Diana Christensen: ...Well, in a nutshell, it said: "The American people are turning sullen. They've been clobbered on all sides by Vietnam, Watergate, the inflation, the depression; they've turned off, shot up, and they've fucked themselves limp, and nothing helps." So, this concept analysis report concludes, "The American people want somebody to articulate their rage for them."
Funny thing is this seems to be very true right now. I think this may have a lot to do with the current Republican strategy, the Tea Party has become the white articulation of rage. However misguided they may be this certainly seems to be their angry voice. Who is your voice? How is your anger, rage, and unhappiness articulated? Are we just content to sit back and complain to each other in private? Are we allowing years of complacency continue just because Barrack Obama is our President? Think about it. If you are unhappy what will you do about it? I hope you will at least make yourselves heard.
Howard Beale: [arms outstretched to the heavens] Edward George Ruddy died today! Edward George Ruddy was the Chairman of the Board of the Union Broadcasting Systems, and he died at eleven o'clock this morning of a heart condition, and woe is us! We're in a lot of trouble!
Howard Beale: [calmly strolling toward the audience] So. A rich little man with white hair died. What has that got to do with the price of rice, right? And *why* is that woe to us? Because you people, and sixty-two million other Americans, are listening to me right now. Because less than three percent of you people read books! Because less than fifteen percent of you read newspapers! Because the only truth you know is what you get over this tube. 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 God-damned force in the whole godless world, and woe is us if it ever falls in to 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 Communication 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 twelfth largest company in the world controls the most awesome God-damned propaganda force in the whole godless world, who knows what shit will be peddled for truth on this network?
Howard Beale: [ascending the stage] So, you listen to me. Listen to me: Television is not the truth! Television is a God-damned amusement park! Television is a circus, a carnival, a traveling troupe of acrobats, storytellers, dancers, singers, jugglers, side-show freaks, lion tamers, and football players. We're in the boredom-killing business! So if you want the truth... Go to God! Go to your gurus! Go to yourselves! Because that's the only place you're ever going to find any real truth.
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Howard Beale: [laughing to himself] But, man, you're never going to get any truth from us. We'll tell you anything you want to hear; we lie like hell. We'll tell you that, uh, Kojak always gets the killer, or that nobody ever gets cancer at Archie Bunker's house, and no matter how much trouble the hero is in, don't worry, just look at your watch; at the end of the hour he's going to win. We'll tell you any shit you want to hear. We deal in *illusions*, man! None of it is true! But you people sit there, day after day, night after night, all ages, colors, creeds... We're all you know. You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here. You're beginning to think that the tube is reality, and that your own lives are unreal. You do whatever the tube tells you! You dress like the tube, you eat like the tube, you raise your children like the tube, you even *think* like the tube! This is mass madness, you maniacs! In God's name, you people are the real thing! *WE* are the illusion! So turn off your television sets. Turn them off now. Turn them off right now. Turn them off and leave them off! Turn them off right in the middle of the sentence I'm speaking to you now! TURN THEM OFF...
Programming is powerful. Ideas are more powerful. Ideas can never die, so think. All of us need to think for ourselves. Try turning off the TV and do something. I'm not talking riot, or fight, or log on Facebook, or tweet about how you turned your TV and computer off. Just go outside and really take in reality. Or sit at home and do something for yourself. Cook a meal, talk face to face to a person, meditate, it doesn't really matter just live. Really take some time to live.
Arthur Jensen: [bellowing] 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!
Arthur Jensen: [calmly] 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.
Howard Beale: Why me?
Arthur Jensen: Because you're on television, dummy. Sixty million people watch you every night of the week, Monday through Friday. Howard Beale: I have seen the face of God.
Arthur Jensen: You just might be right, Mr. Beale.
This quote really seems to accurately describe the world today don't you think? We are constantly reminded about our differences. Different races, religions, countries, sexualities, beliefs, education. We are made to believe these differences are reason to fight, reasons to die, but as Arthur suggests. There are no nations anymore. Everyone is used and controlled by money, power is attained through money. This world we live in is controlled by those with the most money and those outside of the top 2% are fooled to believe that we fight for anything else so they can sit back and continue to get more money from our work, blood, sweat, tears, and deaths. Think about it. It doesn't matter if you deny the inevitable control that is derived from that wealth because it still influences our lives. It influences where we live, what we get depressed about, where our children go to school, what they can learn in school, what we eat and drink, what causes anger and grief. People are kept in these patterns by those who benefit most from our misery. If you don't believe it look at your daily life activities and look at those of the wealthy. Think of what makes a bad day for you and what makes a bad day for the Koch brothers. Look at how impossible it seems to get a good education for your kids and then look at the education system in Beverley Hills, San Mateo, Cherry Hill, or any other affluent area around you. Think about some of these things and realize where your anger should be directed. Realize the people who are "different" than you have so much more in common with you than you know, and if you want to get mad get mad at the right people. Just my random thoughts/rant today.
Till next time
~Au revoir
