Miss Liberty's Film & Documentary World

George Bailey Based on Real-Life Banker: A.P. Giannini

December 5, 2023

George Bailey, the good-guy banker in Frank Capra’s classic Christmas film It’s a Wonderful Life, was inspired by a real-life good-guy: A.P. Giannini, the man who invented banking for the ordinary person.

Giannini’s life story is one of entrepreneurial legend. In the late 1800s, when banks lent only to the rich, he saw an opportunity to extend banking services to the broader market. Of course, at the time most people had little equity on which to base a loan. So Giannini based his loans not on wealth but on character. His little bank for the ordinary guy revolutionized the banking industry, not only in the US but globally, and grew into…Bank of America.

In 1906, this policy was put to the ultimate test. The San Francisco earthquake wiped out a large part of the city, and left thousands homeless and destitute. Giannini did the unthinkable: when all other banks were closed and his own bank building destroyed, he reopened his bank in the street, operating from a plank of wood across two barrels, making loans to strangers with no credit and no identification. “Giannini made loans on a handshake to those interested in rebuilding. Years later, he would recount that every single loan was repaid.”

In this clip from It’s a Wonderful Life, George Bailey argues for extending credit to ordinary working people, just as A.P. Giannini once tried (unsuccessfully) to convince the savings & loan bank he originally worked at to do just that. When the bank declined, he started Bank of Italy, later renamed Bank of America.

Holodomor Holocaust Remembered In Four Films

November 25, 2023

Holodomor (“to kill by starvation) is what Ukrainians call the period from 1932-1933, when Stalin created a forced famine to punish the Ukraine’s resistance to socialist collectivization. Estimates vary as to how many Ukrainians died, ranging from three million to twelve million. This tragedy and crime are remembered on Holomodor Remembrance Day. Here are four films to honor the dead.

We Remember, We Are Strong

…two short one-minute films to honor those lost.

Bitter Harvest

A young Ukrainian fights for his freedom, and to survive, as occupying Soviet troops deliberately starve his country into submission during the infamous Holodomor holocaust. [ Bitter Harvest credits: Dir: George Mendeluk/ Max Irons, Samantha Barks, Terence Stamp/ 103 min/ Drama, Romance, History/ Democide, Anti-socialism/ 2017]

“This cinematic telling is both long overdue and a small drop of justice for the victims whose stories were never told.”
–MissLiberty.com

“Must-see, dramatic, powerful story.”
–MovieGuide

Mr. Jones

Mr. Jones is a new film about Gareth Jones, the journalist-hero who first tried to warn the world about communist atrocities in the Ukraine — and died for it.

“The story of Gareth Jones is such a fascinating one, built on such intrepid, one-man-against-the-system ideals, that it’s a wonder it hasn’t been filmed into oblivion over the past 80 years. A young Welsh journalist who blew the first public whistle on the Holodomor — the man-made famine of 1932-33 in Soviet Ukraine — only to be broadly discredited by his professional peers and murdered before his 30th birthday, he was the quintessential man who knew too much.”
—Variety

The Soviet Story

The untold story of Soviet mass murder. [ The Soviet Story credits: Dir: Edvins Snore/ 86 min/ Documentary/ Democide, Anti-Socialism]

“Gripping, audacious and uncompromising…”
–The Economist

“For those who think they’ve seen everything they need to know about wartime Europe, this film will provide an extraordinary jolt to the senses… ”
–Film Threat

Harvest of Despair: The Unknown Holocaust

One of the twentieth-century’s biggest and least-known genocides, in which as many as seven million Ukrainians perished at the hands of the Soviet government, is examined using interviews of survivors, photographic evidence and scholarly commentary. Based on the Robert Conquest book Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror Famine. [ Harvest of Despair: The Unknown Holocaust credits: Dir: Slavko Nowytski, Yurij Luhovy/ 55 min/ Documentary/ Democide, Anti-socialism]

Thanksgiving: a Celebration of Property Rights?!

November 22, 2023

Journalist John Stossel explains how Thanksgiving would have been (and nearly was) “Starvation Day,” but for a change in policy from communal planting to…private property. [4 min/ Anti-socialism, Econ 101]

Reason tells the the true story of how the introduction of property rights by Governor Bradford saved the Pilgrims. [3 min/ Anti-socialism, Econ 101]

The original account of Governor Bradford, 1647

“All this while no supply was heard of, neither knew they when they might expect any. So they began to think how they might raise as much corn as they cold, and obtain a better crop than they had done, that they might not still languish in misery. At length, after much debate of things, the Governor (with the advice of the chiefest among them) gave way that they should set corn every man for his own particular, and in that regard trust to themselves; in all other things to go on in the general way as before. And so assigned to every family a parcel of land, according to the proportion of their number, for that end, only for present use (but made no division for inheritance) and ranged all boys and youth under some family. This had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Governor or any other could use, and saved him a great deal of trouble, and gave far better content. The women now went willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn; which before would allege weakness and inability; whom to have compelled would have thought great tyranny and oppression.”

