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  • Money, Everything is about Money Ch. 03

Money, Everything is about Money Ch. 03

12

George Orwell's 1984, a great work of fiction, is now our reality. Yet and unfortunately not a good place that most of us need or want to go, God help us all!

After letting loose his first tirade on his troubled ass, if it wasn't enough that he made him feel like the small, insignificant man that he was, Ned Beatty as Arthur Jensen continued lambasting Peter Finch as Howard Beale. As if he was God, actually more the Devil than God, rather than have Howard Beale killed, Arthur Jensen, no doubt figured that he could make use of Howard's sudden fame to his benefit. Yet, what Arthur Jensen said nearly forty years ago is every bit as applicable today. Only and unbelievably, a playground for billionaires to go and do whatever they want, the fate of the middle class is much worse now that it was in 1976.

* * * * *

"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, 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 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 (and women) will work to serve a common profit, in which all men (and women) 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."

* * * * *

Taking his work of fiction that he wrote in 1948 with tongue firmly planted in cheek to the next level, was Mr. Jensen foreseeing George Orwell's 1984 world order? Is this the vision that big business, corporate Wall Street, has in store for us? Is this the version that you all want with all of us working for one holding company and everything taken care of for us so that we never have to think or do anything any differently every day?

I don't want that. Do you? That's not living to have someone so control me and to have someone so plan my life for me. Isn't it enough that our little lives are so controlled by big business now? We can't give Wall Street anymore of us and still be free, can we?

I want to be free to make my own decisions and to plan my own life. I don't want someone's vision and preplanned version of what my life should be. Yet, who am I to complain? How dare I even complain when I'm nothing and nobody? That's right. That's who I am. I'm nothing. I'm nobody. Already defeated by the greed of a board of directors and by the whimsy of some billionaire that I'll never meet, I'm just one powerless person unable to make any change to my miserable life.

The only way that any of us can make a change to anything in our insignificant lives is to band together and do it as a group, the most powerful group of people on the planet, the American middle class. Yet, just as they'll never be money trees or any of us winning a multi-million dollar lottery to become a member of the ruling class, the American middle class rising up to take on those billion dollar giants will never happen. Too controlled by them, we are too indebted to our privileged ruling class for the jobs we have and for the little bit of money that we make to support our families. Weighted down by our little routines, unable to break the cycle of our parents and our grandparents before us, we're doomed to repeat our misery on a daily basis.

Maybe some creative writer can craft a fairytale about our struggles today for all of us to read to his or her grandchildren fifty years from now. In the way that Humpty Dumpty, Little Miss Muffet, Alice in Wonderland, Cinderella, The Elves and the Shoemaker, The Emperor's New Clothes, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, Pinocchio, and Rumpelstiltskin were all written, someone can write about the American middle class. They were all more political satires of the times than they were fairytales. If the King and the Queen knew that these fairytales were poking fun of them, they'd condemn the writers to death. Only in regards to power and influence, little has really changed from the times of Kings and Queens so controlling our little lives?

We may think we're not, but we're still so controlled. We are still so dependent on a small group of entitled people who, at their whimsy by hiring or firing us, allow us to earn a living. Even when we want to make a change and strike out on our own to start a business, with the deck stacked against us, we are still so powerless to do anything about anything. Without having a small group of people in power who plan our every move for us to make, we'd have to think for ourselves. We'd have to do everything for ourselves. We'd have to take care of ourselves. Unfortunately, most of us can't even take care of ourselves never mind banding together as a group to take control of the power, a power we wouldn't know that to do with if it was handed to us.

* * * * *

Now having the stage again, alone with his studio audience of about 300 people and alone with his television audience of about 62 million viewers, Howard Beale went on to say.

"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!

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 is 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! The 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?"

* * * * *

In the way that George Orwell wrote 1984 in 1948 did Paddy Chayefsky, the writer of the screenplay for Network in 1976, envision what would happen today in 2014? Wow! As just another hack writer who will never be on the same level as these visionaries, I envy his talent. If only I could write something equally as important. Then, again, with me writing this non-erotic story, maybe I am.

