EYES OF THE LADY ON TOP OF THE CAPITOL DOME

What has become of America? The situation is more dangerous than ever. The harassment of Miles Taylor  (former Trump advisor or appointee to the Department of Homeland Security during Mr Trump’s first term) by Trump’s Department of Justice on his specific executive order is more than an outrage. It is indicative of his leadership which is contrary  to  every principle of humanity and democracy proposed and upheld by the United States government since the First United States Congress convened on the 4th March 1789. 

How the current  majority of members of Congress and heads of the various Departments of Government can adhere to this psychotic narcissist’s agenda is beyond all understanding. The arrogance they display towards any criticism of their actions and the outright misrepresentations and twisting of the law to allow for wholesale criminality, emphasised by the pardoning of convicted fraudster and violent criminals, is appalling. The grifting and corruption in play are now the norm. 

I can recall a time when there used to be respect for education in America. Integrity and upholding the rule of law where revered principles constantly being expressed is a variety of ways, particularly in the arts. Mr Smith Goes to Washington is an instance in point. A film released in 1939, directed by Frank Capra. Capra was born in a village near Palermo, Sicily, Italy. He was the youngest of seven children of a catholic family. In 1903, when he was five, Capra's family immigrated to the United States. He won three Academy Awards for best direction. As to his politics, there is an entry in Wikipedia which states:

“Capra's political views coalesced in some of his movies, which promoted and celebrated the spirit of American individualism. A conservative Republican.  Capra railed against  Franklin D. Roosevelt during his tenure as governor of New York and opposed his presidency during the years of the Depression. Capra stood against government intervention during the national economic crisis. Nevertheless, the Los Angeles FBI chapter in May 1947 regarded Capra's film It’s a Wonderful Life as glorifying “values or institutions judged to be particularly anti-American or pro-Communist.”
 

The screenplay of Mr Smith Goes to Washington  was written by Sidney Buchman, born in 1902 in Duluth, Minnesota, USA in a jewish family. His wikipedia entry includes:

“Buchman was one of the most successful Hollywood screenwriters of the 1930s and 1940s. His scripts from this period include The King Steps Out (1936), Theodora Goes Wild (1936) and Holiday (1938). He would go on to receive Academy Award nominations for his writing on Mr Smith Goes to Washington (1939), The Talk of the Town (1942), and Jolson Sings Again (1949), winning an Oscar for Here Comes Mr Jordan (1941). He also did uncredited work on various films during this period, notably The Awful Truth. He was the 1965 recipient of the Laurel Award of the Writers Guild of America, West. Buchman's refusal to provide the names of  American Communist Party members to the House Un-American Activities Committee led to a charge of contempt of Congress. Buchman was fined, given a year's suspended sentence, and was then blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studio  bosses.”

Here is a scene from the film:

 

There is another entry in wikipedia on Capra:

“Within four days of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour on December 7, 1941, Capra quit his successful directing career in Hollywood and received a commission as a major in the United States Army. He also gave up his presidency of the Screen Directors Guild. Being 44 years of age, he was not asked to enlist, but, notes Friedman, "Capra had an intense desire to prove his patriotism to his adopted land. Capra recalls some personal reasons for enlisting:
‘I had a guilty conscience. In my films I championed the cause of the gentle, the poor, the downtrodden. Yet I had begun to live like the Aga Khan. The curse of Hollywood is big money. It comes so fast it breeds and imposes its own mores, not of wealth, but of ostentation and phony status.’ “

Clearly there is a strong connection between the two men who created work that reflected what was good about American Democracy and the values deeply felt by such a mixed population. That the son of a jewish Russian émigré clothing merchant and an Italian immigrant whose family travelled steerage to the United States on the steamship Germania should come together to make this film is just what the American experience was all about. Both came out of poverty, from close families. Buchman graduating from Columbia University in New York in 1923, and Capra from the California Institute of Technology studying chemical engineering graduating in 1918. One leaning to the left of politics and other to the conservative side within the same country.

Both benefited greatly from education. Apparently “Capra later wrote that his college education had "changed his whole viewpoint on life from the viewpoint of an alley rat to the viewpoint of a cultured person”.  As to Buchman, a year after graduating he travelled to England and worked as an assistant stage manager at the Old Vic. He was also a member of the Communist Party between 1938 and 1945.

Yet both worked on producing films that reflected what were the better values of American society and were, a the time, lauded for it. An entry on the Internet Movie Database states: 
“Along with Frank Capra, he helped raise the studio's prestige and shake off the stigma of having once been a 'poverty row' outfit.”

The dialogue from Mr Smith may seem a bit cheesy but worth a read:

“ Just get up off the ground, that's all I ask. Get up there with that lady that's up on top of this Capitol dome, that lady that stands for liberty. Take a look at this country through her eyes if you really want to see something. And you won't just see scenery; you'll see the whole parade of what Man's carved out for himself, after centuries of fighting. Fighting for something better than just jungle law, fighting so's he can stand on his own two feet, free and decent, like he was created, no matter what his race, color, or creed. That's what you'd see. There's no place out there for graft, or greed, or lies, or compromise with human liberties. And, uh, if that's what the grownups have done with this world that was given to them, then we'd better get those boys' camps started fast and see what the kids can do. And it's not too late, because this country is bigger than the Taylors, or you, or me, or anything else. Great principles don't get lost once they come to light. They're right here; you just have to see them again!”

There are indeed voices in the United States that can still speak coherently and with passion on both sides of the political spectrum, without recourse to insult and disparagement. They  also  listen with concentration and a willingness to compromise for the mutual good of the nation; however, the Maga stalwarts are either vicious and inflexible, or feeble and pusillanimous  toadies. They loudly flatter and fawn on a leader  who proudly proclaims “I love the poorly educated”. Their ignorance  allows him to gaslight the public and openly scam the public with his corruption and double dealing. Such are the current Republican congressmen and women who never take the time to look at America with the lady atop the Capitol dome.