5 comments/ 4841 views/ 6 favorites Money, Everything is about Money Ch. 01 By: SusanJillParker Chapter 01 Our parents had it better in the 70's than we have it now. The movie, Network, was one of the all-time great movies that I've ever seen. Written by Paddy Chayefsky and directed by Sidney Lumet, the dialogue, character development, description, imagery, and tension is masterfully done. Every screenwriter needs to analyze this movie for them to see what the writer did to bring the characters to life and how the director transposed the written words to the big screen, not an easy thing to do with this screenplay. The late Peter Finch, as Howard Beale in the movie, Network, said it best and said all that people were thinking nearly forty years ago in 1976 and all that they're still thinking today and wanting to say now but don't. The middle class is worse off now with the wealthiest Americans, less than one half of one percent, only 400 people, owning as much wealth as 150 million people. I can't even wrap my mind around that statistic and that number, can you? It's worth writing again. Only 400 Americans have as much wealth of 150 million people living in this country. "Wow! Are you kidding me? No wonder why the economy is so lopsided and the rest of us are so fucked." Believe it or not, the middle class was much better off 40 years ago than they are now. Paid more to do jobs with positions that had paid overtime and benefits, due to inflation and with production going up while salaries remained stagnant, the dollars they earned then went further than the dollars that they earn now. With the power, the influence, and the money that the middle class has, it always amazed me why more people don't stand up, protest, and boycott the things that they don't like, the things that are wrong, and the things that they want changed. Naively and erroneously, we all think that we can change the things that are wrong by voting one crooked politician out of office only to vote another crooked politician in office. What's wrong with that theory is that all politicians are thieves and are only there to feather their nest and not to help any of us. The system is against us, with everything deregulated, those in power are having a free for all with our tax money. The middle class doesn't stand a chance of getting ahead. With the power, the influence, and the money in the hands of too few people, we follow along as if we're all sheep happy to be slaughtered. * * * * * "I don't have to tell you things are bad," said Peter Finch as Howard Beale. "Everyone knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everyone's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar is a nickel's worth, banks are going bust, and shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it." * * * * * Sound familiar? With the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, what's so different now compared to back then? Flashback from 1976 to today, with too many things remaining the same, some things never change. So what are you going to do about it? So long as you have your beer, your cigarettes, your cable TV, and your little job, and your fixed routine, everything is okay. Is that it? Yet, you need to see the bigger picture. While you're sitting there drinking, smoking, and watching TV when not working your little job, those politicians you put in power are stealing you blind while stripping away your rights. * * * * * "We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat," said Howard Beale, "and we sit watching our TV's while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be. We know things are bad -- worse than bad. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and what we all say is, 'Please at least leave us alone in our living room. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.'" * * * * * For those of you who were around back then, does the above paragraph sound familiar? Thirty-eight years later, what's any different now in 2014 than how it was in 1976, the bicentennial year of the United States of America? If anything, with the government lying to us, with congress getting nothing done, and with still so many people out of work, and those who have jobs being underpaid, things are much worse now than they were then. For so many people to identify with the movie Network in 1976, things were pretty bad back then. Then, as if forgetting all about the movie as soon as they watched it, they forget all about the bad economy as soon as they returned to their little lives while getting ready for work. Instead of the quality of our lives getting any better, the inequalities of our lives have gotten much worse now for most middle class people. * * * * * "Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone," said Peter Finch as Howard Beale. "I want you to get mad! I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot -- I don't want you to write to your congressman (or congresswoman) because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad. You've got to say, I'm a HUMAN BEING, God damn it! My life has VALUE!" * * * * * In the way that Howard Beale asked us to protest in the movie, Network, why aren't we mad? Why haven't we protested and why aren't we still protesting. If we weren't protesting then when things were bad back then, why aren't we protesting now when things are even worse? Instead of accepting what little is given us and being grateful for what we have, 'Bless me Lord for the food I eat,' why are we