super text od Adama Curtise, pokud nechcete ztracet cas tou uvodni cast o tabloidech, tak zacnete tady, paralely se soucasnosti jsou slusne
But the scandals do not join up to make a bigger picture. And our reactions are sometimes confused and contradictory - as in the case of transparency and surveillance.
It is as if the scandals are part of a giant jigsaw puzzle - and what we are waiting for is someone to come along and click those pieces together to give a clear, big picture of what is happening.
A hundred years ago, at a time very like ours, a small group of journalists did just that. And the person who takes you back to that time is Tamara Mellon's ex-husband - Matthew Mellon
At the end of the 19th century, Matthew Mellon's great great uncle - Andrew Mellon - was one of the most powerful and richest men in the world. He was part of a small group of bankers and industrialists who not only dominated America - but were using the power of money to undermine, corrupt and control politicians, judges and the whole system of democracy.
They were known as Robber Barons. Men who used new technologies - like the railroads, and global systems of finance - to make themselves wealthier than anyone had ever been in history. Like John D. Rockefeller - who had ruthlessly created the giant Standard Oil of America. Rockefeller now controlled almost all the oil industry in America along with the railroads that transported the oil.
And Henry Clay Frick who built the giant US Steel corporation. He was known as The Most Hated Man in America. His special trick was to hire workers from one immigrant group to smash uppity workers from another.
One year he hired Hungarians to break a strike by Italian workers. But less than two years later he had to hire Rumanians to get rid of the Hungarians.
Frick had a great line about this - "The immigrant, however illiterate or ignorant he may be, always learns too soon."
Jay Gould - the railroad king. He was even blunter than Frick - "I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half" - he said
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They knew that all these scandals were somehow a part of the enormous changes that were happening to American society. But they also knew that the new technologies and giant industries were bringing amazing benefits and transforming their world and the way they related to each other. Nobody seemed to be able to understand the true dimensions of what was happening.
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BBC - Blogs - Adam Curtis - WHAT THE FLUCK!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/posts/WHAT-THE-FLUCK