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In reply to the discussion: WE HAVE LOST OUR SOUL [View all]ewagner
(18,964 posts)8. From the 1975 Movie, NETWORK
Arthur Jensen: You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it! Is that clear? You think you've merely stopped a business deal. That is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity! It is ecological balance! You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU, WILL, ATONE! Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale? You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state, Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that... perfect world... in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock. All necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you, Mr. Beale, to preach this evangel.
THIS is the problem. Paddy Chayefsky foresaw what the horrible power of television could become in the hands of corporate rule....what he only marginally paid attention to was how the American public could (and ultimately were) turned into a brainless, seething mob by a media (right wing megaphone) hell bent on serving their corporate masters through creation of a pseudo-political party/movement and, in doing so, come damned close to destroying America.
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Take the money out of politics, that is the ONLY way we will become a civil society again.
sabrina 1
Sep 2013
#20
We let "Christian Dominionists" infiltrate our Government. These results were expected.
blkmusclmachine
Sep 2013
#27
So you think I was living in some kind of bubble because I was in the military?
zeemike
Sep 2013
#77
I well remember those times, when it seemed we might actually become a nation with a soul.
niyad
Sep 2013
#48
We need to do something stunning, purposeful, and shocking but not terrifying or lethal or evil.
leveymg
Sep 2013
#54
Yes And get at least 10 people who have never voted in state or local elections to VOTE in 2014.
kelliekat44
Sep 2013
#74
K&R! I am glad to see that COMPLETE CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM (CCFR) is gaining traction!
Dustlawyer
Sep 2013
#82
So often in the middle class I have that if it doesn't directly and immediately affect them
gopiscrap
Oct 2013
#102