And I Will Make Them Pay

Andrew is saluting Patrick Stewart on his impending knighthood. No salute to Stewart is complete without this turn as Picard at the climax of First Contact.

Lott lefties need to watch this one. There's so much in this scene, or rather I see so much in this scene. From Kujo to Cochise to Samori Ture to Robert Charles to Malcolm X. Of course the upshot is about understanding when the fight is lost, or rather the distance between what might be deserved and what is actually possible.

Malcolm was, for the most part, dealing with what was deserved, what was owed to us. But the fact of the matter was, as King I think recognized, we were outnumbered and terribly outgunned. It's very hard to reconcile yourself to the reality of being dependent on people who don't really like you. It's hard to accept that there won't be any payback, or any real apology--that it isn't even possible. But it was where we were/are. There's no other way.

I think back to a conversation I had with Andrew some time ago. He was talking about some buddies who wanted to wear shirts that said "I hate the straights" or "Fuck the straights" or some such. And he was explaining how he told them. "Go ahead, it might make you feel better. You might even be justified. But while you're doing it, understand that it won't work." I'm probably mangling that story. But we were talking about the same thing--the space between the tangible and the deserved.

And then it gets deeper than that on a moral level. Who is to say what is deserved and what isn't? What would we have done, had we the ships and guns? Would would Shaka have done? Are we really that different?