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How the GOP Tries to Transform America into a Selfish, Souless Place

Tue, 01/10/2012 - 15:07 — Dave Culver
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  • In the spirit of their self-centered mentor Ayn Rand, Republicans are trying to disfigure America so she resembles Pottersville, the 'bankers town' in "It's a Wonderful Life."
  • A Republican Insider Looks at the Rise of the Religious Right

Leo Gerard, AlterNet

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In the iconic Christmas film, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” an angel offers the beleaguered main character, George Bailey, the stark choice between a hometown named for a cruel banker or one created by and for the middle class.

The banker’s town, Pottersville, is filled with bars, gambling dens and despair. The people’s town of Bedford Falls is made of hope, hard working middle class families, and their homes financed by the Bailey Brothers Building & Loan.

The film’s happy ending is the people of Bedford Falls banding together to rescue George Bailey and the Bailey Brothers Building & Loan that had given so many of them a leg up over the years. Republicans seek a different conclusion. They find middle class cooperation and community intolerable. They want the banker, Henry Potter, with his “every man for himself” philosophy to triumph. In the spirit of their self-centered mentor Ayn Rand, Republicans are trying to disfigure America so she resembles Pottersville.

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Related:

A Republican Insider Looks at the Rise of the Religious Right, Frederick Clarkson, Daily Kos

  • Barbara Stanwyck: "We're both rotten!"
  • Fred MacMurray: "Yeah - only you're a little more rotten." -"Double Indemnity" (1944)
  • Those lines of dialogue from a classic film noir sum up the state of the two political parties in contemporary America.
  • A Club of Liars, Demagogues and Ignoramuses
  • A Republican’s Lament: ‘It’s a Disgrace’
     

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