Before the 1980 presidential election, Ronald Reagan asked voters:
The correct answer was “no,” and Reagan won.
In 2012, the correct answer also was “no.” However, voters screwed up by reelecting Barack Obama. Congratulations to all of you Obama voters; you deserve every bit of your misfortune.
Four years later, Investors.com answers this year’s question:
The question isn’t whether the country is better off than it was when Obama took office — when it was still in a recession — it’s whether the country is better off than it was when the recovery started almost exactly seven years ago.
Using that as the gauge, many Americans — by several measures — are actually worse off after seven years of Obama’s “recovery” than they were just as the recession was ending.
Yes, some have done well, particularly investors. But the fact that so many are falling behind is nevertheless an testament to the abject failure of Obamanomics, which has produced the slowest economic recovery in modern history. (Just two days after Obama gave his self-congratulatory speech, the Commerce Dept. announced that GDP grew by just 1.2% in the second quarter, less than half what economists had expected.)
This is not a legacy that anyone should hope will continue into the next administration.
Let’s run some of the numbers:
More in poverty: During Obama’s “recovery,” 3.1 million people fell into poverty, and the poverty rate climbed from 14.3% in 2009 to 14.8% in 2014, according to Census.
Lower household incomes: Census data show that only the top 40% of households made gains in income under Obama, while the remaining 60% saw their incomes shrink between 2009 and 2014. The bottom 20%, for example, saw their incomes decline by 8.4% over those years.
More on food stamps: There were 8.7 million more people on food stamps this April (the last year for which data are available) than there were when recovery started, according to theDepartment of Agriculture.
More labor dropouts: While the number of people who are unemployed fell by about 7 million between June 2009 and today, the number who are no longer in the labor force — either because they’ve quite looking for work or retired — climbed an astonishing 14 million.
Less optimism: In June 2009, the IBD/TIPP Economic Optimism Index was 50.8 — anything above 50 represents optimistic, under 50 pessimism. This July, the Optimism Index was 45.5. And while 52% of the public thought the country was headed in the wrong direction, 64% feel that way now.
How does Obama square these facts with his sunny outlook? He doesn’t. He just ignores them. But the public knows what’s going on.
During one of his more honest moments on the campaign trail for his wife earlier this year, Bill Clinton put a fine point on that. “Millions and millions and millions and millions of people look at that pretty picture of America (Obama) painted and they cannot find themselves in it to save their lives.”
Clinton is absolutely right. The shame of it is that neither party is fixing blame where it belongs: on Obama’s anti-growth agenda of tax hikes and regulatory overreach. The last thing we need is four more years of that.
The feds quietly announced late last week that the economy grew at a pathetic annual rate of 1.2 percent in the second quarter, following 0.8 percent in the first quarter. The correct measure (though still an undercount) of unemployment is near 10 percent. Home ownership is now at the lowest rate since 1965. George H.W. Bush was bounced from office with better economic numbers than these. The Obama administration is the only administration in U.S. history that had never had a single year of even 3 percent Gross Domestic Product growth.
I got into a Facebook argument last week (I know, you’re shocked — shocked! — to read that) about the reported $939 million transportation funding shortfall.
Supposed Republicans and conservatives have been advocating for either gas tax increases or vehicle registration fee increases on the grounds that the state supposedly is on the low end compared with other states on those taxes and fees. This is despite the fact state and local taxes remain among the highest in the U.S. despite almost six years of near-total Republican control of state government. (Not that Democrats know anything about cutting taxes or the size and scope of government.) This is also despite the fact that $939 million, an enormous amount of money to normal people, represents less than 3 percent of what state government spends in a year.
I am opposed to any tax increase that I would have to pay. I pay enough in taxes given the poor quality of government services in this state beyond emergency services. (Last week, for instance, one of those road projects we supposedly don’t have enough of in this state backed up sewer water into my basement. The contractor was, of course, the lowest bidder as chosen by city government where I live. A neighbor had her natural gas stop working after it was supposedly restored by the local monopoly energy provider. The local ambulance service has been driving its ambulances over Roads in Name Only, and guess who pays for EMS service?)
I also believe Republicans have not done nearly enough in this state to cut — not reduce the increase, but CUT — the size and scope of government in this state and all 3,120 units of it. Readers know that had state and local government been held in growth to inflation plus population growth since the late 1970s, state and local government would be half the size it is today. Republicans’ refusal to enact a constitutional Taxpayer Bill of Rights-like mechanism to restrict government growth continues to make you wonder if Republicans are really in favor of smaller government. The absence of constitutional controls in government arguably violates in spirit Article I, section 22 of the state Constitution:
The absence of constitutional controls in government arguably violates in spirit Article I, section 22 of the state Constitution:
The blessings of a free government can only be maintained by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality and virtue, and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.
One example of failure to cut government is in the biggest area of expense for any business — staffing. According to the Wisconsin Budget Project, Wisconsin has 72,000 state employees. During the Act 10 debate, the average cost (salary plus benefit costs) of a state employee to state government was $79,000. Assuming that number is roughly the same today, you could reach the $939 million threshold by eliminating fewer than 12,000 state employees.