not accepting what little is given to us? In the same way that Charles Dickens' character Oliver Twist didn't accept what little was given to him so long ago and complained that he wanted more, why aren't we complaining that we want more? We need to complain that we want more now too. We need for those cocksuckers, those thieves who we put in power and sent to Washington to represent us, to hear our discontent and our misery. We need to make a change to the system now. Otherwise, forty years from now, just imagine what will happen. If 'they' know that we took it when it was bad forty years ago and are still taking it now that it's much worse, just imagine the plight of the middle class in 2050. You don't care about 2050. Most of you will be dead by then. Yet, what about your children and your grandchildren? Don't you care about them? What we all fix now will benefit them later. It's up to us to take the bull by the horns and slay the dragon before it's too late and before we are all eaten. "Please Sir, I want some more," said Oliver Twist. Hoping to rise up the masses, Howard Beale wasn't going to take it anymore and neither should we. This isn't TV. This isn't a movie. This is our reality. Yet, here we are nearly forty years later not only still taking it but also taking so much more of it. Not only are there no good paying jobs, the jobs that exist are part-time, low paying, and don't have any benefits. How dare we allow them to get away with that? How dare we work for wages too low to support our families while those top one half of one percent of the richest Americans steal, 400 people, continue to steal huge amounts of money from us? Tell me this, do you know why the top one half of one percent has so very much money? Hands? Anyone? Not because they're smarter than you or better than you, it's because they're thieves. Legally stealing us blind laws are passed by congress in their favor. Lobbyists representing their best interests are there to protect them while our presidents, past and present, close their eyes to and rubber stamp their thievery. The money that they stole and the monies that they are still stealing is your money, my money, and our money. That top one half of one percent, 400 thieving criminals, should be jailed and have their wealth divided among us. Those 400 criminals have squeezed the middle class so tight that whatever monies we had available to us to spend flowed up to them in the way of higher taxes, along with higher prices for food, housing, healthcare, and energy expenses. The money that we should be earning and our employers paying us, instead is funneled through humongous corporate profits. Those in power are paying themselves in multi-million dollar salaries, huge yearly bonuses, and stock options while the rest of us get less than we got forty years ago. When you think of millions of people being underpaid by tens of thousands of dollars a year, every year, now you can understand why these thieves are not only multi-millionaires but multi-billionaires. Now that you know they stole your money. What are you going to do about it? * * * * * "So I want you to get up now," said Howard Beale. "I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it and stick your head out and yell, 'I'M MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!' I want you to get up right now, sit up, and go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell -- 'I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Things have got to change. But first, you've gotta get mad! You've got to say, 'I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the windows, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: 'I'M MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!'" * * * * * So, with the above in mind, answer me this. Being that the state of the world, the state of the United States of America, and the state of your little lives are so much worse off than when this movie was shown in 1976, why aren't you all mad as Hell now? You all should be mad as Hell. We all should be mad as Hell. I'm mad as Hell. I'm angry that I'm unemployed. I'm pissed off that there are no jobs. I'm angry that my government is doing nothing to get me back to work. I refuse to take it anymore and you all should refuse to take it anymore too. Only, with my voice one voice alone, I'm powerless to do anything. If anything, I'd be deemed a nut and if I complain my outrage too much, I'll be locked away where I can't hurt myself and/or anyone else. Truth be told, I hate how my life has been so depressed by the lack of control that I have over anything and everything and the lack of money that I have to live a decent life. I hate how my government lies to me to make me believe that I'm doing okay when I know I'm not. They must think that I'm as stupid as they think I am to believe whatever lies, half-truths, and spun information they tell me and expect to believe. Actually and unfortunately, I do believe all that they tell me, that is, until I find out years later that they lied about all of this and about all of that too. Now, whenever anyone in political office opens their mouth, other than to yawn, I know they're lying. * * * * * Billionaire Arthur Jensen, played by Ned Beatty in the movie, Network, said to Howard Beale, "You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it! Is that clear?" I just love this part of the movie. Can you just see Ned Beatty in this huge boardroom or conference room that he calls an office? Can you