When Hitler began rounding up the Jews in Hungary in 1944, Wallenberg faced down the Nazi death machine with nothing more than courage and paper, partly by mass manufacturing fake Swedish passports and partly by threatening Nazi authorities that he had accumulated sufficient evidence to prosecute them as war criminals in the event that the Axis powers lost.

Unfortunately, when the war ended the Soviets arrested him for reasons unknown, locked him away in the brutal Soviet prison system and repeatedly resisted appeals to release him. (The Russians now say that he probably died in Moscow’s notorious Lubyanka prison a decade after the war, but no one knows for sure. As late as 1987 he was sighted in a Soviet prison by two independent witnesses.)

There are two biopics that tell his story, but neither do him justice. A better choice would be the Leslie Howard film Pimpernel Smith, about a British professor of classics who secretly rescues Nazi prisoners. Why? Raoul Wallenberg is said to have been inspired by this film, which was among the first to depict Nazi labor camps. It can generally be found free online.

A secret protector shepherds “enemies of the state” from Nazi Germany to safety. [ Pimpernel Smith credits: Dir: Leslie Howard/ Leslie Howard, Mary Morris, Francis L. Sullivan/ 120 min/ Action-Adventure/ Britain/ Escape from Socialism, Democide]

“Although the tone is witty and debonair, this film has its serious side and is considered one of the most important anti-Nazi films of the period — and it was not without effect.”

This story is essentially the same as that of The Scarlet Pimpernel but is updated to the Nazi era. Here, the hero is a British professor of classics and archaeology who rescues condemned scientists and artists from Nazi concentration camps. Says he, “When a man holds the view that progress and civilization depend in every age upon the hands and brains of a few exceptional spirits, it’s rather hard to stand by and see them destroyed.”

This courageous professor is a master of disguise and deceit. Operating under the cover of doing excavations on supposed ruins of ancient Aryan civilizations, he outwits the Nazi authorities over and over again. Publicly, the Nazis deny his existence, as in this humorous announcement from the Ministry of Propaganda: “Rumors of a mysterious personage helping enemies of the state to escape from Germany are without foundation. We can assure you there have been no such escapes and there is no such rescuer. Furthermore, in Nazi Germany, no one can hope to be saved by anybody!”

However, privately, Nazi agents are searching everywhere for this secret liberator. The Nazis end up forcing the daughter of a captured newspaper editor into helping them in their manhunt, but she double-crosses them to seek the hero’s aid in freeing her father. Getting her and her father out of the country to safety becomes the last daring rescue for Pimpernel Smith.

Leslie Howard produced, directed, and starred in this film. He makes an understated hero in the British style and is, as always, entertaining. The film also benefits from clever use of cinematography and an amusing script that mocks pretty much everything Nazi. There aren’t many films with this much of the right idea around, so it’s worth seeing, especially if you like classic British cinema.

Although the tone is witty and debonair, it has its serious side and is considered one of the most important anti-Nazi films of the period — and it was not without effect. Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who is credited with saving tens of thousands of Jews from the Holocaust, is said to have been inspired by the character of Pimpernel Smith.

External Reviews

“…a gallant figure to capture the imagination and stir the blood.”
–New York Times

“Pimpernel Smith is not only every bit as stirring as Howard intended, but also genuinely poignant.”
–BFI Screenline

Links

IMDB
Book: Leslie Howard: The Lost Actor (Revised Second Edition)
Book: Heroes of the Holocaust: Ordinary Britons Who Risked Their Lives to Make a Difference
Book: In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer
Book: The Righteous: The Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust
Book: Righteous Gentile: The Story of Raoul Wallenberg, Missing Hero of the Holocaust
Book: A Place To Hide: True Stories Of Holocaust Rescues (Scholastic Biography)

“On the basis of Wallenberg’s statement to his sister in 1942 and the striking similarities between Leslie Howard’s performance, particularly in the Vodenschatz episode, and Wallenberg’s modus operandi in Budapest, there is every reason to believe that once committed to his mission at the Swedish legation in Hungary, Wallenberg found in Pimpernel Smith a role-model he could adapt to the situation at hand when facing down Nazi and Arrow Cross guards and snatching prisoners from their grasp. It is in this respect that the remarkable rescue of countless lives in Budapest involved at least in part the transmission of a heroic model from Leslie Howard to Raoul Wallenberg.”
–P.O.V.: From Leslie Howard to Raoul Wallenberg: the transmission and adaptation of a heroic model

As of publication, it’s available free on YouTube.

WINNER: TOP 25 LIBERTARIAN FILMS
A small group of World War II veterans challenge their corrupt town government. Story inspired by actual events. [ An American Story credits: Dir: John Gray/ Brad Johnson, Kathleen Quinlan, Tom Sizemore/ 99 min/ Drama/ Corrupt Government, Resistance to Tyranny, Second Amendment]

“When the mayor attempts to rig the elections, the veterans finally fight back. Fresh from restoring democracy abroad, they’re not about to see it destroyed at home and they defend the ballot box — just the way Uncle Sam taught them to.”

“We didn’t take this kind of bull from the Nazis. I don’t know why we have to come home and take it from [the mayor].” So says an angry veteran who returns home from the battlefields of World War II Europe to find his small business paying protection money to City Hall. As it turns out, many people in this town are being forced to pay protection money. To rectify the problem, this veteran and his buddies form the “Veterans Party” to run against the corrupt mayor.

But their under-funded, amateur campaign has little hope of beating the mayor’s professional political machine. And the one man who could help them, a widely respected fellow veteran and World War II war hero, has been bought out by the powers that be. All seems lost until the mayor attempts to rig the elections. Fresh from restoring democracy abroad, they’re not about to see it destroyed at home and they defend the ballot box — just the way Uncle Sam taught them to.

This is a moving story and it’s inspired by actual events.

An American Story has something of an antitax and Second Amendment flavor, but neither subject is made an explicit issue. Even so, the film does provide an answer to those who cringe at self-defense against tyranny. Just before the veterans take on the town’s police force, someone asks rhetorically, “Why does it always have to come down to a war?” The hero unhesitating response: “Because some people can’t be reasoned with.”

Links

IMDB

“A television movie like An American Story couldn’t get greenlit today. In fact, it’s still surprising the Hallmark Hall of Fame and CBS joint production actually got broadcast back in 1992. Yet this fictionalization of the Battle of Athens, the last and best modern example of American citizens forcefully asserting their Second Amendment rights, was actually shown only 21 years ago. The telepicture earned two Primetime Emmy nominations, one for music and another for cinematography.”
–Breitbart

WINNER: TOP 25 LIBERTARIAN DOCUMENTARIES
In this landmark Free to Choose series, Nobel-Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman guides the viewer through eleven documentaries on the workings of the market and its relation to human liberty. [ Free to Choose credits: Executive Producer: Bob Chitester/ Journalist: Milton Friedman/ 50 min/ Documentary/ Libertarianism 101]

See links below for free online access to the full series.

“A persuasive and entertaining exposition of libertarian ideas.”

This is a persuasive and entertaining exposition of libertarian ideas, and it’s a pleasure to see them presented with such clarity and charm. It’s a testament to the power of Friedman’s “radical” proposals—and perhaps this series itself—that some have already been implemented and others have become common subjects for discussion. Nonetheless, most viewers will not find the series excessively dated. The underlying theme of liberty versus state control is everlasting.

The Free to Choose Network has kindly made the complete episodes available online, so episode links on this page render the full documentary not just a trailer.

Episodes of Free to Choose (1980)

Part 1, The Power of the Market
Examines the logic and results of a properly functioning free market, with some emphasis on Hong Kong as an example of a relatively free economy.

Part 2, The Tyranny of Control
Discusses the pernicious effects of government intervention in the economy.

Part 3, Anatomy of a Crisis
Explains how the Great Depression was a product of Federal Reserve mismanagement.

Part 4, From Cradle to Grave
Illustrates how good intentions can lead to bad results in the area of public assistance. Suggests a negative income tax as a solution.

Part 5, Created Equal
Counters demands for material equality with the argument that “pursuit of equality before freedom will achieve neither; pursuit of freedom before equality will produce a large measure of both.”

Part 6, What’s Wrong With Our Schools
Demonstrates that voluntary educational efforts are superior to government schools. Proposes vouchers as one solution to the current mess.

Part 7, Who Protects the Consumer?
Examines the increasing role of regulation in the economy. Shows how well-intended regulations can have perverse effects.

Part 8, Who Protects the Worker?
Discusses the role of unions and protective legislation in the lives of ordinary workers.

Part 9, How to Cure Inflation
Debunks myths regarding the causes of inflation and lays the blame for it firmly at the doorstep of the Federal Reserve.

Part 10, How to Stay Free
Makes the case for further constitutional limits on government powers and for a popular understanding of and appreciation for liberty. Emphasizes the dangers inherent in the concentration of power.

Episodes of Free to Choose (1991)

A decade after the original ten episodes, four were updated and remade but production quality was not equal to the original episodes (found above). However, one new episode, Freedom and Prosperity, was added to the series.