(Side note: If you read my blog about Act 10 last week you may have read the accompanying whining comment about the result of Act 10 on public employees. Those would be the same people who still have much, much better benefits that still cost them much, much less than the benefits the people who pay their salaries receive. The complainer’s argument about the economic impact of government employees is overwhelmed by the economic impact of taxes. Government does not improve quality of life, in this state or anywhere else.)
Which positions should be cut, you ask? Every single position called “executive assistant” is a political appointee. There are also far too many positions called “communications officer” or the like, former journalists who do PR for their agency. I know some of them, but there are too many of them in state government. Start there. The higher salaries of the laid-off employees, the fewer you have to lay off.
I have also advocated, as readers know, combining the offices of lieutenant governor, secretary of state and state treasurer (and, more importantly, their staffs) into one position (to be voted on separately from governor), which would give lieutenant governors some actual executive responsibility beyond their own office. The fact that state legislators make almost $50,000 each is an abomination, and the fact they have staffers that make more money than that is even worse.
Beyond that, as readers know, I have advocated the end of spending tens of millions of dollars every year on buying land to take it off the property tax rolls and allow no one but acceptable users to use it (a list that does not include hunters, fishermen or motorized vehicle users). The Knowles–Nelson Stewardship Program is not merely an example of spending that should not take place, but spending that benefits very few people (that is, people who engage in “low-impact” recreation).
I also have advocated eliminating the State Patrol, which is not only redundant, but is not a state police force.I have had that position for a long time. (For those who think the State Patrol should be a state police force, ask yourself if you want state police run by attorney generals James Doyle or Peg Lautenschlager.) That may not be a popular position in these days of attacks on police by criminals, but other than run the weigh stations there is nothing the State Patrol does that county sheriff’s offices do not already do.
All of this would have to be accomplished through legislative heavy lifting and the constitutional amendment process. (Including a constitutional requirement that the state budget be balanced by Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, required of all other units of government other than state government.) I have a hard time believing, given the statewide sturm und drang of Act 10 and Recallarama, that actually cutting state government would have resulted in more tumult than Act 10 did.
The argument I have made here repeatedly is that you cannot rely on a politician or a party to do what you want it to do when their desire to maintain political power gets in the way. (Which is why reducing political salaries to zero and establishing a one-term limit might be worth doing.) That reality is why it is insufficient merely to vote for Republicans to legislative offices. If they don’t do what they should do — CUT GOVERNMENT — they should be replaced by someone who will. Need $939 million for roads? Cut $939 million elsewhere.
James Taranto rated Slick Willie’s Democratic National Convention speech by writing …
We have no idea. We know too much.
That is, we were working in political journalism during Mr. Clinton’s time in the White House, and at The Wall Street Journal for his last 4½ years. A couple of our bylined articles even appeared in the Journal’s six-volume “Whitewater” compilation.
We find it impossible to imagine how we’d have received the speech if we hadn’t followed politics so closely during the Clinton years, or if we were too young to remember them. (Someone who is 30 now was 12 when Monica Lewinsky became a public figure. Lewinsky herself turned 43 Sunday.) We are not the sort of voter to which the speech was intended to appeal.
Mr. Clinton certainly succeeded in not appealing to us. His overall theme was that he loves the Democratic nominee madly because she is such an astute analyst and maker of public policy. If it were a poem, it could have been titled “Ode to a Wonk.” The idea was doubly preposterous given the deep but (in the speech) unacknowledged strangeness of the Clinton marriage. But again, maybe it came across better to someone blessed by the good sense or youth not to have paid such close attention to the Clintons.
As for the substance, we were driven to distraction by what Mr. Clinton didn’t mention—namely, anything that wouldn’t have been politically expedient. In describing her time in the Senate, he noted that she was “the first senator in the history of New York ever to serve on the Armed Services Committee,” in which capacity she “tried to make sure people on the battlefield had proper equipment” and “worked for more extensive care for people with traumatic brain injury.” Her vote for the Iraq war? Down the memory hole.
While secretary of state, “she worked hard to get strong sanctions against Iran’s nuclear program.” He didn’t mention last year’s Iran nuclear deal, which she has touted before Democratic audiences but may wish to downplay with the general electorate.
“She backed President Obama’s decision to go after Osama bin Laden,” he said—a no-brainer if ever there was one. But Mr. Clinton didn’t mention the 2011 intervention in Libya, which President Obama reportedly undertook reluctantly, at Mrs. Clinton’s urging.
Mr. Clinton also left out the Trans Pacific Partnership, which Mrs. Clinton touted in her State Department memoir, Hard Choices—or at least in the hardcover edition. The topic was cut from the paperback, as the Washington Free Beacon reported last month, presumably because TPP has turned out to be unpopular and she claims she supports it no longer. Politico reports that Virginia’s Gov. Terry McAuliffe, “longtime best friend to the Clintons,” says he believes she’ll flip again if elected.
Of course Mr. Clinton said not a word about any of the past 40 years’ worth of Clinton scandals. Tellingly, he never uttered the names Clinton Foundation or Clinton Global Initiative, which surely would have merited a mention if he could defend them as genuinely charitable endeavors.
Here was our favorite bit:
Nineteen ninety-seven was the year Chelsea finished high school and went to college. We were happy for her, but sad for us to see her go. I’ll never forget moving her into her dorm room at Stanford. It would have been a great little reality flick. There I was in a trance just staring out the window trying not to cry, and there was Hillary on her hands and knees desperately looking for one more drawer to put that liner paper in.