envision him climbing up on his soapbox with his hand held over his head and his finger poised in the air at the ceiling as if he's God? Imagine that son of a bitch in the face of Howard Beale shaking his fat finger at him while yelling at him. Right then and right there, if someone was to yell at me like that and in the way that he was lambasting Howard Beale, billionaire or not, I wouldn't put up with it. Definitely I'd put an end to it. He'd have the wrath and the rage of Susan in his face. He'd have my high heel shoe hidden in his ass. Fuck you! All of you greedy billionaires go and fuck yourself! How dare you do what you've done to us? Who do you think you are? You are just a person like me albeit with much more money, power, and influence than me. Yet, why aren't all of you so very tired of seeing the same people on the news yelling at us and point their fingers at us? I don't know about you but I'm sick and tired of seeing the same people drinking and eating at our trough. Unable to beat them away with a stick, we can't pry them away with a crowbar. We all should put an end to multi-billionaires shaking their greedy fingers at us because they can't squeeze any more money out of us. Why should we support them when they don't support us? Why should we allow them to continue to buy their huge homes, their expensive cars, and to live their lavish lifestyles large when we have nothing? It's time for us all to revolt. In the way they did in Boston during the Tea Party and dumped the English tea in Boston Harbor because of unfair taxation without legal representation, it's time we had a revolution in the way that we had a revolution in 1776. Tell me. What's changed since 1776? What's changed since 1976? We still have unfair taxation without legal representation. Even though we think we elected a president and senators, none of them work for us. None of them have our best interests at heart. All of them work for corporate America. How do you think they got to public office? They owe Wall Street, not us, for all the money given to them during their campaigns. For those of you who don't know who Ned Beatty is, Google him. A great actor, most notably, he's the fat guy in Deliverance that those mountain hillbillies fucked up the ass and that Burt Reynolds killed with his bow and arrow. He also played a dishonest Senator in Shooter with Mark Wahlberg. Now that I think about it, truth be told, how many senators do we know that are honest? Hands? I can't think of one, can you? Now if I was to ask you how many senators do we know who are rich and who have grown much richer when they took office as a 'public servant', you'd all have your hands in the air. * * * * * "You think you've merely stopped a business deal," said Ned Beatty as Arthur Jensen to Peter Finch as Howard Beale. "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 the 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 fast and immune, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, elector-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. This is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and 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?" * * * * * Wow! So very powerful, if that dialogue doesn't make you want to watch the movie if you haven't seen it or watch it again if you forgot it, then I don't know what will. If that scene doesn't make you angry, then I don't know what will. So apropos today, it's hard to believe that forty years ago this screenplay was written and the movie made. * * * * * Money, money, money, Ned Beatty as Arthur Jenson is telling Peter Finch as Howard Beale what we all now know, that the world is all just about money. Everyone wants money but the cold, harsh reality is that few of us will have enough money in our lives. Either you have money or you don't and the overwhelming majority of us don't have money, real money, the amount of money that can make a real difference in our lives. Even though we all thought that we knew everything back then when we were younger and so full of energy and hope, in bleak reality, as if we were blindfolded living our little lives while trusting our government to have our best interests at stake, we knew nothing. If you have a lot of money, you are somebody and people will not only listen to you and obey you but also they will follow you. If you don't have money, you are no one and nothing but for a hero or a villain in your own small life. What do you say to that? If the above speech by Ned Beatty as billionaire Arthur Jensen doesn't make you livid and call you from inaction to action, then I don't know what will. Are you angry yet? I sure am. I'm absolutely horrified that I'm nothing more than an insignificant pawn, only able to make one move and take one step at a time, unless I'm capturing another chess piece. I'm forced to play in a giant chess game with billionaires sitting around a table in some private and exclusive club on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston or somewhere secret in a think tank in Cambridge, Massachusetts filled with Harvard and MIT graduates. I can just see them plotting our little lives. I can just hear them planning their next evil move while sitting around a conference table in a boardroom in New York, New York or at the private residence of an old, white haired, mean, and miserable, Caucasian man in Manhattan. As are you, as we all are, I'm helpless to do anything about anything. Yet, my helplessness doesn't stop me from being