Freedom and Prosperity
Discusses the reluctance of Eastern European governments to abandon socialism, and recommends rapid privatization of state assets and adoption of a free market.

Links

IMDB
Free To Choose.tv
The Free to Choose Network
Book: Free to Choose: A Personal Statement
Book: Capitalism and Freedom: Fortieth Anniversary Edition
Book: Why Government Is the Problem (Essays in Public Policy)

WINNER: TOP 25 LIBERTARIAN FILMS
When a young gay man in 1960s Britain commits suicide rather than face an inquiry regarding (then illegal) homosexual activity, a closeted bisexual barrister avenges his death and fights the law responsible for it. [ Victim credits: Dir: Basil Dearden/ Dirk Bogarde, Sylvia Syms, Dennis Price / 100 min/ Drama, Thriller/ Britain/ Government as Bigot, Sexual Liberty, Social Tolerance]

“When Dirk Bogarde, in the character of Melville Farr, swears he will fight this law even if it means his own destruction, few knew it was not just a portrayal of courage but an act of one.”

This was a revolutionary film. At the time it was made, homosexual activity was a serious offense in Britain. Thousands were sent to prison for it. And its illegality spurred a virtual crime wave of blackmail against gay men. In fact, ninety percent of all blackmail cases were gay related. The makers of this film sought to change all that by exposing the suffering that the law created.

In this story, a young man, Jack Barrett, is being blackmailed. He makes a series of desperate phone calls to a high-class barrister, Melville Farr. Unfortunately, Farr, a bisexual, believes that Barrett is trying to blackmail him and refuses the calls. Barrett commits suicide. Riddled with guilt that he had turned his back on a friend and (as he later learns) unknown protector, Farr determines to catch Barrett’s blackmailer and to reform the law, even if it means his own destruction.

In some respects, the film’s view of homosexuality is at times slightly outdated, but that’s forgivable given its otherwise radically progressive character.

That issue aside, this is a wonderful story of tragedy and heroism, and it’s told in an entertaining British mystery style, often with clever dialogue. One of my favorite exchanges is the following between two policemen discussing the case. First Policeman: “If the law punished every abnormality, we’d be kept pretty busy, sergeant.” Second Policeman: “Even so, Sir, this law was made for a very good reason. If it were changed, other weaknesses would follow.” First Policeman: “I can see you’re a true Puritan. … There was a time when that [too] was against the law, you know.”

Dirk Bogarde gives an outstanding performance in the leading role, as the heroic legal angel who avenges the young man’s death. In real life, he was just as heroic. Up to this point a popular and unobjectionable teen idol, Bogarde put his career on the line to make this film and defended its controversial content — a courageous thing for anyone to do at the time but all the more so for a man who, as it turned out, was himself secretly gay.

When Bogarde, in the character of Melville Farr, swears he will fight this law even if it means his own destruction, few knew it was not just a portrayal of courage but an act of one. Through Victim, he and others deliberately set out to demonstrate the harm brought about by the ban on homosexual activity and to free the thousands held in prison for its offense. Six years after the its release, such activity was decriminalized in Britain.

External Reviews

“What a gripping film – melodramatic and self-conscious, yes, but forthright and bold. Its tendency to show homosexuality as a tragic, pitiable quirk of nature may now look like condescension, but for the time this was real risk-taking. It has some of the earnestness of the traditional ‘issue’ movie, but it’s also a drum-tight thriller with a neat twist in the tail.”
The Guardian

“Released at a time when any homosexual act between men was illegal, Victim has often been cited as the catalyst for the liberating Wolfenden Report and the subsequent legalisation of homosexual activities. Revolutionary and aware of its own importance, Victim successfully treads the precarious tightrope, being both a gripping drama and a taboo-smashing landmark.”
Eye for Film

“With its assertive hero and hopeful conclusion, Victim made a difference…In 1967, Lord Arran introduced legislation repealing the Criminal Offences Act. He wrote Dirk Bogarde about Victim, praising him for ‘your courage in undertaking this difficult and potentially damaging part.’ When Bogarde protested, Lord Arran insisted that ‘we’ve both done our bit’ to decriminalize homosexuality. He mused that ‘it is comforting to think that perhaps a million men are no longer living in fear.’”
MoviePlot

“Shot in high-contrast black-and-white, edged with the darkness of a sitting-room at night but trapped in a fierce spotlight, Bogarde is mesmerising. Crisply suited, dry-voiced and on the edge of tears, he painfully stifles the emotion threatening to destroy him. With the camera locked in close-up, he lifts his chin ever so slightly in defiance, his eyes widening into a glare of triumph that costs him everything.”
The Independent

Links

IMDB
Wikipedia
Online Video Search
Wikipedia: Wolfenden Report
Mother Jones: You Thought It Was Tough Being Gay in Uganda. “It’s Hell in Nigeria.”
New York Times: Russia’s Anti-Gay Crackdown
The Guardian: Gay rights around the world: the best and worst countries for equality
Slate: You Can Still Be Arrested for Being Gay in Red-State America
The Independent: India’s gay community scrambling after court decision recriminalises homosexuality
New York Times: Nigeria Tries to ‘Sanitize’ Itself of Gays
New York Daily News: Hiding Cuba’s crimes behind gay rights lies
National Post: The communist roots of Russian homophobia
Washington Post: Here are the 10 countries where homosexuality may be punished by death
The Guardian: Iran executes three men on homosexuality charges

WINNER: TOP 25 LIBERTARIAN FILMS
An old woman’s refusal to pay for a dog license sets in motion a chain of events that humbles her local government. [ Storm in a Teacup credits: Dir: Victor Saville, Ian Dalrymple/ Vivien Leigh, Rex Harrison, Cecil Parker/ 87 min/ Comedy/ Britain/ Free Press as Hero, Abuse of Power]

“The script, based on a stage play, is tremendously witty, the acting talent (including a young Vivien Leigh) is some of the finest of its time, and the direction makes the most of both. For fans of British humor in particular, Storm in a Teacup is a real gem.”

“Oppression is never small.” So says the heroic reporter at the center of this story as he exposes an authoritarian town mayor for condemning to death an unlicensed dog. The film doesn’t argue against licensing as such but just the heartless application of law without regard to the situation.

At the center of this story is a poor old woman and her mongrel dog. The old woman refused to pay for a dog license, and so has been fined five pounds. However, she can’t pay the fine. So the town mayor, a law-and-order man in the midst of a campaign for higher office, orders that the dog be seized and executed. All the old woman’s pleas for mercy fall on deaf ears.

Enter the hero, a principled reporter with a sharp pen. He has just been hired by the local paper to do a flattering story on the mayor. Instead, he uses this opportunity to publicly attack the mayor for his cruel behavior. The article incites a local political rebellion, and further actions by the reporter undermine the mayor’s chances for higher office. Furious at this unwinding of his political prospects, the mayor has the reporter arrested and tried on a vague offense. It all ends in a hilarious climactic trial.

What an enjoyable film! The script, based on a stage play, is tremendously witty, the acting talent (including a young Vivien Leigh) is some of the finest of its time, and the direction makes the most of both. For fans of British humor in particular, Storm in a Teacup is a real gem.

Links

IMDB
Wikipedia
Book: Three Felonies A Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent
Book: Go Directly to Jail: The Criminalization of Almost Everything

ACADEMY AWARD WINNER: BEST DOCUMENTARY
WINNER: TOP 25 LIBERTARIAN DOCUMENTARIES
The story of how Edward Snowden revealed for the first time bombshell proof that the U.S. government is routinely and secretly engaged in domestic spying. [ Citizenfour credits: Dir: Laura Poitras/ 114 min/ Documentary/ Fourth Amendment, Search & Seizure]

“Citizenfour is a well-made documentary that deserves the highest accolades, not only for what it is, but for the risk borne by those who made it, and it will leave you walking away chilled to realize how far down the path of fascism we have recently traveled.”

If a documentary can also be a thriller, this is it. This film tells its story from the perspective of director Laura Poitras — from the first email she received under Edward Snowden’s enigmatic codename “Citizenfour,” in which he revealed that he was an NSA whistleblower from hell about to release proof of unconstitutional wholesale invasions of privacy; to their first clandestine meeting, in a Hong Kong hotel in which they together orchestrated, in coordination with journalist Glenn Greenwald, the release of Snowden’s documents; and finally to the aftermath of Snowden’s escape and exile.

It’s history told in real-time, a telling made up of clips that Poitras recorded in the moments when it was actually happening. It’s clear this is the way Snowden wanted it–maximum exposure through news outlets and through this documentary–no doubt as much to insure his personal safety as to get the word out.