Finally, Chelsea took charge and told us ever so gently that it was time for us to go. So we closed a big chapter in the most important work of our lives. As you’ll see Thursday night when Chelsea speaks, Hillary’s done a pretty fine job of being a mother.
And as you saw last night, beyond a shadow of a doubt so has Michelle Obama.
Now, fast forward. In 1999, Congressman Charlie Rangel and other New York Democrats urged Hillary . . . to run for the seat of retiring Senator Pat Moynihan.
Whoa, rewind! Did anything happen in 1998? (Spoiler for younger readers: That was when Mr. Clinton was impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice in connection with the Lewinsky affair and Paula Jones’s sexual-harassment lawsuit against him.)
We can’t exactly fault Mr. Clinton for these omissions any more than we can fault Donald Trump for not mentioning Trump University, his ribald comments to Howard Stern, or his own flip-flops on various policy questions. A political speech is meant to persuade, not to give a balanced and fully informed view of the subject. As noted above, we can’t even hazard a guess as to how effective Mr. Clinton’s speech was in reducing voters’ resistance to his wife. But surely it would have been less effective (not to mention even longer) had it included all the bits we mentioned.
It did occur to us after the speech, though, that Bill Clinton played an underappreciated part in setting the stage for Trump. As we observed yesterday, one of the Democrats’ strategies against the Republican nominee has been to present him as R-rated, somebody from whom you want to shield your children. As Michelle Obama put it Monday night, “we know that our words and actions matter … [to] children across this country.”
Many Nevertrump Republicans, and more than a few reluctantly pro-Trump ones, find this line of argument convincing. Trump is surely the most vulgar man ever nominated for the presidency of a major party.
But he would not be the first vulgarian president. That distinction belongs to Bill Clinton, the man whose sexual misconduct led to situations like the one described by Shawn Hubler in the Los Angeles Times in September 1998:
It was Friday midmorning. The house was quiet. The 6-year-old turned the TV on. The camera was zoomed in on someone’s computer, and there was a breathless voice: “Monica Lewinsky” … “Oval Office” … “sex with the president.”
“Mama,” she said in confusion, cuddling her kitten, “I thought the president was married. Does this mean Monica Lewinsky is having a baby now?”
I stood there, flat-footed.
“Mama, why do you have that look on your face? Did something bad happen?”
“Kinda. Not really. Let’s turn off this dumb TV. I’ll explain later, sweetie-pie.”
Mrs. Clinton’s political career was a reward for her role as her husband’s enabler. And most Republican politicians—who, as we observed last week, tend to be highly concerned about respectability—were determined to steer clear of the subject.
GOP voters turned to Trump in part because of his willingness to breach decorum and tell the ugly truth about the Clintons. And Trump turns out to be a plausible candidate in part because Bill Clinton so lowered the bar for presidential comportment. Though as Mr. Clinton demonstrated last night, at least he has long fingers.
Today in 1964, a Rolling Stones concert in Ireland was stopped due to a riot, 12 minutes after the concert began.
Today in 1966, Alabamans burned Beatles products in protest of John Lennon’s remark that the Beatles were “bigger than Jesus.” The irony was that several years earlier, Lennon met Paul McCartney at a church dinner.
George Mason University Prof. Ilya Somin writes about the politics of Star Trek, and finds …
Libertarians Should Love That The Good Guys Are Tolerant and Diverse…
Relative to most other science fiction shows—and popular culture shows generally—Star Trek has a long history of addressing political issues in a thoughtful way. Some of its themes are definitely congenial to libertarians, and supporters of liberal values more generally.
Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry stressed the virtues of tolerance and cooperation across racial, ethnic, and national lines.
In the original 1960s series, the bridge crew of the Enterprise includes an Asian, a Russian (included at the height of the Cold War), and a black African, at a time when such diversity in casting was unusual. The inclusion of a black female bridge officer was considered such an important breakthrough for racial equality that Martin Luther King persuaded Nichelle Nichols, the actress who played Lt. Uhura, to stay on the show when she was thinking of quitting.
Star Trek also featured the first interracial kiss on an American network TV show, and—in the 1990s—one of the first lesbian kisses.
The Federation—the interstellar government that rules earth and numerous alien worlds—seems to successfully incorporate a wide range of cultures and lifestyles, and offers a combination of material abundance and toleration.
Contrast that with the Federation’s rivals, such as the oppressive and homogenous Klingon, Romulan, and Cardassian empires, to say nothing of the totalitarian Borg. Many scenes in the various Star Trek movies and TV series emphasize this difference, and laud the Federation’s tolerant values as a model for the future of humanity.
In a number of ways, the Federation exemplifies a utopian future for humanity, as envisioned by the late-twentieth century American left. In addition to the emphasis on diversity and toleration, Federation leaders, including Star Fleet officers, put a premium on thoughtful deliberation and on negotiation as a preferable alternative to force; though Star Fleet is willing to use force when necessary—especially if it also makes for an exciting plot twist!
….But Hate the Federation’s Socialism
But at least from a libertarian perspective, the otherwise appealing ideological vision of Star Trek is compromised by its commitment to socialism.
