The World Is A Business, Occupiers – It’s All About Profits

by Allen L Roland

Make no mistake about it ~ Occupy Wall Street Has now become Occupy America and it’s rattling the cages of the corpocracy and the Global financial elite. The stage has been set ~ the attempt to marginalize truth and dissent through the corporate media will continue until we realize that, to them, the world is a business, its lifeblood is profits and it answers to no one except its stockholders ~ that is, until now.

” ..the media in the United States effectively represents the interests of corporate America, and … the media elite are the watchdogs of what constitutes acceptable ideological messages, the parameters of news and information content, and the general use of media resources:”  Peter Phillips, Project Censored, 1998

Let’s use the firing of Keith Olbermann early this year as an example of the power of the media and corporate America ~ MSNBC’s parent company, General Electric, never seemed comfortable with Keith Olbermann’s role as a critic of the Bush administration, nor, for that matter, of the Obama administration or with the sniping between Olbermann and his Fox News rival, O’Reilly ~ so the axe finally fell on Countdown.

Keith Olbermann spelled it out in his last show on MSNBC: “I think the same fantasy popped into the head of everybody in my business that has ever been told what I have been told ~ “this will be the last edition of your show.” You go to the scene from the movie Network, complete with the pajamas and the raincoat and go off on a verbal journey of unutterable vision, and you insist upon Peter Finch’s guttural resonance, and you tell the viewer to go to the window, open it, stick out his head and yell I’M MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!!

And this is just what the Occupy Wall Street movement is saying to the financially elite and corporate America as it spreads like wildfire ~ I’M MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!!

Perhaps Michael Moore best sums up my feelings regarding the rapidly blossoming OWS movement ~ “ I have not felt this good in a very long time. This movement has spread like wildfire. It has happened completely on its own momentum and it’s something that can’t be stopped. We’ve been involved in many, many movements over a long period of time and it takes a long time to build these movements, and at the beginning of these movements, the civil rights movement, the feminist movement, the anti-war movement, you didn’t have 59 percent of the American public with you in the first month of the movement. Fifty-nine percent of the American public is behind Occupy Wall Street. This has happened so fast and the reason, I think, is that the people are already there. The feeling toward Wall Street, corporate America, toward what’s going on, has just been simmering below the surface, and it’s just been ready to explode, and it can’t be turned back now.”

59% of Americans are behind Occupy Wall Street but we are up against a formidable profit making War machine and a captive corporate media that won’t bend unless it’s forced to. In 1961, American corporations paid taxes on 40.6% of their profits made and today they pay 10.5% on profits made.

What Keith Olbermann did not refer to in his comments was Mr. Jensen’s speech to Howard Beale from the same movie Network ~ when Jensen told Beale the facts of life about the corpocracy and that, to them, the world is a business whose lifeblood is profits, regardless of the moral or ethical costs.

So I have taken the liberty to edit Paddy Chayefsky’s brilliant script of that scene with Mr. Olbermann playing the part of Howard Beale when he and Mr. Jensen met alone in the dimly lit MSNBC boardroom in mid January 2011.

Network Excerpt

written by Paddy Chayefsky ( Updated by Allen L Roland )

Jensen: You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Olbermann, and I won’t have it, is that clear?! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back and we are preemptively forcing them to do that. It’s not about human rights and Democracy ~ the world is a business, Mr Olbermann ~ it’s all about profits!

It‘s ebb and flow, tidal gravity, it is ecological balance! You are unfortunately a progressive who thinks in terms of moral values, of right and wrong, nations and peoples. There are no moral values, no rights and wrongs! 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 are only profits to be made, Mr. Olbermann !

There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and innate, interwoven, interacting, multi-variate, multi-national dominion of dollars! petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars!, Euro dollars, Reichmarks, rubles, rin, pounds and shekels! It is the international system of currency that determines the totality of life on this planet! That is the natural order of things today! That is the atomic, 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.Olbermann? (pause) You get up on your fifty-one inch screen, and howl about America, democracy and moral integrity but it will do no good ~ no one is really listening.

There is no America, Mr Olbermann ! There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and Dupont, Dow, JP Morgan, Exxon, British Petroleum and of course General Electric and Comcast. Those are the nations of the world today. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state ~ Karl Marx? They pull out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments just like we do with our derivative high speed trading! We control the world and we mean to keep it that way, Mr Olbermann!

The Stock market has no sympathy for you, your family or your emotions, Mr Olbermann. It  desires one thing only ~ profits. And those profits will often come at the expense of everything many wish for in this world but that’s considered collateral damage.