Two things you get from this film. First, it sheers off whatever patina of cool the Obama administration still had. It’s the Obama administration that Snowden is accusing of wrongdoing, it’s the Obama administration that he is afraid of, and when the documents are released it’s Obama’s talking heads and Obama himself who come out to try to spin the story. Second, Snowden is a genuine hero. He is sincerely fearful that we are moving in a potentially irreversible authoritarian direction and he has made a great personal sacrifice to do something about it. He may be an imperfect hero, like all heroes before him, but his courage and daring are without question. There is a moment when he is asked if anything should be done to shield him from exposure. He replies with conviction, in the tone of someone who knows the thorny path to which he has committed himself and is determined to carry it through, “No…Put a target on my back…Nail me to the cross.” The analogy is not lost, given the situation. Over the brief course of the events told in the film, I noted the circles under Snowden’s eyes darkening. No doubt his subsequent exile in Putin’s Russia has also taken its toll. He has made a great sacrifice for all of us.

Citizenfour is a well-made documentary that deserves the highest accolades, not only for what it is, but for the risk borne by those who made it, and it will leave you walking away chilled to realize how far down the path of fascism we have recently traveled. It’s rated R, but that reflects only the hilariously-flawed MPAA standards; it was scored R for language, based on an occasional use of the F-word. Don’t let that deter you from taking your kids to see it–they are the ones with the most at stake in this mess.

External Reviews

“Riveting, as well as the most indispensable documentary of the year…”
–BBC

“Citizenfour is a gripping record of how our rulers are addicted to gaining more and more power and control over us – if we let them.”
–The Guardian

“Snowden documents a world in which the NSA routinely collects cellphone conversations from millions of Americans, along with their email and records of their other online activities, and consigns all of it to a huge NSA data-storage lair in Bluffdale, Utah. Woven together, this information tells highly detailed stories about blameless private citizens, to be used later, perhaps, for purposes not yet devised.”
–Reason

“One of the major and defining documentaries of recent times.”
–The Hollywood Reporter

“No amount of familiarity with whistleblower Edward Snowden and his shocking revelations of the U.S. government’s wholesale spying on its own citizens can prepare one for the impact of Laura Poitras’ extraordinary documentary Citizenfour.”
–Variety

“For the pure, driven Snowden, you must see Citizenfour…focusing on the eight days in June 2013 when Snowden first spilled his and his computer’s guts to the three journalists in his 10th-floor room at the Mira Hotel, this is a fascinating, edifying and creepy record of history in the making…Citizenfour is, at heart, a portrait of a man at the moment he chooses to change Americans’ understanding of what their government knows about them.”
–Time

Links

Official homepage
IMDB
Wikipedia
Related Film: Snowden
Book: No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State
Book: With Liberty and Justice for Some
Book: The Digital Surveillance State

“But nobody had more to celebrate than the team behind Citizenfour, Laura Poitras’ up-close look at Edward Snowden, which became the first doc ever to win both NYFCC and Gotham awards on top of receiving Spirit Award, IDA and Cinema Eye Honors noms.”
–The Hollywood Reporter

“CitizenFour just won the Gotham Award for best documentary, just hours after winning the New York Film Critics Award…The doc about Edward Snowden by Laura Poitras has made $1.5 million at the box office. Now it’s sweeping awards season.”
—Showbiz 411

“It’s also worth noting that both the Gotham voters and the New York Film Critics Circle honored Citizenfour, Laura Poitras’s documentary about Edward Snowden.”
–Washington Post

WINNER: TOP 25 LIBERTARIAN FILMS
The rise to power of Soviet socialism corrupts every aspect of life in a Russian city, leaving its occupants with three choices: cynicism, self-destruction, or escape. [ We the Living credits: Dir: Goffredo Alessandrini/ Alida Valli, Rossano Brazzi, Fosco Giachetti/ 174 min/ Drama, Romance, Foreign Language/ Italy/ In Italian with English subtitles/ Anti-Socialism, Ayn Rand, Individualism]

“This engaging film has a touch of greatness.”

It’s a fitting tribute to the universally antiauthoritarian nature of Ayn Rand’s ideas that this film — first produced in fascist Italy as an attack on communism — was then banned at the angry insistence of the Nazis, who considered it antifascist. Like the Rand novel on which it’s based, it is, of course, an attack on totalitarianism of all stripes.

The film was scripted, directed, and produced without Rand’s knowledge and only later discovered and reedited under her supervision. Nonetheless, except for a slightly happier ending, it’s a faithful adaptation.

As in the novel, the story begins as the Soviets have just taken power in Russia. All property is being nationalized. Food and other essentials are in short supply, and life in general is unhappy and uncertain. At the same time, as socialist aspirations give way to socialist reality, corruption and intimidation are becoming rampant.

In this milieu, a young woman, a university student, is trying to make her way. By chance she meets a mysterious man with whom she falls in love. As it turns out, he’s wanted by the state. Meanwhile, an agent of the state, a GPU man, falls in love with her. It’s the classic love triangle. In the end, the respective choices made by these three central characters represent the only ones open to those living under totalitarian governments: cynicism, self-destruction, or escape.

In many ways, We the Living is a recovered masterpiece of 1940s style cinema; indeed it is considered by some critics in Italy as their equivalent of Gone With the Wind. There is tremendous artistry in every scene, expressed particularly in the subtle use of cinematography and wonderfully haunting music, and every part is played with great sensitivity. The effect is to make events not only understood but to create an atmosphere and mood that makes those events felt as well. It’s a little long by modern standards, but the time is not wasted. This engaging film has a touch of greatness.

Links

IMDB
Wikipedia
Book: We the Living

WINNER: TOP 25 LIBERTARIAN FILMS
In a future America, all exceptional human intelligence and achievement is stamped out in order to eliminate the destructive consequences of envy. [ Kurt Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron credits: Dir: Bruce Pittman/ Sean Astin, Miranda De Pencier, Christopher Plummer/ 99 min/ Drama, SciFi-Fantasy/ Equality & Envy, Individualism]

“For a cinematic attack on enforced equality, you could hardly do better than this wonderful film…This is a moving and stimulating experience, and one of the most dead-on libertarian films ever made.”

Teacher: “What is the first article of the new American Constitution?” Student: “That all men are not created equal. It’s the responsibility of the government to render them so.” Based on that law, the population here is subjected to a variety of dumbing-down measures, including: electronic implants, brain surgery, and even boring television. Few would defend such a projected world, and that is what makes this film so useful. It shows in the extreme the undesirability of what is currently being done on a smaller scale.

In particular, how different is the effect of deliberately discouraging exceptional thought from the effect of imposing on the population a one-intellectual-size-fits-all public school system? How different is it from the effect of “progressive” taxation, which financially straps the successful to subsidize the less successful?

Of course, the motivations of those who set up this ultra-egalitarian society are well intended—to eliminate from human relations the tendency toward aggression based on envy. But ironically, it takes even more extreme aggression to eliminate the inequality that gives rise to envy in the first place. This is seen early on, with the televised execution of tax evaders, and police raids on houses of “intellectual repute” where deep conversations and mind-stimulating games take place.

For a cinematic attack on enforced equality, you could hardly do better than this wonderful film. Harrison Bergeron fully articulates the price of enforced equality, in terms of both lost liberty and of those accomplishments that inequitably great people make possible. Based on a Kurt Vonnegut story, it has an imaginative and thought-provoking quality. This is a moving and stimulating experience, and one of the most dead-on libertarian films ever made.

External Reviews

“Harrison Bergeron is a real gem.”
–Sci-Fi Movie Page

“A well-scripted, well-designed adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’s science fiction story…Your attention will be gripped as the story follows a perilous path through a web of romance and sinister politics to its dramatic conclusion.”
–Sky Movies

Links

IMDB
Wikipedia
Related Film: 2081
Book (Includes Harrison Bergeron): Welcome to the Monkey House: Stories

Hard to Believe | Forced organ harvesting of political prisoners by the Chinese government is exposed through extensive interviews of those involved.

“This documentary is extremely important for those involved in organ donation and transplantation, human rights, healthcare, ethics, and the law…The credentials of the interviewed experts are impeccable.”
–Journal of Bioethical Inquiry

An undercover BBC investigation reveals that the Chinese government is harvesting prisoners on a “just in time” basis for forced organ transplants. This is one of the earlier investigations to reveal what was happening.

Human Harvest | Two Nobel Prize winners investigate the forced organ harvesting trade in China and uncover one of the world’s worst crimes against humanity.

“Like a mystery novel with a devastating denouement, Leon Lee’s documentary starts with numbers that don’t add up and divines an unthinkable explanation. China had no organ-donation system until 2010, yet it’s now the one place in the world where a person can get a heart and lung transplant in less than a week.”
–Peabody Award

Warning: Trailer is shows reenactments of graphic violence.

The Bleeding Edge | When a young tech wiz discovers that the heart transplant he got in China was taken from a prisoner in a forced organ “donation,” he risks his life to save the next victims of China’s organ harvesting program.