mad and from wanting to do something, anything, to change the system of inequality. No one person should have as much money, power, and influence as do these billionaires. No one person should have so little money that they can't put food on their table or keep a roof over their heads. This is America, not India. I can just hear these titans of industry orchestrating my life, your life, our lives, the lives of our children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren with all they have in store to make themselves not only richer but more powerfully influential while the rest of us suffer miserably. In the way that we viewed John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, George Vanderbilt, Marshall Field, Milton Hershey, John Jacob Astor, et al, more than one hundred years ago, we view Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Carlos Slim, and the late Sam Walton today. Comparatively speaking, why should so few have everything at the expense of the rest of us having nothing? Surely, I don't want to be a billionaire, I just want a good paying job that has benefits. I just want a job that allows me to support myself and my family. I just want my fair piece of the American pie. "Please Sir, I want some more." I don't earn enough working two jobs while my spouse works at a job too. I don't earn money enough to keep my house, to gas up my car, and to put enough food on the table. God forbid any of us should fall sick, I can't afford to take my children to the hospital for medical care. Please Sir, I want some more." * * * * * Quiet, please. Listen. I wonder what they're saying behind their closed doors. Go ahead. I dare you. Put your ear up against the door to listen. Can you hear what they are saying? Can you hear what they're plotting and planning next to make our lives even more miserable than they are while they make their lives even grander?" Actually with actions speaking louder than words, I don't have to hear what they're saying to know what all the said. I just have to wait to see what happens. With Diane Sawyer looking so pretty, albeit getting old and needing to retire, I just have to watch TV to see which lying news story they expect me to believe. While watching hundreds of drug commercials that are supposedly good for me and will make my life better, when the list of quickly read side effects that appear in small print at the bottom of the TV screen dwarfs the list of benefits, I just have to believe that everything I see on TV is the truth. Flipping from NBC, to ABC, to CBS, and to CNN to get some semblance of news in between drug commercials, which news agency can I really trust? What am I to believe when every media outlet, newspapers, magazines, radio, television, cable, and satellites are owned, operated, and told what to report by six billionaire, old, Caucasian men? In the way I just created and composed this story, I'm better off creating and composing my own news. Money, Everything is about Money Ch. 01 To be continued... Money, Everything is about Money Ch. 02 What if we did this or what if we did that? What would happen then? I can just see and hear these old, Caucasian, billionaire men talking over lunch, over dinner, over drinks, in their homes, on vacation, on the golf course, on a plane, in their cars, and at the office about us, the middle class. What makes us, ordinary people, blue collar and white collar low paying employees, comparatively speaking to their huge salaries, so interesting? With us their never ending topic of conversation, why are they so focused on us when they are living their lives so large? When they can fly here, sail there, and go everywhere while doing this, that, and everything, what do we have that they want? We are the American middle class, the most powerful, most influential, and the richest group of people, comparatively speaking again, in the world. The reason why we are such a topic of conversation is because there are so very many of us. They can't do without us. They can't do what they do and can't accumulate all that the wealth they have without them legally stealing us blind. * * * * * "What if we tricked them and tempted them by soliciting them to apply for credit cards. What if we gave credit cards to anyone and everyone, especially the very young, those poor students in college, who desperately wanted one? What if we allowed them to charge whatever they wanted and thought they needed after advertising our products to make them all believe that they wanted this and needed that? What would happen then?" Supported and protected by congress, those public servants we put in office to enact legislation that benefits them and their rich friends, and signed into banking law by the President of the United States, that's what the banks did. Without even dare printing in fine print what credit cards will really cost us, until recently when President Obama passed the fair banking laws, they gave us all credit cards. Plowing us all under with huge amounts of unsecured debt, they allowed all of us to charge whatever we wanted. Life is good. Yet, if putting us all into debt wasn't enough, after we bailed out the banks and the insurance companies, and when we all could least afford it, the ungrateful banks tripled our interest rates. Even those customers who paid their credit card bills on time and who didn't over extend themselves, found themselves paying ridiculous amounts of interest and bank fees. Tell me, which lobbyist is watching out for