -- it's an attack against a recognized authority (in the modern context, recognized typically means recognized by the United Nations) by a party not recognized (again, in the modern parlance, by the UN) as a belligerent. In Iraq, the insurgency didn't hold territory, for instance, or have any of the other trappings of a state actor in a military conflict. Counter-insurgency tactics are very different than a straight-up fight in a civil war. It's not Orwellian to use words to describe the things the words are intended to describe.
- unclesaamm 11y ago
  This loses meaning when we realize that the US is a huge force behind defining who is "recognized" or not anyway. Also this doesnt change the fact that during the American Revolution, the British were much more "recognized" in the international space than America -- so why were we rebels and not insurgents? But let's not over glorify the terrorists either. I think Naomi Klein said it well that if you had to choose on a deadly multiple choice questionnaire between American imperialism and fundamentalist terror, the correct answer is "none of the above."
  - cwyers 11y ago
    Recognized is a binary; you either are or you aren't. The colonies behaved like a nation-state during the Revolutionary War -- they had ambassadors to multiple European nations during the conflict, for instance. The American revolutionaries also raised an army, for instance. They wore uniforms, etc. Similarly, during the Civil War, the Confederacy was not an insurgency and we didn't treat it as such.
    - coldtea 11y ago
      >Recognized is a binary; you either are or you aren't. Diplomacy is much more nuanced. While you might or might not be recognized in the official sense, there's a broad spectrum or relationships and attitudes that imply recognition. E.g. there are players that are not official, but nethertheless have relationships with state players, and are thus recognized for discussions, negotiations, etc.
vdnkh 11y ago
>Orwell would have a field day with our modern linguistic contortions As much as I like NPR, they're consistently guilty of this. I have never heard the Confederate flag called a "battle flag" before the whole fracas around getting it banned.
- vectorpush 11y ago
  > I have never heard the Confederate flag called a "battle flag" before the whole fracas around getting it banned. This is just a coincidence. I've heard the confederate flag referred to as the battle flag for years and almost exclusively by those who support (or are at least sympathetic to) flying that flag. With that stated, I agree that NPR is guilty of "linguistic contortions" but I can't think of a single news source that isn't guilty of it. If you can think of some exceptions, I'd be genuinely interested in a recommendation.
- chrisoverzero 11y ago
  Irrespective of what you have ever or never heard, the pattern commonly flown -- and the pattern over which there was controversy -- is the pattern of a battle flag[0]. The national flags of the Confederacy were different, though some of them incorporated that pattern. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flags_of_the_Confederate_States_of_America#Battle_flag https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flags_of_the_Confederate_State...
- apozem 11y ago
  That is literally what it is- the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia. It is most technically accurate (and will slow down angry calls from readers who trying to correct you) to call it a battle flag, regardless of common usage.
jhallenworld 11y ago
Well I think a lot has to do with the role of religious fundamentalism. American Revolution? Not so much.. Daesh? It's everything. Now for Star Wars.. is Jediism a religion? The 7th most popular faith in the UK according to this: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9737886/Jedi-religion-most-popular-alternative-faith.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9737886/Jedi-religi...
presidentender 11y ago
Bravely register your drone and wear your seatbelt, free individual!

leereeves 11y ago

Pro-Imperial writers so often ignore the bombing of Alderaan.

strictnein 11y ago
Completely justified. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2015/10/29/the-destruction-of-alderaan-was-completely-justified/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2015/10/29/t...
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- moron4hire 11y ago
  Completely not http://sean-mcbeth.tumblr.com/post/134608041510/neoconservative-post-hoc-rationalization-of http://sean-mcbeth.tumblr.com/post/134608041510/neoconservat...
  - strictnein 11y ago
    I think that author took this all just a little bit too seriously. It's all obviously fairly tongue-in-cheek. I mean, his title is "Neoconservative Post-Hoc Rationalization of Genocide". He must be a blast at parties.
    - moron4hire 11y ago
      Actually, I am a blast at parties.
seivan 11y ago
Pro-Jedis never discuss the countless of lives lost during the Mandalorian wars because the Jedis ineptitude in fighting a brutal enemy while the Galatic Republic waste time with bickering. Jedi scum!
- 11y ago

gd1 11y ago

"The Empire’s accidental harming of Luke’s Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen can be directly compared to the casualties of President Obama’s drone campaign, whose body count terrorists capitalize upon for recruitment." Uh-huh. And I suppose Alderaan was like Hiroshima, they were just forcing the rebels to surrender without risking stormtrooper lives with a ground invasion. Or something like that.

