Howard Beale: Right now, there is a whole, an entire generation that never knew anything that didn't come out of this tube. This tube is the gospel, the ultimate revelation; this tube can make or break presidents, popes, prime ministers; this tube is the most awesome goddamn propaganda force in the whole godless world, and woe is us if it ever falls into the hands of the wrong people, and that's why woe is us that Edward George Ruddy died. Because this company is now in the hands of CCA, the Communications Corporation of America; there's a new chairman of the board, a man called Frank Hackett, sitting in Mr. Ruddy's office on the twentieth floor. And when the 12th largest company in the world controls the most awesome goddamn propaganda force in the whole godless world, who knows what shit will be peddled for truth on this network?
- from the movie Network, 1976
It's election season in the United States and once again the public will be fed misinformation, lies, distortions and goddamn propaganda attempting to smear the Democrats by one of the major television networks, ABC, with the airing of The Path to 9/11. If you've kept up with American politics, you'll remember the swift boating of John Kerry just prior to the 2004 election. Truth, it seems, is not a major concern of network television brass and their power to influence the public in political matters based on the programming they choose is immense.
After Network's fictional crazed messianic anchorman Howard Beale went on a verbal rampage on his television show upon hearing that the Saudis were in a deal to buy the network he worked for - prompting viewers to send millions of letters to the White House to stop the takeover - he was called into the office of Arthur Jensen who did his own bit of evangelizing to spell out the lay of the corporate land:
You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it, is that clear?! You think you have 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, multi-variate, multi-national 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 and 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 and mini-max 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 by-laws 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 to preach this evangel, Mr. Beale.
'Why me'?, asks Beale, to which Jensen responds, 'Because you're on television, dummy. Sixty million people watch you every night of the week, Monday through Friday.'
So, while thousands of ABC's viewers and prominent Democratic politicians like Bill Clinton are mad as hell, publicly protesting the fictionalized version of 9/11 that ABC will air this weekend, the power of the film's propaganda will reach out and become truth to millions of people - the type of people who still choose to believe that Saddam had WMDs and had something to do with 9/11 despite all of the actual facts to the contrary and who only become incensed when someone of their ilk is the target of misinformation and slurs.
Is there democracy in America or is there only business (as usual)?
It would seem that when one suspicious voting machine corporation like Diebold can provide a win for the Republicans in a federal election; when one or more major television networks that are behoden only to their shareholders who care more about money than truth; when corporate lobbyists have the real power in DC and every single state; when oil interests fuel wars; when conglomerates hide their money in the Cayman Islands while securing tax cuts and subsidies from the American government; when corporations can make or break small town America; when capitalism becomes plutocracy - there is no such thing as democracy anymore. There's only the worship of money at the altar of greed. Or, as Arthur Jensen put it: 'One vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit'.
And that is the real truth.
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