In 1983, fifty American companies owned 90% of all American media, radio, television, magazines, cable TV, and satellites. Dwindled down to empower the few chosen to reign over all that we see, hear and read, now, seven old, Caucasian men standing behind seven American companies own 90% of everything reported and broadcast on radio, and television, written in newspapers and magazines, and shown on movies and cable via satellites. How about that?

GE who used to own NBC owns Comcast. NBC owns Universal Pictures and Focus Features. News Corp. owns Fox, Wall Street Journal, and the New York Post. Disney owns ABC, ESPN, Pixar, Miramax, and Marvel Studios. Viacom owns MTV, Nick, Jr., BET, CMT, and Paramount Pictures. Time Warner owns, CNN, HBO, Time, and Warner Bros. Last but not least, CBS owns, Showtime, Smithsonian Channel, NFL.COM, Jeopardy, and 60 Minutes.

So? Who cares? What does that mean to me? Why should I care that seven men gives me the information that I need to go on about my little life? I'll tell you what it means to you. Everything you read, everything you see, and everything you hear is used to manipulate your thought. Big Brother is already here baby and living in your living room.

When we are so controlled by seven multi-billionaire men behind seven giant corporations that own 26 other major media companies, there is no more original thought to give us free will. Orchestrated and manipulated by optic fiber that connects to our TV's and computers in the way of a feeding tube, we are all puppets. We don't even have a thought in our head that is our own. Even though we think we do, we are not allowed to think. We are not allowed to be who we are. We are someone else created in the mold of who "they" want us to be. If you thought 1984 was bad when you read that book in high school, lookout because 2014 is much worse.

What the fuck? How in the Hell did that happen that seven mega media companies control everything? When did that happen? Who was watching the FCC when seven big players were allowed to buy everything?

It was the same people in power who were watching the treasury when then Treasury Secretary Paul Paulson was in power. He opened the doors of the treasury and welcomed in the banks and the insurance companies to take all the money they needed to make themselves solvent again. He was the one who allowed them to take, no steal, however many billions of dollars they needed to pay out their multi-million dollar bonuses to the employees for ruining the American economy and putting us all out of work? Let's see a show of hands. How many of you received a bailout? Anyone?

What happened to the monopoly laws? What happened to the laws that once stated that one man and one corporation could not own a television station, radio station, and a newspaper? I ask you, where does the fair reporting of the news ever happen in the way that it used to happen before these mega-corporations with their legalized mega-mergers bought and took control of every form of mass communication? What are we to believe coming from anywhere and from any source? How can we believe anything we see, hear, or read when our media is so controlled by seven mega-billionaires who have an agenda that doesn't include us?

* * * * *

"So turn off your television sets," said Howard Beale in 1976. "Turn them off right now. Turn them off and leave them off! Turn them off in the middle of the sentence I'm speaking to you now! TURN THEM OFF...

You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here, you're beginning to believe that the tube is reality and your own lives are unreal. You do. Why, 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."

* * * * *

Did Paddy Chayefsky, the writer of the movie, Network, foresee the destruction of the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission under the George W. Bush administration as we know it? When the Republicans controlled the senate, the house, the presidency, and even the Supreme Court, and rubber stamped our rights away without so much as having our legal representatives take a vote, we have become a powerless and ineffective middle class. What was illegal once for one man and for one company to own a newspaper, a magazine, a television station, a radio station, a cable network, and satellites is legal today.

What happened? What changed to make it illegal then that makes it legal now? All by skewing the FCC with handpicked cronies and replacing the Supreme Court justices who were willing to play ball and go along with the inequitable changes for most Americans who were too busy working and watching TV to notice, they unfairly loaded the playing field. Only seven, multi-billionaire men, who own seven mega-companies, GE, NBC, News Corp., Disney, Viacom, Time Warner, and CBS own nearly all of our communication outlets.

Don't you understand what they did when no one was looking, watching, complaining, and/or protesting? Are you angry yet? I am. Allow me to elaborate by stating one, little thing that may make you understand, that may make you angry, and that may make you protest and boycott the system enough to make enough changes that will stop what is happening now to make things better later. It doesn't matter if you use Comcast, DirectTV, or Dish, why is your cable bill so high? Don't know? Reread the above paragraph.

