Speaking of the Free Speech Movement, I just watched the closing episode of season 2.5 of Battlestar Galactica last night. I was falling asleep when all of the sudden, for reasons I won’t go into because I know there are fellow non-cabled folk reading this blog who haven’t yet seen it, the character known as “the Chief” makes a speech with an uncanny resemblance to Mario Savio’s famous pep-talk at Sproul Hall in 1964 – one of the more memorable speeches in American history, particular the climax:
There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part; you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!
Somebody in the series’ writing department has a rich sense of irony.
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October 14, 2006 at 10:00 pm
Fred
Or better, yet, as Jeff Kelley says, “Do not rage against the machine. Quietly flip it off.”.
http://flipitoff.blogspot.com/
October 14, 2006 at 11:10 pm
Anonymous
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October 15, 2006 at 6:16 am
Eric V. Kirk
Fred – well, Savio’s speech had a more specific context. I think the usage on Battlestar Galactica had to do as much with the metaphor invoked in light of the whole plot.