Network -- Corporate Cosmology

[TheDvayers]

The super elites at the top of the New World Order probably jerk off to this scene.

[Tobaman111]

Such a great scene in such an otherwise terrible film.

[Marty0Mcfly]

its all in the writing... rip paddy

[ripley450]

find Beatrice Straights oscarfooking performance

[CerpinTaxt37]

Just watched this movie, and wow, what incredible performances. They don't make 'em like this anymore that's for sure.

[snoov603]

This scene used to be amazing...and then it took an arrow to the knee.

[makeiteasyable]

this is boring ..

[boblikessnapper1]

National democracy or socialism? Holocaust ring a bell? lol.

[naughtmoses]

Robert Altemeyer, Edward Bernays, Martin Buber, Robert Cialdini, G. W. Domhoff, Emile Durkheim, Chris Hedges, Jules Henry, Eric Hoffer, Jeff Klaehn, George Lakoff, Walter Lippmann, Niccolo Machieaveli, Stanley Milgram, Arthur G. Miller, C. Wright Mills, Kevin Phillips, Milton Rokeach, E. V. Walter and more all neatly packaged in five and a half minutes.

[Worldizzabiz]

There it goes again! My personal favorite movie scene of all time. Mock madness and real power, confronting real madness and...well, some real power. The essential truth in this scene is eternal: the world is a business. Humans are social, and therefore will “contract” with one another. All the other fluff and stuff in Jensen’s speech was merely for coherence of the movie plot. There is nothing prophetic about this; Jeez, life's always been this way, and always will be. Watch history repeat.

[mggentry]

This scene should be in the smithsonian on a loop.... Such a remarkably beautifully put together shot, and such truth. Best was when he crosses from being lit to unlit as he shifts from telling truth to telling the lie that it all can come together as one with no wars, no pain and no problems for their kids- that will never happen as long as we have laws to violate and there are nations to invade and be invaded. We do create our own misery. So f'ing true.

[MrFlylice]

The system Mr. Jenson explains is -exactly- what Oswald Mosley predicted and explained.

[empath69]

@MrFlylice And before Mosley predicted & explained, the Classical Greeks predicted and explained it so much and so well, they had coined a term for this form of society: "Eudaimonia" - look it up...

[anarcrustie]

@MrFlylice so we need a global cabel street?

[MrFlylice]

@anarcrustie Nope. Cable Street's one of the things that enabled this Corporate Cosmology.

Fascists are anti-Capitalist, just as they're anti-Communist. Always remember this when speaking of us.

[ProNorden]

'Jensen's Speech' here is the propaganda/'ideological indoctrination' of the illegitimate 'Predatory Parasite' community that seeks to violate, subvert, and rule over the legitimate Nations of the world.

It is the degenerate spiel of multicult corporatists and many bad business schools, and represents a woeful misrepresentation of Economics.

Maybe we should have a genuinely democratic Nationalist political party, for Pro-Family, Stewardship, & Fair Trade/Economic Patriotism policies.

[MaxwellsAttourney]

@ProNorden Mainstream economics serves as a tool to maintain the structure of society Jensen promotes in this speech what are you talking about.

[bladewolf39]

I love how his tone is all God-like and high and mighty, then it goes down to his normal tone so fast XD

[MusicJew158]

Patton oswalt sent me

[Humjob]

I'm a graduate student in economics. This speech is simplistic and naive. States and nations don't matter? What about when we almost entered into a nuclear war with the Soviet Union? Or when we invaded Afghanistan/Iraq?

As for his critique of democracy... if Donald Trump can be the frontrunner for the Republican Party, say what you want about the populace, but it's a sign that the institution of democracy is still thriving.

[InnuendoXP]

@Humjob

Would you honestly say that you think governments in-of themselves are still the ultimate power institutions in a nation though?

[vladoboss]

@Humjob

You invaded Afghanistan/Iraq only because the control od petrol dollar and profit for weapon manufacturers.Or you still believe that 9.11 was terrorist attack without the US government knowledge? Every demolition engineer in the world will tell you that the towers were demolished with dynamite after the plane crash.Or maybe you can explain why the third building collapsed?Or Pentagon plane crash, did you ever see any video from thousands of security cameras around Pentagon?What a show!

[BrendaVarda]

I believe that Chayefsky meant this as the core of the film (placement, narrative punch, all hell breaks loose...), but the mad as hell was easier to digest and to inact: this demands reaction that is not proscribed by actors - and that's always difficult for HB's to do.

