- It's Still a Wonderful Life, in Spite of Potter
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- "It's a Wonderful Life" is my favorite movie.
I have watched it so many times I have lost count. Last night, in celebration
of Christmas Eve, I watched it again. As I felt my "Christmas
Spirit" reviving from the drain of the hustle and bustle of the
holidays, it occurred to me how odd it is that I have not exhausted this
precious resource of personal spiritual renewal. Frank Capra's idealistic
portrayal of the triumph of the "common man" over the
greed and avarice of America's plutocracy has yet to wear thin with me.
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- It's a Long Way Down, But It Doesn't Take Long to Get
There
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- Despite its exaggerated nature, Capra's film
captured some fundamental truths about humanity and the dynamics of America's
social and political structure. When I was a naive, confused,
and very depressed freshman in college at the University of Missouri
in 1985, I discovered "It's a Wonderful Life" when a friend
taking a film studies course took me to see it. For reasons which evaded
my consciousness at the time, the movie buoyed my sinking soul. Despite
having found that life preserver, the powerful undertow of my bipolar disorder
eventually sucked me deep into a sea of self-destruction and
despair. I completed three years of school before dropping out of the university
and out of my relatively privileged lower middle class life. Through my
spiritual and emotional crisis, I made choices leading me to financial
bankruptcy, a serious industrial accident which left me with severe chemical
and thermal burns, chemical dependency, abandonment of my family and responsibilities,
temporary homelessness, six years of "servitude" in menial manufacturing
jobs with poverty level wages and pathetic benefits, and an emotional pain
so profound that I seriously contemplated suicide. The Valedictorian
of his high school class and Eagle Scout had hit rock bottom. And what
a blessing it proved to be!
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- Starting in the early 90's, under the tutelage of one
of the finest humanity had to offer, I learned to manage my bipolar condition.
Lynn Barnett, my counselor, gave me the tools I needed to reclaim my soul
and my life. Guided by Lynn's compassionate tough love, cognitive behavioral
techniques, and the principles of the Twelve Step programs, little
by little I scaled the face of the cliff toward the plateau of spiritual
and emotional stability. I repaid my child support arrearage, regained
joint legal custody of my twin boys, quit drinking (1991) and smoking
(1997), found decent employment, found a beautiful and decent human being
with whom to begin marriage anew, completed a degree in liberal arts (by
taking classes while I was working), read and studied voraciously, taught
myself Spanish (the language of the poor and oppressed), adopted my new
wife's son, and became an activist writer on behalf of social justice,
human rights, and intellectual freedom (while continuing to work to help
support our family). Plumbing the depths of despair and striving to
return from the "underworld" gave me the gifts of humility,
appreciation, independence, and determination to pursue my goals. It also
endowed me with insight and empathy, which were sorely lacking in my character
before my "fall".
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- Aside from my obvious personal challenges arising from
the manifestations of my bipolar disorder, it has become quite apparent
to me that my spiritual crisis (and subsequent epiphany) was also
rooted in the collective cry of a metaphorical flock of thrushes which
flew into my subconscious and decimated the hologram of the Simulacrum
Republic (click on this link for a "must read" article by
Joe Bageant which explains the metaphor of the thrushes and the hologram). As
is often the case in the human psyche, my unconscious mind was several
steps ahead of my conscious mind as my inner being vigorously rejected
the American Nightmare of violence, militarism, instant gratification,
over-consumption, bigotry, insularity from other cultures, short-sightedness,
xenophobia, hubris, and avarice force fed to us as the highly palatable
"American Dream" by our government, text-book manufacturers,
corporate-controlled media, Madison Avenue, and corporate America. In short,
I take responsibility for my choices and their consequences, but understand
that I made them in the context of having a disorder with which I had few
tools to cope effectively, and that my self-destructive, irresponsible
acts were in part an unconscious rebellion against the perverse psychological
and economic oppression of America's corporatocracy. I am not letting myself
off the hook for what harm I caused, but I understand my motivations, have
made amends, and have forgiven myself.
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- Once Again Inanity Dominates the Public Consciousness
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- During this holiday season, as Fundamentalist Christians
clash with secular forces over the petty issue of the appropriate way to
express one's Yuletide greetings, I pose the question,
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- In light of the myriad challenges facing humanity
today, why are people wasting their time and energy on this absurd
"War on Christmas?"
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- While people feud over the appropriate words
to use at a time of year which means something different to almost everyone,
the Mr. Potters of the world, embodied by amoral and immoral corporations
which have attained the rights of personhood, continue in their
steady march to squelch human rights and enslave humanity.
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- You Mean They Don't Really Have Our Best Interests in
Mind?
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- Retailers like Wal-Mart give us "Always Low
Prices". All they demand in return is that Americans look the
other way while they continue to: compensate their "associates"
with sub-standard wages and benefits, crush the economies of the towns
and communities where they locate, run their competitors out
of business, and import $15 billion worth of goods from China each year.
Energy titans like Exxon keep us dependent on fossil fuels, spend
millions "debunking the myth of global warming", plunder
the resources of other nations, and keep the prices of gasoline artificially
high by limiting refining capacity. Monsanto and their ilk
poison our bodies and the environment as they work religiously
to fatten their bottom line without regard for humanity or the Earth.
