Corporate Crap and Other Dubious Wisdom

In 1976 a movie called Network came out and won several Academy Awards.  It was a movie about a TV anchorman who, upset with the condition of the world and his own Network’s greed and lust for power, actually tries to tell his viewers the truth on the air.
The following is a quote from the Internet Movie Database Inc., Memorable Quotes from Network : 

[Howard Beale: 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 work, 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, and there’s no end to it. 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. We know things are bad - worse than bad. They’re crazy. 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 my steel-belted radials 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. 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.
Howard Beale: [shouting] You’ve got to say, ‘I’m a HUMAN BEING, Goddamnit! 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,
[shouting]
Howard Beale: ‘I’M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!’ I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them 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:
Howard Beale: [screaming at the top of his lungs] "I’M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!" ]

Remember… this movie described conditions in 1976.  What are the conditions in our world now?  Has anything really changed in nearly 30 years?

I have to say that nothing much has changed.  Most of us still sit at home and whine to ourselves about conditions, but few of us have the guts to do anything about it.  So here’s your chance. 

• Corporate America in its greed has taken over our lives and while they rest in their million dollar villas, we work two jobs just to survive
• [from Jade]One of the things that I AM MAD AS HELL ABOUT AND NOT GOING TO TAKE ANY MORE is the way Corporate America ( I am gagging as I type that) treats its employees. We work our asses off for less and less pay, nearly zero benefits, beaten down like work horses, and we are put away wet. I gave up 5 years of my children’s lives to “advance” in my career choice. All I ever got from that company was grief. I was forced to work more and more hours, and asked to complete unscrupulous tasks. I did as I was told, because I needed to provide for my children, until one day. I stood my ground and said “No!”. I told them I was mad as hell and they fired me… I tell you people now, NEVER compromise your own scruples for a company who could give a damn about you, or anyone else for that matter.
• [from Jade]Another thing that has me mad as hell. I don’t just mean the “ex” type of bully. I mean corporate bullies, family bullies, government bullies, religious bullies, right wing/left wing, libertarian bullies, so on and so forth. You get the idea. These are the ones who think they can tell us what we can or can’t do. The ones that try to change the collective “us” into what they believe in. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about operating systems, raising children, or religious rights. They cover all genres, races, political views, religions, and sexs. They can’t accept a different view or belief, believing that theirs is the only right one out there. The best one.
• [from 3T] Corporate America continues to expect more and more from their employees, paying them less and less, taking away benefits, and sacrificing the American family for the sake of higher and higher profits.  GREED
• Ourselves, our wives, children, and grandchildren are working in dangerous and sub-standard conditions because our government refuses to do anything about it
• Every day good, hard working people of every ethnicity and gender are being forced out of jobs by discrimination
• Drug and violent crimes have risen astronomically because the legal system has failed to keep up… our children are dying from drugs and crime
• [from Norsegod at K@os ( http://www.kaoticism.com/home/2005/06/08/our-politicians-are-idiots/)] Now our Congress is trying to pass a bill to force everyone in the US to be part of the drug war. If you do not participate YOU will be arrested and fined. It states that if you see someone pass a joint (the gov’t calls this drug trafficking) or even just use an illegal substance and you do not turn this person over to the law within 24 hours you can be prosecuted, imprisoned, and fined. That’s right YOU can be put in jail for not snitching. They are calling this the snitch bill… We have to stop this insanity.
• [from Tutu Bent]They also keep giving people chances who are so caught up in drugs, having kid after kid, in and out of jail. Do something about it! Make them get sterilized so they can’t have anymore children, whom only end up in foster homes for someone else to care for. And these repeat sex offenders, castrate these assholes. Don’t just incarcerate them for a few years and let them back out into society. Cut their fucking dicks off! Turn them into a girl and let someone else do to them what they did to an innocent victim.
• Hundreds, if not thousands, of our children simply dissapear every day because law enforcement doesn’t seem to give a very high priority to lost children… How many of them would still be alive if they had been found sooner?
• [from Tutu Bent]the system pisses me off when they keep giving people who abuse their children and spouses another chance. Another chance for what? A chance to kill the next time? A classmate of mine lost their grandchild because the system gave him back to his parents who constantly abused the children. The boy has been missing for over 7 years. And the parents are walking around scott free. The grandparents want justice, but the State is taking their sweet ass time. !#*#!
• While giving lipservice to their constituents before an election, government officials refuse to do the jobs we elect them for
• [from Bud]if you’re preaching, please go away. If you’re politicking, just let me see the REAL bottom line. Then go away. I’ll vote and contribute to deserving candidates. If I were still working I’d still be a union organizer. But that time has passed.
• Our taxes rise every year, but our roads, our cities, our zoos, our parks, our schools, and our land continues to decline at an alarming rate
• The Social Security System that we have all paid into all our lives will most likely not be there when we retire because our government has already spent the money
• Illegal aliens entering our country have more consideration and benefits than many of our own citizens.
• We still have people in our own country starving to death because our government would rather send billions to other countries as “foreign aid” than take care of our own people
• [from Tutu Bent]Yes, I am mad as hell with people who are so lazy that they use the system all their adult life. They get so content in their world of not working and getting everything free. All they want to do is drink and do their dope! And these people make it hard for those who are really trying, but can’t get any kind of assistance. The elderly, the disabled and the handicapped who try to get help are told: “I’m sorry but you make $12.00 over the qualifying limit.” You can’t get medical help because your fixed income is too high. Now this really pisses me off. !#%*!#

• Our elderly, rather than being respected and revered members of our society, are often locked away and forgotten in rest homes