jameskilton 11y ago
Actually, yes. That's exactly right. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2015/10/29/the-destruction-of-alderaan-was-completely-justified/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2015/10/29/t...
- masklinn 11y ago
  Not even that. The Empire had a population of >100 quadrilion, Alderaan killed about 2 billion people. That's a difference of 8 orders of magnitude (50 million), that's equivalent to killing ~140 earth humans. In relative scale, it doesn't come close to Hiroshima, it's closer to having bombed a large wedding.
  - tehstone8 11y ago
    I'm not sure it's fair to argue that it would scale in such a way. Sure numerically it's an insignificant portion of the population but the Death Star still literally destroyed and entire planet and every living being on it. Rather than comparing it to bombing a wedding, I think it's more accurate to compare it to destroying every trace of some micro-nation and then cleansing any plant and animal life native to that nation.
    - masklinn 11y ago
      > I'm not sure it's fair to argue that it would scale in such a way. Sure numerically it's an insignificant portion of the population but the Death Star still literally destroyed and entire planet and every living being on it. Between core worlds, protectorates, governorships and colonies, the empire is estimated to cover close to 70 million inhabited worlds, and billions of uninhabitable planets. > Rather than comparing it to bombing a wedding, I think it's more accurate to compare it to destroying every trace of some micro-nation More like a small town taken over by entrenched terrorists. > then cleansing any plant and animal life native to that nation. A firebombing would do that, and that's an unfortunate side-effect more than the purpose of the act.

strictnein 11y ago

All of this "Empire as the good guy" stuff started out as amusing, but I'm starting to agree with it. One of my favorite takes: "How to Talk About Star Wars at Thanksgiving With Your Ignorant, Rebellion-Backing Uncle" http://freebeacon.com/blog/pilgrims-were-the-original-rebels-that-is-to-say-racist-religious-freaks/ http://freebeacon.com/blog/pilgrims-were-the-original-rebels...

skoczymroczny 11y ago
It's kind of funny, but my first introduction to the Star Wars franchise was the TIE Fighter game. I really thought Empire was the good guys that fight terrorists. Even today, after learning the truth, I still prefer Empire and "peace and order throughout the galaxy".
- strictnein 11y ago
  Yeah, I could definitely see that. Great game too. Wish they could somehow recreate that magic.
vinceguidry 11y ago
Don't stop with Star Wars. Just about every morality play can be analyzed this way. It's a trope that goes all the way back to antiquity. It's one of the first things I think about when I watch such a movie. Is this political order really something that needs to be destroyed? My answer winds up almost always being 'no'. My favorite is this treatment of The Dark Knight: https://www.reddit.com/r/FanTheories/comments/3insgr/joker_is_the_hero_in_the_dark_knight https://www.reddit.com/r/FanTheories/comments/3insgr/joker_i... I enjoyed the otherwise-awful movie The Seventh Son because of the playfulness they take with world-building. The heroes and their quests all wind up being a part of the broader political structures of the world rather than those structures being the stakes. I like it when the very plot doesn't take itself seriously.
- strictnein 11y ago
  Saw someone bat around the idea of Ursula being the good side in The Little Mermaid. Strong independent female fighting against the two patriarchal monarchies, etc etc.

deleted 11y ago

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iandanforth 11y ago
Radical light-siders believe that killing should be done in a calm and focused state of mind. Remember, anger is part of the flesh, and they believe they are non corporal luminous beings temporarily trapped in flesh ... possibly by xenu.

jerf 11y ago

It's 10-12 hours of pulp-grade movie. You can project a lot onto it, because in the end, there isn't much there to either draw conclusions from, or contradict your interpretation. This gets squared (or exponentiated) if you, like some people have done, decide that the films may themselves be unreliable narration. Which I think is not a useful decision, because you pretty quickly run smack up into the fact that these are just fiction anyhow in this case; the films were not written to stand up to that interpretation. I think it's particularly difficult to draw any sweeping conclusions because it's not clear to me that the movie universe is written carefully enough to justify them. For every Jedi epigram, you can find a Jedi violating it, or for some epigrams, it's hard to find anyone actually doing the thing. Jedi, for instance, repeatedly act in a way that can be described as "fearful"; is the Jedi proscription against fear simply referring to the brute emotion, or anything that can be described as fearful? Honestly, the best answer is probably that it was not written to be able to answer that. Are the Jedi "hypocrites", or is the writing just too clumsy? Especially after the prequel trilogy, I can't help but think it's the latter. (And I do not mean that as a fashionably-snotty thing to say; I really don't think they were well-written. But they don't necessarily deserve the opprobrium heaped on them; they were not especially bad by Hollywood standards. I'd call them pretty average on that front. Most Hollywood movies are philosophically and ethically really quite mushy.) One must also bear in mind that from a "hard science fiction" point of view, the concrete and scientifically-proved existence of "The Force" may change things. In our real world, I think almost everything that Yoda says is gibbering nonsense, but in his world it may be entirely true that fear inexorably and directly leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering. There's a mechanism for it to do so that doesn't exist in our universe, and we should expect that if "The Force" is real that it means that there are things that are perfectly true in Star Wars that aren't true here, making it even harder to draw sweeping conclusions. The conclusion I come to is that this is a fun movie series that, in the end, simply doesn't stand up to this level of analysis, as evidenced by the fact the analyses always seem to simply be the analysis' author writing about exactly what they already believe, dressed in Star Wars trappings.

