Consider this passage from the 45 year old film, Network, about who REALLY had and has and always will have the Power in America and around the planet.Written by Paddy Chayevsky in 1976, it is as prophetic a piece of film as one could ever imagine…The Future of News, the Dumbing Down of Our Culture, the Marginalization of the Individual, the End of Critical Thinking…it’s all there.
Welcome to the Future, as told by Arthur Jensen (Ned Beatty), the CEO of CCA, the Communications Corporation of America to a humbled Howard Beale.
“Good morning, Mr. Beale. They tell me you’re a mad man.”
“Mad as a hatter.”
“Who isn’t? I’m going to take you into our conference room. Seems a more seemly setting for what I have to say…
“….YOU HAVE MEDDLED WITH THE PRIMAL FORCES OF NATURE, MR. BEALE. AND I WON’T HAVE IT. IS THAT CLEAR? You think you may have stopped a business deal but 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. Ecological balance. You are an old man who thinks there are nations and peoples…there are NO nations. There are NO peoples. There are no Russians. Or Arabs. There is no Third World. No West. There is only one holistic system of systems. One vast interwoven, interconnected, interactive, multi-varied, multi-national dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars. Reich marks, Rehms, Rubles, Pounds and Sheckles.
“It is the international system of currency that determines the totality of Life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and sub-atomic and galactic structure of things today and YOU have messed with the primal forces of Nature! And YOU WILL ATONE!
“Am I getting through to you Mr. Beale?
“There is no America. No democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T. And Dupont and Dow and Union Carbide and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business and has been since Man crawled out of the slime…and our children will live to see that perfect world in which there’s no war or famine or 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 to preach this evangel.”
“But why me?”
“Because you’re on television dummy.”
(Beale:) “I have seen the face of God.”
“Mr. Beale, you just might be right.”
For more quotes as a timeline, from ‘Network,’ courtesy of The Zephyr:
And two more Youtube Clips from the film:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
To comment, scroll to the bottom of the page.
Don’t forget the Zephyr ads! All links are hot!
Not sure I agree with his prophecy of a utopia. There are too many forces of greed and evil at work that will prohibit that. Interesting clip. I didn’t see that show. Eric Frome, Escape From Freedom, touches on this theory.