A review of PBS’s “Bonnie & Clyde” (American Experience)

It’s strange that people romanticize Bonnie & Clyde, since they murdered 11 people (or more) …

It’s strange that people romanticize Bonnie & Clyde, since they murdered eleven people or more. Wikipedia says that it must have been at least thirteen, consisting of nine police officers and four civilians at the very least. Whatever the exact number, they were among the most notorious outlaws in American history. They were especially known for their bank robberies, although they preferred to rob filling stations and small stores instead. They were active during the Great Depression, and usually operated in the Central United States. Most people wouldn’t know the names of their gang’s other members, but many have heard of Bonnie & Clyde themselves. There’s a certain air of romanticism to them, which has long been hard for me to understand. People seem especially to love the romance between the two main figures.

A review of the BBC’s “The Plantagenets”

“No scutage nor aid [i.e. forms of medieval taxation] shall be imposed on our kingdom, unless by common counsel of our kingdom [which is the beginning of Parliament], except for ransoming our person, for making our eldest son a knight, and for once marrying our eldest daughter; and for these there shall not be levied more than a reasonable aid. In like manner it shall be done concerning aids from the city of London.”

– English translation of Magna Carta (1215), originally written in Medieval Latin, which was forcibly signed by King John, one of the Plantagenet kings

Backstabbings, assassinations, and civil wars: The story of Britain’s bloodiest dynasty

“The story of the Plantagenets,” says the box for this DVD, “is the real Game of Thrones.” Although I’ve not seen the show “Game of Thrones,” I know its reputation, and so this may actually be a good comparison – although this program, thankfully, has no sex scenes in it; while the show “Game of Thrones” does. The Plantagenet story is filled with violence, both on the personal and national levels. On the personal level, kings were murdered by those in their own families who were next in line for the throne – sometimes in clear ways, and other times in ways that were merely suspicious; but which raised more than a few eyebrows at the time. And on the national level, the struggles to control the throne often sucked in the rest of the country as well, dragging England into multiple civil wars. This was one of the surprises for me, that there were multiple civil wars just during the Plantagenet reign. The most well-known are the fifteenth-century “Wars of the Roses,” which I cover in a different blog post. But there were others as well, showing that monarchy is actually a fairly unstable form of government. Ironically, the supporters of monarchy have often defended it as the most stable form of government imaginable, but the story of the Plantagenets tends to suggest otherwise, with a fairly high body count by the time that their reign was concluded in 1485.

Edward the First

A review of PBS’s “The Perfect Crime” (American Experience)

Leopold and Loeb had committed the “perfect crime” … or had they?

In 1924, one of the most infamous murders in American history was committed. 19-year-old Nathan Leopold and 18-year-old Richard Loeb (better known as “Leopold and Loeb”) murdered a 14-year-old boy named Bobby Franks. The boy was Loeb’s second cousin and across-the-street neighbor. Bobby Franks had played tennis at the Loeb residence several times. The two men tried to lure him into their car as he walked home from school. The boy seems initially to have refused, because his destination was only two blocks away. But Loeb successfully persuaded the boy to enter the car, to discuss a tennis racket that he had been using. As Wikipedia puts it, “Loeb struck Franks, who was sitting in front of him in the passenger seat, several times in the head with [a] chisel, then dragged him into the back seat and gagged him, where he died.”

A review of John Stuart Mill’s “On Liberty” (audiobook)

This audiobook changed my mind about utilitarianism. In my college years, I was a fan of utilitarianism. Now, I’m a little soured on it. I still have great respect for some of John Stuart Mill’s arguments, such as the need for a “marketplace of ideas,” and free competition between these ideas in that marketplace. But his utilitarian ideas, the ideas for which John Stuart Mill is best known, are no longer very appealing to me. It’s because of this audiobook that I changed my mind about these ideas, and came to see them as inadequate and unconvincing.

John Stuart Mill

A review of Martin Gilbert’s “Israel: Birth of a Nation” (History Channel)

“The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first attained to statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books.

After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people kept faith with it throughout their Dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the restoration in it of their political freedom. Impelled by this historic and traditional attachment, Jews strove in every successive generation to re-establish themselves in their ancient homeland.”

– “Israeli Declaration of Independence,” 14 May 1948

This film is actually about the Arab-Israeli War of 1948, not the creation of the state of Israel

The establishment of the modern state of Israel is one of the greatest events in world history. In 1948, the Jews returned to their ancient homeland. But the land was now inhabited by the Arabs instead. Moreover, the Arabs weren’t too crazy about the return of the Jews, and were willing to go to war with them to prevent Israel from being re-established. Thus, this documentary is actually about the Arab-Israeli War of 1948. It does not give the political background on how the modern state of Israel was created. It does not even give much political background about the war itself. Thus, it may be necessary for me to give some of the missing background here, and show a few of the things that this documentary omitted. Along the way, I will also give some praise for those things that I believe the documentary to have done well.

History of the European Union

“By this Treaty, the HIGH CONTRACTING PARTIES establish among themselves a EUROPEAN UNION, hereinafter called ‘the Union’, on which the Member States confer competences to attain objectives they have in common.”

– “Treaty on European Union” (also known as the “Maastricht Treaty”), 7 February 1992 – later replaced by a modified version of the treaty in 2007

Europe was devastated by World War II …

Europe was devastated by World War II. Even in the winning countries, there was destruction from bombing by one side or the other. And in the losing countries, the devastation was (if anything) even worse. In Germany, a new “Iron Curtain” was forming, and their old capital city of Berlin was divided. Everything to the east of that Iron Curtain (except West Berlin) would be controlled by the Soviet Union, and managed exclusively for Soviet benefit. The countries to the west would have an opportunity for freedom and prosperity, but the Eastern Bloc (at this time) did not. It was in this postwar environment that the European Union’s earliest predecessors were formed.

Hamburg, Germany, after a massive Allied bombing in 1943

Karl Marx contradicted himself about zero-sum games

A “zero-sum game” is one where you can only gain to the extent that others lose

Marx once argued that the economy was a “zero-sum game” – or, in other words, that one can only gain to the extent that others lose. But he seems to have undercut this idea within one of the same chapters where he proposes the idea. Thus, this is one of many areas where he contradicts himself, as I will show with some quotations from his work “Das Kapital.” Incidentally, all of the quotations from that work in this particular blog post are from Volume 1, Chapter 5 of the work – as published by Marxists.org.

Karl Marx