• [from Bitchitude]I don’t listen to whiners until my ears bleed anymore. If you ask for advice, take it or shut the fuck up. Quit prattling on like a whack-a-mole on meds about something you have no intention of resolving for yourself.
• [from Bitchitude] If you aren’t happy with your life, your spouse, the color of your toilet seat, or your crappy job—decide what it is that makes you happy, then do it, or at least works towards it. If you can’t help yourself, nobody else can either—so shut the fuck up.
• [from Bitchitude] It really pisses me off when society makes decisions on my behalf; If I want to verify my teenage and pre-teenage children are acting properly, not sneaking around, chatting with freaks, or doing drugs—I figure I bore them, I paid for them, and I’ll goddamn invade their privacy while they live in MY house without YOUR laws bringing the hammer down. If they need a smack on the ass, a smack on the ass it will be—while that’s but a rare occurrence, and both are way too old for smack on the ass, who told you that you had authority to dictate whether I did or didn’t? Shut the fuck up and mind your own business and YOUR screaming, uncontrolled brats!
• [from Bitchitude] If you can’t open your mouth and say something—live with your own misery and shut the fuck up about how crappy it makes you feel. If you aren’t willing to take a chance on yourself, your desires, your preferences, and your own moral values, don’t expect society to listen to you, either.
• [from JuneBug] 20 and 30 year old somethings who don’t go to school but won’t get a job and leave home. Mommy and Daddy raised you. The free ride is over. It’s your turn to punch a time clock and pay taxes. The party is over and last call was yesterday. GET OFF YOUR BUTT AND GO TO WORK ALREADY. This includes my 30 year old son.
• [from JuneBug]People who stay in abusive relationships. It’s not your fault except for the fact that you’re still there. Stop being a door mat, call the law, and go to protective services. Living alone IS NOT the worst thing that can happen to you. Getting maimed and killed by your lover is.
• [from JuneBug]The Moral Majority telling me what to believe, to read, who to fuck, how I got here, and any thing else. I will believe what I want, have sex how, where and with whom I please and read any damn book I choose. This is still a free country. So far anyway.
• [from JuneBug]People judging everyone else by body mass, money, and age. I’m not too old to do anything IF it’s what I do. That chubby person may not be lazy, she might have PCOS. And that guy in the ‘vet is in debt to his eyeballs while the one in the work shirt and faded jeans has a bank account that will knock your socks (and your panties) off.
• [from JuneBug]If you tell me you’ll do something, do it!!! I’m tired of making plans and people not showing up or calling with some excuse. Let me know so I can do something else. And if you’re in some form of public service ……. if I have an appointment, I expect to see you at a reasonable time NOT 4 hours later unless you’re a Dr. who had to go to emergency.
• [from JuneBug]Don’t lie to me. Don’t tell me what you think I want to hear. Don’t try to con me. Don’t ask for more than you would be willing to do for me.

If that list doesn’t make you mad, then you’re probably a lost cause anyway.

I don’t want you to riot, I don’t want violence, I don’t want you to write to your congressmen (like they would listen) . 

I want everyone who reads my blog to do four things: 

1. Get up out of your chair right now, go on, stand up!
2. Now I want you to say out loud ‘I AM TIRED OF GETTING SCREWED.  I AM MAD AS HELL ABOUT THE WAY THINGS ARE AND I’M JUST NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANY MORE!!’ Now… just for good measure, say it again ‘I AM MAD AS HELL ABOUT THE WAY THINGS ARE AND I’M JUST NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANY MORE!!’
3. Now I want you to post this on your own website/blog… ‘I AM MAD AS HELL ABOUT THE WAY THINGS ARE AND I’M JUST NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANY MORE!!’… and give them your list along with mine and encourage them to post it on their websites as well.  If you/they post a comment on my blog I will keep adding to my own list as well.
4. The next time you see something wrong, stand up and say something about it.  If you see an abused child… do something, if you see a company abusing the law… damnit… say and do something!  Stand up for yourselves and your fellow human beings!

[from Jade]‘We are all individuals, with individual beliefs to dress us up in. Yours may be right for you, but wouldn’t fit me in the least. And maybe mine would hang on you like a potato sack. That’s what makes us unique. That is what makes us who we are. The ability for free thinking. Slowly, free speech is leaving us. Slowly freedom of religion is being stripped away. But nobody, not a single living soul, can take away your freedom of thought. You make the decisions that are right for you. If more people fell back on their freedoms, we could take back those freedoms that are being slowly stripped away. We could fight the playground bullies who don’t play well with others. We would have the power, in numbers, to make them go play in their own sand boxes.’

We are all individuals, with individual beliefs to dress us up in. Yours may be right for you, but wouldn’t fit me in the least. And maybe mine would hang on you like a potato sack. That’s what makes us unique. That is what makes us who we are. The ability for free thinking. Slowly, free speech is leaving us. Slowly freedom of religion is being stripped away. But nobody, not a single living soul, can take away your freedom of thought. You make the decisions that are right for you. If more people fell back on their freedoms, we could take back those freedoms that are being slowly stripped away. We could fight the playground bullies who don’t play well with others. We would have the power, in numbers, to make them go play in their own sand boxes.’

About the only way to get a bully to back off is to call them on their shit and stand up to them. Every time he hits you in court, you hit him back harder and harder until he goes whining home to his mama. Eventually even a bully gets the hint and either goes away or decides to act human

I told someone the other day not to give up because when enough people want things to change it will happen.  What will this change?  In itself nothing… but first we have to admit to ourselves that there are real problems…and that each of us is responsible for helping solve them.  Then we can each start doing what we can to change our own lives as well as each others.  I believe this… I hope you do too.  Do it for yourselves, do it for each other. 

I hope somebody out there gives a damn… because I do.