our rights? Who do we have in our corner or in our pocket to protect us all from them? * * * * * "What if we gave mortgages to anyone who wanted one? No matter if they lived in Massachusetts or California, no matter if they could afford to pay their monthly mortgage or not, what if everyone in America, no matter what their credit worthiness and solvency was, could buy a house? What would happen then?" Too late to correct what happened, we all know what happened then after the banks failed and the economy was flushed down the toilet for the sake of a few men stealing billions of dollars from the middle class in credit default swap scams. With mortgage ads on TV and radio, every bank, every mortgage broker, and every flimflam man preyed on good, hardworking, innocent people who had a dream of taking a slice of American pie and owning their own home. How dare they? Now that we know who they all are, now that we know who was responsible and why they did all that they did, why aren't they in jail? With our jails filled with young, angry, black men instead of old, Caucasian, greedy men, the real thieving bastards in our society, it seems that the only people who go to jail for stealing pennies are poor black people. Yet, when an old, Caucasian man stills millions and even billions of dollars, a modern day Jesse James, he's revered, respected, and rewarded. They write books about what he did and make movies about his life. What's wrong with this picture? What's wrong with America? Why must I sit here and write this shit when everyone should be espousing it while protesting it? Truth be told, Wall Street's derivative brokers bet that we couldn't afford our mortgages and that the banks would have to foreclose on them, ergo the credit default swap scam. Truth be told, those with the authority to give us credit didn't want all of us to pay our mortgages back. They didn't want us to own homes, they just wanted us to default. They just wanted our money. Everything was fine and everyone was happy, that is, until the fine print took hold when we lost our jobs in a bad economy. Then, with the fine print enacted, the adjustable interest rate skyrocketed, and the banks foreclosed on our houses without having to renegotiate their loan. Now, suddenly, life isn't so good. Now, suddenly, life is very bad, the worst it's ever been. Our parents were so much better off back then than we are now. At least they had a good paying job with benefits. At least they had unions protecting them. At least they had retirement benefits. At least they still believed in good over evil and the good, old United States of America. At least they lived a good life. "God bless America. No, it's time for God to bless me. God? Please don't bless America with another thing. They've been blessed enough. It's time you blessed me God. It's time you blessed the middle class." * * * * * "With a few well place ads by anonymous foundations, what if we dissipated and eradicated the unions and destroyed the manufacturing base by sending all manufacturing jobs out of the country and overseas to Mexico, Japan, Taiwan, India, South America, and China? What if by taking advantage of third world, cheap labor rates, practically nothing was made in the United States. What if jobs that paid no benefits and a fraction of the wages we once paid for the same work, imagine how much more money we'd have for ourselves. With more money for us and less money for all of them, what would happen then?" Can you just picture these assholes sitting around a big table in a plush office while playing their what if games with your future, your children's future, and your grandchildren's future? For the sake of them making billions of dollars now, while the rest of us earn less than what our parents earned and less than what we need to pay our rent, mortgage, bills, healthcare, gas, and food, according to them, that's what they did. Greed is good according to the 'haves', while according to the 'have nots' poverty is not good. With the mega-rich living the life of luxury while the rest of us barely survive, is this what America has become, the land of the superrich and the home of homelessness, along with the starvation of the poor. Those mega-millionaires and wealthy celebrities, perhaps to sooth their guilt, make an orchestrated appearance to pass out Thanksgiving dinners for the press coverage. What happens the rest of the year when there are no other good deeds to report? Forced to live in neighborhoods of high poverty and high crime, we're just another statistic. No matter if they're Democrats, Republicans, Independents, of Libertarians, with fair trade laws enacted by congress and signed into law by then president of the United States, Ronald Reagan, our jobs disappearing overseas is exactly what happened. All of our major and most beloved companies from Nike to Reebok, to Ralph Lauren, Dell, Apple, GM, Ford, and everyone who used to have a factory in America, opened one in Mexico, Hong Kong, and Bangladesh. Fair for who? How dare they do that to us, the American worker? How dare they do that to me and to you? How dare they pull the wool over our eyes by lying to us in telling us that the fair trade laws were good for us when they weren't? Fair trade laws weren't good for me or for you. The fair trade laws were nothing more than a corporate tax shelter game with these mega-corporations played when opening their factories for business overseas. After giving them our hard work in exchange for low