d Blog

Welcome to d blog, also known as Dan's rant. The content herein is essentially comprised of miscellaneous ramblings and random thoughts on the nature of contemporary existence.

"I'm Mad As Hell"

I do not subscribe to conspiracy theories. But when it walks like a duck…well you decide.

Need I remind you of Dubai Ports World's recent efforts at control of US Ports? At issue was the sale of port management businesses in six major U.S. seaports to a company based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and whether such a sale would compromise port security.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/02/26/BUGHIHDT5P1.DTL

I don’t have to do much more that cut and paste information from three websites for todays rant. I lead off with what I view as the story of the day.

BBC Headline: Halliburton plans move to Dubai
Halliburton, the oil services company formerly headed by US Vice-President Dick Cheney, is moving its headquarters from Texas to Dubai.
The company said it hoped the move to the United Arab Emirates would help it expand its business in the Middle East.
Halliburton won valuable contracts in Iraq following the US-led invasion of 2003, some of which were awarded without competitive bidding.
The company also has extensive operations in Saudi Arabia.
The oil giant will keep an office in Houston but the posts of chairman, president and chief executive will be based in Dubai.
Chief Executive Dave Lesar, speaking at a conference in Bahrain, confirmed that he would be relocating.
"As the CEO, I'm responsible for the global business of Halliburton in both hemispheres and I will continue to spend quite a bit of time in an airplane as I remain attentive to our customers, shareholders and employees around the world," he said.
"Yes, I will spend the majority of my time in Dubai."
In 2006, Halliburton made profits of $2.3bn on revenues of $22.6bn. Last month it announced a 40% decline in fourth-quarter profit.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/business/6440365.stm

Not so strangely given the situational context current events place us all in, is this move. Which calls to my mind, Paddy Chayefsky’s film, Network (1976) The film that serves as a warning against potential abuses resulting from corporate conglomerate ownership of television networks, specifically with regards to news reporting.

You remember,” I’m as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" says Howard Beal, the on air personality as he galvanizes the nation and persuades Americans to shout out their windows during a spectacular lightning storm. Soon Beale is hosting a new program called The Howard Beale Show, top-billed as a "mad prophet of the airways." Ultimately, the show becomes the highest rated.

Upon discovering that the conglomerate that owns UBS, the network where Howard Beale works will soon sell out to an even larger Saudi Arabian conglomerate, Howard then, launches an on-screen tirade against the two conglomerates, encouraging the audience to telegram the White House in the hopes of stopping the merger.

Howard’s wild claims bring him face to face with Arthur Jensen/Ned Beatty, the UBS corporate chief, whose own grandstand messianic performance out-performs anything Beale could concoct. ….Jensen the demonic personification of ultimate corporate power…projects a .rising Evangelical crescendo to the subdued Beale. Lecturing Beale on the general equilibrium theory of macroeconomics . Jensen sets the corporate view …thus:

JENSEN
You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won’t have it, is that clear?! You think you have 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.
At this point, Jensen is step-by-step approaching the quietly amazed Beale and his screen image ominously enlarges to fill director Sidney Lumet’s fixed frame:
JENSEN
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, multi-variate, multi-national dominion of dollars! Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars! Reichmarks, rubles, yen, 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!
Beale sits humbly and looks upwards to the towering presence of the imperial Jensen and powerfully lit by a Devilish hue of red flames that reflect from his glowing eyes. His decisive claim to both Beale and film audience comes in a powerful close-up
JENSEN
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 A T and T and Dupont, Dow, Union Carbide and Exxon. Those are the nationso f the world today. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale.-

http://wethemedia.edublogs.org/1970s-case-study-film/

“intriguingly, the film establishes an interesting and increasingly uncomfortable symbiosis between two opposing ideological forces - the corporation and the terrorist. Their common mutual needs - to secure the wider attention of the American public for decidedly opposing reasons - serves to weave and tighten their business relationship and provides much of the film’s sharp satiric thrust. Furthermore, looking ahead to films of the 1980s and 1990s, this theme emerges more fully as a persistent narrative motif in both cinema and the mediated reality of broadcast news - to reach its definitive historical apogee in the live daylight events of 11th September 2001.” –

http://wethemedia.edublogs.org/1970s-case-study-film

Audiences soon found Howard Beal’s new views on dehumanization to be depressing, and ratings began to slide.

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