Now if only the gang at MSNBC would do the same . . .

Posted on March 5, 2014 by Myiq2xu

If there ever is a nuclear war, afterwards the only creatures that will survive are cockroaches and television news talking heads.

Flashback: This is the comment that got me banned from Crooks&Liars (my first banning ever!):

I always thought the term “news anchor” should refer to the weight used to keep the body of a bloviating gasbag from floating to the surface.

This is an open thread.

About Myiq2xu

I was born and raised in a different country - America. I don't know what this place is.
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33 Responses to Now if only the gang at MSNBC would do the same . . .

  1. The Klown says:
    March 5, 2014 at 3:22 pm

    Bringing this up from below:

    In case you were wondering what you were missing by not watching Rosemary’s Baby:

  2. The Klown says:
    March 5, 2014 at 3:26 pm

    I saw Peter Finch’s last appearance. He came on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and then died later that evening. He won the Oscar posthumously.

    • The Klown says:
      March 5, 2014 at 3:53 pm

      Some things never change. This was written in the mid-Seventies:

      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, 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.’

      • leslie says:
        March 5, 2014 at 7:05 pm

        The other day, the news in Chicago reported that THERE WERE NO MURDERS IN THE CITY on February 15th. I kid you not. THAT’S what news is in Chicago .

  3. The Klown says:
    March 5, 2014 at 3:33 pm

    Network was the best critique of television news ever produced. This scene really is prophetic:

    • The Klown says:
      March 5, 2014 at 4:00 pm

      Howard Beale: [arms outstretched to the heavens] 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!

      Howard Beale: [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 propoganda force in the whole godless world, who knows what shit will be peddled for truth on this network?

      Howard Beale: [ascending the stage] So, you listen to me. 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. 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.

  5. The Klown says:
    March 5, 2014 at 3:38 pm

    Howard Beale, the only man ever assassinated for bad ratings:

  6. The Klown says:
    March 5, 2014 at 3:55 pm

    Arthur Jensen: 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, 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.

    Howard Beale: Why me?

    Arthur Jensen: Because you’re on television, dummy. Sixty million people watch you every night of the week, Monday through Friday.

  7. The Klown says:
    March 5, 2014 at 3:57 pm

    Diana Christensen: I watched your 6 o’clock news today; it’s straight tabloid. You had a minute and a half of that lady riding a bike naked in Central Park; on the other hand, you had less than a minute of hard national and international news. It was all sex, scandal, brutal crime, sports, children with incurable diseases, and lost puppies. So, I don’t think I’ll listen to any protestations of high standards of journalism when you’re right down on the streets soliciting audiences like the rest of us. Look, all I’m saying is if you’re going to hustle, at least do it right.

  8. DeniseVB says:
    March 5, 2014 at 4:25 pm

    Rick Santelli – the rant that started the Tea Party Movement…..

  9. DandyTIger says:
    March 5, 2014 at 5:28 pm

    I’m wearing my tinfoil hat all the time now. Just in case.

  10. DandyTIger says:
    March 5, 2014 at 5:29 pm

    Loved the comment that got you banned from Crooks&Liars. Totally worth it.

  11. DeniseVB says:
    March 5, 2014 at 5:36 pm

    OT: Just in case anyone misses me, leaving Zero Dark Thirty (gah 4am) tomorrow for NYC, be back late Mon. So don’t put my face on a wine bottle til Tuesday đŸ˜€ I’m in packing mode now hoping to fall asleep at a decent hour for my 3 a.m. alarm……

  13. wmcb says:
    March 5, 2014 at 6:05 pm

  14. John Denney says:
    March 5, 2014 at 7:17 pm

    One of many who will not comply with Connecticut’s new law requiring all “assault rifles” be registered by January 1st. Only 15% of owners complied.

  15. The Klown says:
    March 5, 2014 at 8:21 pm

    Apparently Israel wanted nothing to do with her and that hurt her fee-fees.

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