I've offered President Obama quite a bit of political advice on the Retro Daddy blog—absolutely free, I might add.

I pointed out how movie director John Ford had detected a possible weakness in his opponent, Senator McCain. I also brought to Senator Obama's attention the problems a previous “candidate of change” named Hal Phillip Walker had had while campaigning in Nashville, Tennessee, back in the 1970s.

Finally, I suggested that he watch old movies to help him implement his agenda. If the Republicans in the Senate try to filibuster the healthcare reform bill, President Obama may learn from the experience of Senator Jefferson Smith decades ago.

Inspiration

Right now, more than almost anything, America needs to regain its economic strength.

To do that we need to recover our sense of fairness and good will for each other. We need to recognize what we owe each other as citizens. This is more important than historical economic knowledge or mathematical acuity, or even years of experience running a nation's central bank. We need inspiration.

Since I was ten years years old, one person has inspired me a great deal.

 Walt Disney.

The young entrepreneur

In 1960, Uncle Walt presented the story of an orphaned little girl who was brought to a turn-of-the-century town called Harrington. The series Pollyanna was based on a novel by Eleanor H. Porter.

Walt Disney was no socialist. He lost a nasty labor dispute with his animators union in 1941. (See Boom and Bust: American Cinema in the 1940s.) In Pollyanna, Disney's conception of what we owe each other as citizens comes out in the story when there's a fire in the town orphanage (with no children dying, as I recall).

Jane Wyman as Aunt Polly

Pollyanna's strict Aunt Polly was played by Jane Wyman in a part she obviously took as seriously as her great roles in Johnny Belinda or Douglas Sirk's All That Heaven Allows and Magnificent Obsession. Aunt Polly wants to repair the orphanage, her family's gift to the town. Aunt Polly says it's her duty, but actually it's a way of holding the townspeople in a kind of feudal relationship.

Richard Egan as the town doctor 

However the town doctor (Richard Egan—perfect as this solid character who was once in love with Aunt Polly) says it's the town's responsibility to raise the money to build a new modern orphanage with proper medical facilities.

Aunt Polly learns several lessons. She learns to give in to the feelings she still has for the doctor. She learns how precious her young niece's optimism is.

The doctor has a cure for Pollyanna . . .

                      . . . and a cure for Aunt Polly  

And Aunt Polly learns that a community needs to provide for itself by working as a community for the things that benefit everyone.

A lesson in citizenship