* * * * *

"So, you listen to me," said Howard Beale, 38-years ago. "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 the real truth.

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!"

* * * * *

Money, money, money, everything is all about money, money, money. Pink Floyd sang it best about money when they wrote their song aptly named, Money.

"Money, get away. You get a good job with good pay and you're okay.

Money, it's a gas. Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash.

New car, caviar, four star daydream, think I'll buy me a football team.

Money, well, get back. I'm all right Jack.

Keep your hands off my stack.

Money, it's a hit.

Don't give me that do goody good bullshit.

I'm in the high-fidelity class traveling sex, I think I need a Lear Jet.

Money, it's a crime. Share if fairly but don't take a slice of my pie.

Money so they say is the root of all evil today.

But if you ask for a rise it's no surprise that they're giving none away."

* * * * *

Whether you work at a job or employ someone to work at a job, jobs are all about money. We all want money. We all work to get money. We all must have money to survive. Only, most workers don't earn nearly enough money in their jobs to keep ahead of inflation, never mind getting ahead enough to save some money and pay down their credit card debt.

Seriously, who would work at a job where they aren't paid enough money to pay their rent or mortgage, buy food, afford a car and all the related expenses of owning a car and living in a house, and health insurance? Yet, that's what people are doing and have done since the 70's when President Nixon, because of the oil embargo, had the bright idea of freezing everyone's wages. Back then, no matter how hard you worked, no one got a raise, that is, except for the fat cats. Based upon how the wages have not kept pace with the tremendous economic boon of this country, I dare say that the wage freeze, believe it or not, is still in place.

Wages have not kept up with the wealth of the top tier of thieves who steal our money. With the rate of hourly pay stagnant for the last 35 years, while production and wealth has multiplied tenfold, American companies expect workers to work harder and faster for less while they reap these mega-billion dollar corporations benefit from reduced labor costs. As if we're a third world country and, in essence, a long way down the list of good places to earn a fair wage, we are.

So, answer me this, why isn't anyone mad? Why isn't everyone protesting? Everyone who is unemployed, underemployed, and/or grossly underpaid should be up in arms angry and asking for big enough raises for all of us to live the American dream in the way that one lousy percent of the population are living the life of kings and queens. Everyone who isn't a millionaire not only should never vote for another Republican ever again for as long as they live but also they should be out in the street protesting those who have everything versus the rest of us who have nothing.

* * * * *

In the way that FDR had envisioned in his economic bill of rights in 1944, why isn't everyone who wants to work in America not working? For those of you who never heard of FDR's economic bill of rights, below is a recap.

"The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education."

What President Franklin D. Roosevelt called his Economic Bill of Rights on January 11, 1944, the Republican congress, to a man and to a woman, now call entitlements. The only group receiving unquestioned entitlements today are not the poor, not the unhealthy, not the uneducated, and not the old and retired but the members of congress. With them having the best medical care in the world, insider trader information, salaries they don't need, free trips, and gifts, kettle black, if they aren't the golden entitled group, then I don't know who is. How dare they deny anyone benefits that they deserve to have after working for this country all of their lives? By the politicians calling them entitlements instead of what they are Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, and unemployment benefits, they make us all feel as if we're beggars when the only beggars on the planet our politicians.

* * * * *

"I ask you. Why isn't everyone who wants to work working? Hands? Anyone? You Sir, in the back of the room."

"Because there are no jobs."

"That's a good answer albeit a technically wrong answer. How about you in front? What do you say? Why isn't everyone who wants to work in American not working?"

"Because there aren't enough jobs. Again that's another good albeit incorrect answer. I see someone way over here with their hand up. Do you know why everyone who wants to work in America is not working?"

"Because the economy is not healthy enough to support a full workforce, the required number of jobs to return everyone back to work."

"Wow! We have an educated person in the room. A master's degree? From Harvard, no less? Wow! And you're unemployed? Is there something mentally or physically wrong with you or are you just lazy? Just kidding. Anyway, your answer, albeit articulately well formed, is not only wrong too but is also total bullshit. If you believe that the American economy isn't healthy, then I have swamp land, I mean, ocean front property in Florida for sale."

12
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