Every Christmas Eve, I watch Frank Capra's iconic film, It's a Wonderful Life. Anyone who has never seen it should do so. It never gets old. In fact, despite its age, 67 years, I believe that this classic is as timely as ever.
The central character, George Bailey, masterfully portrayed by Jimmy Stewart, is a small-town loan officer who casts aside his personal aspirations, to save his family's building and loan operation from certain ruin at the hands of Henry Potter (Lionel Barrymore), a ruthless manipulator who seizes the town bank in the wake of the Crash of '29 that sparked the depression.
George Bailey's genuine concern for the welfare of his fellow townspeople fuels his iron-bound determination to keep the family's business alive: a bulwark which is all that stands between working families' opportunity to live with dignity in decent homes as opposed to abject misery in Henry Potter's slums.
By dint of events beyond his control, George Bailey finds himself on the brink of bankruptcy and seriously considers doing himself in. But a guardian angel (Henry Travers) intervenes and presents George with a precious gift: an opportunity to see what everyone's lives would have been like had he never been born. Had George Bailey never existed, the friendly, thriving town of Bedford Falls would have degenerated into a toxic fog of sullenness, despair, and petty meanness --- and been re-dubbed "Pottersville" in dubious honor of its most powerful resident.
Well folks, Pottersville is real and getting realer. The lion's share of the US Congress as well as (too) many statehouses is under the merciless thrall of Henry Potter and those like him.
In the meantime, millions of hard-luck families will be losing extended unemployment benefits next week because the majority of Republicans --- including many so-called "moderates" --- voted against their renewal. These jobless folks are not slackers, regardless of what Congressmen like Paul Ryan (R - Ayn Rand) and Steven Fincher (R - Those Who Don't Work Don't Eat) seem to believe. These are the same legislators who spiked every effort to extend job-creating stimulus programs and butchered food stamp benefits.
Sorry folks, but the private sector is not creating enough decent jobs: ones that enable families and individuals to live securely and with dignity without marrying themselves to Wal-Mart or McDonald's.
Henry Potter lives.
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