OT - Not voting...

[B5JMS Poster]

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From: Rick <rick at redx.demon.co.uk>
Date: 16 Sep 2000 09:23:50 -0700
Lines: 71

Jms at B5 <jmsatb5 at aol.com> writes

>Every year, fewer and fewer people vote, meaning that our futures and our
>fortunes are being dictated by an increasingly smaller portion of the
>population because the rest just don't want to be bothered.
>
>And I'm sorry, but to me, that ain't the proper perspective of a citizen.  It's
>not just a one-way "gimme" street.  

I wonder if part of the continuing decline in electoral turn-outs is
related to the whole cult of individuality that I'm afraid me and my
fellow baby-boomers bought into. It seems we want to stay adolescent for
our whole lives (don't get me wrong - not an entirely bad goal!) and
treat every issue with the same hormonal imperative as The Beatles vs
The Stones.

It's as though a vote for a politician - who may be better than his/her
opponent but still not perfect - is seen as some kind of betrayal of the
voter's self-image. How could a man possibly live with himself if he
placed a cross next to (for example) the name of a candidate who
received donations from Microsoft? Or maybe it's more to do with peer
pressure - what would your friends say if they knew you cast a vote for
Gore after seeing him in that sports-coat...?

So the easiest, safest thing to do is not risk your carefully cultivated
individual image. Don't vote at all. Who can criticise you then?

Pathetic, I know. But in an age where *everything* is treated like a
lifestyle choice - where you eat, what you drive, what you read, what
you *think* - maybe politics is too complicated for people who can make
a big issue out of the relative merits of Kurt Cobain or ST:Voyager.

>To vote is not the *legal* requirement of a citizen -- and by the way, the
>freedom you cite is first and foremost the freedom to choose the form of your
>elected government -- but it *is* a moral and ethical requirement.
>
>Because if you don't exercise it, sooner or later you will lose that freedom
>and all the others you cherish, because those with a vested interest in making
>those freedoms go away will be the ones to pass the final laws, unopposed by
>dissenting voices at the ballot box.
>
>Freedom does not equate laziness.
>
>I said it in the show: you must choose the future you want, or others will
>choose it for you.

This raises an interesting (to me, at least) question:

In B5, you clearly took the opportunity to deal with this and similar
issues. You had the whole 5-year story - the whole universe, in fact -
at your disposal to allow you to do this. But what about before, when
you had less control - and what other about jobbing freelance writers?
Does a writer's political outlook equally inform his work when he/she's
contributing a single episode to a show, say? Do you think it should?
Are there stories a writer simply *shouldn't* tell when they conflict
with his/her beliefs?

For example, imagine at some point in the past you'd been working on
some show and been presented with an outline for an episode much like
"By Any Means Necessary", but in which the protagonist came down firmly
*against* the docking unions. Would you do it and try to sneak in a plot
thread or two to try and make it a little more acceptable? Or would you
walk?

> jms
>

-- 
Regards,
Rick


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From: jmsatb5 at aol.com (Jms at B5)
Date: 16 Sep 2000 20:25:07 -0700
Lines: 55

>In B5, you clearly took the opportunity to deal with this and similar
>issues. You had the whole 5-year story - the whole universe, in fact -
>at your disposal to allow you to do this. But what about before, when
>you had less control - and what other about jobbing freelance writers?

I've always tried to express a point of view in the work...when I worked on
Twilight Zone, I did stories about wife beaters and such; when I did Murder She
Wrote I tried to slip in a point of view (Jessica going toe to toe about Gulags
with the former head of the KGB and criticizing their treatment of writers and
other intellectuals), that sort of thing...but I tried never to get *political*
in the sense of saying, in or out of B5, "Democrats are better," or
"Conservatives suck."

They were really about the importance of taking personal action and
responsibility for both yourself and the world around you.

Which was the point of my story about the comic con incident (typical of late
night postings, I started the tale, got distracted, and forgot to get to the
*point* of the thing, the reason I mentioned it, which is that as a citizen, I
could not ignore someone who is being unjustly treated by a thief, and felt it
necessary to intervene.  Similarly, how can one not hear the cry of a nation in
distress and not take action, even if that action is nothing more revolutionary
than the casting of a vote (which in historical terms is a very revolutionary
thing in and of itself)?  

>For example, imagine at some point in the past you'd been working on
>some show and been presented with an outline for an episode much like
>"By Any Means Necessary", but in which the protagonist came down firmly
>*against* the docking unions. Would you do it and try to sneak in a plot
>thread or two to try and make it a little more acceptable? Or would you
>walk?

If it was a freelancer's story...no, of course not, it all comes down to how
well that particular story is told.  Had the unions lost in that story, it
would've been equally fine with me if the story had been told with logic and a
point of view and integrity, if it ahd made a point.

If, on the other hand, we had that script as written, and the network insisted
that it be changed the way you suggest because it didn't want to be pro-union,
THEN we'd have words....


 jms

(jmsatb5 at aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com
(all message content (c) 2000 by
synthetic worlds, ltd., permission
to reprint specifically denied to
SFX Magazine)




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