The Federation isn’t just socialist in the hyperbolic sense in which some conservatives like to denounce anyone to the left of them as socialist. It’s socialist in the literal sense that the government has near-total control over the economy and the means of production. Especially by the period portrayed in The Next Generation, the government seems to control all major economic enterprises, and there do not seem to be any significant private businesses controlled by humans in Federation territory. Star Fleet characters, such as Captain Picard, boast that the Federation has no currency and that humans are no longer motivated by material gain and do not engage in capitalist economic transactions.
The supposed evils of free markets are exemplified by the Ferengi, an alien race who exemplify all the stereotypes socialists typically associate with “evil capitalists.” The Ferengi are unrelentingly greedy and exploitative. Their love of profit seems to be exceeded only by their sexism—they do not let females work outside the household, even when it would increase their profits to do so.
The problem here is not just that Star Trek embraces socialism: it’s that it does so without giving any serious consideration to the issue. For example, real-world socialist states have almost always resulted in poverty and massive political oppression, piling up body counts in the tens of millions.
But Star Trek gives no hint that this might be a danger, or any explanation of how the Federation avoided it. Unlike on many other issues, where the producers of the series recognize that there are multiple legitimate perspectives on a political issue, they seem almost totally oblivious to the downsides of socialism.
Does Lack of Scarcity Make Good Economics Moot?
Defenders of the series’ portrayal of socialism claim that economic systems are no longer relevant in a “post-scarcity” society. Thanks to the remarkable technology of the replicator, Federation citizens can effortlessly produce almost anything they want, rendering the difference between socialism and capitalism meaningless.
But the world of Star Trek is not in fact one where the problem of scarcity has been overcome. Some crucial goods cannot be replicated. The most obvious are the replicators themselves; in all the many Star Trek TV episodes and films, we never once see them replicate a replicator! The same goes for the dilithium crystals, which power starships. Planetary real estate also apparently cannot be replicated, which is why the Federation and its rivals often fight wars over it.
Just as we enjoy far greater material wealth than our ancestors, so the Star Trek universe is one with vastly greater abundance than what we have today. But that does not mean either we or they have completely overcome scarcity, and thus can ignore issues of economic organization.
The Federation’s Diversity Turns Out to be Only Skin Deep
The uncritical acceptance of socialism may be a manifestation of the Federation’s more general troubling ideological homogeneity. Especially among the human characters, there seems to be remarkably little disagreement over ideological and religious issues. With one important exception (discussed below), few human characters oppose the official Federation ideology, and those few are generally portrayed as fools, villains, or both.
The Federation is a collection of racially and ethnically diverse people who all think alike, at least when it comes to the big issues. The series’ creators likely intended this as an indication of humanity’s future convergence toward the “truth.” But it is also subject to a more sinister interpretation: just as socialism tends to stifle independent economic initiative, it also undermines independent thought.
Both socialism and other political issues are dealt with in a more evenhanded way in Deep Space Nine. That series—the first created after the passing of Gene Rodenberry—raises some serious questions about Federation ideology, and treats some of its opponents sympathetically.
Most notably, it features a favorable portrayal of the Maquis, a group of humans who rebel against the Federation after the government signs a treaty handing over their homes to the oppressive Cardassian Empire. One Maquis leader claims that the Federation is “obsessed” with crushing his movement “because we’ve left the Federation and that’s the one thing you can’t accept.”
Significantly, the name “Maquis” is adapted from French resistance groups who fought against the Nazis.
With the important exception of Deep Space Nine, however, Star Trek’s blindness to the potential dangers of socialism and ideological homogeneity contrasts with its relatively nuanced treatment of many other issues.
Most of the above analysis of Star Trek ideology does not apply to the two recent Star Trek movies directed by J.J. Abrams. They are notable for abandoning serious engagement with political issues in favor of superficial action scenes, punctuated with occasional, equally superficial homages to the original series. Abrams’ Federation and Star Fleet are not noticeably socialist, but neither do they seem to stand for any other political values worth mentioning.
A new Star Trek movie has been released, and CBS is planning a new Star Trek TV series. Hopefully, they will avoid both the superficiality of the Abrams movies, and previous Star Trek series’ uncritical portrayal of socialism.
Well, don’t bet a quatloo on that.
Off the top of my head there are only two TNG episodes in which Starfleet isn’t portrayed as if, to quote from “The Lego Movie,” everything is awesome. The first-season “Conspiracy” portrays several high-ranking Starfleet officers as taken over by an alien. (Unfortunately, nothing was done with this past this episode.) “The Drumhead” features a Starfleet admiral on a Joe McCarthy-like witchhunt. Beyond that there are no episodes like “The Galileo Seven,” in which a Federation high commissioner makes the Enterprise leave before it finds its shuttlecraft and the crew on it; “The Deadly Years,” where a commodore (who, unlike in “The Doomsday Machine,” has never commanded a ship before) who takes over blunders into the Romulan Neutral Zone; or “The Trouble with Tribbles,” where a Federation is too caught up in his self-importance to realize that his assistant is a Klingon spy. (I suppose in the ’60s jabs at authority were considered to be anti-establishment and anti-conservative.)
For that matter, don’t bet a quatloo that the new “Star Trek: Discovery” will be anything but 2016 PC, with plenty of diversity except for intellectual diversity. (Or, for that matter, religion, based on online comments that claim that God is going out the door. Really.)