paying, unrewarding jobs, and our financial support in buying their products that made these billion dollar corporations who they are today, we deserve better and fairer treatment than that. With them expecting out loyalty, where is there loyalty in laying off people who had worked for them for 20 and 30 years? With not even a thank you, an apology, or a reason why, they were gone while we were left having to buy inferior goods with labels that read, made in Japan, made in Taiwan, made in Mexico, India, Brazil, Sri Lanka, and now China. It's as if all of America has turned into a giant Flint Michigan. We may as all live in an abandoned building in Detroit for what anyone in our government would care. What used to be all made in America was made in Mexico, Japan, Taiwan, and India. Now everything imported in this country has a label made in China. Where are our labels that read made in the USA? Even the clothes that clothed our athletes from the last Olympics were made in China. Are you kidding me? How embarrassing is that? Whose bright idea was that? A way for Ralph Lauren to make more money than he can possibly spend in ten lifetimes, just the audacity for them to think that they'd get away with making the clothes of our Olympians in China is testimony to how little they think about our intelligence. What happened to look for the union label when we were buying clothes that were made in America? What happened to Sam Walton proudly proclaiming on TV that everything he sold in his Wal-Mart stores is made in America? I'll tell you what happened. He died and left his children the business. Now, tell me this, why aren't the Walton's standing in front of a TV camera telling everyone that everything they sell is made in China? That tells me that they aren't proud of their products. That tells me that they aren't proud of what they sell. That tells me that they don't give a shit what they've done to this country in prostituting themselves to take advantage of sweatshops and not existent child labor laws for them to take advantage of cheap labor overseas. How dare they peddle their inferior products to us? I bet when the Walton's go to the store to buy things, they don't shop at Wal-Mart. I bet when the Walton's buy all that they want and all that they need, they don't buy things made in China. I bet they buy what they want and need from only the best stores, stores that have quality goods made by experienced crafts people instead of by children working long hours in Hong Kong and Bangladesh. How dare our country allow our corporations to get away with abandoning the American worker in favor of making cheap, inferior products overseas? If this is such a global economy, then we need to take lessons from Russia, China, Korea, Arabia, and Japan who closes their doors to foreigners taking over their country in the way that foreigners have destroyed this country. They don't allow other countries to import as many goods and services as we allow other countries to import goods and services into our country. How is that fair trade? While selling these cheap goods via Wal-Mart and Amazon, with tax laws in their favor and tax shelters that hide their mega profits, how dare these companies pay little or no taxes on all that they earn overseas? How is that fair to any of us who have to pay double the tax rate than someone who earns more than one hundred times the amount that we earn? How dare our government allow them to shelter their income in the Cayman Islands and Bimini and dozens of other countries who favor foreign investments while our government disfavors and disenfranchises the American worker? How dare they take the money out of the country that we need and should have to support our families? * * * * * "What if we took over companies and bought up all of the competition to have only one major bank, one massive insurance company, one store to buy food, clothing and whatever else anyone needed, and one hugely profitable oil company? What would happen then?" ...And forty years later, almost there now, that's exactly what they did. With one, big bank eating up all of the smaller banks and allowed to make big mergers with one another while skirting the monopoly laws put in place in 1938, everything was good for big business but bad for the middle class. With one, big bank allowed to charge whatever fees they want, along with a go fuck yourself attitude, we don't want your business and we don't need your business, we have Bank of America representing 'In God We Trust' for the entire United States. After all the lies, after congress and supreme court justices were paid in full, and the smoke and mirrors cleared from mega mergers, JP Morgan, Bank of America, and Citibank were the big winners. Without all the fanfare of one big bank buying another big bank, after the dust settled, Metlife, Prudential, Sallie Mae, Freddie Mac, and AIG were reborn to pay more mega-million dollar bonuses to their employees who nearly destroyed our economy. In the United States, Wal-Mart and Exxon-Mobil stand alone as giants in their industries. Except for Chevron, Conoco Phillips, Kroger and Target, they have no real competition enough for any of them to not only lower their prices but also to hire workers to work at a decent wage. I ask you this, where's the fair trade when these companies stand alone and have little or no competition? What happened to monopoly laws put in place in 1938 to protect us, the middle class American from big business? What happened to the