Why do you think we created the World Bank, it’s really quite simple, Mr Olbermann. The World Bank’s analytical framework is used to justify a process of “economic repression”, which has been applied Worldwide in more than 150 developing countries. For example, the World Bank was actively involved in cooking the data and distorting the social plight of the Tunisian population. The official rate of unemployment was14 percent, the actual level of unemployment was much higher. Recorded youth unemployment was of the order of 30 percent. Social services, including health and education have collapsed under the brunt of the IMF-World Bank economic austerity measures. What happened in Tunisia, and is now happening in Greece, Mr. Olbermann ~ is part of a global economic process which destroys people’s lives through the deliberate manipulation of market forces and all in the name of profits!

Tony Blair got it ~ it’s all about protecting our way of life (chuckle ) Every time he said those words ~ the same words he used to justify our preemptive humanitarian attack on Iraq, and now on Libya,  I get shivers of delight running up my spine. He’s our man in the Middle East and now North Africa ~ with all that sweet crude ( chuckle).

Cheney and Bush not only got it ~ they accelerated it ~ bless their hearts ~ particularly Cheney’s crippled one ( sigh )

Obama gets it, too ~ He made his deal with the devil before he was elected and promised not to prosecute Cheney and Bush for war and financial crimes in turn for not rocking the boat with Wall Street.

Why do you think we chose JP Morgan’s William Daly as his new chief of staff as well as his recent appointment of General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt as the head of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness ( Chuckle ) ~ they are his constant reminder that he answers to the financial elite on Wall Street and not Main Street ~ as Emanuel was most certainly his reminder not to cross AIPAC.

Obama answers to Wall Street and the corpocracy, Mr. Olbermann ~ not to the American people ( knowing chuckle ).

We’re heading for a New World Order, Mr. Olbermann, and guess whose going to be funding it ~ an unaudited federal reserve and IMF who will bail out our excesses as they did under Bush and Obama. It may not seem fair, Mr. Olbermann but its business and that’s how the game is played.

We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Olbermann. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable by-laws of business.

The world is a business, Mr. Olbermann! It has been since man crawled out of the slime, and our children, Mr.Olbermann, will live to see that perfect world in which there is no war and famine, oppression and 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 chose you to preach this evangel, Mr.Olbermann, and you have obviously failed !

Olbermann: (shocked whisper) Why me?

Jensen: Because you’re on television, dummy. One million people watch you every night of the week, Monday through Friday ~ and you’re starting to tell the truth and that makes us very, very nervous. Phil Donahue, who preceded you, made the same mistake by telling the truth in the run-up to the Iraq war and we felt he was a very difficult face for NBC in a time of war ~ so we fired him!

Truth tellers scare us, Mr. Olbermann ~ it’s important for us to keep the public tranquilized and amused but not necessarily well informed. The last thing we want is them taking to the streets demanding change. The world is a business, Mr. Olbermann ~ your truth talk is not serving us ~ you’re fired !

Here’s the original award winning must see link to Mr. Jensen’s five minute monologue to Howard Beale in Network. It’s definitely worth a view ~

Network – The World is a Business

Let those words sink in because our Republic is in peril and we still most assuredly need truth tellers and dissenters like Keith Olbermann, Michael Murphy, Chris Hedges, myself and many others who are supporting the Occupy movement with their words and actions.

About the Author: Allen L Roland is a Freelance Alternative Press Online columnist. He is also a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his web site at AllenRoland.com. He also guest hosts a Truthtalk, a national radio show that airs monthly. He is available for comments, interviews, speaking engagements and private consultations via email at allen@allenroland.com.

Allen L Roland, PhD

Allen L Roland, PhD is a Freelance Alternative Press Online columnist. He is also a heart-centered spiritual consultant, author, and lecturer who also shares a weekly political and social commentary on his website at AllenRoland.com. He also guest hosts Truthtalk, a national radio show that airs monthly. He is available for comments, interviews, speaking engagements as well as private consultations via email at allen@allenroland.com.

Roland is a twin who was born in Boston, Massachusetts, survived a dysfunctional family, pursued and lived his dreams, including becoming a Navy supersonic carrier pilot, finding himself by fully opening his heart, writing three books, siring four children ~ and still living his ultimate dream by making a difference from a place of love, celebration, and service.

His Ph.D. dissertation THE UNIFIED FIELD was chosen by Common Boundary and Noetic Science Institute, in their 1998 national dissertation contest, as one of the top three finalists for combining spirituality and psychology. His ongoing heart-centered work as a consultant with veterans with PTSD is the most satisfying work of his life. Allen’s online newsletter, columns, and radio broadcasts are committed to the truth ~ as he sees it ~ for only the truth is revolutionary.