Forty years have passed since Sidney Lumet's finest film, Network, written by Paddy Chayefsky. Anyone who wishes to see an almost clairvoyant vision of how our culture would regress, please watch this film. Our high schools and colleges should make this a must see for their curriculums. Chayefsky captured the whoring essence of our mainstream media, and, sadly, how easily our public can be mesmerized by it. Remember, empires can only grow and maintain themselves when the masses 'go along to get along'. One needs to study the 1961 Milgram Obedience Experiments and 1971 Zimbardo Stanford University Prison Experiments to see just how far down the rabbit hole average Americans can fall.
If anyone took the time out and viewed the recent Presidential (so called) debate, one would realize how reality television has merged with politics. Mel Brooks or Woody Allen could not come close to capturing the absurdity of it all. Making sure that the two 'third party' presidential candidates were not allowed to participate, this charade of intelligent concern for issues became a farce. Guess what? The prostituted and disgraceful mainstream news (so called) journalists played their roles like Howard Cosell in Woody Allen's film Bananas (go see that finale of that film)and acted like this was all normal. Normal? How sad... for those Amerikans out there who actually think it was!
We have a man very close to being elected president who has spent his adult life making billions (so he says) by what he calls 'the art of the deal'... or is it 'the art of the steal' ? A man who has, by his own admissions, played the game by supporting both of these two corrupt political parties, caring not about the welfare of millions of working stiffs, rather the welfare of his company's bottom line. He actually acknowledged that he did in fact make mega profits from the foreclosures of millions of Americans. He said it was 'Good business'. Yet, the 'angry white males' who make up the majority of his supporters will follow this pied piper right over the cliff of personal financial solvency. On the other side of the dais we had a woman who considered Henry Kissinger, deemed a war criminal by millions of people throughout our nation and the globe, as one of her mentors. Yet, her base of support is made up of the overwhelming majority of black folks who actually vote in these con job elections. One wonders how many of them had relatives or friends that perished or were crippled for life in the (so called) Vietnam War that Kissinger orchestrated along with Nixon. A woman who stood by her man and proudly claims she advised him on most matters of importance, like when he pushed through and signed the Welfare Reform Act of 1996.
Both of these ' lowly evolved souls' have embraced our Military Industrial Empire. Each one wishes to outdo the other and fork over even more funding for our War Economy. How many of their base of support realizes that already 50% + of our taxes goes for this? As our cities and towns crumble, literally and financially, we are ready to anoint one of these two predators as the new stooge of empire. One surmises that perhaps, like the ostrich, we should all turn off our boob tubes for four years and go sit in the corner... waiting for Mr. Jordan.
[Philip A Farruggio is son and grandson of Brooklyn, NYC longshoremen. A graduate of Brooklyn College ( class of '74 with a BA in Speech & Theater), he is a free-lance columnist posted on World News Trust, Nation of Change Blog, Op Ed News,TheSleuthJournal.com, The Intrepid Report, Information Clearing House, Dandelion Salad, Activist Post, Dissident Voice, Counterpunch and many other sites worldwide. Philip works as an environmental products sales rep and has been a street corner protest activist leader and Green Party member since 2000. In 2010 he became a local spokesperson for the 25% Solution Movement to Save Our Cities by cutting military spending 25%. Philip can be reached at PAF1222@bellsouth.net ]