Trek Movie interviewed several representatives of the new and previous series:
[Executive producer Heather] Kadin confirmed to Trekmovie.com that Discovery would feature female, minority, and LGBTQ characters as she felt modern television did not accurately represent those groups in television shows featuring predominantly-caucasian casts. On the subject of LGBTQ characters specifically, Kadin commented that “is something that’s very important to Bryan [Fuller], and very important to all of us to portray.” …
Kadin: I think, sadly, still if you look at most television today, it’s pretty caucasian, and I’m fortunate enough to produce a show called Sleepy Hollow and in our first season there were more African-Americans in our cast than there were caucasians, and a lot of people talked about that. I think, at the time, it was called groundbreaking, which is sort of sad because it really reflected our country and so, on one hand, I think Gene Roddenberry’s original vision reflected what the world looked like more than what a lot of television does today. So hopefully our show can remind people that it should be that way and, hopefully in the future, we can all be together. …
TM: Talking about the new show and how it is really going to carry on the Star Trek legacy, yourself and the rest of the cast and crew talked about in the junket how Star Trek is all about inspiring people and pushing boundaries. As Star Trek hasn’t been on television for over a decade now, what, in 2017, new boundaries should we be pushing in the new show?
Michael Dorn: I think they had it correct. We’re at a place in our society where there was a lot of hope back in the 60s and 70s about where we would be in the 2000s, and I think we haven’t lived up to that hope. I think that that is, from what I hear…this is the first I’ve really heard from the producers about what they want to do…I think that’s very important. Science Fiction in the 60s always pushed boundaries because it was science-fiction, and it wasn’t mainstream so it was kind of like relegated to, yeah, you know, b-movies, but The Outer Limits and The Twilight Zone really, really tackled some major issues and I think that’s what the original Star Trek did, and that’s what these guys are going to do because they really have a passion for it, and I think it’s a good idea because if it’s not going to come from science-fiction, then it’s not going to come from anything else. I think, hopefully, they’re going to be allowed to push those boundaries as much as you can and, you know…personally, I think the boundaries need to be pushed always. I think that we think of New York and LA as America, but that’s not America. America is the center of the country and it seems that they need their boundaries pushed.
TM: I always say that Trek seems to work best when the network are biting their fingers over what the producers want to do…
Dorn: Oh my god, yes. Like, you know, “are you sure you want to do that?!” And the thing is, they [the networks] have to realize that the world is not going to get sucked into a black hole if you see a black and a white woman kissing. You know, I’m sorry but…I went to school in San Francisco from 1973 to 1976 and people were gay and it was no big deal. And people now go, “did you see that interracial kiss?” “Did you see that two women were kissing?” And I’m going, “Are you kidding me? That’s not weird.” And here we are in 2016 and people are freaked.
TM: Hopefully we can change that.
Dorn: I think so, and if Star Trek can’t change it…then I’m moving to Australia, I don’t know…
Well, I do. (Dorn apparently took his cultural snobbery pills the morning of the interview, and now we now what he thinks about flyover country.) According to the new series’ producers 23rd-century human beings are all about whatever identity we feel like having, instead of each of us being individuals dependent on each other for our very lives in a universe that is filled with wonders great and small, but is also dangerous and deadly. (Which outer space is supposed to be, right?)
A mature society would say do your job, and what you do on your time is your business and not anyone else’s, but that’s not the future, apparently. Apparently in the future everyone identifies ___self on genitalia and dating preferences instead of, say, character. Based on that I’m glad I won’t be living that long. Nor will I probably be watching, because I’m not going to pay to watch a poor Star Trek series.
With the 50th anniversary of the original (and best) Star Trek coming up Sept. 8, Esquire decided to look at its 23rd-century 1966 look:
In “Tomorrow Is Yesterday,” an episode of the original Star Trek, the good ship Enterprise accidentally time warps back to 20th Century Earth. A gung-ho U.S. Air Force colonel captures our hero Captain Kirk and, upon giving him the once-over, snarls, “What is that? Is that a uniform of some kind?”
“This little thing?” replies a coy William Shatner. “Something I slipped on.”
Actually, it was a lot more.
In today’s over-the-top world of fantasy entertainment, where everyone from Batman on down wears self-conscious, rubbery body armor, there is something reassuringly relaxed and classic about the original Star Trek uniform. Trekkies still embrace that quality as the 50th anniversary of the premiere of their beloved NBC series approaches on September 8.
The original look was blue for science (Spock, left), red for engineering and communications (Scott, right, and Uhura, third from right) and gold for command (navigator Chekov and helmsman Sulu seated in front of Captain Kirk).
“You go to a convention,” said Tod Sturgeon of Auburn, Washington, “and there are all these people in different costumes, and you say, ‘Well, I’ll have to research that.’ But when you walk in wearing a Starfleet uniform, there’s just no question. Everyone says, ‘Captain!’”
Credit the designer, William Ware Theiss. He took his cue from Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, who envisioned a blissful United Federation of Planets with only quasi-military garb aboard its otherwise mighty starships.
“Gene wanted something on the order of a shirtsleeve environment,” said Star Trek story editor Dorothy Fontana. “It was more like being around the house than being around the ship.”