“You could use many words to describe The Bleeding Edge: chilling, disturbing, powerful, courageous, moving. It’s a film that stays with you after the end, not only because it’s a story well told, but because the horrors it describes are happening right now. Normally we learn about such atrocities well after socialist governments collapse, when the hidden truth is finally revealed in a giant pit of emaciated bodies or when some death camp survivor writes a best-selling book. This time it’s real-time.”
–MissLiberty.com

Stop Organ Harvesting in China
Wikipedia: Organ transplantation in China
Facebook: Stop Organ Harvesting in China

“Doctors and medical students working in state-run civilian and military hospitals take up to 11,000 organs a year from donors under no anesthetic to supply China’s lucrative ‘organs on-demand’ transplant program, say a network of investigators comprised of international researchers, doctors and human rights lawyers attempting to end the macabre abuses.”
The Sydney Morning Herald: China’s gruesome live organ harvest exposed in documentary

“In an effort to increase the chances of successful transplant, Gutmann writes, the organs are often taken from prisoners while they are still alive. Gutmann estimates that to date, more than 64,000 Falun Gong practitioners have suffered this fate, with more being added to the count every day.”
NY Post: China’s long history of harvesting organs from living political foes

“Phone interviews by David Kilgour and David Matas revealed that in 17 locations in China, organs were procured from detained Falun Gong practitioners. This suggests that forced organ harvesting in China is a widespread, systematic, state-sanctioned atrocity.”
–DAFOH: Doctors Against Forced iOrgan Harvesting

“Mass murder is alive and well. That is the stark conclusion of this comprehensive investigation into the Chinese state’s secret program to get rid of political dissidents while profiting from the sale of their organs–in many cases to Western recipients. Based on interviews with top-ranking police officials and Chinese doctors who have killed prisoners on the operating table, veteran China analyst Ethan Gutmann has produced a riveting insider’s account–culminating in a death toll that will shock the world.”
–Book: The Slaughter: Mass Killings, Organ Harvesting, and China’s Secret…

“It’s a story straight out of a horror movie, but it’s been common practice in China for more than a decade. State-run hospitals have secretly harvested body parts from tens of thousands of prisoners, removing their vital organs while they are still alive.”
News.com.au: China’s other big business: Harvesting organs from prisoners when they’re still alive

“One doctor, who spoke anonymously because he still practices in China, vividly described a scene in 1992…his surgical task, to remove the liver and the kidneys from a man who had just been executed by a shot through the heart, was technically simple but emotionally complicated by the mark of a wire around the man’s neck, indicating that the police had forcibly prevented this particular man from speaking up in court.”
–World Affairs: Bitter Harvest: China’s ‘Organ Donation’ Nightmare

“Allegations surfaced in 2006 that the disappeared were being killed for their organs which were sold for large sums mostly to foreign transplant tourists. It is generally accepted that China kills prisoners for organs. The debate is over whether the prisoners who are killed are only criminals sentenced to death or Falun Gong practitioners as well. The authors produced a report concluding that the allegations were true.”
–Book: Bloody Harvest: Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China

“When reports first emerged from China in 2006 that state-run hospitals were killing prisoners of conscience to sell their organs, it seemed too horrible to be true. However, a new documentary is about to blow the lid on the illegal organ trade that is now allegedly worth a staggering US$1 billion a year. This despite the fact 10,000 organs are transplanted in China every year, yet there are only a tiny number of people on the official donor register.”
–Daily Mail: A Human Harvest: China’s organ trafficking exposed in shocking documentary that alleges the illegal trade is now worth a staggering US$1 billion a year

“Among the eyewitnesses cited by Lee are a Chinese police officer who claims to have seen organs harvested from a woman who was tortured and raped for days, before she was mutilated without anesthetic, and the wife of a doctor said to have extracted the corneas of some 2,000 patients while they were still alive. She alleges that some of the victims were subsequently burned alive after the cornea extractions, and that the Chinese government tried to assassinate her husband after he fled from his grisly job.”
–Breitbart: Report: China harvests organs from live prisoners

“China’s organ transplant numbers are second only to the United States. Unlike any other country, virtually all Chinese organs for transplants come from prisoners. Many of these are prisoners of conscience. The killing of prisoners for their organs is a plain breach of the most basic medical ethics.”
–Book: State Organs: Transplant Abuse in China

ACADEMY AWARD NOMINEE: BEST PICTURE
A stolid female Soviet agent is sent to Paris on business and is seduced by capitalist ways. [ Ninotchka credits: Dir: Ernst Lubitsch/ Greta Garbo, Melvyn Douglas, Ina Claire/ 108 min/ Comedy, Romance/ Anti-Socialism]

“This delightful romantic comedy is listed in almost every reckoning of the greatest films, reflecting both its terrifically witty script and a wonderful performance by Greta Garbo as the grim unfeminine agent of the Soviet state.”

As this film begins, three agents of the Soviet trade board have just arrived in Paris to sell some confiscated jewels, once owned by a Russian duchess who is now in exile. These rather comic agents are imminently corruptible, and they soon begin indulging in the unrestrained pleasures of Paris at the expense of the Soviet government. Meanwhile, the jewels become the subject of a legal dispute.

To sort out the matter, the Soviet government sends in envoy extraordinaire Ninotchka, a glum, high-level agent of the Soviet state. However, she too is quickly seduced by the West, and even falls in love with the very man who is negotiating against her. The next thing you know, the jewels are stolen. It’s complicated, but everything ends satisfactorily, with love and capitalism overcoming all.

For the most part, this film mocks the disastrous consequences of socialism, including mass poverty, censorship, and perpetual fear of the state. However, at the same time it also pays some respect to socialist “ideals.” As Ninotchka says at one point, “We have the high ideals, but they have the climate.” In this regard it’s a foreshadowing of the intellectual double standard that would maintain the respectability of socialism for years by crediting it with moral virtue in theory regardless of how it played out in practice. The capitalist alternative here is nonetheless preferable but shallow, a world of consumption and frivolity with no apparent need for work. This film seems an attack on seriousness as much as anything else. Of course, in 1939, when it was made, the world was still a little naive.

Anyway, this delightful romantic comedy is listed in almost every reckoning of the greatest films, reflecting both its terrifically witty script and a wonderful performance by Greta Garbo as the grim unfeminine agent of the Soviet state. It is indeed a great film, one of those classic movies everyone should see. One of my favorite bits of dialogue occurs between Ninotchka and a porter at a train station. Ninotchka: “Why do you want to carry my bags?” Porter: “That is my business.” Ninotchka: “That’s no business. That’s social injustice.” Porter: “That depends on the tip.”

If you enjoy this film, you may also like Silk Stockings, a musical version of the same story.

Links

IMDB
Wikipedia
Related Film: Silk Stockings

Security guard Richard Jewell saves hundreds of lives from an exploding pipe bomb at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, only to be railroaded as the prime suspect by an incompetent FBI and cynical press. Based on a true story. [ Richard Jewell credits: Dir: Clint Eastwood/ Paul Walter Hauser, Kathy Bates, Sam Rockwell/ 131 min/ Drama/ Incompetent government, Government as bigot, Law & liberty, Working for government/ 2019]

“Richard Jewell is an engaging, at times heart-wrenching film, and an act of justice — one might even say vengeance.”

This is the story of an innocent man nearly destroyed — ruined and maligned — by institutions that were intended to protect the innocent. It’s a wake-up call for anyone who thinks that you can reliably trust the government, the press, or for that matter any organization that has power. That was Jewell’s vulnerability – he did trust these institutions, and they nearly delivered him a death sentence.

Richard Jewell aspired to a role in law enforcement, where he expected he would be keeping the peace and shielding the defenseless. He got a job as a security guard and was eventually assigned to a minor position at the Atlanta Olympics. While there, he spotted an abandoned backpack that bomb experts subsequently found to contain three large pipe bombs. Jewell helped to clear the area of staff and attendees; and when the bomb unexpectedly went off, he assisted the victims. He was an ordinary guy turned extraordinary hero, and for a moment enjoyed the public adulation he deserved.

Unfortunately, the FBI felt he fit a bomber “profile” they had seen before. They had nothing on him, but since he was a white male, unmarried, and with law enforcement aspirations, they came up with a theory that he had placed the bomb himself so he could be glorified as the one who discovered it. That was all they had, no evidence, just a profile he happened to fit. The full force of the FBI was brought down on Jewell – every inch of his life inspected, probed, and of course leaked to an obliging press. Jewell made things worse by cooperating. He couldn’t believe the FBI wasn’t just seeking the truth that he was sure would clear him. He didn’t understand that they were simply gathering evidence to support what they already assumed. Meanwhile, in an early case of fake news, the press cooperated in making Jewell a public laughingstock and loathed pariah.

In the end, the FBI couldn’t prove anything, and the case was dropped. Years later, the real bomber was caught. But the lengthy investigation and public ridicule took its toll, and Jewell died at 44 of a failing heart.

To these institutions, Jewell was a throwaway, a “deplorable” before the word had that meaning, an overweight, poorly educated southern white male who lived with his mother. They had no respect for him and little regret for having used up his life. Nobody was fired for what happened to him and no one apologized. That is our world, ordinary people at the mercy of ever more powerful, ever more coordinated, institutions that pay no price for wrongdoing.