“The experience that was had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years and that amongst godly and sober men, may well evince the vanity of that conceit of Plato’s and other ancients applauded by some of later times; that the taking away or property and bringing into community into a commonwealth would make them happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God. For this community (so far as it was) was found to breed much confusion and discontent and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For the young men, that were most able and fit for labour and service, did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children without any recompense. The strong, or man of parts, had no more division of victuals and clothes than he that was weak and not able to do a quarter the other could; this was thought injustice. The aged and graver men to be ranked and equalized in labors and victuals, clothes, etc. with the meaner and younger sort, thought it was some indignity and disrespect unto them. And for mens’s wives to be commanded to do service for other men, as dressing their meat, washing their clothes, etc., they deemed it a kind of slavery, neither could many husbands well brook it.”
Of Plymouth Plantation, 1620-1647, William Bradford

Links about Thanksgiving and property rights

This Thanksgiving, Be Grateful for Property Rights. The Pilgrims Nearly Starved Without Them, John Stossel, Reason
Giving Thanks for Property Rights, Caroline Baum, Economics21
How A Failed Commune Gave Us What Is Now Thanksgiving, Jerry Bowyer, Forbes
Thanksgiving: Pilgrims, property rights and prosperity, Hugh Whelchel, The Washington Post
How Private Property Saved the Pilgrims, Ilya Somin, The Volokh Conspiracy
The First Thanksgiving: How property rights transformed Plymouth Colony, Frank Miniter, National Review
JOHN STOSSEL: The Lost Lesson of Thanksgiving, John Stossel, Fox News
The Great Thanksgiving Hoax, Richard J. Maybury, Mises Institute
Our First Thanksgiving, Sartell Prentice Jr., The Foundation for Economic Education

Happy Veterans Day!

November 11, 2023

Freedom isn’t free. Here’s a sweet short film as thanks to the armed forces, who have held at bay those who would take our freedom from us. Happy Veterans Day!

The Berlin Wall: Eight Films To Honor the Dead

November 8, 2023

The infamous Berlin Wall was socialism itself: concrete and razor wire in the name of humanity, guard towers and machine guns in the name of human progress. It’s ostensible purpose was to protect vulnerable East Germans from invasion, but as a practical matter it was simply a way of preventing the slave populations of the USSR from escaping to the West.

By the time it finally fell on November 9th, 1989, 5,000 had attempted to cross it, most ending up in brutal labor camps and about 200 killed on the spot. And yet, so unhappy was life behind the Iron Curtain, that young people in particular never stopped trying to breach it. The following films remember the Wall and its victims.

The first victim of the Berlin Wall was 18-year-old Peter Fechter.

The moment he was shot down by East German border guards as he tried to cross the barrier to the West, the Berlin Wall quite suddenly became real because everyone near the wall saw him die.

“Peter Fechter (14 January 1944 – 17 August 1962) was a German bricklayer from Berlin in what became East Germany in 1945.” –Wikipedia

Despite the risk, many made heroic escapes, particularly in the beginning when the Wall was not fully completed, as captured in this early news reel.

Inspired by these heroic escapes, a young George Lucas, later of Star Wars fame, would make one of his earliest short films, Freiheit.

A number of tunnels were attempted, some successful. Several films were made on the subject, including Berlin Tunnel 21 starring Richard Thomas, and the German film Der Tunnel.

One of the most daring escapes, in which a family used a hot air balloon to get out, was made into an excellent film by Disney, Night Crossing.

This was remade in 2020, with the release of the German film Balloon.

The human cost of the Berlin Wall was not only human life as such, but human misery on a scale unimaginable. It separated loved ones quite suddenly, and for decades. That cost is well captured in The Promise, a film about a young couple in love. It begins with their attempted escape to the West. The man slips, hesitates, and before he knows it the moment is lost. His girlfriend goes on and makes it to the West, but he is left behind. It isn’t clear why he hesitated. Was it fear of being caught? We and he don’t know. But his failure fills him with guilt, compounded by his subsequent draft into the border guard service. Each further opportunity for him to escape is lost by bad luck and his own lack of daring. And as time goes by, he makes one compromise after another to survive until finally he is doing whatever the state wants him to do just to have the slight crumbs of happiness they allow him.

Then one day a speech that almost didn’t happen changed everything. Speechwriter Peter Robinson was told by US diplomats to write a speech for President Reagan’s visit to the Berlin Wall, but was warned against any “commie bashing.” He didn’t take their advice, and Reagan loved what he wrote. “Tear Down This Wall” became an iconic moment of the Cold War.

Enough time has apparently passed that Germans can now laugh about the Wall, in a sort of bittersweet way. The German-made comedy Good Bye Lenin! captures, in its own ironic way, the fall of communism far better than any straightforward telling. At one level, it’s a delightful farce that relentlessly mocks East Germany’s socialist past, but at another it also touches on the emotional perspective of many former East Germans, that in the transition to freedom…their side, the side they had been taught to love, lost.

Daylight Saving: Libertarian Video Shorts

November 3, 2023

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

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