While I agree with most of the sentiments of the article, the title perpetuates a cultural misconception... That the so called Christmas movie alluded to in the article's title is hardly cheerful or happy and uplifting. It's a Wonderful Life is actually a dark journey through the bleak realities of post war America. To sum up, Jimmy Stewart spends the whole movie getting beat down, and having his dreams shattered. There is no soft selling or downplaying this... From getting beat in the head until he is deaf in one ear, as a reward for doing the right thing as a child… to constantly getting hammered, and having his family’s way of life chipped away by the financial interests of the capitalist system, as represented by Potter. The only relief at the end is that a bunch of other beat down middle class shlubs like Jimmy Stewart’s character band together in the same sinking boat, under the protective balm of the complicit Christian religion and its debased, commercialized holiday.

This movie was a dark and edgy critique of Eisenhower’s America, and it’s only repeated Christmas broadcasts, and assumptions like the article title, that puts it in the same cultural category as smarmy feel-good crap like "a Miracle on 34th Street," or a million and one other generic Christmas movies. Lets take this movie back from the Christmas hucksters, and try and get people watch it in a different context; It's a Wonderful Life never been more relevant then in G. W. Bush’s American.

I guess I saw a different movie then Mr. Kamiya. It's a Wonderful Life REINFORCED the utter mind crushing horror of Small town middle-america. George's life was one miserable kick in the crotch after another. This was never downplayed or romanticized. George's life sucked, and he broke under its weight. It's a wondeful Life was the Original Donnie Darko, American Beauty and Fight Club, all rolled into one.

The so-called happy ending? George's hysterical shrieks "God Bless us one and all" weren't shrieks of happiness. It was a shriek of terror and despair and madness. His sacrifices were the only thing that was holding together the lie that was Bedford Falls. The weight of the world WAS in fact on his shoulders. And the weight was destroying him.

The great depression, and WW2 forever changed America, and It's a wonderful life was an wry, witty and terrifying examination of those changes. Of course Pottersville looks more appealing to the modern eye. Pottersville looked more appealing to Americans of 1946, too. Which was Capra's sly point.

That Capra's dark vision of American life has somehow been whitewashed into a candy coated fairytale is no surprise. Times Square in New York used to be Pottersville, and now it's Disneyland. No matter how witty Mr. Kamiya wants to be, it doesn't change the fact that Capra beat him to it by 50 years.

As an independent publisher(Night Shade Books - http://www.nightshadebooks.com ) NOT distributed by PGW, I feel lucky to have not been a client of PGW. But luck had nothing to do with it. It was a conscious choice I made several years ago to NOT get into bed with PGW.

Stories of distributors going bankrupt have plagued publishing for years. I'm reminded of genre publishing's then-most successful independent publisher (Tom Doherty, of Tor - http://www.tor-forge.com) who had to sell his company to a conglomerate in the 80's because his distributor went bankrupt. These types of bankruptcies are sadly nothing new, and indy publishers who fail to recognize this do so at their own peril.

The benefits of large distributors are always offset by the risk having one middle man hold onto your money for 4-6 months. Combine this with long term contracts, and the costs associated with switching distributors, and it can be almost impossible to change horses, even when one sees the warning signs. Problems at AMS have been ongoing since the day of its acquisition of PGW. These problems were not a secret, and it was a five-year-long slow-motion train wreck that ended with some suspicious collusion between AMS officers and Wells Fargo. Of course, when one is engaged in the overwhelming time sink that is running an independent publishing company, it can be hard to keep track of the business practices of the corporate owners of your distributor.

The lessons of Tor, and the series of magazine distributor bankruptcy's of the 90's (which was as catastrophic to indy magazine publishers then as the PGW bankruptcy has been to book publishers now) were at the front of my mind when I got into business with my current distributor, Diamond Books. The financial health and long-term viability of their parent company (Diamond Comics) was one of the main reasons I went with them, as opposed to PGW, or Consortium, or IPG.

Speaking of IPG(Independent Publishers Group - http://www.ipgbook.com/), they are a distributor out of Chicago, and is now(I believe) the second largest distributor in the country, right behind Perseus/Consortium. I know they picked up several of PGW's former clients, and continue to expand in the wake of the PGW bankruptcy.

The clear lesson from this debacle is that an indy publishing company can do everything right; sell lots of books, establish a viable business model, and create a loyal customer base with a recognizable brand, and still end up bankrupt, through no fault of its own.

As with any small business, operating capitol and cash reserves are the only protection from catastrophes like this. Fortunately, the internet, and a passionate customer base can help quickly generate the former, as demonstrated by McSweeney's call for help. If this kind of direct access to ones customers had been available in the 80's, Tom Doherty might still own the company he founded.