“THERE IS NO AMERICA; THERE IS NO DEMOCRACY” (Or, ‘ON RARE OCCASIONS, HOLLYWOOD TELLS THE TRUTH’)

Following is an excerpt from one of my 2009 blog bits. It’s being re-posted here and now for both Loose Dogs and Lemmings to think about.

The movie ‘NETWORK’ hit the theatres in 1976, and it is most remembered today for the oft repeated Howard Beale (Peter Finch) line, which became a popular American slogan for a few years:

“I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!”

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‘NETWORK’ was critically acclaimed, winning Academy Awards for ‘Best Actor’, ‘Best Actress’, ‘Best Supporting Actress’, and ‘Best Screenplay’.

Most noteworthy to me is the scene were Arthur Jenson (Ned Beatty) is dressing down Howard Beale (Peter Finch). Beatty’s delivery of this monologue in terms of timing, voice modulation and gestures is about as close to perfect as it could get; at one point even interjecting a moment of comedy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zI5hrcwU7Dk

"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, multi-national dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, Reichmarks, Yen, 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."

Hokey-Smoke! Other than that nonsense about “no oppression or brutality” and “a common profit” and “all men holding a share of stock”, that is one of the best descriptions of the ‘NEW WORLD ORDER’ conspiracy mentality that I’ve ever encountered. The ‘NEW WORLD ORDER’ is really of the Elite, by the Elite, and for the Elite (who are primarily represented by International Banking) and when it is finally instituted in its “totalitarian totality”, it will make a hell of Earth – as if Earth isn’t wretched enough already.

And coincidentally, Max Schumacher’s (William Holden) dressing down of Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway) is not a bad representation of how I think of these Elite people who work behind the scenes in bringing us this SATANIC ‘NEW WORLD ORDER’:

"You are … indifferent to suffering, insensitive to joy. All of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality. War, murder, death are all the same to you as bottles of beer. The daily business of life is a corrupt comedy. … You are madness, virulent madness, and everything you touch dies with you. Well, not me. Not while I can still feel pleasure and pain and love. … I feel lousy about the pain that I've caused... I feel guilty and conscience-stricken, and all of those things you think sentimental, but which my generation calls simple human decency."

... Paddy Chayefsky’s screenplay is filled with disgust and rage. His disgust, I share 24/7; the rage, I experience when sober. So, for the benefit of those around me, I try not to make a habit of sobriety.

"I need a cold mojito."

~ Stephen T. McCarthy

YE OLDE COMMENT POLICY: All comments, pro and con, are welcome. However, ad hominem attacks and disrespectful epithets will not be tolerated (read: "posted"). After all, this isn’t Amazon.com, so I don’t have to put up with that kind of bovine excrement.

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