In keeping with the spirit of the article quoted in the OP, by excluding the EU and going solely by what we see on-screen in the various Star Wars movies, there’s no evidence that The Empire engages in slavery.
Yes, I’ve read the EU and know that The Empire does, but there’s neve rany evidence on-screen of it.
And like ITR said in the OP, “…we never see any evidence of the Empire governing the galaxy well, …”
Other than blowing up Alderaan, and building another planet-killer after the DS mk. I goes foom, we don’t see any evidence of them governing it badly, either. Just ruthlessly.
I mean, the United States has a fleet of gargantuan mega-ships that hardly anyone else can touch, and uses them to poject power to “shock and awe” (thanks, Bippy) potential troublemakers into meek submission; the United States has almost entirely obliterated two enemy cities with “Superweapons;” and the United States has engaged in state-sanctioned slavery and racial oppression.
Move your POV around far enough and viola: we’re The Evil Empire.
Nah. Nuking Baghdad would have been an appropriate comparison to the destruction of Alderan. Shock and Awe would be more like sending in the imperial walkers and tie bombers to destory an enemy base in the midst of a city. The difference being that one destorys everything regardless of status and the other destorys civilians when they get in the way of the tanks, but doesn’t target them.
Well, one could also argue (strictly from the movies) that the Empire doesn’t honor its treaty obligations, either. Cloud City was an independant polity, and Vader (who I think we can consider to be acting as a sort of Ambassador Plenipotentiary) makes a deal with its legitimate leader. He then proceeds to ignore every part of that deal which involves any duty or responsibility on the part of himself or the Empire. Even if one takes the (perhaps justified) view that Lando was scum not worthy of any consideration, that just means that the Empire should never have dealt with him in the first place, rather than making deals and then breaking them.
Haven’t read Brin, but I’ve heard that some commentators have pointed out that, in the original trilogy, we have no idea what the politics of the rebels are. They call themselves “The Alliance to Restore the Republic” but that could mean nearly anything; it’s possible that, however bad the Empire is, the government the rebels intend would be even worse. There are plenty of examples in history of a really, really bad regime being overthrown by an even worse one (Batista preceded Castro, etc.).
The Death Star was destroyed today in a wanton act of rebel terrorism. Fortunately, Lord Vader escaped injury. Our hearts go out to the families of the victims.
The most politically interesting SW dialogue I’ve yet heard was that between Anakin and Padme in Attack of the Clones (no, I haven’t yet seen Revenge of the Sith), where he declares he wants a government where the leaders “figure out what’s good for the people and then do it,” without all this political backbiting and pettifogging that ties up the Senate. That bit of impatience pretty much sums up the great hubris of all the failed political experiments of the 20th Century: The idea that it is possible for an informed elite to know, with a scientific degree of certainty, what is “good for the people,” and therefore dispense in good conscience with democratic procedures. IRL, those procedures, however tedious and frustrating they might be, provide essential feedback and error-correcting machinery – and are besides the only thing that can prevent the elite from degenerating into an aristocracy ruling in its own interests. (Not that democratic procedures are always effective on that point, either. )
After Leia tells Tarkin that the rebel base is on Dantooine, Tarkin tells her that “Dantooine is too remote to make an effective demonstration, but don’t worry. We’ll deal with your rebel friends soon enough.” The destruction of Alderan isn’t even a military objective, it’s done purely to demonstrate the power of the Death Star and to terrorize by the total destruction of a civilian populace. It’s not so much the “Shock and Awe” of Baghdad as it is the wholesale murder and complete eradication of the Czech town of Lidice by the Nazis in retaliation for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, only more genocidal in scale.
Besides, Darth Vader is an ugly meanie and Luke Skywalker is cute and nice. Really, that ends the argument right there.
> DING! DING! < ::: Moderator rings bell to attract attention :::
Look, this is Cafe Society. If you want to analyze the politics in STAR WARS, that’s fine. As soon as you start making political jokes, however, you’re out of line. Interpretation of film is fine – that includes asking questions like whether the Republic is good, whether the Empire is bad, whether the Jedi are misusing their powers, those are fine for this forum. As soon as you bring current politicians (whether Bush or Clinton or anyone) into the some sort of mock-identification, however, you’re out of bounds.
If you want this thread to remain open, get back on topic. If you want to open a thread pitting various politicians as characters in movies, it goes in the Pit.
Luke: Rejoice, good people. Palpatine the terrible shall rule no more!
Empire Citizen #1: But Palpatine was the greatest king we ever had.
Luke: What?
Empire Citizen #1: He built roads, hospitals, libraries …
Empire Citizen #2: To us, he was Palpatine the Consensus Builder.
Say, as long as you’re here, could you change “Darth Vader is and ugly meanie” in my last post to “Darth Vader is an ugly meanie”? The typo really destroys the impact of my otherwise cogent Vader=meanie position.
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I like very much.