Water Boarding George Bailey

I have often made an observation in regards to the classic film, It's a Wonderful Life.  I have said many of the modern Republicans, and those who vote Republican, would actually find the Potter character, the miserly, power hungry banker, as the true hero, and George Bailey, a man, who also ran a bank [Building and Loan], as the villain, for trying to help the needy and recent immigrants in his community.  The Raw Story has a very good article about how the anti-Communists which fueled the McCarthy era in this country went after the movie something fierce.  Here is the link:

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/12/ayn-rand-helped-the-fbi-investigate-whether-its-a-wonderful-life-was-commie-propaganda/

Ayn Rand, self centered, delusional idiot, anti government zealot (who actually used the country's social safety net programs under a false name to prevent from being called out as the hypocrite she was), and hero to many Republican politicians today, was part of a group that hated the movie, and insisted Lionel Barrymore's portrayal of Potter was pure anti-capitalist propaganda.  Two of my favorite parts of the Raw Story story include the narrative coming from the anti-communists that all bankers are great individuals and should be portrayed as such (the relation to the banking crisis of 2008, the bankers insistence on public help, then turning viciously on the tax paying public who helped them, all while putting out ad campaigns of how banks "are here for you," does not go unnoticed).

The second is what I eluded too above.  The portrayal of Potter verses George Bailey is not Capitalism verses Communism, it's greedy individuals who worship power, using the money they have been entrusted with to promote their own agenda, verses a system which represents what America is supposed to be, the American dream, that anyone can make it with hard work, and if the banking industry and capitalism encourage such dreams, we become better overall as a society.  When someone pointed this out in one of the hearings, it apparently created a ruckus.

Notice Reagan was mentioned in this story, selling out friends and colleagues to promote his own aspirations.

I want to reiterate, Ayn Rand and the rest of the modern GOP template from the paranoid late 40's/early 50's felt as if portraying a bank to help the neediest people, the lower class, the middle class, and recent immigrants, even going out of their way to prevent Potter from railroading the town when there was a run on the Building and Loan, was the bad role model, and Potter who tried to take advantage of the banking crisis, who proudly brags how he would have never loaned money to many of the Building and Loan's customers, and whose Machiavellian dream was realized in the non-George Bailey world where the town, so under his control, had even been renamed Pottersville, was what we need to celebrate.

At Christmas, many Republicans do a lot of last minute switching.  For most off the year, they cheer on the actions and ideas of a Potter, and only acknowledge such blind devotion to money and power are bad when they hear the jingle jangle of Santa's sleigh.  They insist all lives are sacred and precious when the presents are being opened, but then will insist unarmed African American male teenagers deserved to get killed by police after the wrappings are in the trash, and they will talk about honoring the bravery and sacrifice of the American soldier when they are in their church pews, but God forbid a week later you suggest W. Bush and his administration, whom sent those beloved troops to their death, into an unnecessary war justified under false pretenses, face any charges for the thousands of coffins returned to American soil.

It's a Wonderful Life is a great American film.  We can learn a lot about being better people from paying attention to the Bailey's of the world, instead of trying to validate the actions of the most realistic character in the film, Potter.

Good night Bedford Falls!