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“We deal in illusions man.” Network Never Gets Old

“So, you listen to me. Listen to me! Television is not the truth. Television’s a god-damned amusement park.

Television is a circus, a carnival, a traveling troupe of acrobats, storytellers, dancers, singers, jugglers, sideshow 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 gonna find any real truth. But, man, you’re never gonna get any truth from us. We’ll tell you anything you wanna hear. We lie like hell. We’ll tell you that, uh, Kojak always gets the killer and that nobody ever gets cancer at Archie Bunker’s house. And no matter how much trouble the hero is in, don’t worry. Just look at your watch. At the end of the hour, he’s gonna win. We’ll tell you any shit you want to hear.

“We deal in illusions, man. 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 this sentence I am speaking to you now. Turn them off!”

Comments on this entry are closed.

  • Rob De Witt July 9, 2018, 11:14 AM

    It continues to amaze me that there’s anybody who can read who doesn’t realize that television is all lies. All of it.

    For fifty years or better my impression of television is that when you turn one on, you’re greeted by a smiling anchorman with a 75-dollar haircut, intoning resonantly “Hi, Stupid!”

  • Stephanie July 9, 2018, 12:19 PM

    This makes me think the movie “Requiem for a dream” is the sequel to Network. See what eventually happened when people didn’t turn the tv off. I think we’re past that point though now, so there’s that. A bit of good news! What’s the third sequel gonna be? That’s where we are now. The deciding times.

  • Anderson July 9, 2018, 12:26 PM

    In my interpretation of the Scriptural description of the End Times that includes the “Dragon”, “Beast”, and “False Prophet”, it is the MSM that meets all the criteria for being the “False Prophet”. “The Beast” is most assuredly democracy. The “Dragon”, Satan.

    To paraphrase Scripture: “Humility is the beginning of wisdom”. We are merely pawns in a bigger game of Good vs Evil. Remember that fact.

  • ghostsniper July 9, 2018, 2:37 PM

    Interesting take Anderson.

  • Harry July 9, 2018, 3:28 PM

    Of course TV doesn’t the truth. Only Facebook tells the truth.

  • rabbit tobacco July 10, 2018, 6:30 AM

    the medium is the message/mcluhan

  • OhioGuy July 10, 2018, 7:26 AM

    On a slightly less serious level, Dennis Miller observed that when an unemployed steelworker could sit home all day, drink cold beer and f#&+ Claudia Schiffer on a 3-D big screen it would make crack cocaine look like Sanka

  • Casey Klahn July 10, 2018, 10:06 AM

    Ahem. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

    Yes, it is a type of humility. A fierce, warrior humility. An humility greatly aware of limitations, weaknesses, and capabilities. A fear wholly dependent on God’s (I’m gonna say it) will. An humility that acts, and an humility that waits. Fear in the Old Testament sense. The fear you feel when you realize that you are in God’s hands, alone.

    Sorry to preach. Powerful post, here.

  • Doug July 10, 2018, 4:40 PM

    Who destroyed more of civilization, Karl Marx, or Norman Lear?