But I digress.

Well said, fafaroo.
May I just add:

(T)he film’s only two direct representations of the state — the sheriff and the military, in the form of Harry bailey — are present in the final scene. For all the money that pours in from friends and family, George’s fate is ultimately in the hands of the state as a warrant has been issued for his arrest. It’s significant that the sheriff tears up that warrant and tosses it on the pile of cash.

Isn’t it also significant that the other (unmentioned) representation of the state-the bank auditor- also adds a couple of bucks to the pile?
If I follow your line about Capra’s thinking, would this not indicate a, however small, helping hand from the state?

“George Bailey, a man who pretty much did it on his own.”

Try to imagine IAWL with Potter as the protagonist. Imagine further that he makes the same appeal wishing he’d never been born. Then imagine his utter shock when nothing really changes all that much without him.

I’m sorry I just read through more of Matt’s comments. Are you an idiot? The central message of the film is the power of community and the interconnectedness of all our lives. We see how much George’s life has impacted the lives of everyone around him and then we see how those people, ultimately, rush to George’s aid in a time of extreme crisis. The only real individualist in the film, that is the only person in the film who could be said to have “done it on his own,” is Potter, not exactly the film’s paragon of character. You have to be completely blind to suggest that George Bailey is an individualist. Hell, he didn’t even found the Building & Loan, his father did. He certainly never built it into anything more than it always was at the beginning of the film. He could barely make ends meet both at the office and at home. By the usual yardstick of capitalism, George Bailey was a failure, not a triumphant individualist. But that’s exactly the film’s point: The individualist, every-man-for-himself values of capitalism are corrupting and need to be brought in line with a more human, community-centered view of life.

His endless penchant for “Liberals Good, Conservatives Bad” doesn’t fit in with IAWL. There’s no liberalism there, just good and evil.

I’m sorry, but this is just the stupidest thing I’ve read here in a long time. Matt, you seem to think that you’re clarifying something here but you are actually obfuscating and obscuring the truth. This is what’s so fucking wrong with this babble about “good and evil” they obscure the specifics of the situation and the problem. This kind of “analysis” short circuits rationality and thought. It’s strictly emotionalism that gives rise to the worst sort of blundering public policies.

Both representatives of state power in the film explicitly endorse George’s path of a tempered, regulated capitalism yoked to the service of friends, family and capitalism.

Matt’s was a pretty long and rambling rant but I’d like to just point out just one of his glaring idiocies. The incident that triggers the film’s climactic crisis is, indeed, entirely beyond George’s control. Unless you think he should have fired Uncle Billy for incompetence years before, George had nothing whatsoever to do with the loss of the $8,000 that brings the auditors and the law down on his neck.

It’s fascinating that Matt is at such pains to suggest that government has nothing to do with George’s success. Indeed, it doesn’t because government has no direct representation in the film until the very end in the form of the sheriff and the military, in the form of George’s brother Harry. The institution’s of capitalism, however, are directly represented through out the film through both Potter, the banker, and Sam Wainright, the industrialist. Within the symbolic structure of the film, these institutions set in opposition to the institutions of family and community.

George’s tragedy is that despite the joys of his family and the great good he does for the community, he still considers himself a failure because he lives in a drafty house, he doesn’t have the best dressed kids in town and he can’t travel the world doing big things he always wanted to do. He is an Everyman who can’t see the beauty of his own life because of the dominant values of the culture around him. Those values are embodied in Potter and Sam Wainright, who represent the two faces of capitalism. Potter is obviously the darker side of capitalism in which the ruthless pursuit of profit erases all else: friends, family, community. Wainright, on the other hand, represents the positive aspects of capitalism as much as Sam helps to build community (he reopens a factory in Bedford Falls on George’s advice) and he appears relatively happy with his trophy wife. Sam is happy but also shallow. His pleasures are superficial.

Because George has bought into the materialist values of capitalism, George feels hemmed in and tied down by friends, family and community. He aspires to Wainright’s superficial happiness but when thwarted by the bonds of family is tempted to become Potter, by taking the job in the bank.