Richard Jewell is an engaging, at times heart-wrenching film, and an act of justice — one might even say vengeance. It’s made all the more so by astoundingly good performances, particularly on the part of Paul Walter Hauser, as Jewell, and Kathy Bates, as his mother. It’s a small mercy that Jewell’s mother lived long enough to see it. Clint Eastwood has delivered in this another masterpiece of story-telling, and for the third time in the last three years focused on real-life heroes (he made Sully in 2016, and The 15:17 to Paris in 2018).

It may have crossed your mind that Jewell’s case is not unrelated to the current political battle, or perhaps class war, going on between our highly-educated lefty elite that run virtually all of the country’s institutions, and the various largely powerless groups that in many instances oppose them. That thought certainly crossed the minds of left-wing reviewers. The New Republic said the film is “quasi-paranoid libertarianism — you can’t trust what you read in the papers, and you can’t trust the agents of the state;” Detroit News called it “an anti-authoritarian screed…informed by the current administration’s views of [journalists] as the ‘enemy of the people’;” Vulture commented “it can’t be an accident that Richard Jewell shows the enemies of truth and justice to be the FBI and the press, both of which have been targeted by the current administration.” Yes, what happened to Richard Jewell took place more than twenty years ago, and yet, given what has been going on lately, his story is inescapably timely.

External Reviews

“Richard Jewell is a study, not a diatribe, about runaway media and FBI agents victimizing an innocent man. Paul Walter Hauser commands the screen as the security guard falsely accused of the 1996 Olympics bombing in Atlanta.”
–Chicago Sun-Times

“Yes, this is a great movie, and a magnificent centerpiece performance by an unknown actor named Paul Walter Hauser in the title role is a major reason it is so unforgettable.”
–Observer

Links

Official Homepage
IMDB
Wikipedia
SNL mocks NBC for false accusation of Jewell

Act I: The Tragedy Begins

Coronavirus Appears, Chinese Authorities Try To Hide It
A worker in a Wuhan live animal food market enters hospital for an unusual flu | Dec 2019 | WSJ
Ai Wen, a director at the hospital, warns others of the disease and is told to shut up | Dec 2019 | Guardian
She subsequently disappears | Mar 2020 | OpIndia
Dr. Li Wenliang warns others of the disease, is told to shut up, and later dies of infection | Dec 2019 | BBC
Chinese authorities are aware of the deadly virus outbreak but cover it up for 3 weeks | Dec 2019 | Times
China secretly orders agents to buy up medical supplies around the world | Jan 2020 | SMH | Respekt
Confirmed: China delayed telling world while it bought up medical supplies | Jan 2020 | AP
Unaware, 40,000 families attend Wuhan festival. Wuhan will shortly be a plague city | Dec 2019 | The Star
Seven million Wuhan residents, many infected, travel around China and the world | Jan 2020 | NYT
Duped by China, WHO reports on Jan 14 no evidence of human-to-human transmission | Jan 2020 | Twitter
95% of coronavirus victims could have been spared had China been honest | Mar 2020 | USouthhampton

Chinese Citizens Try To Warn World and Are “Disappeared”
Two Wuhan bloggers attempting to tell world of virus disappear | Feb 2020 | BBC
A Chinese journalist investigating Wuhan deaths films his own arrest, disappears | Feb 2020 | Vice
Chinese businessman Ren Zhiqiang disappears after criticizing government | Apr 2020 | SCMP

China Lies About Death Toll
China estimates death toll at 3,400 | Mar 2020 | Aljazeera
Sale of urns far exceeds death toll estimate | Mar 2020 | Vice
True Wuhan death toll could be 40,000+ | Apr 2020 | WaPo
US Intelligence confirms China understating infections and death toll | Apr 2020 | Bloomberg

Widely Accepted Explanation: Many Flus Originate in There, Climate And Culinary Customs A Factor
Flus commonly originate in Asia | 2008 | Scientific American
SARS outbreak (2003) traced to coronavirus from wild animals sold in Chinese markets | 2003 | Wikpedia
Virologists warn that Chinese habit of eating wild animals is a viral “time bomb” | 2005 | CMR
Asian Flu (1957) traced to Guizhou province in China, kills one million globally | 1957 | Wikpedia
Hong Kong Flu (1968) appears in Hong Kong, kills one million globally | 1968 | Wikpedia
Bird Flu (1997) first human infection appears in Hong Hong | 1997 | Wikpedia

But Then Why Lie About It? Alternative Explanation Gains Traction…
Some note that virus first appeared in market right next to China’s only L-4 bio lab | Feb 2020 | Wikipedia
The Wuhan Institute of Virology has been in possession of this virus since 2013 | Apr 2020 | WSJ
Washington Post: Accidental release of virus from lab is a genuine possibility | Apr 2020 | WaPo
National Review: Trail leads back to Wuhan labs | Apr 2020 | NR
Bulletin of Atomic Scientists: Experts speculate virus was accidentally released | Mar 2020 | BOAS
Chinese scientists say evidence suggests virus not from Wuhan market | Apr 2020 | Express
British government ‘no longer discounting’ possibility virus leaked from lab | Apr 2020 | Yahoo
Notably, Chinese have been caught 3 times by FBI with vials of various coronavirus | Mar 2020 | Yahoo
Australian researchers say virus may be man made | May 2020 | LifeSite
Is China performing ethnic biological weapons experiments? | May 2020 | Wash Ex

Act II : Coronarvirus Spreads to Rest of Asia

Experience With SARS Led to Preparation, Culture of Mask Wearing Pays Off
Asian edge: experience with 2003 SARS outbreak forced nations to be well prepared | Mar 2020 | FT
Asian governments encourage wearing of masks to stop spread of coronavirus | Mar 2020 | Time

South Korea Among First to Do Widespread Testing
Early on, signs everywhere ask public to don masks, wash hands — most do | Feb 2020 | BI
Test is ready and approved Feb 3rd and widely distributed in test centers | Feb 2020 | NBC
South Korea’s 2015 experience with MERS taught important lessons | Mar 2020 | ScienceMag

Japanese Beat Virus Without Lockdown or Testing, Possible Mask Usage Helped
Takes minimal precautions, other than masks and cleanliness, but has few deaths | Mar 2020 | JT
Testing doesn’t explain success in containing virus — they aren’t doing much | Apr 2020 | WSJ
Coronavirus explosion expected in Japan — where is it? | Mar 2020 | Bloomberg
Infections picking up, but still low by world standards | Apr 2020 | BBC
Japan succeeds in containing COVID without drama or heroic measures | Apr 2020 | Asia Times
Bloomberg: Did Japan just beat the virus without lockdowns or mass testing? | May 2020 | Bloom

Taiwan Remarkably Well-Prepared
Country has few coronavirus deaths | Mar 2020 | Focus Taiwan
Success attributed to preparation, coordinated tracking, and use of masks | Mar 2020 | FP
Taiwan has knowhow in fighting virus, but is blocked by China from joining WHO | Mar 2020 | Time

Act III : Coronarvirus Spreads to Europe

Italy Becomes EU Epicenter
Many garment workers from China work in Italy, travel back and forth | Mar 2020 | Spectator
Patient Zero made to queue 36 hours before seen, meanwhile spreads virus in hospital | Jan 2020 | Journal
Proposal in Italy to ban travel from China dropped for fear of appearing racist | Feb 2020 | CNN
Mayor of Florence starts “hug a Chinese” campaign to encourage openness | Feb 2020 | Pluralist
CGTN, a Chinese state media outlet, releases and promotes “hug” advocacy video | Feb 2020 | YouTube
EU fails to send medical aid to Italy, when push comes to shove it’s every country for itself | Mar 2020 | FP

Spain Reacts Slowly To Danger, Becomes Second Epicenter
Guardian: Clumsy government response and poor preparation leads to tragedy | Mar 2020 | Guardian

Germany Outsources Testing to Private Sector, Rapid Response Isolates Infection
Testing outsourced to private sector. Infections quickly found and isolated | Jan 2020 | Mainichi
Early mass testing pays off: German death rates remarkably low | Jan 2020 | APNews
Germany relaxes lockdown, no second wave resurgence so far | Apr 2020 | Yahoo

Sweden Takes a Gamble on Herd Immunity
Government takes radical strategy of doing little to stop the virus | Mar 2020 | Bloomberg
WHO lauds Sweden’s light-touch no lockdown COVID policy | Apr 2020 | NY Post

UK Considers Herd Immunity Strategy, But Abandons It In Favor Of Quarantine
Two Chinese nationals arrive in UK with coronavirus and are treated | Feb 2020 | Guardian
Government considers herd immunity strategy | Mar 2020 | Guardian
Herd immunity strategy is abandoned in favor of taking more aggressive action | Mar 2020 | NY Post
UK goes into quarantine | Apr 2020 | Sun

