By Angry Old American
Copyright Angry Old American, April 29th, 2023. All Rights Reserved.
In light of the recent departure of cable television’s #1 ranked rogue news reporter Tucker Carlson from
Fox News, I watched the movie Network. This classic feature movie about television network news was
released in 1976, received four Academy Awards, and was selected for preservation in the National Film
Registry by the Library of Congress. Network was voted among the ten greatest screenplays in cinematic
history by the Writer’s Guild of America, along with other accolades from the American Film Institute,
and the Producer’s Guild Hall of Fame.
I recommend that this audience take the time to view for the first time, or re-watch this cinematic gem.
Thus, I will minimize any spoiler’s in this article.
The ouster of Carlson from Fox News is telling, framed by the insights of Network’s jaded message.
According to the movie’s insights, television networks are whorehouses for the corporations that control
them. The public trusts that they are told the truth by their “News,” but get nothing but lies sprinkled with
circus entertainment; all of which operate as advertisements, or protect corporations from their many
crimes. More than celebrity “hit” viewership, or even advertisement revenue, the message of conformity
to the “corporate ecology” reigns supreme. Capitalist or Communist, the corporations of this world, and
the governments that they control, all survive and thrive from the “ebb and flow” of commodities and
manufactures exchanged by monopolies for dollars, pounds, rubles, yuan, pesos, rupees, and myriad other
currencies. There is no other reality fit for the public to consider. We must all march to the tune of the
Pied Piper of six corporations who control over 90% of all television and radio broadcasts, movie
production studios, magazines, newspapers, along with publishers of novels, non-fiction, textbooks and
even Bibles.
Corporations control your internet search engines and social media, and have taken their megalomaniacal
thirst for control to another level; through Artificial Intelligence (AI) they will control and police what
you consume on a personal level. “AI has been taught to lie” were the words of Elon Musk during
Carlson’s final week of broadcasting. Musk went on to say AI may pose a threat to the very survival of
the Human Race. Within days of the broadcast, Musk testified before the US Congress to plead for a six
month moratorium on the release of AI. His opponents are Google, Microsoft (Bing) and a group of other
wealthy tech corporate developers of AI, and the entire military industrial complex that want the
competitive edge and control that the new technology will give them.
Watch the movie Network. You will not regret spending the time or expense. Perhaps you will follow the
directions from the movie’s fictional rogue news reporter “Howard Beale,” to get up from your chair,
walk to your window, open it, and shout…
“I’m mad as Hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!”
Perhaps you will follow “Beale’s” next suggestion. You are alive and real; not that manufactured carnival
freak-show reality flashing on the tube. Your life has meaning! So get up from your chair, walk over to
your TV and turn it off. Turn it off and never turn it on again.
Good film with a good message. One might read “The Looking Glass World of Non-fiction TV” by Elayne Rapping and “Amusing Ourselves To Death” by Neil Postman. Also, one should read Jerry Mander’s 1978 book “Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television” who died on April 11th at age 86. His other noteworthy book is “In the Absence of the Sacred: The Failure of Technology and the Survival of the Indian Nations” published in 1982.
Great input J! I have lived without TV for many decades and consider my life to have been blessed without the diabolical brainwashing device in my home. Hope others will abandon this addictive and harmful habit also.