[jackal59]

This is great, but my favorite scene is still the network representatives, the representative from the Communist Party (who is doing a pitch-perfect Angela Davis impersonation), and the members of the Ecumenical Liberation Army (including a very young Tim Robbins) arguing heatedly over each individual clause in their media distribution contract. It's one of the most howlingly funny and cynical scenes in American film.

[TheGeneralCritic]

Is it weird that the corporate utopia actually sounds like a nice place to me?

No war, no famine, no racism or sexism; all humans are equal, all have a share, all have a job.

[gtube83]

@TheGeneralCritic if I own the corporation you wont be equal to me. eloi = no good

[empath69]

@TheGeneralCritic "Eudaimonia" - look it up.

[ThisisTNIGZ]

patton sent me

[celt1cfr0st]

Patton sent me as well...

[stuffingedham]

Patton Oswalt sent me

[londubh2007]

"I have seen the face of God."

[lucaswj]

I love how people act like this is some sort of revelation. This is crackadoodle whackjob talk that disproves itself. Where's ITT today? Where's IBM? Where's AT&T? None of them are the massive monopolists they were in 1978. This movie is the sort of easy cynicism that has no clue how the world actually works but likes to appear savvy with its knee-jerk conspiracy bunk.

[johnstjulien]

@lucaswj They changed names/hands Gonk

[AppropriationIsMe]

@lucaswj Ebb and flow. Individual corporations come and go. But they are always there - for every waning corporation there is a growing one. Corporations continue merging and amalgamating. I don't see this trend being reversed.

[mestresombra]

@lucaswj like empires and countries, corporations fall and rise, through "war" or technological advances.

[Oceanmachine27]

@lucaswj You deny, then, that there are extraordinarily large corporations with disproportionate influence on the affairs of America (and other countries) that face little to no repercussions for their actions?

[lucaswj]

@Oceanmachine27 No. There are good companies, and bad companies. There are companies that sometimes do good and other times do evil. Just like people. But there's nothing more inherently evil about a large public corporation than there is about an individual person.

But it's a lot easier to be sort of sweepingly, fashionably cynical and insist that our lives are controlled by a shadowy conspiracy of evil men. It's certainly easier to be reflexively cynical than to acknowledge nuance.

[alexkemmler]

@lucaswj There are no good companies or bad companies. A company is either implicitly or explicitly forbidden to do anything but seek profits. They do not seek to do good or evil, just make profits. There's nothing inherently evil about that, but it certainly produces evil quite often.

[empath69]

@alexkemmler Good and evil are irrelevant to a profit-driven corporation; they're merely cosmetic tags to choices and options.

It all depends on what will create the greatest revenue for the corp. Assets to survive and grow (and eventually the gratuitous greed to stockpile said assets when unnecessary) drive these entities, just like hunger and survival leading to gluttony and hoarding drives a biological organism.

[shodanxx]

@empath69

then maybe it would be a good idea to have a brain telling the corporate organism not to eat too much, don't cha think ?

[empath69]

@shodanxx Yes it would; it'd do a much better job than the existing 'brain' of a Board of Directors...

[InnuendoXP]

@lucaswj

A company that tries to stay ethical will often fail in competition because at the end of the day people vote with their dollars. And unlike individuals it is far, FAR harder to hold a corporation to account and even then.. what then?... who goes down when a CORPORATION commits a crime?

I'm not saying they are inherently evil, hell we created the things.

[ultimattttt1]

I'm sorry, I had to dislike. I loved the speech, but prefer the third scene in Pulp Fiction.

On second thoughts... can you undislike?

[TedShatner10]

Corporate executives and bankers are eventually going to get vanquished in civil wars and revoltions like absolute monarchs.

[lamontlewis]

What exactly is Beale's response when Jensen says, "They tell me you're a mad man." I can't make it out. It's "Only ___". Anybody know?

[litlgrey]

@lamontlewis "...Desultorily."

des·ul·to·ry (dsl-tôr, -tr, dz-)

adj.

1. Having no set plan; haphazard or random. See Synonyms at chance.

2. Moving or jumping from one thing to another; disconnected: a desultory speech.

[lamontlewis]

@litlgrey Yep! precisely! Thanx! Didn't recognize it cuz it was the first time I heard it pronounced correctly.

