Originally written for Town Hall 11-5-09

There is a lot of chatter this week about the new ABC series, V, a science fiction about reptilian aliens who hide their true forms and purposes, disguise themselves as human beings, and travel to our planet in space ships. These “friendly” visitors immediately hold press conferences and announce that they have arrived, mostly to assist the Earth. In fact, they even promise free health care! In exchange, they need some help themselves. All of this cloaks their true, sinister motives, to take over our planet, steal our resources, and actually eat the human beings. In no time at all, the country becomes mesmerized by them. Those who do not march in step are ridiculed, persecuted, and called “racist.” The resistance finds itself continually frustrated as members discover how brainwashed their family and friends have become. Scientists who express doubts and want to ask intelligent questions are told to get with the times in ways that do not sound unlike Al Gore’s precious Global Warming statement, “The debate is over.”

But Gore is not the comparison most people are making. Instead, this seems like an obvious allegory to the Obama administration and I suspect that writers at ABC are going to be commanded to change the tone of the scripts real fast. Indeed, somebody’s head may already be rolling for allowing an Obama dissident to get over the fence in the first place. This is Hollywood, after all! My own prediction: Watch for future episodes to have similarities, not to Obama, but instead (You guessed it) George. W. Bush! We’ll see something like the Patriot Act, etc.

And now, allow me to add a new wrinkle to the conversation and point out something few are saying. This is not an original program, but rather, a remake of the mini-series V that came out in the eighties and also inspired a year long, regularly scheduled program. That is not the unique observation, but it leads to my point: The writer, Kenneth Johnson, is the same. I keep hearing all this debate: Are the Obama Administration similarities deliberate or coincidental? Is the show trying to be political or simply telling a good old fashioned science fiction story about aliens wanting to take over the world? Well, I can answer that question for you right now.  The first series had a definite agenda, so if it is the same author, it is probably the same agenda. In the original V, the allegory was to Nazi Germany and the gradual, hypnotic effect Hitler had over the German people. I do not offer this as a guess or mere speculation. They were not very subtle about that message. There were even Jewish characters who had escaped Germany and pointed out the parallel, just in case the audience was too stupid to make the comparison themselves. Even the alien promise of medical and scientific provision was similar.

Here then, is my question: Why is it that a story intended to resemble the Nazis is immediately met with so much resistance by Obama supporters?

This is Bob Siegel, making the obvious, obvious.

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