fair trade market that not only allows but also encourages Exxon charges whatever they so desire for a gallon of gas and banks charge as much in fees as the IRS charges us in taxes? They must think we're all stupid and we are all stupid for continuing to buy their gas instead of boycotting their gas and we are stupid for not boycotting them. What would Exxon do with their gas if Americans stopped buying their gas? Sell if overseas? Sure some of it. Instead, no doubt, following the rules of supply and demand that they so freely tout, Exxon would be forced to lower their prices. When they say that the reason why the price of a gallon of gas is higher because less people are buying gas, I can understand that. That actually makes sense to me. Yet, then when they take the flipside of the argument and say that the reason why the price of a gallon of gas is higher is because more people are buying gas, huh? Scratching my head, I don't get it. "What? Seriously? Are you kidding me? Which is it? Either it's one or the other. Pick one and stick with that but it can't be both. We're not that stupid, are we? We are." * * * * * "What if instead of creating more jobs to handle the new global business and the multi-national economies we'd have by opening our factories overseas, we laid off millions of American workers instead? What if instead of hiring people who'd expect to be paid fair, decent, and much higher wages, we gave everyone who help make us who we are today, the fuck you finger, and we created computers to do the jobs of people? What if instead of paying a person to answer the phone, we had a computer answer the phone? What if instead of paying someone to pump gas, we had computerized gas pumps? What if, instead of hiring more cashiers at the supermarket, we hired less cashiers and had automated checkout? A win/win for us, while customers checkout their own groceries, they use their credit cards to charge food. What if instead of hiring more tellers, even though banks are making record profits and paying their top executives tens of millions of dollars, we give our customers the finger again and install even more ATM machines?" ...And that's exactly what big business did to put you and me and millions of other people like us out of work. Are you angry yet? No? Why not? If you are angry, what do you plan to do about it? I hope that arsenal of guns that you have hidden in your house is not the solution to your economic problems. Instead maybe you should run for political office. Only, with politics a contagious disease, if you won the election, for you to accomplish anything at all, you'd have to be just as dirty as everyone else is in Washington. "God bless me, God, and not America." * * * * * "What if we outsourced all the American labor to third world countries and the only jobs left in the United States were low paying, part-time service jobs that didn't offer any benefits or overtime? What would happen then?" "Welcome to McDonalds. How many I take your order? Welcome to Burger King. How many I take your order? Welcome to Arby's, Taco Bell, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Starbucks, and Dunkin Donuts, how the fuck may we take your fucking orders, you assholes? Because in the way that we don't want to be working here earning minimum wage, we don't want to be serving any of you who have real jobs and who are stealing our money and our futures? "I hope you like your food and beverages with all boogers I put in them. Eat up. Enjoy." Fuck us all and they did. Not yet done fucking me, with the approval of our bought and paid for 'public servants', big businesses in the name of profits and shareholder returns are still fucking all of us up the ass by not hiring anyone! Why should they hire anyone when those employees that they have are forced to do the work of two workers? Why should they hire anyone when the employees that they have, scared to death of losing their lousy jobs, work harder and faster? Why should they hire anyone when they are making do with the people they have? Are you angry yet? If not, you should be. If not, why not? I'm angry and I'm just a dumb, ditsy, blonde writer. I'm mad as Hell and I won't take it anymore, and you shouldn't take it anymore either. To be continued... Money, Everything is about Money Ch. 03 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." Money, Everything is about Money Ch. 03 "Then tell us why we are all unemployed and underemployed?" "Because there's no money in putting you back to work and giving those already employed a fair wage with benefits. There is more money sending your jobs overseas while waving the American flag under the pretense of the Fair Trade Act. We're all fucked, that is, unless you all get mad. The only thing that anything is going to change is if we, the middle class change it. The only way we can change anything is to band together, get out there and vote for who have our best interests, protest what's unfair, and boycott against those who are taking advantage of us. "So, who's with me? C'mon. Everyone get up. Let's go. Hello? Anyone? Where'd everyone go? Oh, that's right, I forgot. The Super Bowl is being televised. What the Hell? I'll protest and boycott later, after the game, actually, after American Idol too. Actually, by the time American Idol votes for their winner, the Red Sox will be playing baseball. I'll protest after the Red Sox win the World Series again. I wonder if I can afford to buy the MLB baseball package this year." THE END