[lamontlewis]

I would bet dollars to donuts, that at the completion of this scene shoot, the cast and crew stood and applauded Ned Beatty for this sililoquoy. It was the peak performance of what otherwise would have been a career of characters that were barely believable.

[trentwood2000]

Otisburg???

[Magic9053]

BRILLIANT !

[alexzumiezmonkey]

"I have seen the face of God" Brilliant delivery. Such good acting in this movie.

[rombondzija]

The key thing is that we are robots,slaves and the fuckin corporations,governments hurting us for which cause, fuckin money alway bloody money(power),it's just a piece of paper,for a piece of paper...

[SCORNDOGGMELACH]

Neds performance is incredible?

[ListlessCraving]

He did see the face of god... but in that room he saw the devil.... pooor beale...

[SCORNDOGGMELACH]

@ListlessCraving Wrong. Its not the Devil. Its worse. Its the Beast. Its us. And the fact that the squirrels have the most problem swallowing is this. ITS TRUTH! WAKE UP! Stop rebelling.

[litlgrey]

Watch this every few months. Remind yourself that barring a few transitions, no speech in no film ever produced has more lucidly or more presciently told the absolute truth. Not a wackadoodle, tin foil hat, conspiratorial, paranoia-stoking scenario appealing to low-information extremists and xenophobes, but the systematic roadmap of transmogrification of this planet from a society of Laws and cultures and populations and ecologies, to a pre-packaged and mass-produced simulacra of pure squalor.

[Arminius1476]

@litlgrey The ability to express yourself unclearly is not a sign of intelligence, no matter how much bombastic and pompous terminology you use.

[litlgrey]

@Arminius1476 Makes perfect sense to me man.

[kindalyosha]

@litlgrey Your interpretation of his speech doesn't have to be so negative. He spoke of it very loftily.

[litlgrey]

@kindalyosha Hi.  I think there is a misguided impression at work here. I could not possibly adore this whole sequence more. It is one of the finest moments of 1970s American cinema. What makes the speech work, some thirty five years later, is that it was SO overwhelmingly prophetic, that if you were only to change a couple of names of mega-corporations which no longer exist, you would see that it was almost completely accurate in its predictions of global capitalism.

[kindalyosha]

@litlgrey :) I love the clip too and agree to its prophetic nature. Just doesn't seem fair to me to call the society he describes "a pre-packaged and mass-produced simulacra of pure squalor".

[litlgrey]

@kindalyosha On that one, I think you and I will have to agree to disagree.

[madradford]

@litlgrey

"I'm going to try to sell you something, Mr Beale."

This is ideology as well. Just because it happens to be hegemonic does not make it "truth" except in the sense that it happens to be the material way in which people interpret events and things in the world.

This is power speaking through an individual because power is threatened. The scene presents a truth, but the truth is not in the content of the speech, but in the scene taken in the context of the film/wider world.

[madradford]

@madradford

let me clarify: there is truth in what Jensen says (ie. he speaks for power/hegemony) - there is also truth in Beale's quest to make the world other-wise. this is why, to return to what i said first - Jensen says he is trying to "sell" Beale something (his 'truth'/worldview).

[litlgrey]

@madradford Look, I am not saying that this is anything mankind should be proud of. I am saying that "Network" was a black comedy - a bleak comedy - which explained perfectly the events of the following thirty-five years. Consolidation of media; globalization coupled with a mad, sociopathic rush to zero out middle class gains in a race to a bottom line of economic servitude to globalized corporate elites; a mass rejection of logic and reason in favor of delusion & hateful superstition.

[litlgrey]

@madradford Further, the subjugation of the press under the whims of global, corporatist players was something only existing in nightmares in 1976. It is now absolutely true. Corporations direct the course of coverage, and spend billions to direct their agenda politically - then establish their own media in order to depict it favorably, while depicting opposition to it as "Socialism." The American working class is now the most disenfranchised and ideologically backward in the western world.

[madradford]

@litlgrey

this scene does present an ideology that looks prefigurative, but i don't think it explains the events of the past 35 years. if people really thought what jensen is telling them, that seems like a deal most people would not be willing to take. why would people want to "race towards economic servitude" as you say?

Chayefsky wasn't writing this out of thin air. certainly he was ahead of the curve (of most), but he wasn't just imagining things.