Act IV : Coronarvirus Hits US

Trump Bans Travel, Gets Slammed For It, But Turns Out To Be Right
US Patient Zero arrives from China to WA. Half of US deaths traced to this initial infection | Jan 2020 | NR
Trump orders ban on travel from China | Jan 2020 | Homeland Security
Democrats attempt to pass “No Ban Act” to block Trump travel ban | Feb 2020 | MEE
WaPo: Trump travel ban a blow to America’s already tarnished global image | Feb 2020 | WaPo
Politico: Travel ban could backfire, reduce international cooperation | Feb 2020 | Politico
Trump expands travel ban to EU and is slammed by EU leaders | Mar 2020 | US News
Five days later, EU realizes Trump was right and closes its own external borders | Mar 2020 | WaPo
Day after that, Germany goes further, closing its borders within the EU | Mar 2020 | Politico
Dr. Anthony Fauci later says Trump’s travel ban saved many lives. “It was the right move” | Mar 2020 | Fox
CDC Director Stephen Redd: travel ban “very helpful” to cut incoming cases from China | Mar 2020 | C-SPAN

Act V : CDC and FDA Bungle Everything

First, CDC & FDA stall initial discovery of virus in US
Regulators turn down opportunity to test samples on privacy grounds | Jan 2020 | BI
After some delay, Helen Chu defies regulators, finds COVID, and sounds alarm | Jan 2020 | The Week

Second, they delay testing by a month
CDC releases faulty test kits and FDA forbids other companies from providing any | Feb 2020 | TR

Third, they mislead public on efficacy of masks, delaying adoption
CDC: Do not wear masks unless you are infected; it won’t help | Jan 2020 | Marketwatch
Fauci: “Absolutely no reason to wear a mask” | Feb 2020 | USA Today
Is CDC just saying that to conserve scarce masks for healthcare workers? | Mar 2020 | NYT
Academic study shows even partial public use of masks markedly cuts flu transmission | 2018 | RAJ
Academic study shows almost any kind of mask will help | 2008 | PlosOne
Why do masks help? Because 80% of COVID-19 spreads from asymptomatic people | Mar 2020 | UPI
Asians wear masks to cut spread of disease, not for self-protection | Mar 2020 | Telegraph
Experts doubt CDC recommendation, say Americans should wear masks | Mar 2020 | NYT
WHO stands by claim that masks don’t do any good | Mar 2020 | CNN
Cato: CDC’s “noble lie” on masks to conserve supply undermines public trust | Mar 2020 | Cato
Reason for US mask shortage: stockpile depleted by Obama admin and never restored | Mar 2020 | WashEx
Factcheck: USA Today confirms Obama admin responsible for mask shortage | Mar 2020 | USA Today
Have a mask? You may still not be allowed to wear it. Some states ban them | Mar 2020 | Reason
Humiliated CDC “considers” recommending public should consider wearing masks | Apr 2020 | WaPo
Some places not waiting: San Diego orders mandatory face coverings | Apr 2020 | Sandiegoville
CDC officially backs down, recommends masks, citing “new evidence” | Apr 2020 | Twitter
Study: Use of masks cuts COVID spread by 75% | May 2020 | SFGate

Fourth, they confuse two types of COVID tests and screw up interpretation
Amateur Hour: Incredibly, CDC conflates viral tests and antibody tests | May 2020 | Atlantic

Fifth, they get in the way of medical supply chain
Mask shortage worsened by regulatory delays in approving new non-US providers | Mar 2020 | Reason
Mask manufacturers attempt to ramp up production, but stalled by regulators | Mar 2020 | Reason
Warehouses of desperately needed sanitation supplies wait and wait for inspection | Mar 2020 | WashEx
FDA stops distillers from making desperately needed hand sanitizer | Apr 2020 | Reason
L.A. bureaucrats shut down restaurants for selling groceries without a permit | Mar 2020 | Reason

Babylon Bee nails it…
CDC admits they have been looking through microscope upside down | May 2020 | BB

Turns out, CDC had other priorities than containing disease
As COVID approached, CDC was busy fighting war on drugs | May 2020 | Reason

Act VI : New York City Becomes US Epicenter

Bad advice: NY Mayor De Blasio says just go on normally if you’re under 50 | Mar 2020 | NYMag
MIT: NYC subway was major disseminator of virus | Apr 2020 | NYPost
Two months into crisis, NY says it will start sterilizing subways | Apr 2020 | CNBC
Mistake: Governor Cuomo forced nursing homes to accept COVID patients | Apr 2020 | BI
Mistake II: NY didn’t bother checking to see if nursing home deaths rose | Apr 2020 | NY Post
Hiding Mistake: NY undercounted nursing home deaths after scrutiny | Apr 2020 | Daily Caller
Bombshell: Over 4,300 infected COVID patients sent to NY nursing homes | May 2020 | Fox
Nepotism: NY Mayor De Blasio appoints wife to COVID equality task force | Apr 2020 | NY Post
Most new COVID cases were stay-at-home, not saved by lockdown | May 2020 | NYDN
NYT: New York City is primary source of new infections in US | May 2020 | NYT
Governor Cuomo: Volunteer heroes must pay NY state income taxes | May 2020 | Fox

Act VI : Media TDS Syndrome Shows

ABC: US vulnerable because Trump foolishly closed pandemic office for budget cut : Mar 2020 | ABC
No, the White House didn’t dissolve its pandemic response office | Mar 2020 | WaPo

Trump shipped our equipment to China while minimizing US risk | Mar 2020 | CNN
Trump sent millions of masks and ventilators to China when US needed them most | Apr 2020 | WaPo
Oops, no Trump didn’t send our equipment to China | Apr 2020 | WaPo
Anatomy of the smear detailed | Apr 2020 | Legal Insurrection

Act VII : How Seriously To Take It? The Public Gets Mixed Messages

On 1/21, Fauci: Coronavirus: “Not a major threat to US” | Jan 2020 | Daily Caller
On 1/29. Mother Jones: Flu is much deadlier | Jan 2020 | MJ
On 1/31: VOX: Is this going to be a deadly pandemic? No. | Jan 2020 | Twitter
On 1/31. Washington Post: Reality check: Flu is much bigger threat than coronavirus | Jan 2020 | WaPo
On 2/2, NY Mayor De Blasio: virus hard to contract, don’t worry about subway | Feb 2020 | NYC
On 2/3: Washington Post: Be wary of an aggressive government response to virus | Feb 2020 | WaPo
On 2/7: Daily Beast: Flu, not coronavirus, is the real threat | Feb 2020 | Twitter
On 2/24, Nancy Pelosi: Come to Chinatown celebration. It’s “perfectly safe” | Feb 2020 | Summit
On 2/29, Fauci: No need to change anything you’re doing, risk is low | Feb 2020 | NBC
On 3/3, WHO: COVID-19 not as contagious as flu, asymptomatic not contagious | Mar 2020 | WHO
On 3/4, CNN’s Anderson Cooper: Flu a bigger danger than COVID-19 | Mar 2020 | Daily Caller
On 3/9, Fauci: Want to go on a cruise ship? Sure, as long as you’re healthy | Mar 2020 | Forbes
On 3/9, Donald Trump: flu kills more people than coronavirus | Mar 2020 | Reuters
On 3/21, NY Mayor De Blasio: just go on normally if you’re under 50 | Mar 2020 | NYMag

Act VIII : Calling It Wuhan Virus or Chinese Virus Is Racist

Washington Post: Trump using term “Chinese Virus” is dangerous | Mar 2020 | Washington Post
The Hill: Trump use of “Chinese Virus” is xenophobic and racist | Mar 2020 | The Hill
NY Times: Trump ginning up violent attacked on Asians with use of term | Mar 2020 | NYT

Act IX : If It Saves Even One Life, It’s Worth It To Wreck Economy Indefinitely

NY Governor Cuomo: “If everything we do saves just one life, I’ll be happy.” | Mar 2020 | NYPost
ABC: Trump’s push to open economy could come at cost of lives | Mar 2020 | ABC
Shutdown could cost more lives than COVID-19 | Apr 2020 | Boston Herald
Focus on COVID to cost 1.4 million lives, as focus on TB reduced | May 2020 | Guardian
Cuomo maintains each human life “priceless,” so no limit to lockdown | May 2020 | Reason

Act X : Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ): Miracle or False Lead?

