He is a true American hero!
There's an old 50's movie with Jennifer Jones, called "Good Morning, Miss Dove," about an iconic schoolteacher ("old maid," teaches geography, strong on discipline and respect, but also on fairness, helps troubled students, earns their lifelong admiration) who, when the panic of 1929 hits, prevents a run on the town bank by slowly and methodically counting out her cash at the teller's window, until the clock strikes 3 PM and the bank can close its doors. She is calmness itself--as she quickly assesses the situation, with a hubbub of yelling and panicky behavior all around her, and sees what she must do. She thus saves the town from disaster.
The bank scene is not included in this movie description (but it's the scene I most remember!):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Morning_Miss_DoveFor some reason this scene stuck in my mind--from an otherwise forgotten movie (that I saw when I was 10 years old, and haven't seen since)--as the epitome of good citizenship and wisdom ("who can keep your head/ when all around you/ are losing theirs/ and blaming it on you?" --Longfellow? Kipling? --can't recall). I wanted to grow up to be like her--the calm in the storm, the person who saves the town by keeping her head in frightening circumstances. She was also a compassionate and generous soul, who was undaunted by life's disappointments, and, though something of a neurotic--with her focus on self-discipline and discipline in her students--came to the defense of disadvantaged students, and also a kid who was the victim of racial prejudice (a Jewish boy).
She was a hero. Quiet, unremarkable, unnoticeable--but nevertheless a real hero.
Sheriff Green is this kind of hero. An "All-American" hero. Someone in a position of responsibility but who is not all that powerful, just an ordinary human being who sees clearly what is right and what is wrong. It is simply WRONG to evict people from their homes because of the sins and crimes and greed of distant financial sharks. It is unfair and destabilizing and...WRONG.
Our country is full of people like the character "Miss Dove," and the real Sheriff Green, if only we would look around and see them. They are the glue that holds us together--the people who "break the rules" in this cruel and crazy corporate-run society, when a wrong is being done. They are the calm, cool-headed assessors of what is right and what is wrong--our society's true moral compass--who have the courage to act on their convictions when the time comes. And you may not notice them until, one day, it is you who are the recipient of their courage, and their kindness, and their high moral standards.
"Good Morning, Miss Dove" probably wouldn't hold up very well by today's movie standards. It was a '50s tear-jerker. And I don't want to be too cornball about this. But our corporate-run media tends to glorify people who kill, people who are greedy, people who are glamorous, people who are unethical, and people who are 'WINNERS'--whose egotistical desires are treated as a worthy value--and it is also filled with disempowering images of every kind, which come down to this: unless you are conventionally beautiful, and rich (by whatever means), you are nothing. To glorify an old schoolteacher who simply did her job and did it well, and was unnoticeable in the big world, except for the impact of her integrity on others, seems beyond the ability of modern Hollywood producers and writers. Is it any wonder, then, that we, as a people, get such distorted ideas about ourselves and about each other? Some of us think that other Americans are stupid 'sheeple.' Others have chickenhawk fantasies of U.S. power (that we can "kick ass," and "We're Number One!"). We get an exaggerated idea of our own importance, combined with feelings of powerlessness. And those who really hold our society together--the good people, and I think the majority--get no attention at all.
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