Theiss’ final product was sleek and trim, with no pockets or visible fasteners to disrupt the clean lines. The single arrowhead breast insignia constituted decorative minimalism, and the limited use of wavy rank braids didn’t clutter your forearm. Still, you could tell your superior and inferior officers at a glance. In most Star Trek spin-offs, by contrast, tiny pins and pips signify your standing—a strain on the eyes of viewers and crew alike.
The uniform’s tripartite color scheme delineated functions vividly: Gold was for command, blue for sciences, and red for engineering and support services (including, of course, all those doomed security guards). Not only did the bright hues explode on the small screen, they set off the uniform’s black bottom half smashingly. Mid-calf trousers made the leg look longer, while the high-topped boots were perfect for unexplored alien terrain. The combination was altogether unfamiliar and futuristic without being outlandish.
The materials themselves were otherworldly: Theiss used a stretch cotton velour for the tops and, in the last two seasons, a black Dacron with a sprinkling of iridescent silver fleck for the pants. Both emitted a subtle, subliminal glitter of stardust under the bright studio lights. (Alas, “that rotten velour,” as many insiders called it, shrank when laundered. So in the series’ third and final season, a nylon double-knit was substituted.)
Like Theiss himself—a reclusive, humorless man who died of AIDS in 1992—the uniform was quirky. The command tunics were green in real life but photographed and transmitted over the small screen as gold. And all of the tops, no matter what their designation, featured a raglan construction that concealed an invisible zipper along the left front seam. Naturally, this novel arrangement often jammed and broke.
“That zipper was weird,” said Shatner’s stand-in, Eddie Paskey, who played the red-shirted Lieutenant Leslie in many episodes. “It started at the neck and went down to your armpit.”
Paskey also recalled that despite the lack of pockets, the pants had a small hidden slot, inside at the beltline. “You could put a few folded dollars in there so you could go to the commissary.” James Doohan, a.k.a. Scotty, used the enclosure to stash cigarettes.
Some of Theiss’ wardrobe decisions were determined by sheer necessity; he used material that was cheap and available. “We had very little time,” said co-producer Robert H. Justman, “and even less money.”
And the colors themselves “were chosen purely for technical reasons,” the designer confessed. “We tried to find three colors for the shirts that would be as different from each other as possible in black and white as well as color.”
Remember, this was the Age of Aquarius, when bold hues reigned supreme and NBC was billing itself as the “full-color network.” You can also see nods to the costumes’ 1960s heritage in the boots’ go-go contour, especially their Cuban heels. The flared trousers even suggested the evolution of bell-bottoms.
Beyond the prevailing cultural mood, Roddenberry’s working kit entailed some heavy ergonomic thinking. “No matter how many times NASA described the outfit of the future,” he once quipped, “it always sounded like long underwear.”
“Gene’s idea was that a replicator would redo the clothes every day,” said Andrea Weaver, a Star Trek women’s costumer. “In his mind, the crew would go in and the clothes would materialize, molded to the body form.”
That form was all-important. “Roddenberry’s theory,” said Joseph D’Agosta, the casting director, “was that by the 23rd Century, diet would be down to a science and everyone would be thin.”
Unfortunately, 20th Century reality didn’t always match 23rd Century fitness. “We found ourselves having to stay away from longer shots wherever possible,” Roddenberry observed, “as the simple plain lines of our basic costume render most unflattering any extra poundage around the waist.”
Shatner, who exercised fiercely but tended to gain weight, found that out the hard way. “As the season progressed and time passed,” recalled Justman, “the top of his pants and the bottom of his tunic moved inexorably away from each other as they got smaller and he got larger…The eternally slim Leonard Nimoy [Mr. Spock] and DeForest Kelley [Dr. McCoy] were much easier to outfit.”
Others had their own problems with the look. “Personally, I didn’t like the flare legs,” Doohan griped. “I thought that they came on kind of fey.” At least one director agreed. Running over a certain script, he intoned, “OK, our team materializes on the planet in their ballet pants.”
And George Takei—the unflappable helmsman Lieutenant Sulu—wasn’t exactly enamored of the boots. “We weren’t used to wearing high heels,” he said recently, “and I began complaining about this ache in my foreleg. And DeForest said, ‘I have the same ache.’ Then Jimmy chimed in. And we deduced it was the heel.”
On the whole, though, Takei thought the uniform “a joy,” especially when compared with its fussy, complicated big-screen variants. “You just jumped into it and pulled the sweatshirt over you.”
“If you were looking for a new pair of pajamas, you could look to that uniform,” chuckled Walter Koenig, who as the navigator Ensign Chekov manned the command console with Takei. “It never registered that it would become iconic.”
Just the same, he said, “It was a very simple design and did not take away from the person in it. It’s not something you would find yourself experiencing to the exclusion of the performance. It doesn’t feel like we were trying to overwhelm somebody with a sci-fi element.”
Ultimately, said Takei, the garb was a mere extension of something far more important.
“Gene Roddenberry had a utopian, peaceful, diverse vision of the future,” he reflected. “That’s what viewers responded to. That’s why the show has endured. And that’s why the costumes have endured.”
They endured in the J.J. Abrams reboot, another sign of how Abrams makes enough references to the original form of his remakes to make the viewer forget that no one is acting as they should.
