I first posted this back in 2005. With all the commotion about the recession, the markets, the war, oil companies, and the election, I think it is the perfect time to remind people about it.
This is a frightening bit of movie history- because it so accurately predicted the troubles of globalization and corporatism. It's almost as terrifying as George Orwell's 1984. Rent it and see how much of it has come true, from reality TV to monopolies. This is from the 1970's Oscar winner 'Network' (the movie where we got the line "I'm mad as Hell, and I'm not gonna take it any more.") Listen to the Audio version
The chairman of sleazy tabloid-TV network UBS, Arthur Jensen (Ned Beatty), moves in to "convert" Howard Beale (Peter Finch) to sell the values of corporate culture on air. Here near the end of the film, Jensen predicts the future of a corporate world, both fascinating and horrifying.
Arthur Jensen: You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it. You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples.
There are no nations; there are no peoples. There are no regions; there are no Arabs. There is no third world; there is no west.
There is only one holistic system of systems; one vast interwoven, interactive multivariant multinational dominion of dollars, petrodollars, electrodollars Reich marks, rands, roubles, pounds and shekels. 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 subatomic and galactic structure of things today. It is the international system of currency that determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things.
You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and you will atone!
You howl about America. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, ITT, AT &T, and Dupont, Dow, Union Carbide and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.
We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies. 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 to see that perfect world in which there is no war or famine, oppression or brutality.
One vast and ecumenical holding company for which all men will work to serve a common purpose and in which all men will own a share of stock, all necessities provided, all anxiety tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you to preach this evangel.
Beale: Why me?
Arthur Jensen: Because you're on television, dummy.
Beale: I have seen the face of God!
Arthur Jensen: You just might be right.
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