[litlgrey]

@madradford Most people? Most people? Don't. Have. The. Choice. Further, if you want to have a sense of people trained to turn against their own best interests, I invite you to turn no further than to the rise of the Tea Party: a fully financed arm of corporate America suffering from decades of strategic under-education to oppose climate science, health care, sustainable energy, tolerance & inclusiveness, and economic stability - and to replace them all with cult-like "2nd Amendment Remedies."

[madradford]

@litlgrey

obviously people have choices and they make them daily. just because they aren't trained (for numerous reasons) to attend to the relations those choices have to the wider world does not mean that they are totally absent of agency.

to suggest otherwise is to already admit defeat to Jensen, the tea party, power, whomever.

[madradford]

@litlgrey

my point is that the tea party gets a lot of support from people who are effectively acting against their (and their children's) class interests. why is that? is there no choice? wasn't getting mad as hell and not taking it having some impact? if it wasn't, why would Jensen say anything?

[litlgrey]

@madradford Consolidation is specifically about eliminating choice.  Eliminating diversity. Downsizing workforce. Each of these things - each one of them - has a demonstrably debilitating effect on economic stability, and ultimately, on democracy. The Tea Party is getting "mad as hell" AT the very forces which should be empowered to regulate and to litigate against corporate abuse. They are, specifically, making the WRONG choices, based on a toxic diet of paranoia, miseducation, and hatred.

[madradford]

@litlgrey

that's more-or-less the POV offered in Beale's speech following the death of Ruddy. the original comment i responded to was one in which you talked about the truth in Jensen's speech, in which he suggests that all alternatives are not just impossible, but immoral/unnatural.

their choices aren't 'wrong' if you accept jensen to be speaking the (neoliberal) truth (ie. a belief that a rising tide raises all ships).

[madradford]

i should correct something: jensen isn't suggesting a rising tide raises all ships - he's straight forward: corporations are/will replace the state and give people the minimum. lenin also said this like 100 years ago, fwiw. but at some point, that gets turned into the belief that a rising tide will raise all ships...how that happens isn't in this - unless most people have "seen the face of god" as beale says he does.

[litlgrey]

@madradford I see what's going on here now. People are interpreting my response to the Jensen monologue to mean that is what I think is right and natural.

Uh uh. Wrong.

It may be a terrifyingly accurate picture of globalization from the perspective of 1976, but it is not a recipe for Utopia, or even for survival. It was meant to scare the pants off 1976 viewers. Iit was left for critics to say, oh, how absurd, impossible, will never happen. But it HAS happened. That doesn't make it GOOD.

[madradford]

@litlgrey

no no, we are far beyond whether anyone thinks this if "good" or "bad" - no one here is clicking "dislike", and not because we think this clip portends to happy developments in global politics.

what is being objected to is the notion that jensen's speech a) represents a kind of meta-truth and b) that Chayefsky was some kind of prophet, when it seems clear that Network is in conversation with much social/political theory from the 60s and earlier.

[madradford]

@madradford

if this is an accurate portrayal of the world as it is, why is it acceptable? i refuse to accept the idea that tea partiers (or the inactive on the 'left' for that matter) are simply dupes with 'false consciousness(es)'.

This is where the issue with your comment is. Stripped of what another poster, i think correctly, labelled 'bombast': what are you saying? If what jensen says is 'absolute truth' then how is change possible?

[litlgrey]

@madradford I neither said it was acceptable, nor that I believe change is possible. I think it's Game Over for Representative Democracy. I say globalism has rolled back every gain as far as the Magna Carta in the race to impose global corporate feudalism. Am i endorsing that? No way. And I am sorry, i must leave it there for the day.

[madradford]

@litlgrey

rephrase: if this is how people view/understand the world, why do they not act to change it? are they able to? if not, why not?

anyway: even the news these days can't avoid covering stories that paint a different picture!

also, if you talk to your average joes in most of the non-western world, they're not necessarily going to be as down on globalization as you are.

[litlgrey]

@madradford 1) Are they able to? Look at Egypt for ONE model of change, and to Libya and to Bahrain for ONE model of severe repression. Look to Wisconsin to see just how low Power is willing to sink. 2) WHAT news is covering it? Oh yes, alterna-news, and Al Jazeera English. American "News" is NO LONGER NEWS. 3) Let me turn this around on you: WHY are "average Joes" NOT down on Globalization, which is slowly killing everything on this planet? WHY would they support such terrorism?