Trump touts HCQ as possible cure, but results are mixed
Trump pushes FDA to fast-track treatments for coronavirus | Mar 2020 | CNN
He tweets anti-malarial drug HCQ has a chance of being a “game changer” | Mar 2020 | Axios
Chloroquine is a potent inhibitor of SARS coronavirus infection and spread | 2005 | Virology
French researchers release another study showing HCQ works | Mar 2020 | TechStartUps
FDA quietly removes objection to HCQ | Mar 2020 | FDA
Survey of 6,000 coronavirus doctors: HCQ best treatment available | Apr 2020 | Daily Mail
VA study find HCQ ineffective on sickest COVID-19 patients | Apr 2020 | Medrxiv

Trump blamed for poisoning, but details don’t add up
Wife claims she accidentally poisons husband, allegedly based on Trump tweet | Mar 2020 | Axios
NBC falsely reports she gave husband chloroquine, not cholorquine phosphate | Mar 2020 | NBC
It turns out his wife was very anti-Trump, prolific donor to Democrats | Mar 2020 | WFB
Some speculate it was murder, wife was unhappy with marriage | Mar 2020 | American Thinker
Victim was intelligent, engineer, not type to fall for offbeat claims | Apr 2020 | Free Beacon
Police open investigation into victim’s death | Apr 2020 | Free Beacon

Act XI | Our Friend China

Sends faulty tests to the West
Chinese test kits worse than nothing, have up to 80% error rate | Mar 2020 | WashEx
China supplied faulty coronavirus test kits to Spain, Czech Republic | Mar 2020 | Yahoo
Antibody tests China sold to UK have too many errors to be usable | Apr 2020 | Daily Caller

Tries to control global medical supplies, uses them for leverage
China secretly orders agents to buy up medical supplies around the world | Jan 2019 | SMH | Respekt
China blocks US manufacturers located there from exporting supplies to US | Apr 2020 | Summit
Claim: Chinese medical supply sale conditional on adopting internet technology | Apr 2020 | WashEx

Attempts to control narrative to blame virus on US, incite public panic
China alleges US may be source of coronavirus | Mar 2020 | Twitter
China weaving disinformation campaign blaming US for coronavirus | Mar 2020 | Daily Signal
China rewrites virus origin story with anti-American FB and Instagram ads | Apr 2020 | DT
Chinese twitter troll claims it’s China that’s free, not US, gets burned | Apr 2020 | Twitchy
Chinese agents use social media to spread scary virus disinformation | Apr 2020 | WashEx
NYT: Chinese spread messages claiming Trump to invoke martial law | Apr 2020 | NYT
China tries to block EU report showing they disseminate misinformation | Apr 2020 | DT

Blocks research into virus origin
Chinese universities deleting published research on coronavirus origins | Apr 2020 | Fox

Act XII | Our Friend World Health Organization (WHO)

WHO has no idea what’s happening, offers contradictory advice
WHO In Jan: No worries, it’s not communicable | Jan 2020 | Twitter
WHO in Feb: Oh wait, it’s communicable after all | Feb 2020 | WHO
WHO in Feb: China has contained it! Praise Dear Leader Xi! | Feb 2020 | WaPo
WHO in Mar: COVID has a 3.4% death rate! Run away! | Mar 2020 | KFF
WHO in Mar: Danger! Don’t stop lock downs too early! | Mar 2020 | NY Post
WHO in Apr: No need for lock down after all, stop panicking | Apr 2020 | NY Post

WHO is owned by China
Foreign Policy: How WHO became China’s coronavirus accomplice | Apr 2020 | FP
No matter what China does, WHO keeps praising them | Feb 2020 | WaPo
Why can’t WHO can’t talk about Taiwan? Because WHO is owned by China | Mar 2020 | BBC
Taiwan has knowhow in fighting virus, but is blocked by China from joining WHO | Mar 2020 | Time

WHO director is communist, covered up earlier epidemics, China got him the job
WHO director was among top members of Ethiopia’s Communist Party | Apr 2020 | Summit
WHO director accused of covering up 3 cholera epidemics in Ethiopia | 2017 | NY Times
WHO director got his job thanks to China, now he covers for them | Mar 2020 | Daily Caller

WHO is generally corrupt and incompetent
WHO gives North Korea $900K to fight coronavirus despite no reported cases | Apr 2020 | Fox
WHO spends twice as much on travel as medical supplies | Mar 2020 | Daily Caller
WHO stands by claim that masks don’t do any good | Mar 2020 | CNN
Who done it: complete analysis of trail of corruption at WHO | Apr 2020 | Healthcare Blog

Act XIII | Hypocrisy and Hubris

Media
Media whitewashing early coverage, changing headlines, deleting tweets | Mar 2020 | | Daily Caller
CNN anchor claim to be in quarantine belied by public altercation with cyclist | Apr 2020 | NYPost
CNN journo slams Trump for not wearing mask, then removes hers as cameras off | May 2020 | Fox

Politicians
Chicago Mayor Lightfoot had her hair done while condemning others for same | Apr 2020 | NBC
Pro-beach closure Congressman Rouda (D) caught at private beach | May 2020 | The Blaze
New Zealand health minister demoted after caught breaking lockdown | Apr 2020 | Guardian
Wisconsin governor admits wife and family violated his stay at home order | May 2020 | Chicago Trib

Experts
Top COVID research alarmist resigns after caught breaking lockdown | May 2020 | Telegraph
Neil Ferguson, aka “Dr. Lockdown,” disgraced after caught breaking lockdown | May 2020 | Spectator

Act XIV | Those Who Would Sacrifice Liberty For a Little Safety

Google gives location data to health officials to supposedly combat coronavirus | Apr 2020 | LI

Act XV | How Bad Is It Really Going To Be?

Early estimates now appear greatly exaggerated
Death toll could reach 50 million globally | Feb 2020 | New Scientist
WHO projects COVID-19 death rate at 3.4% | Mar 2020 | ScienceAlert
Trump says he has “hunch” will be less than 1%, publicly ridiculed | Mar 2020 | NPR
Scientists estimate 1.4% death rate, less than half that projected by WHO | Mar 2020 | Stat News
Iceland is doing very widespread testing, so far finding virus less deadly | Apr 2020 | Reason
Fauci lowers death projection by half to 60,000 | Apr 2020 | Bloomberg
Stanford study shows virus more common than estimated | Apr 2020 | ABC

Imperial college model that started panic now discredited
Mar: Imperial College estimates US deaths at 2.2 million | Mar 2020 | Mother Jones
Mar: Imperial lowers death toll estimates | Mar 2020 | Reason
May: Top Imperial alarmist caught violating social distancing, resigns | May 2020 | Telegraph
May: IT experts say Imperial COVID model “riddled with bugs” | May 2020 | Legal In

Death count methods seem intended to maximize number
Pathology prof notes inconsistencies in data, unclear how many dying from COVID | Mar 2020 | Spectator
Coronavirus deaths not counted consistently; definitional disagreement | Apr 2020 | Phil Inquirer
Nine in ten COVID-19 deaths have pre-existing condition | Apr 2020 | BBC
More than 99% of Italy’s COVID-19 deaths had pre-existing condition | Apr 2020 | Bloomberg
COVID-19 death definition changed to include “likely, but not tested” | Apr 2020 | AP
Factcheck: True, hospitals do get paid more if patient is listed as COVID-19 | Apr 2020 | USA Today

Act XVI | What Might Save Us?

Sun, heat, humidity
Analysis reveals the virus spreads more slowly in humid, warm climates | March 2020 | SSRN
This is consistent with the known virucidal effects of the sun | Nov 2005 | Journal of Virology
Virus rarely spreads outdoors, the danger is groups of people indoors | Apr 2020 | MedRxIv
Government study: Sunlight destroys virus quickly | Apr 2020 | Yahoo
Lesson from Spanish Flu: Patients recover better outside | Mar 2020 | Medium
Evidence mounts that being outside is safer | May 2020 | The Hill

Vitamin D
Also possible sun-stimulated vitamin D inhibits the virus, as it does for flu | Dec 2010 | IJID
Indonesian study: death rates dramatically different as function of vitamin D | Apr 2020 | SSRN
Phillippine study: Vitamin D significantly associated with clinical outcomes | Apr 2020 | SSRN
Vitamin D generally reduces risk of respiratory infections | Mar 2020 | MDPI

Artificial UV light
UV sterilization via far-UVC light has been proposed as way to reduce flu epidemics | Apr 2018 | LFW
New device shines UV-A light inside human body to kill viruses | Apr 2020 | Nasdaq
UV technology promises to kill viruses in public places | Apr 2020 | ColumbiaU
NYC bakery installs UVC lighting it bid to kill virus | May 2020 | NYEater
NYC subway installs 150 UVC lights in pilot project | May 2020 | CBS

Pack of smokes?
Smokers four times less likely to contract COVID-19 | Apr 2020 | DT

Act XVII | Wait, What? Lockdowns May Have Been A Mistake?!

Wall Street Journal: No correlation with lockdowns and reduced death rate | Apr 2020 | WSJ
WHO lauds Sweden’s light-touch no lockdown COVID policy | Apr 2020 | NY Post
Germany relaxes lockdown, no second wave resurgence so far | Apr 2020 | Yahoo
Study: Banning mass gatherings helped, but full lockdowns didn’t | May 2020 | Daily Mail
In 1968 Flu Pandemic, country didn’t lock down, had Woodstock instead | Apr 2020 | AIER
Bloomberg: Did Japan just beat the virus without lockdowns or mass testing? | May 2020 | Bloom
In CA, deaths by suicide now exceed those by COVID | May 2020 | Wash Ex

Additional References

Does blood type affect resistance to virus? | Mar 2020 | MSN
3M doubles mask production overnight, to produce a billion masks for US | Mar 2020 | Bloomberg
COVID-19 spread by droplets, not aerosol transmission | Apr 2020 | CDC
Parachute trials demonstrate need for double blind testing | 2003 | BMJ
PA workers toil nonstop 28 day shift to produce face mask materials | Apr 2020 | WaPo
Are quarantine orders constitutional? Yes, there is precedent | Apr 2020 | PacificLegal
Mathematicians: Gatherings larger than 23 will spread virus | Apr 2020 | Science News
CA police stand down after US Marine veteran challenges their integrity | May 2020 | YouTube

A small clique of Congressmen create a cloning facility to produce replacement body parts for themselves—from captive human clones. [ Parts: The Clonus Horror credits: Dir: Robert S. Fiveson/ Tim Donnelly, Dick Sargent, Peter Graves/ 90 min/ Horror/ Democide, Corrupt Government]

“Parts: The Clonus Horror has the distinction of being the only libertarian horror movie of which I am aware.”

