Beck’s Wilmington Effort more a Pulling Together than a Hijacking

We live in a HollyWeird world when Glenn Beck is being accused of hijacking the 1946 movie It’s a Wonderful Life in the same week as ice-water-in-his-veins Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin accuses Leonardo DiCaprio of being a “real man”.

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Given the metrosexual dominated era in which we live, the more serious charge may be the one against green-as-money DiCaprio. The Beck accusation comes from the less famous in the person of Lauri Lebo, a “former” newspaper reporter who hails from Harrisburg, Pa, in a commentary posted on line. (Joe Kovacs, WorldNetDaily, Nov. 27, 2010). Though bigger in population than Wilmington, Ohio, a town left largely out of work since shipping giant DHL picked up and left some two years ago, Lebo’s home city of Harrisburg’s council is being advised by a New York law firm about a possible bankruptcy filing this week. Beck has been planning to air his Dec. 15 show from Wilmington in an effort to show the fighting spirit of many of its 12,000 people and to call attention to small-town America in the current economic downturn. In his televised explanation about Why Wilmington, Beck said the town “is fighting to be Bedford Falls, not Pottersville,” a reference to the fictional towns in the film, in which real life war hero actor Jimmy Stewart played George Bailey, a small town man who counted on help from above to rescue his family’s Bailey Building & Loan in the middle of tough economic times. But Glenn Beck didn’t have to rely on Frank Capra’s touching classic to want to help Wilmington. He saw it in real life in his own hometown of Mount Vernon, Washington,
 a memory only returned to him recently in the gift of his father’s custom, revolutionary military coat, complete with his mother’s hearts embroidered into the lining; a gift that found its way back to him from the remarkable owner of a shop that features vintage clothing.

In these hard times, it is not only Beck hijacking It’s a Wonderful Life. It’s a scene repeated by good people in small towns everywhere. A bid to put towns back to work, to hold families together with dignity, a genuine effort to keep food on the plates of the jobless. It would be much better described as a pulling together rather than a hijacking. Why is it that every time someone comes forward to do something good, detractors make it their business to pour cold water on any enthusiasm inspired by the good deed? “Beck is now trying to steal the great 1946 Frank Capra classic It’s a Wonderful Life and turn it into a rally cry for the conservative anti-government Christian right,” said Lebo. “Somehow, Beck manages to reinterpret the movie through an unregulated free-market Ayn Rand prism and message of Christian conservatism.” Bad boy, Glenn, may Michelle Obama be there to haunt you over your every Christmas Day bite. As for Lebo, she surely must know that anti-government is not the preserve of the Christian right but also finds its way inside atheism and into the rest of the secular realm. Small towns are dying and it takes more than a good heart to want to save their populations. It takes decency, perseverance and plain commonsense. As for Putin, who thinks heart-throb Leonardo DiCaprio is a “real man” after the actor’s plane had to make an emergency landing on the way to a summit on tigers in Putin’s native Saint Petersburg: The real men were honored for their courage and sacrifice on November 11.