leereeves 11y ago
This isn't really about the movies.

acqq 11y ago

> Let's remember what's being fought for From the perspective of ISIS, they fight for the final peace of the whole world under the only real God, and if they live they win slaves, if they die in fight they win the heaven and 72 virgins each (no matter what they did before, that would push them to hell, like forgetting to pray often enough or drinking beer). And they have the book that has the "actual words of God" to support them (the whole book instead of pithy 10 commandments), and the bunch of the books describing how their role model ("a messenger of God") did what they do now (including beheadings). And the highest values of their faith aren't "freedom" (and especially not "democracy"). The name of their religion means "submission" (to the God) and the meaning of the name of the followers is "the submitted." The important part of the religion is showing the submission often enough, even before and after visiting the toilet. And even more convenient, the book confirms that their enemies, directly and explicitly named as unbelievers, Christians and Jews will surely burn in hell and that God hates them. And it does that repeatedly, so much that removing the pages with such content would reduce the book to a few pages. How can that be countered, apart from pointing that the religious founder cleverly invented all that for his own gains, as even documented by their own books, and just mentioned by one novelist who was to be assassinated in 1989 and lived in hiding for decades. If you try to do that you'd be with a high probability now considered as somebody spreading religious hatred (insulting "everyone" who are of that religion). Because "all this has nothing to do with the religion that can't be named." The reality starts to be weirder than fiction. On another side, the "empire" really did a lot of nasty things in these areas.

astazangasta 11y ago
Yes, actual geopolitics are more complicated than the world of Star Wars.
ZeroGravitas 11y ago
If you have a genuine problem with Islam, my suggestion would be to not "accuse" it of stuff that Christianity does or did. It's just rhetorically weak. Even if you yourself are athiest or Hindu or whatever, its just plain odd to single out a religion for having a concept of hell to which unbelievers are sent, for being aimed explicitly at a "chosen people" or for praying, which the western leaders who wage war in the middle east from the crusades up till now talk about quite a lot. In context of the article it would be like a Sith accusing the Jedis of believing in the force, and it would be rank hypocrisy. And yet you seem surprised that this way of talking about Islam might be viewed negatively. That everyone is protecting Islam due to some politically-correct conspiracy rather than a basic sense of treating people with respect and equality.

tehwebguy 11y ago

Great, I clicked on this from an airport lounge and it was blocked. Hope I am allowed on the plane!

chappi42 11y ago

Luke wouldn't blow himself up in the middle of a market. Neither do to Yazidis.. you know it. Bad article, [x] check

astazangasta 11y ago

There's a lot of quaint cherry-picking of evidence going on in these arguments which is really cheesing me off, but I want to highlight the importance of what I think is the fundamental issue, what is always the fundamental issue: what we're fighting for. I think some of these parallels are correct: we can compare Luke Skywalker to a terrorist and the Galactic Empire to (presumably) the US. Why does this comparison work? Because the US IS a fucking evil empire, and there IS genuine outrage and injustice to be fought. The drone campaign is not mere "justification" for terrorists to use to fight their battles, it is an actual injustice, as was the invasion of Iraq, its starvation before that, the ongoing bombing of Yemen, the support of autocrats who oppress ordinary people for decades, etc., etc. This is not mere "recruiting material", this is stuff worth fighting over. The reason people revere Osama bin Laden as a hero is because he is fighting the dark power that has oppressed them - literally, with bombs and guns - for a generation. No doubt people will find this comparison uncomfortable, while the inverse tee-heeing over the Empire is amusing. Let's remember what's being fought for: a democracy versus an autocracy based on raw power. The Empire, after all, rules through fear, mediated by an army of storm troopers, and replaced a democratic government that responded to its constituents with the rule of one man. This is closely modeled on the actual events in Rome, where a thousand(ish) years of Republic, with genuine democratic struggle for the rights of ordinary people an ongoing feature for most of its history (Brutus deposing the kings, the Gracchi becoming the first tribunes) devolved into an Empire ruled by pure thuggery, men like Caesar and Crassus who used their enormous wealth and influence to amass enough personal power to simply take control of the state. There WAS a rebel who fought against the advent of this Empire to preserve a Republic, who died hunted down and killed by the army of the first emperor - Brutus. We might also call him a terrorist for his attempted assassination of Caesar. But in the balance we must judge these men - all men - who exercise brutality on what they are fighting for. What is the order they are seeking to preserve or rebuild? What are its principles? This is the distinction that matters.