As if the efforts of entrenched politicians to obstruct term limits weren’t bad enough, in Parts: The Clonus Horror we are exposed to the very real horror of them all living eternally “for the good of the people.” At one point a senator involved in this cloning program attempts to justify his personal harvest of flesh by pointing out how different the world might have been if only Franklin Roosevelt had been able to live a few hundred years. That image alone justifies the film’s R rating. However, the traditional blood-and-guts type of horror is mercifully limited to a few scenes, aside from which this film isn’t much worse than watching a typical week’s worth of Middle East news coverage.

As we learn in the opening, Clonus is a medical facility where clones are created, raised, fattened, and harvested, as it were. Most of the clones are given a dumbing down treatment at early birth, so they aren’t clever enough to realize what’s going to happen to them ultimately. They’re told that all the healthy stuff they’re made to do—eating a strict diet, exercising, etc.—is just a preparation for being sent to a sort of far away heaven.

In fact, they’re being prepared for cryogenic storage, a deep freeze, at the peak of perfection. Each clone is an exact genetic copy of a congressman or other “important” person selected by the government. Once frozen, these clones provide a ready supply of organ replacement parts to keep alive those in power. It’s all working perfectly until one of the few smart clones starts to get wise to what’s going on and runs away. Instantly the feds and the Clonus administrators are hot on his trail. His only hope: to somehow convince others of the truth before he’s killed.

Production values are on the low side and the screenplay at times stretches credulity, but it nonetheless holds your attention. Parts: The Clonus Horror has the distinction of being the only libertarian horror movie of which I am aware. That novelty alone makes it worth watching. Also listed simply as Clonus Horror.

Links

IMDB
Wikipedia

Related Film: Forced Organ Harvesting in China: Four Films
“An undercover BBC investigation reveals that the Chinese government is harvesting prisoners on a ‘just in time’ basis for organ transplants.”
–MissLiberty.com

Ealing Studios was by no means a hotbed of free-marketers. Studio head Michael Balcon was an explicit supporter of the post-war Labour government, and indeed under his management the studio produced some films very sympathetic to socialism, such as They Came to a City. But even in these productions you sense not so much a desire for the heavy hand of government intervention, as simply a yearning for the return of the “we’re all in this together” community spirit of wartime Britain, and for people to just be kind and decent to one another.

In any case, the five Ealing films noted here for their libertarian content — usually consisting of mild organized resistance to the kind of bureaucracies typically associated with the classic welfare state — express a tone very much against the domination of the individual (or groups of individuals) by the State.

These films are notable as well for being some of the best examples of British comedy ever produced, still popular sixty years later, as evidenced by their recent digitally-remastered re-release.

The first of these was produced in 1949. Passport to Pimlico tells the story of a London borough, which discovers through the unearthing of an ancient document that it has a legal basis for secession. For a short time the borough declares itself an independent country, and benefits in that moment from the repeal of licensing and quotas. The independence doesn’t last, but the film nonetheless has the tone of pushing back a bit against the heavy hand of bureaucracy.

Whiskey Galore, also released in 1949, is very much in the same attitude. It relates a tale of comedic desperation, in which a small Scottish village has run out of its beloved whiskey. Suddenly a shipload of liquor runs aground just offshore. The villagers are just about to recover the cargo, when an uptight official forbids it because the cargo has not been taxed. That brings the village together in a small rebellion against the official’s authority, and everyone gets their whiskey after all.

A third film in the same vein, Green Grow the Rushes, was released in 1951. In this film, an old charter granted by a king entitles the locals to a degree of independence but the central government no longer respects that ancient legal document (one thinks of the Magna Carta). The locals, however, have not forgotten their rights, so when the Ministry of Agriculture sends in officious bureaucrats to improve agricultural production by meddling with local farms, the bureaucrats find the community to be…just a bit uncooperative. (It was actually produced not by Ealing but by A.C.T. Films Ltd. However, the film so successfully mirrors the Ealing style it is commonly included among the “Ealing comedies.”)

The same year produced my personal favorite libertarian film of all, The Man in the White Suit, about a research scientist who invents a revolutionary new fabric that is both indestructible and stainproof. When unions and manufacturing interests realize that an everlasting fabric would mean an end to their jobs and profits, they gang together and bring in government regulators to stop the inventor. In an odd coincidence, the story pits Alec Guiness (who would later play Obiwan Kenobe, of Star Wars fame) in the lead against a wizened, slow-moving Lord of The Ministry of Trade, who wheezes menacingly, not unlike Darth Vader, Obiwan’s nemesis of twenty years later.

One last libertarian film came out in 1957, All at Sea (titled Barnacle Bill in the UK). Alec Guiness again starred, this time as a retired Royal Navy captain who decides to invest in an amusement pier. Shortly after purchasing the pier, corrupt local officials decide to condemn and seize it for their own benefit. But the captain, the proud descendent of a long-line of seafarers, is no pushover, and he knows something of maritime law and naval battlefield tactics!

Libertarians will find much to enjoy in these five films, and fans of British humor in particular should certainly see them without fail.

It’s an odd thing that they were made in such a short period by this small studio. One suspects that interesting political conversations were going on there, at least among a few. Two of these films, The Man in the White Suit and Whiskey Galore, were directed by Alexander Mackendrick, and two, Passport to Pimlico and All at Sea, were written by T.E.B. Clarke.

Links

Ealing, 1947-1956
Fiction & Politics: The Meaning of iEaling
IMDB: iEaling Studios
Our Mild Revolution
The shadow cast by iEaling comedies is no laughing matter
Wikipedia: iEaling Studios

Daylight saving creates chaos among the populace. [2 min]

Comedian Michael McIntyre jokes about daylight saving time. [1 min]

A short segment from the John Oliver show mocks daylight saving time. [3 min]

The standard opening to Perry Mason is finally explained as a daylight saving error. [1 min]

Harvard School of Public Health experts discuss the health risks of daylight saving. [2 min]

Related Links

“If you ask someone why we have DST, the most likely answer you’ll hear is that we change the clocks to help farmers. But daylight saving time has nothing to do with agriculture, except that farmers have historically opposed it, preferring morning sunlight to darkness when, say, milking the cows. The annual time changes are about energy conservation…But does this actually save energy? Recent studies suggest it has the opposite effect.”
–The New York Times: DST Wastes Energy

“Despite mounting evidence that DST fails in its primary goal of saving energy, some form of DST is still practiced by over 1.5 billion people in over 60 countries. I demonstrate that DST imposes high social costs on Americans, specifically, an increase in fatal automobile crashes.”
–University of Colorado: Working Paper No. 14-05. Spring Forward at Your Own Risk: DST and Fatal Vehicle Crashes

“It was New York City (not the nation’s farmers, as many incorrectly believe) that rallied for DST reinstatement. Pressured by bankers and brokers who wanted to capitalize on the hour of arbitrage daylight-savings allowed with the London markets, the New York City Board of Aldermen lobbied it into law in 1920. The practice spread mostly haphazardly through the country, despite occasional efforts to enforce uniformity. While the history is awash in tedious legislative minutiae, Downing brings it to life by dramatizing politicians and various industries pitted against one another in absurd, often hilarious debates.”
–Publishers Weekly: [Review] SPRING FORWARD: The Annual Madness of DST
–-Book: Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of DST

“Arizona participated for one summer. Then we realized what an awful idea it was to have more sunlight in the evening. Longer sunlight means more air conditioning and more energy used. And more misery. In a nearly unanimous vote, Arizona legislators agreed to opt out of daylight-saving time in 1967.”
–AZCentral: Why doesn’t Arizona observe DST?

“If you feel groggy, grumpy and tired, and (rightly) blame DST for your woes, take solace in this: You’re not alone, and politicians are taking note. Elected officials in a dozen states are currently considering legislation to opt out of changing the clocks, either by remaining permanently on daylight saving time or standard time.”
–Washington Post: A bunch of states want to get rid of DST

“Most recently, a 2014 study published in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, seemed to corroborate what a number of other studies have already found: Daylight Saving Time, or DST, might do precious little to save energy, and may even increase energy consumption on the whole. Meanwhile, other studies have suggested links between DST and a variety of disturbing social outcomes, including increases in heart attacks and upticks in criminal behavior.”
–Forbes: Negligible Energy Savings, Possibly Deadly?

“Here are the five strangest ways that daylight saving time, and the ending of it, affect human health: 1) More car accidents 2) Increased workplace injuries 3) More heart attacks 4) Longer cyberloafing 5) Increased cluster headaches.”
–Live Science: 5 Weird Effects of DST