[madradford]

@litlgrey

good question: i don't think there is really a consensus answer.

i think a lot of people. tea partiers included, ARE down on globalization, tho. they (perhaps) more than anyone have chosen a response that "thinks in terms of nations, (etc...)" - it just happens, as you point out earlier, to also be the response endorsed by the powerful.

with that said, is middle america really doing anything to benefit the environment with the wealth it has relative to the rest of the world?

[litlgrey]

@madradford This is one of the big splits in the Tea Party. The Ron Paul-ites have no use for the knuckle-draggers who run around screaming "Socialist!" and "Where's yer Birth Certificate?" and all this. The Ron Paul-ites went to public school for at least ONE day in their lives. The answer to your valid environment question? Hell, no.

[litlgrey]

@madradford That's excellent !!!

[Atma505]

@litlgrey what

[litlgrey]

@Atma505 Not What... WHEN. And the answer to that is... NOW.

[Atma505]

@litlgrey You just used a whole bunch of big words and I kept up to near the end, but I think it's gradually sinking in

All I can say is that I agree

but what can I do to help?

[litlgrey]

@Atma505 Really? Commit to stand with working families.  Organize against the Supreme Court Citizens United decision and other decisions by the 5-4 extremist majority. Stand against pro-corporate extremists in State Government. Fight back by supporting any real grass roots movement towards a General Strike. Be vigilant, and remain awake!

[shodanxx]

@litlgrey

I have no idea in what way shape or form your comment relates to this clip from the movie !?

not trolling here, "transmogrification of this planet from a society of Laws" o_O ???

[litlgrey]

@shodanxx That is either completely goofy, or absolutely ignorant. Further, to accuse me of "trolling" is delusional. This is not a chatroom. I have made my position clear, as has the clip itself. If nations do not matter - which is explicitly stated, THEN ONLY CORPORATIONS ABOVE THE LAW DO. Get it? Get it now? What did you think the whole Ned Beatty speech was about - knitting? Accessorizing? Recipes? You can't possibly have REALLY watched it.

[drhoneybadger]

@litlgrey

"This speech is great. It show how our country has really gone down the shitter."

Fixed that for you

[litlgrey]

@drhoneybadger Ah, thankee !

[lykopis]

your choice of clip timing for this, is perfect.

[Victor1930]

If this scene had garnered as much attention and become as popular as the "Mad as Hell" scene/speech back in the '70s, we might be living in a very different world today.

[SCORNDOGGMELACH]

@Victor1930 Exactly right. But thats the point. When watching the movie Platoon as a young man it was clear to me that Alias was the good guy. Later I realized that Barnes was just as right. Perhaps righter than right. LOL!

[siriuship]

@Victor1930 Exactly! This is the Best scene in cinema history!

[wanzenettl]

Wow! This has never been more true than it is today. Today we can truly say that our U.S. Supreme Court has officially set up a corptocracy.

[BillSalem]

Marx's take on history as the exploitation of the weak by the strong was a shattering insight. Thinking beyond the fence of acceptable thought brings one to new modes of reality.

Dismantling corporate crony capitalism requires storming the gates. They have bought off all peaceful modes of dissent. But history shows that violent revolution only produces more of the same tyranny.

"Give them enough rope and they will hang themselves." Marx

Google: The Trap. BBC Documentary

[ORACLE063]

@BillSalem Oh enough with marx.. look what his ideology spawned..... over 10 million dead.... = fail. Communisim doesnt work... we are a tribal animal... So enough of the "we are the borg" talk

[BillSalem]

@ORACLE063 You certainly don't allow room for humans to grow up out the the ignorant tribal biomass. Capitalism has done more damage to the world's peoples than communism any day. I did not say and I would not, that communism works. We have seen that it doesn't; not on a large scale, anyway. But perhaps you enjoy the foreclosure racket; and the persistent war profiteers' racket. I don't call that civilization. It's Barbarism on a big scale!

[morelshaman]

Potent video - and TRUE!

I would promote:

A maximum individual wealth and a maximum joint wealth for families.

A dissolution of all CORPORATIONS.

An estate tax that will dissolve family wealth in 3 generations - unless contribution's of actual productive income is added - not interest or investment.

Required military service to avoid a crippling monetary penalty.

No Hedge funds!

[AcePilot101]

As a former Marxist, I blamed the corporations. Never even thought about the banks..the banks control everything!!

As a former Republican, I had given up hope.

ELECT RON PAUL!! Bring our troops home now!!

[topgun989cc]

simply brilliant