devinhelton 11y ago
Let's remember what's being fought for: a democracy versus an autocracy based on raw power...replaced a democratic government that responded to its constituents with the rule of one man. Except that is an unbelievably naive way of looking at the world. Popular power is always limited, even in a "democracy", thanks to the Iron Law of Oligarchy. Most people are too busy living their own lives to understand how the levers of power actually operate, or to understand the complicated ways in which they are getting screwed. And even when they do participate in politics, people are usually whipped into a frenzy based on envy, fear, and bigotry. Correspondingly, autocracy does not automatically mean "bad". Many powerful leaders actually did bring order to their realms, and allow people to live decent lives, free from internal strife. See Augustus, or the four good emperors of Rome. And often removing a strong ruler simply brings the realm into chaos. See the aftermath of the Arab Spring, the aftermath in Iraq and Libya. Or look at what happened after Brutus killed Caesar -- there were twenty more years of civil war until once again someone could win definitively. I wrote much more in depth on this topic here: http://devinhelton.com/2015/08/dictatorship-and-democracy http://devinhelton.com/2015/08/dictatorship-and-democracy

aikah 11y ago

Unlike the real world, the force actually exists and has practical applications within the Star Wars universe. Who wouldn't want to master that power? Same cannot be said for some "other thing" in the real world which people believe in...

EXDIR 11y ago
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rwmj 11y ago

The problem with this is that "the Force" really does have supernatural powers (in the context of the movie at least), whereas religions only claim them but can't prove it.

ttflee 11y ago

It was that George Lucas tried to protest against Vietnam war. http://nypost.com/2014/09/21/how-star-wars-was-secretly-george-lucas-protest-of-vietnam/ http://nypost.com/2014/09/21/how-star-wars-was-secretly-geor...

xmlblog 11y ago

The pro-Empire articles referenced in the piece above require the reader to turn on their irony detectors. First-rate trolling.

wildengineer 11y ago

This article and others like it ignore the context of the films. Palpatine disbanded the imperial senate. The rebels were fighting to restore the galactic republic that had stood for 1000 years.

golergka 11y ago
The point you're making is that it's good because it's tradition?
- wildengineer 11y ago
  The point I'm making is the empire was a totalitarian regime that had to be eliminated. Look at it in terms of today's world. Imagine if a president disbanded the congress and held power by threat of force.
  - golergka 11y ago
    I think you're confused; "the empire was a totalitarian regime that had to be eliminated" is the thesis you're trying to prove. So, what is your argument? Your original comment contained to points for this argument: (1) Republic is old, (2) the Senate was dissolved. (1) relies on the assumption that "old = good" and (2) assumes that elimination of Senate — about which we don't know pretty much anything at the moment — is bad. Does it really look convincing to you? Oh, and Galactic Republic is/was too different from US political system for your comparison to be relevant in any way.
    - wildengineer 11y ago
      Any representative government being overthrown by a militaristic dictator is justification for war. Please argue this. I don't see how I could disagree with this, but here's your chance to convince me.
      - golergka 11y ago
        > overthrown Have you seen Episodes 1-3? Palpatine has real support of the public. (Look, dude, of course he's evil as hell, I don't deny that. It's just that arguments that you choose to prove that are not working.)

peter303 11y ago

Its also creepy to watch either of the two Dune movies. Herbert borrowed a lot form Islam Jihad.

Dirlewanger 11y ago

From this cherrypicking article to various other online forums critical of them, it's pretty hilarious how recently, every single crevice of the Star Wars movies is thrown into the town square naked, and then being loudly decried for it being an inconsistency/plot hole/any other logical deficiency. All the while forgetting that in the 70s, a business man with an acumen for world-building conceived these space operas. Space operas whose largest overarching theme is a simple struggle of good vs. evil. I'm partially convinced Disney is to blame for this, most likely stoking the fire behind-the-scenes.

clock_tower 11y ago

I guess that between Luke Skywalker's lifelike radicalization, and Palpatine's seizing dictatorship through an emergency-powers clause, _Star Wars_ is the story of how al-Qaida fought the Nazis... ("You're all a bunch of damn Yankees," as the hillbilly said of the Yale versus Harvard football game, "and I hope you both lose.")

falcolas 11y ago

As with most articles, this one says more about the writer than it really does the subject. The stories are ambiguous enough that you can literally find any message you want to out of them. Scrappy little startup vs Oracle. The plight of the middle east vs the UN (or just the USA). A SF story told from another time. So, what do you take from it? What does that tell you about yourself?