J. J. Abrams’ Star-Trek Into Darkness, and the forthcoming After Earth(Shyamalan, 2013), are reminders of how film and TV so often depicts future fashion as skimpy or skin-tight. The uniforms in Abram’s recent Star Trekrevival have progressed from previous versions, but retain the hallmarks of the originals. The men’s uniforms have a mesh outer layer, reminiscent of moisture-wicking sportswear. The female uniforms are more precise replicas of the originals, with miniskirts and knee-high boots. …
Science is also transforming the way we create clothes. Clothes have historically been produced by sewing flat shapes of fabric together, thereby transforming multiple flat shapes into a single three-dimensional shape. New technologies are beginning to make sewing obsolete. Issey Miyake has established a research institute in Toyko with the aim of exploring new possibilities in fabric and garment creation. This research has yielded new bonding methods that may change our approach to garment manufacture. As in A-POC (a complete outfit that is manufactured at once, from a tube of fabric), the acts of weaving fabric and sewing pieces together are no longer separate processes. The weaving of the fabric and the bonding of the layers can be a single automatic process. There is no sewing, and therefore no seams.
A collaboration between Imperial College London and the Royal College of Art resulted in the invention of Fabrican, a spray-on-fabric. Fabrican canisters contain wet fibres which may be sprayed directly onto the surface of the body. … As the fibres dry, they bond, forming a single piece of flexible shaped fabric[2]. Spray-on-fabric has the potential to revolutionise the fashion industry. As it is sprayed directly onto the body, it removes the issue of sizing from the dressmaking process. It also changes the way that garments may be repaired. In order to fix a rip or tear, more fabric may be sprayed to invisibly seal the hole.
Fabrican is like a second skin: tight-fitting and seamless. This gives credence to the theory that skin-tight garments may become more common, and provides further evidence that future fashion is likely to be seam-free. As in the reinvented Man of Steel (2013) costume, and wetsuits in Star Trek Into Darkness, clothes may be moulded to fit our bodies perfectly.
I had not heard of Fabrican before this. It looks like another example of how technology has moved faster than Star Trek predicted.
Contrary to most people’s perception of what Captain Kirk’s original command division tunic looks like, the costume worn by William Shatner on Star Trek (1966) was actually not the color of gold or mustard, but a shade of avocado green! In order to create a uniform design that photographed gold on original 60s film stock and under the lighting conditions on set, costume designer William Ware Theiss had to use a greenish hue when he dyed the velour for the uniforms. “It photographed one way – burnt orange or a gold. But in reality was another; the command shirts were definitely green”, Theiss recalls in an interview.
Contemporary versions of the uniform as costumes, however, try to emulate the gold look of the television appearance rather than replicate the authentic (but ultimately false looking) lime green color. Below is a comparison of how the uniform appeared on television and how the original costume actually looks under more normal lighting.
In case that wasn’t green enough (and evidently it wasn’t; read the longer explanation here), Kirk got three additional outfits …
… which actor William Shatner didn’t care for due to their wrap design, intended to obscure Shatner’s, uh, horizontal growth. (On the other hand, the green wraps are almost all from the best Star Trek episodes. The wrap disappeared in the third season, which says something about the quality of third-season episodes.)
It may interest those who haven’t stopped reading already that what followed the original Star Trek got away from Roddenberry’s only-as-military-as-necessary look. The first Star Trek movie made one think we were in the process of evolving away from color:
If you’ve read this far, you undoubtedly are aware of the Legend of the Redshirts — that red-shirted Enterprise crew inevitably died during the episode, memorialized in …
Well, for the second movie and thereafter …
… everyone was a redshirt of sorts, explained by Empire Online:
Determined to make a change, Robert Fletcher stayed on as costume designer for the next three movies. The uniforms went back to a more military style for The Wrath Of Khan, with the main cast wearing burgundy jackets with overlapping lapels that they could dramatically rip open if their character was called upon to look tired or stressed out. The change in colour scheme, by the way, was not so much for design reasons as because the new uniforms were actually the old uniforms from The Motion Picture, dyed to a dark red (picked because it was the best dye that actually stuck to the Motion Picture costume fabrics).
Budgetary serendipity struck again, and the burgundy colour, combined with a variety of Naval-inspired turtlenecks, stuck around until the Star Trek movie torch was passed on to Captain Picard and the Next Generation crew. With the exception of the casual-looking suede bomber jackets worn when characters beamed down to an alien planet, the 1980s uniforms didn’t date too badly — mostly because they largely adhere to what we think of as a traditional military dress uniform. The boxy tailoring is more formal than anything seen earlier in the series, and details like vertical stripes down the side of the trousers are a direct reference to real-world military traditions.
For The Next Generation and beyond, red and gold were flipped.
It is I suppose ironic, given how much TV I used to watch, how little TV I watch now.
My TV- and movie-watching days coincided with the superstardom of actor Burt Reynolds, whose megahit (given its low budget) “Smokey and the Bandit” premiered when I was a sixth-grader.
A decade before that, Reynolds was a TV actor. He appeared in several shows, got his first non-guest-star role in the one-season “Riverboat,” was on “Gunsmoke” for three seasons, and was cast in two movies, the second as the lead in “Operation CIA.”
