By Robert Reich, December 23, 2012, Robert Reich’s Blog
(One of my favourite American public policy people is this guy, Robert Reich, who was a secretary of labour for former U.S. president Bill Clinton, and who remains a strong advocate for fair play for the 99 per cent of us who are getting more and more screwed each day by the upper one per cent. Here is a piece from him Niagara At Large wishes to share with you this Holiday Season. It was written with the United States in mind but we think it is just as relevant, in many, to the state of things in Canada these days.)
‘It’s easy to feel discouraged about the bullying by right-wing Republicans and their patrons over everything from gun control to taxes and social safety nets to trade unions and jobs.
Robert Reich
Every year about now I watch “It’s a Wonderful Life” again to remind myself what Frank Capra understood about America — its essential decency and common sense.
In many ways the nation is better than it was in 1946 when the movie first appeared. Women have gained economic power and reproductive rights; we enacted Civil Rights and Voting Rights and, through Medicare and Medicaid, dramatically reduced poverty among the elderly; we began to tackle environmental devastation; we stopped treating gays as criminals and have even started to recognize equal marriage rights. We elected and then re-elected the first black president of the United States. We have enacted the bare beginnings of universal healthcare.
But we are still in danger of the “Pottersville” Capra saw as the consequence of what happens when Americans fail to join together and forget the meaning of the public good.
If Lionel Barrymore’s “Mr. Potter” were alive today he’d call himself a “job creator” and condemn George Bailey as a socialist. He’d be financing a fleet of lobbyists to get lower taxes on multi-millionaires like himself, overturn environmental laws, trample on workers’ rights, and shred social safety nets. He’d fight any form of gun control. He’d want the citizens of Pottersville to be economically insecure – living paycheck to paycheck and worried about losing their jobs – so they’d be dependent on his good graces.
The Mr. Potters are still alive and well in America, threatening our democracy with their money and our common morality with their greed.
Call me naive or sentimental but I still believe the George Baileys will continue to win this contest. They know we’re all in it together, and that if we succumb to the bullying selfishness of the Potters we lose America and relinquish the future.
Happy holidays.
Robert B. Reich, Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, was Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the last century. He has written thirteen books, including the best sellers “Aftershock” and “The Work of Nations.” His latest is an e-book, “Beyond Outrage.” He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine and chairman of Common Cause.
Visit Robert Reich’s blog site at www.robertreich.org .
This post also appeared on Readers Support News, a news site you can visit and support with your donation at http://readersupportednews.org .
(Niagara At Large invites you to share your views below. Please Note that we only post comments from individuals who also share their first and last names.)
Niagara At Large 
Have you ever wondered whether our Hindu friends are correct about reincarnation? Perhaps we come back to Earth over many lifetimes to face, in different forms, the same question of “Bedford Falls” or “Pottersville”.
In fact, isn’t that choice the one we seem to face all the way through life?
Do you think we ever ‘grow up’ and need to never worry again about making such momentous choices? They seem to insert themselves into eveything we do….
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Lorne, I couldn’t agree with you more. It really is a spiritual issue that defines how each of us relates to ourselves, the people in our lives and good old mother earth.
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Doug there are a “Few” economists and others such as the Robert Reichs who truly care about their country and the deplorable state it has fallen into under the Republicans and their 1% masters and though I do not merrily ride along on the band wagon of the Democrats I at least feel they are the lesser of two evils (As Ralph Nader once implied) That the Republican Leader in of the house just recently had to hold a meeting with one of the biggest monetary sponsors of the right wing 1%ers (Adelson) shows there is almost if not all total control, ownership and direction of the once great, honest and caring Republican Party. A party of the Lincolns, the Eisenhowers and Roosvelts who gave their lives for the betterment of their people.
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