Obscene entities like the Carlyle Group, which derive their profits
from murder, beat the drums of war to lead both soldiers and
innocent civilians on a lemming-like march to their deaths.
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- Campaign finance, lobbying, think tanks, advertising,
propaganda blitzes, the rights of corporate personhood, and so-called "free
trade agreements" coalesce to enable these and many other repugnant corporations
to act with callous indifference toward human rights and environmental
concerns. During the Christmas/Holiday season, the efforts of individuals
to embody and advocate truly meaningful values (like those depicted
by the character of George Bailey) are too often drowned out by the Potters
of the world joining together in cacophonous calls for spending, consuming,
and pursuing one's narcissistic desires. Projected to spend $435
billion during the holidays, US consumers will do their part to ensure
the perpetuation of the fiscal empires of the embodiments of Lionel
Barrymore's despicable character.
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- Thomas Jefferson gave us a prescient warning about
the power of banks (recent deregulation has significantly blurred the line
between banks and other types of financial corporations) and corporations:
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- I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous
to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow
private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation,
then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around
[the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children
wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing
power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom
it properly belongs.
- --from his Letter to the Secretary of the Treasury Albert
Gallatin (1802)
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- Robber Barons: of Yesteryear and Today
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- In his book Thomas Paine and the Promise of America,
Harvey Kaye (the Rosenberg Professor of Social Change and Development at
the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay) discussed the extent to which the
power of America's corporatocracy and plutocracy had grown by the time
of the Gilded Age (about 100 years after Jefferson's admonition):
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- The concentration of wealth and power and the growth
of large, hierarchical corporations fundamentally denied America's eighteenth-century
republican ideal of small producers and independent citizens and the belief
that political equality would engender economic equality. With its new
extremes of rich and poor, it seemed the United States was coming to resemble
Europe, the only difference being that whereas aristocrats ruled Europe,
"plutocrats"--a far wealthier and more vigorous breed--ruled
America.
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- Despite the valiant struggles of the muckrakers, the
women's movement, the labor movement, the civil rights movement and the
anti-war movement of the Twentieth Century, Old Man Potter is alive and
well. Today, America's plutocrats are more avaricious and powerful
than the Rockefellers or the Carnegies. America's plutocrats'
deeply incestuous ties with the government (and the media) coupled
with their carefully honed images of corporate benevolence afford
them the power to manipulate "We the People" to a degree that
would even have shocked a man like John Pierpoint Morgan.
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- As I continue to work, to parent, to write, to
maintain my blog (Thomas Paine's Corner), and to engage in my activism
to advance social justice, economic justice, human rights, and intellectual
freedom, I will celebrate the Yuletide season as a time to focus on
peace, goodwill to fellow humans, giving and family. I give thanks to my
concept of the Higher Power for the many blessings bestowed upon my family
and me (in spite of the fact that my wife and I are amongst Potter's so-called
"rabble" who does "most of the working and paying and living
and dying"). My spiritual journey through the chaos and pain of bipolar
disorder has been arduous, and is far from over as I work each day to manage
my condition, but the character and spiritual freedom I have earned
enable me to joyfully exist in the less appealing, but much more fulfilling
reality which lies beneath the corporate-manufactured hologram of the Simulacrum
Republic.
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- In 1947, the FBI mentioned "It's a Wonderful
Life" in its investigation of Communist infiltration into America's
film industry. In the United States, it was, and still is "Un-American"
to portray the plutocracy in a negative light. Instead, our sick
mainstream media glorifies hollow men like Donald Trump, while tantalizing
the masses with the incredibly remote possibility that they could
have what "the Donald" has by completing courses at
"Trump University". Meanwhile, our information gods mock and
demonize people like Ralph Nader, a man who has diligently fought
for consumers, the common people, and the environment for years.
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- George Bailey could just as easily have been talking
to Lee Scott, Wal-Mart's CEO, when he said:
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- You sit around here and you spin your little webs
and you think the whole world revolves around you and your money. Well,
it doesn't, Mr. Potter. In the whole vast configuration of things, I'd
say you were nothing but a scurvy little spider.
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- Thanks to the efforts of "Communist"
labor unions on behalf of working people, my grandfather (a man of strength
and integrity who only had an eighth grade education) provided a decent
living for his family by working at a General Motors assembly plant for
25 years. As I grew up listening to him decry the injustices in the
world and watching him shun opportunities to better himself financially when
they would have violated his principles or jeopardized his family's security,
my powerful sense of justice and affinity for integrity were forged.
I thought of my grandfather when Harry Bailey proclaimed:
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- A toast to my big brother George: The richest man
in town.
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- Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy
Hanukkah, and a Joyous Winter Solstice to you!
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- "Simulacrum Republic" by Joe Bageant at:
- http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Dec05/Bageant1222.htm
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- Jason Miller is a 39 year old activist writer with a
degree in liberal arts. When he is not spending time with his wife
and three sons, researching, or writing, he is working as
a loan counselor. He is a member of Amnesty International and an avid
supporter of Oxfam International. He welcomes responses at willpowerful@hotmail.com
or comments on his blog, Thomas Paine's Corner, at http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/.
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