The figure of Sam Wainright is evidence enough that the film is not anti-capitalist. It nevertheless recognizes that capitalism left unchecked has a negative influence on society as witnessed in Pottersville. The name of this nightmare town binds its condition to the policies and practices the figure who most explicitly represents unbridled capitalism in the film. It’s hilarious that Matt would praise Ma Bailey for turning her home into a boarding house when in the film, this is clearly presented as a capitulation: the ultimate destruction of the family sphere by an unchecked capitalism. Any one who could read this any other way understands absolutely nothing about films or how they function.

Ultimately, George recognizes the value of his life but even more, he recognizes the value of the path he has chosen which stands as a middle way between Potter and Wainright. His path represents a capitalism made responsive to friends, family and community. It is a capitalism brought down to size and put in the service of values other than the values of pure profit or fleeting pleasures. It is, in other words, a regulated and tamed capitalism which was the central goal of FDRs New Deal. This is in keeping with Capra’s own personal politics. He was a New Deal supporter but he was also no communist or socialist.

Anyone that wants to claim this movie is conservative in nature not only has to deny the explicit critique of capitalism in the film, as does Matt and Jay Tea, they also have to ignore Capra’s own politics were closely aligned with FDR and the New Deal left.

In short, they have to be idiots.

Last time I checked, liberalism existed. Too bad, so sad. Of course, this does fit in with the conservatives unhinged hatred of modern fiction (Harry Potter, One Piece, etc.).

Zython, 6:16 a.m., December 27:

Besides, Jay was the one who dragged the conversation to Harry Potter.

Response 1: Zython, why do you hate the truth so much?

Response 2: Zython, why are you such a lying sack of shit?

Response 3: Zython, are you so stupid that you couldn’t remember you brought up Harry Potter first, or do you think everyone else so stupid that they couldn’t simply read up and see that simple fact?

Choose any or all of the above.

J.

But I did find it interesting that when Chappaquiddick comes up…

Look, thats kinda the point. Why is Chappaquidick brought up at all? Good lord it happened before I was even born. Know what else happened before I was even born? Bush’s three arrests. That right there is the first time in five years I’ve even brought them up. Know why so infrequently? Because they don’t really matter too damn much. By contrast, how many times this month alone have you made or heard a Chappaquidick “Joke,” counting the two in this thread alone?

George Bailey, a man who pretty much did it on his own.

For a town full of people that otherwise couldn’t. That’s been the whole point that you’ve been struggling to avoid this whole time you’ve been building your ridiculous strawmen(abortion loving, homosexual, work-avoiding, god loathing, etc etc etc throughout the litany that is as long as it is tediously predictable). In a town that seems to have no other significant social welfare programs George Bailey effectively was the social welfare program. And you think he’s a “good” person? Hardly surprising coming from such a damned godless gay welfare loving socialist as yourself, matt!

Also, Haruhi-ism is a false religion. Kona-chan the benevolent will destroy the false God Suzumiya. The reckoning will come. None will be spared, not even the children.

You say conservative, I say Eric Rudolph.

More than you did, before your laser focus was pulled into the Harry Potter Universe.

Conversations change topics. Besides, Jay was the one who dragged the conversation to Harry Potter.

And I brought a lot more to the table than he did.

Not really, unless we count your hatred for America. *Sigh* when will you conservatives just give up and admit that you hate this country more than anything?

But I did find it interesting that when Chappaquiddick comes up, Teddy’s just a guy who “did a schmucky thing in 1970,” but do yourself a favor - try Googling “liberal lion of the Senate” and see which name you get all over the front page.

Hmm…I could link the phrase “conservative bear of the senate” to Larry Craig, and spam it across a ton of sites. It’s very easy to alter Google this way.

You know, the party of S-CHIP and the New Deal,

Translation: I hate children and poor people.