Reynolds then got his first starring TV role in an ABC-TV series about an American Indian detective who was a New York police detective, “Hawk.”
This was when ABC was the third-place network in a three-network race. The same night that “Star Trek” premiered at 7:30 p.m. Central time on NBC, “Hawk” premiered at 10 p.m. on ABC. (Yes, that was Gene Hackman in the first episode.)
“Hawk” didn’t even last to the 1967 half of the season; its final episode ran Dec. 29. But the idea of Reynolds, the son of a police chief, as a cop would persist. (More on that later.)
A decade after “Hawk” left the airwaves, it returned out of nowhere. NBC, which by then was the third-place network in the three-network face, decided to show “Hawk” in the summer of 1976 to take advantage of Reynolds’ stardom. That’s when I watched it.
The treasure trove that is YouTube, which previously produced two episodes of the obscure Jack Webb-created TV series “Chase,” unearthed two episodes of “Hawk.”
The amusing part of this episode for ’60s TV viewers could be guest star Frank Converse, who one year later played a New York detective in “N.Y.P.D.”
An Internet Movie Database review shows the promise and downfall of the series beyond bad scheduling:
“Hawk” (1966) had a brilliant core idea of filming a detective series on location in New York City at night. Making the central character an American Indian and casting 30-year old Burt Reynolds as Lt. John Hawk were also extremely smart moves.
“Hawk” was created by Emmy winner Allan Sloane (“Teacher, Teacher”, “East Side, West Side”, “The Breaking Point”). Sloane also wrote several strong episodes. The executive producer was Hubbell Robinson (“Boris Karloff’s Thriller”, “87th Precint”), who always strove for quality.
The stories were literate and intriguing (coming from the same people who were doing “The Defenders” and the other top dramatic shows of the day.) The casting of guests was impeccable, often drawing from the fine pool of actors working out of New York City. Some of the guest stars were Gene Hackman, Robert Duvall, Martin Sheen, Frank Converse, Philip Bosco, Scott Glenn, Diana Muldaur, Diane Baker, Louise Sorel, Bradford Dillman, Carol Rossen, James Best, Emily Prager and Beverlee McKinsey.
The main problem with the series was that the character of John Hawk was an arrogant jerk, apparently modeled after Ben Casey with a little Marlon Brando thrown in. Hawk had a big chip on his shoulder. It was impossible to like him. Burt Reynolds was never more appealing than as “half-breed” blacksmith Quint Asper on “Gunsmoke” for two years in the early 60’s. The writers and producers should have let Reynolds play Hawk more like Quint Asper.
Another weakness was that Hawk always had to be right and always had to perform the heroics solo. This made Hawk even more insufferable. The producers should have given Hawk a partner who was an equal rather than an eager beaver trainee. Gerald S. O’Loughlin, Ossie Davis or Frank Converse could have been good choices for Hawk’s partner. Reynolds could have easily developed a humorous, easy rapport with any of those actors. The partner could have shared some of the heroics and might even have made fun of John Hawk’s preening self-importance.
Even with its weaknesses, “Hawk” was an excellent effort, and I wish it had lasted longer. With just a little tweaking of the main character, this could have been one of the finest TV cop shows in history. Indeed, th premise of “Hawk” was so good, it could be remade as a series today.
My only connection with New York City is a former boss of mine who grew up in Queens. I’ve never been to New York City, though I was briefly in western New York. But as a crime TV viewer I’ve always been a bit fascinated with the televised image of New York City for crime shows, including “The Naked City” movie and TV series (the latter a half-hour drama that took one season off and then grew to a full hour with an almost completely different cast) …
… the one-season “Johnny Staccato” …
… the one-season “87th Precinct” …
… the aforementioned “N.Y.P.D.” …
… “Kojak” …
… the great “NYPD Blue” …
… and (though I’m an infrequent watcher) “Blue Bloods.”
New York seems like a perfect film noir setting. Even on TV the city seems dark and foreboding with washed-out colors. Where else could you have eight million stories?
Back to Reynolds. Four years later he was back on ABC in a police series, but on the other end of the U.S. in “Dan August, a Quinn Martin Production.”
Dan August was the title character of an excellent TV movie “The House on Greenapple Road,” but August wasn’t played by Burt Reynolds.
Christopher George played August, a police lieutenant working in his California home town, but after ABC green-lighted (that’s a Hollywood term) the series George apparently wasn’t available, so Reynolds replaced him.
(Trivia: The stunt coordinator on “Dan August” was Hal Needham, who would go on to produce “Smokey and the Bandit.” More trivia: Richard Anderson went on to be Steve Austin’s boss in “The Six Million Dollar Man.”)
Anyone whose knowledge of Reynolds began with “Smokey and the Bandit” (or “Boogie Nights”) probably is not used to serious Reynolds.
Less serious Reynolds may have begun to emerge when he went back to Boston with Norman Fell, who was in the series “87th Precinct” (which was set in New York), based on the Ed McBain novels (which were set in the fictional big city of “Isola,” which looked an awful lot like Manhattan), for “Fuzz” …
… then returned to the Big Apple to play private detective Shamus …
… though he got serious again when he went back to L.A. for “Hustle”:
Perhaps the presence or absence of facial hair is a sign of whether Reynolds’ role is serious or not.
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 