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All They Talk About Is Money
Oct 03, 2008
All you hear - constantly - non-stop - talk of money. Radio - news - commercials about money - about how to pay back money - how to get money - how we're losing money - how to avoid paying money - Money - then a commercial break to show a heart attack or bone loss or Alzheimer's - then back to decimal points, commas, dollar signs, zig-zag charts, digital numbers flashing, blondes and brunettes, coifed women analyzing, bald hyperactive men emoting, knowing what is happening and what we need to do now - what you need to do with your money - how all of this is affecting - YOU.
The apparatus that keeps the American public on a treadmill and an adrenaline drain is pretty and frantic. They are suited up and jacked up on number talk and heart stopping predictions. They watch in sweaty awe as cloudy castles built with fumes curling out of smooth hucksters begin to crumble. Hucksters that once were heroes in the eyes of the people now reporting on the whirlwind they have reaped.
Will someone tell us what money is - what it represents? Is it a byproduct of positive activity or a measure of desperate needs? The more you need it the more we'll charge. If we can't convince you you need it, we'll make sure conditions are such that you have to need it and you will pay what we have insisted it is worth to you and not what it is worth.
Is money a hologram or a piece of rock? Is it a consequence of agitation or fair assessment?
There is hostility in the marketplace - a disrespect and disdain for the people whose money the purveyors are after. Money as representation of a lifetime of labor and organization in a person's life is not respected. Like a vampire sucking the essence out of a body, sellers of debt absorb, disrespect, spit on and spit out the results of a person's life and labor.
Money ought to say this is what you've given us and the system at large. This is how you've made it all move forward and made it better. Talk about what people do and what labor and creativity provides. Talk about the actual raw material of human activity. Talk about great new ideas and inventions and new paradigms of human exchange. Talk about muscular, vital humanity.
Money is now a vapor and the more it is talked about the more gaseous and evasive it becomes.
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Bill C. Davis
Bill C. Davis was a playwright, writer, actor, and political activist. He has been a contributor to Common Dreams since 2001. Bill died on February 26, 2021, at age 69, after a battle with COVID-19. Bill's Broadway debut -- "Mass Appeal," earned two Tony nominations and became a staple of community theater. Bill wrote the screenplay for the 1984 film adaptation of "Mass Appeal," starring Jack Lemmon and Zeljko Ivanek.
All you hear - constantly - non-stop - talk of money. Radio - news - commercials about money - about how to pay back money - how to get money - how we're losing money - how to avoid paying money - Money - then a commercial break to show a heart attack or bone loss or Alzheimer's - then back to decimal points, commas, dollar signs, zig-zag charts, digital numbers flashing, blondes and brunettes, coifed women analyzing, bald hyperactive men emoting, knowing what is happening and what we need to do now - what you need to do with your money - how all of this is affecting - YOU.
The apparatus that keeps the American public on a treadmill and an adrenaline drain is pretty and frantic. They are suited up and jacked up on number talk and heart stopping predictions. They watch in sweaty awe as cloudy castles built with fumes curling out of smooth hucksters begin to crumble. Hucksters that once were heroes in the eyes of the people now reporting on the whirlwind they have reaped.
Will someone tell us what money is - what it represents? Is it a byproduct of positive activity or a measure of desperate needs? The more you need it the more we'll charge. If we can't convince you you need it, we'll make sure conditions are such that you have to need it and you will pay what we have insisted it is worth to you and not what it is worth.
Is money a hologram or a piece of rock? Is it a consequence of agitation or fair assessment?
There is hostility in the marketplace - a disrespect and disdain for the people whose money the purveyors are after. Money as representation of a lifetime of labor and organization in a person's life is not respected. Like a vampire sucking the essence out of a body, sellers of debt absorb, disrespect, spit on and spit out the results of a person's life and labor.
Money ought to say this is what you've given us and the system at large. This is how you've made it all move forward and made it better. Talk about what people do and what labor and creativity provides. Talk about the actual raw material of human activity. Talk about great new ideas and inventions and new paradigms of human exchange. Talk about muscular, vital humanity.
Money is now a vapor and the more it is talked about the more gaseous and evasive it becomes.
Bill C. Davis
Bill C. Davis was a playwright, writer, actor, and political activist. He has been a contributor to Common Dreams since 2001. Bill died on February 26, 2021, at age 69, after a battle with COVID-19. Bill's Broadway debut -- "Mass Appeal," earned two Tony nominations and became a staple of community theater. Bill wrote the screenplay for the 1984 film adaptation of "Mass Appeal," starring Jack Lemmon and Zeljko Ivanek.
All you hear - constantly - non-stop - talk of money. Radio - news - commercials about money - about how to pay back money - how to get money - how we're losing money - how to avoid paying money - Money - then a commercial break to show a heart attack or bone loss or Alzheimer's - then back to decimal points, commas, dollar signs, zig-zag charts, digital numbers flashing, blondes and brunettes, coifed women analyzing, bald hyperactive men emoting, knowing what is happening and what we need to do now - what you need to do with your money - how all of this is affecting - YOU.
The apparatus that keeps the American public on a treadmill and an adrenaline drain is pretty and frantic. They are suited up and jacked up on number talk and heart stopping predictions. They watch in sweaty awe as cloudy castles built with fumes curling out of smooth hucksters begin to crumble. Hucksters that once were heroes in the eyes of the people now reporting on the whirlwind they have reaped.
Will someone tell us what money is - what it represents? Is it a byproduct of positive activity or a measure of desperate needs? The more you need it the more we'll charge. If we can't convince you you need it, we'll make sure conditions are such that you have to need it and you will pay what we have insisted it is worth to you and not what it is worth.
Is money a hologram or a piece of rock? Is it a consequence of agitation or fair assessment?
There is hostility in the marketplace - a disrespect and disdain for the people whose money the purveyors are after. Money as representation of a lifetime of labor and organization in a person's life is not respected. Like a vampire sucking the essence out of a body, sellers of debt absorb, disrespect, spit on and spit out the results of a person's life and labor.
Money ought to say this is what you've given us and the system at large. This is how you've made it all move forward and made it better. Talk about what people do and what labor and creativity provides. Talk about the actual raw material of human activity. Talk about great new ideas and inventions and new paradigms of human exchange. Talk about muscular, vital humanity.
Money is now a vapor and the more it is talked about the more gaseous and evasive it becomes.
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.