It's Christmas Eve and NBC is running its traditional three hour movie , "It's a Wonderful Life." It's a strange parallel to draw, but I couldn't help but use the movie to reflect on events of the last two weeks.
The film opens, it's Christmas Eve,1946. George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) has long considered himself a failure. He faces financial ruin and arrest. He is seriously contemplating suicide. Drowning in the river is his choice of suicide. No assault weapons for George Bailey. If not for the help of an angel named Clarence ( who has been trying to earn his wings for more than 200 years) George might have jumped into the river ending his misery. Clarence (the angel) takes George on a flashback trip of what life in Bedford Falls would have been like if George hadn't been born. By the movie's end, George realizes that he has touched many people in a positive way and that his life has truly been a wonderful one. But if not for the help of an Clarence, the wingless angel, and after being shown a bigger picture, George decides against jumping off the bridge into the river and killing himself. George leaves the bridge and idea of suicide and rushes back to his family letting them know how happy he is to be alive. (This is over simplification of course but remember the movie is 3 hours long).
So where's the connection between a 1946 movie and real life of December 2012? Let see if i can make the connection work?
My first day of vacation December 14th, at 9:30 am, I hear of the Newton Connecticut shootings where nearly 30 children and their teachers are tragically shot and killed by a
20-year-old gunman. Tonight, December 24th, as I return home from my trip to Florida, the first story of NBC Nightly is of the four firefighters who were shot and two killed by sniper while responding to to a routine blaze. It appears the gunman set the car and house on fire. It was a set-up to shoot the responding firefighters. In both cases the gunmen killed themselves before authorities could apprehend them. Why? Why would these men resort to such a cowardice act? Could they have been mentally ill? Maybe, Maybe not, But like George Bailey, these men needed help from an guardian angel but didn't get it.
I'm not going to pretend to know what motivated these senseless killings, But I think it's fair to assume both men must have felt a sense of desperation to do what they did. Taking innocent lives in addtion to their own had to be motivated by something. AND there is the parallel. That's the way George Baily felt when he contemplated suicide. He felt a sense of desparation and that life wasn't worth living. Only George didn't decide to kill the innocent people of Bedford Falls.
What was so wrong with life that these two men felt the need to take the lives of innocent men , women and children? It took an Angel named Clarence to show George his value to society. And maybe that's what's missing. Metephorically we need more angels like Clarence. If you don't believe in angels, can I replace them with "mental therapists"?
Much already has been said about more gun regulations and the elimination (ban) of assault weapons. We can be sure that the conversation will continue even more-so after today's attacks on firefighters in upstate New York.
Isn't the real problem, not guns, but instead mental illness. People just don't kill other people unless there is a screw loose in their brain. I was in St Joe Missouri when the state's first mental insitution closed it's doors due to financial hardships. Overnight, the state released hundreds of mentally ill patients to make it on the streets. The answer was to mainstream those who were marginally well enough to make it on on their own and put them on the streets. No more warehousing those with mental illiness. Mainstreaming was sthe buzzword of the week at the time. Many at the time said it would never work. At the time only Missouri adopted the the practice of releasing the mentally ill. Soon everyone with mental illness across the nation was being mainstreamed Many predicted there would be a price to pay in the future...Apparently that prediction is now coming true as more mentally ill keep going on shooting rampages.
More importantly, there was a shift of cutting back on treatments and medicine of new mental patients. Nobody wanted to admit that mental illness was a national epidemic. I'm here to say that the cutbacks on federal and state funding for those who are mentally ill is now taking it's toll. A death toll to be more precise. Laws need to be adopted and in some cases simply re-instated so that mentally ill people can be treated or committed to institutions. Psychiatric treatemt needs to be made available and paid for by not only the government but also by the insurance industry. Families of those with mental illness will be the first to tell you of their struggles to get financial assistance to treat their sons, daughters, mothers and fathers. Those who are mentally ill deserved to have treatment not only to protect society, but also to protect themselves. Those with mental illness need to be protected from committing such horrific acts as those in Cennecticut and New York.
George Bailey learned by the end of the movie that he really did make a difference in his Bedford Falls and that life was worth living....but not until Clarence the angel helped George see the bigger picture (call it therapy). George decides against suicide. As a result and unlike today's modern day depressed and mentally ill, George didn't shoot down school children or firefighters.
Our mentally ill need an angel more now than ever. If you don't believe in Clarence, then at least let's provide some government assisted intervention and financial support before even more innocent lives are taken. Mental illiness should be put on the Congressional front burner when they return in January. Let's stop the polticial posturing between Republicans and Democrats . Let them get something done before more innocent people are murdered senselessly. If we can do so, George Bailey and myself will sleep much easier..
