Network Page #11

He wants Mr. Beale in his office

at 10:
00 tomorrow morning.

The final revelation is at hand.

I have seen the shattering fulgurations

of ultimate clarity.

The light is impending.

I bear witness to the light!

Good morning, Mr. Beale.

-They tell me you're a madman.

-Only desultorily.

-How are you now?

-I'm as mad as a hatter.

Who isn't?

I'm going to take you

into our conference room.

Seems more seemly a setting

for what I have to say to you.

I started as a salesman, Mr. Beale.

I sold sewing machines

and automobile parts...

...hairbrushes and electronic equipment.

They say I can sell anything.

I'd like to try to sell something to you.

Valhalla, Mr. Beale. Please, sit down.

You have meddled with the primal forces

of nature, Mr. Beale.

And I won't have it! Is that clear?

You think you've 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...

...multinational dominion of dollars.

Petrol dollars, electro-dollars,

multi-dollars.

Reichsmarks, rins, rubles,

pounds and shekels.

It is the international system of currency

which determines...

...the totality of life on this planet.

That 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 it through to you, Mr. Beale?

You get up on your little 21-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,

minimax solutions...

...and compute price-cost probabilities

of 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 will work

to serve a common profit...

...in which all men will hold

a share of stock...

...all necessities provided...

...all anxieties tranquillized...

...all boredom amused.

And I have chosen you, Mr. Beale...

...to preach this evangel.

Why me?

Because you're on television, dummy.

Sixty million people watch you every night

of the week, Monday through Friday.

I have seen the face of God.

You just might be right, Mr. Beale.

That evening,

Howard Beale went on the air...

...to preach the corporate cosmology

of Arthur Jensen.

Last night I got up here

and asked you people...

...to stand up and fight for your heritage,

and you did, and it was beautiful.

Six million telegrams were received

at the White House.

The Arab takeover of CCA

has been stopped.

The people spoke, the people won.

It was a radiant eruption of democracy.

But I think that was it, fellas.

That sort of thing is not likely

to happen again.

Because at the bottom

of all our terrified souls...

...we know that democracy

is a dying giant...

...a sick, sick, dying, decaying,

political concept writhing in its final pain.

I don't mean that the United States

is finished as a world power.

The States is the richest

and most powerful...

...the most advanced country,

light years ahead of any country.

I don't mean the communists

are gonna take over the world.

The communists are deader than we are.

What is finished...

...is the idea that this great country

is dedicated to the freedom...

...and flourishing of every individual in it.

It's the individual that's finished.

It's the single, solitary, human being

that's finished.

It's every single one of you out there

that's finished.

Because this is no longer...

...a nation of independent individuals.

It's a nation of some 200-odd million...

...transistorized, deodorized...

...whiter than white steel-belted bodies,

totally unnecessary as human beings...

...and as replaceable as piston rods.

Well, the time has come to say...

...is "dehumanization" such a bad word?

Whether it's good or bad,

that's what is so.

The whole world is becoming humanoid,

creatures that look human but aren't.

The whole world, not just us.

We're just the most advanced country,

so we're getting there first.

The whole world's people are becoming

mass-produced, programmed...

...numbered insensate things.

It was a perfectly admissible argument...

...that Howard Beale advanced

in the days that followed.

It was, however,

also a very depressing one.

Nobody particularly cared to hear

his life was utterly valueless.

By the end of the first week in June...

...the Howard Beale Show

dropped one point in the ratings...

...and its trend of shares dipped under 48

for the first time since last November.

You're his goddamn agent. I'm counting

on you to talk some sense into the lunatic.

Nobody wants to hear about

dying democracy and dehumanization.

I'm sorry I'm late.

We're starting to get rumbles

from the agencies.

Another couple of weeks

and the sponsors will be bailing out!

This is a breach of contract.

This isn't the Howard Beale we signed.

Get him off that corporate universe kick,

or so help me, I'll pull it off the air!

I told him, Lou! I've been telling him

every day for a week!

I'm sick of telling him. Now you tell him!

Jesus Christ.

You could help me out

with Howard if you wanted to.

He listens to you. You're his best friend.

I'm tired of all this hysteria

about Howard Beale.

Every time you come

from seeing somebody in your family...

...you come back in one of these

middle-aged moods.

I'm tired of finding you on the telephone

every time I turn around.

I'm tired of being an accessory

in your life.

And I'm tired of pretending to write

this dumb book...

...about my maverick days

in the great early years of television.

Every goddamned executive fired

from a network in the last 20 years...

...has written this dumb book

about the great early years of television.

And nobody wants

a dumb, damn, goddamn book...

...about the early days of television.

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