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There is no America. There is no democracy.

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Partial transcript © 1978 Network with Robert Duvall & Faye Dunaway, 4 Academy Awards. Foreshadows in detail the rise of news as entertainment, and sensationalism as journalism, all to keep people watching television, to keep up the ratings, to keep making money.

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Partial transcript of the Academy Award winning film Network © 1978: 

 

JENSENYou 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!

 

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, 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 A T 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 pull out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories and 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 by-laws of business.

 

The world is a business, Mr. Beale! It has been since man crawled out of the slime, and our children, Mr. Beale, will live to see that perfect world in which there is no war and famine, oppression and 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. 

 

HOWARD: (humble whisper) Why me? 

 

JENSEN: Because you're on television, dummy. Sixty million people watch you every night of the week, Monday through Friday.

 

(He stares at JENSEN spotted on the podium, transfixed). 

 

HOWARD: I have seen the face of God!

 

 

 

 

The only power we have is the power we give away.

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I did something today ... by Mr M on Friday, Mar 28, 2008 at 8:16:38 PM
Similar experience by mrk * on Friday, Mar 28, 2008 at 9:06:49 PM
If you go to by richard on Saturday, Mar 29, 2008 at 5:28:50 AM