Movie Review : We're Not Broke (Social Activism)

Last night, Lewis and I saw the independent film, "We're Not Broke".  Go see it!  Decades ago, the public was ignorant of political/business corruption: Boss Tweed got away with it because city constituents couldn't read newspapers, FDR was able to request that reporters keep his quotes "off the record" and they complied, NYC Mayor Beau James got away with it because there were no cellphone cameras, blogs or Facebook posts to spread the alert.  The movie shows documentation and financial experts that confirms what the public can already tell: that something has been wrong for a long time when a country gets more wealthy but the living costs get worse than prior generations.  You can probably guess why... corporations get the government to allow them advantages to be more profitable, and the general public suffers by paying the difference in taxes and going without public services (as a result of gov't cutbacks).  And the people, who hire and pay for those politicians--and who buy those products/services--and who work for the companies, mildly go along with it.  In Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Egypt, France and Greece, they held violent riots, upset that their governments had squandered their resources.  In America, the people have to get out of their Lazy-Boys, get off the couch, turn off the online porn, leave Happy Hour and do something productive.  They have to collectively take a day off from work/school and proceed to their town hall/state capitol and demand explanations/action/reverse policy.  They have to hire pro-people lawyers and economists.  They have to hold their camera phones up to their elected councilmen, assemblymen, senators, mayors, governors, legislators, and presidential staffers to demand answers--with deadlines.  If government, that supposedly represents the people and works for the people, has made national policy changes that effectively hurts the people, then they should be fired.  If they've made policy that hurts the nation, that might be considered treason.  If they've used your tax dollars to change policy that allowed Enron to show "projected profits" on its Financial Reports (to scam the public with inflated stock prices")--which used to be illegal, then they should pay for it.  If they've changed policy that allows companies to make profits in America but not pay ANY taxes in America (leaving the burden to their consumers/tax payers), then those politicians should be removed.  
     A clever 1970s movie, "The Network" offered some quotes that are still relevant today:

"I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth, banks are going bust, 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. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, 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. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.' Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone. 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 because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. 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!' So I want you to get up now. 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 AS 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 as 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 window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: "I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!"

Later on, the same jaded journalist continues: "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! [calmly strolling toward the audience] 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 to 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! This 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? So, you 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. 
(Think "Fashion Police" "Entertainment Tonight" "Real World" "Real Housewives" "Jersey Shore")
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 any 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 any shit you want to hear. We deal in *illusions*! None of it is true! But you people sit there, day after day, night after night, all ages, colors, creeds... We're all you know. You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here. You're beginning to think that the tube is reality, and that your own lives are unreal. You do 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! So turn off your television sets. Turn them off now. Turn them off right now. Turn them off and leave them off! Turn them off right in the middle of the sentence I'm speaking to you now! TURN THEM OFF...

However, the new Chairman of the Company (representing how Rockefeller or the CEO of GE or the CEO of GM probably thought/thinks) reprimands the journalist: "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 immune, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-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. 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 through to you, Mr. Beale? 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, minimax 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 will work to serve a common profit, in which all men 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."

It was recently brought to my attention that the 2012 comedy, "The Dictator" had this quote from its main character, General Aladeen: "Why are you guys so anti-dictators? Imagine if America was a dictatorship. You could let 1% of the people have all the nation's wealth. You could help your rich friends get richer by cutting their taxes. And bailing them out when they gamble and lose. You could ignore the needs of the poor for health care and education. Your media would appear free, but would secretly be controlled by one person and his family. You could wiretap phones. You could torture foreign prisoners. You could have rigged elections. You could lie about why you go to war. You could fill your prisons with one particular racial group, and no one would complain. You could use the media to scare the people into supporting policies that are against their interests."

Food for Thought: In December 2011, the non-partisan group "Public Campaign" criticized General Electric for spending $84 million on lobbying, while not paying any taxes during 2008-2010, but getting $4.7 billion in tax rebates... despite making a profit of $10.4 billion, laying off 4,168 workers since 2008, and increasing executive pay by 27% to $75.9 million in 2010 for the top 5 executives.  

I would disagree that business does things for the betterment of society.  A look at bottled water, fast food, car companies, insurance companies, banks, Pfizer and cigarette companies says differently.  The people must maintain checks and balances by keeping up the scrutiny, the vigil, the participation and the pressure.  That's how you got Women's' Rights, Gay Rights, Racial Equality, Fair working conditions during the Industrial Revolution, and even the Bill of Rights, to begin with.  It's how the small heroes win: the bigger they are, the harder they fall.