Let's work together so that we can find a solution to the senseless slaughter of our families and friends. It really could be a "Wonderful Life". Here's to a Happy New Year in 2013.
LWT
The film opens, it's Christmas Eve,1946. George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) has long considered himself a failure. He faces financial ruin and arrest. He is seriously contemplating suicide. Drowning in the river is his choice of suicide. No assault weapons for George Bailey. If not for the help of an angel named Clarence ( who has been trying to earn his wings for more than 200 years) George might have jumped into the river ending his misery. Clarence (the angel) takes George on a flashback trip of what life in Bedford Falls would have been like if George hadn't been born. By the movie's end, George realizes that he has touched many people in a positive way and that his life has truly been a wonderful one. But if not for the help of an Clarence, the wingless angel, and after being shown a bigger picture, George decides against jumping off the bridge into the river and killing himself. George leaves the bridge and idea of suicide and rushes back to his family letting them know how happy he is to be alive. (This is over simplification of course but remember the movie is 3 hours long).
So where's the connection between a 1946 movie and real life of December 2012? Let see if i can make the connection work?
My first day of vacation December 14th, at 9:30 am, I hear of the Newton Connecticut shootings where nearly 30 children and their teachers are tragically shot and killed by a
20-year-old gunman. Tonight, December 24th, as I return home from my trip to Florida, the first story of NBC Nightly is of the four firefighters who were shot and two killed by sniper while responding to to a routine blaze. It appears the gunman set the car and house on fire. It was a set-up to shoot the responding firefighters. In both cases the gunmen killed themselves before authorities could apprehend them. Why? Why would these men resort to such a cowardice act? Could they have been mentally ill? Maybe, Maybe not, But like George Bailey, these men needed help from an guardian angel but didn't get it.
I'm not going to pretend to know what motivated these senseless killings, But I think it's fair to assume both men must have felt a sense of desperation to do what they did. Taking innocent lives in addtion to their own had to be motivated by something. AND there is the parallel. That's the way George Baily felt when he contemplated suicide. He felt a sense of desparation and that life wasn't worth living. Only George didn't decide to kill the innocent people of Bedford Falls.
What was so wrong with life that these two men felt the need to take the lives of innocent men , women and children? It took an Angel named Clarence to show George his value to society. And maybe that's what's missing. Metephorically we need more angels like Clarence. If you don't believe in angels, can I replace them with "mental therapists"?
Much already has been said about more gun regulations and the elimination (ban) of assault weapons. We can be sure that the conversation will continue even more-so after today's attacks on firefighters in upstate New York.
Isn't the real problem, not guns, but instead mental illness. People just don't kill other people unless there is a screw loose in their brain. I was in St Joe Missouri when the state's first mental insitution closed it's doors due to financial hardships. Overnight, the state released hundreds of mentally ill patients to make it on the streets. The answer was to mainstream those who were marginally well enough to make it on on their own and put them on the streets. No more warehousing those with mental illiness. Mainstreaming was sthe buzzword of the week at the time. Many at the time said it would never work. At the time only Missouri adopted the the practice of releasing the mentally ill. Soon everyone with mental illness across the nation was being mainstreamed Many predicted there would be a price to pay in the future...Apparently that prediction is now coming true as more mentally ill keep going on shooting rampages.
More importantly, there was a shift of cutting back on treatments and medicine of new mental patients. Nobody wanted to admit that mental illness was a national epidemic. I'm here to say that the cutbacks on federal and state funding for those who are mentally ill is now taking it's toll. A death toll to be more precise. Laws need to be adopted and in some cases simply re-instated so that mentally ill people can be treated or committed to institutions. Psychiatric treatemt needs to be made available and paid for by not only the government but also by the insurance industry. Families of those with mental illness will be the first to tell you of their struggles to get financial assistance to treat their sons, daughters, mothers and fathers. Those who are mentally ill deserved to have treatment not only to protect society, but also to protect themselves. Those with mental illness need to be protected from committing such horrific acts as those in Cennecticut and New York.
George Bailey learned by the end of the movie that he really did make a difference in his Bedford Falls and that life was worth living....but not until Clarence the angel helped George see the bigger picture (call it therapy). George decides against suicide. As a result and unlike today's modern day depressed and mentally ill, George didn't shoot down school children or firefighters.
Our mentally ill need an angel more now than ever. If you don't believe in Clarence, then at least let's provide some government assisted intervention and financial support before even more innocent lives are taken. Mental illiness should be put on the Congressional front burner when they return in January. Let's stop the polticial posturing between Republicans and Democrats . Let them get something done before more innocent people are murdered senselessly. If we can do so, George Bailey and myself will sleep much easier..
Let's work together so that we can find a solution to the senseless slaughter of our families and friends. It really could be a "Wonderful Life". Here's to a Happy New Year in 2013.
LWT