Not suprising.

we-know-better-than-you

This is coming from a guy who’s political affiliation claims to be descendant from God himself (or herself if you believe in Haruhi-ism, which you undoubtably don’t and elitestly label a “fake religion”).

Poor matt, why do you hate America so much?

You miss the point entirely, but not unexpectedly.

Oliver’s thesis was clearly stated in his original post, and repeated, verbatim, once in my first comment, and now, a second time, here:

“Just finished watching it for the ten billionth time on Christmas Eve, and I don’t know how anybody could argue that it isn’t one of the most liberal movies ever.”

See it there?

And for backup, what does he provide? One monologue, highlighting one idea.

And you, with your obvious intellectual depth, eat it up like so much Christmas candy. Sweet, maybe…but satisfying? No chance.

What does Oliver want when he drops these idiocy grenades? Someone to argue the converse.

So I did.

And I brought a lot more to the table than he did. More than you did, before your laser focus was pulled into the Harry Potter Universe. If you can’t stay on point, that’s fine, but at least have the honesty to admit it out loud.

And I definitely could have worked abortion into the mix (wasn’t it right after Potter offered George a job, right after Potter reminded George that he was doing well, but that a baby would eat up the surplus he was saving, that Mary announced her pregnancy? Isn’t the implication obvious? But they kept the baby.) Gay marriage would have been a challenge, but you did of course know that the Sesame Street characters Bert and Ernie were named after the cop and cabbie, right? Two male Muppets living together?

But such a stretch would have been nothing but a cheap shot.

Like the one I purposely took at Ted Kennedy (you must agree that the context was perfect, was it not?) just to watch you all go bonkers.

Looks like I misread the audience there, huh?

But I did find it interesting that when Chappaquiddick comes up, Teddy’s just a guy who “did a schmucky thing in 1970,” but do yourself a favor - try Googling “liberal lion of the Senate” and see which name you get all over the front page.

I’ll give you an hint - it’s not Robert Byrd.

It’s pretty simple word association. You say liberal, I say Ted Kennedy. So does Google.

Pretty pathetic if the standard bearer of your party in the Senate is just some guy who “did a schmucky thing in 1970.”

Would it be stereotypical if a liberal said something that stupid, or is it a “you can’t hit my brother, only I can hit my brother” thing?

In the end, Rex, it’s not about tearing down liberals and their emotion-slanted philosophies (easy as it is to provoke you from reason to rage, which only proves the point), it’s about disabusing Oliver from his idiocy.

His endless penchant for “Liberals Good, Conservatives Bad” doesn’t fit in with IAWL. There’s no liberalism there, just good and evil.

How can Oliver argue that IAWL is one of the most liberal movies ever made? What single liberal policy made George’s life wonderful?

While the evil can pretty easily be colored conservative, so too can the good. As I said before, it’s about the good and the evil, not the partisan label. But still, that’s all you see, because it’s all you can focus on. Partisan myopia, remember?

You know, the party of S-CHIP and the New Deal, of tax increases and peace at any cost, of amnesty and never-ever-ever-touch-Social-Security-we-know-better-than-you, doesn’t easily get to stake a claim to George Bailey, a man who pretty much did it on his own.

That’s like using war in the Middle East to create peace in the Middle East.

Oh. Okay. Never mind.

It’s a wonder anyone would ever take you seriously.

Thanks.

Everyone else,

you misspelled “KILL THE MESSENGER!!!!”

That because you think that Ted Kennedy didn’t save a drowning woman in 1970, no liberal could?
Of course, you’re a conservative. What was I thinking?

Fuck off.

Right. Because all liberals are alike? Because Ted Kennedy did a schmucky thing in 1970, no liberal could possibly be any different ever, right?

Seriously, fuck off.

All in all, a classic.

And one that didn’t even become associated with Christmas until it fell into public domain, and more and more stations started running it during Christmas.

Thank you, Frank Capra. Thank you, Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed and Lionel Barrymore. Thank you, Philip Van Doren Stern and Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett and everyone else who helped give this great gift to all of us.

J.