Bill Stamets Collection > SERIES I: Films by Bill Stamets > Subseries I: Completed Works

Disarm Northrop

Transcript (Download)

For 200 years we've lived in the future believing that tomorrow would be better than today and today would be better than yesterday.

I still believe that.

I'm not running for the presidency because I believe that I can solve the problems we've discussed tonight.

I believe the people of this country can and together we can begin the world over again.

We can meet our destiny and that destiny is to build a land here that will be for all mankind a shining city on a hill.

Woo! Shut it down! I'm running for the presidency! I'm running! I'm running! This is the land I don't have to take a stand! I'm running! I'm running! I'm running! I'm running! I'm running! Alright.

When you think of the kind of thing that's the cloud that's hanging.

Shut it up! Get up! Come remember! I've always believed that this land was placed here between the two great oceans by some divine plan.

It was placed here to be found by a special kind of people.

People who had a special love for freedom and who had the courage to uproot themselves and leave hearth and homeland and come to what in the beginning was the most undeveloped wilderness possible.

We came from a hundred different corners of the earth.

We spoke a multitude of tongues.

Landed on this eastern shore and then went out over the mountains and the prairies and the deserts and the far western mountains to the Pacific building cities and towns and farms and schools and churches.

If wind, water or fire destroyed them, we built them again.

And in so doing at the same time we built a new breed of human called an American.

A proud, an independent and a most compassionate individual for the most part.

Two hundred years ago, Tom Paine when the thirteen tiny colonies were trying to become a nation said, we have it in our power to begin the world over again.

Today we're confronted with the horrendous problems that we've discussed here tonight.

And some people in high positions of leadership tell us that the answer is to...

We don't make policy.

We don't criticize it.

We're a company that performs.

We make products.

We don't enunciate policy.

So these demonstrations are really, in many ways, are relevant to your pursuits? Well no, these people have a right to say what they want to say.

I think that they could probably say it better in front of a U .S.

government facility which maybe represents the people that they should be talking to.

But you wouldn't guess that this is having much of an effect on Northrop, its employees or the policies of the United States government? The policies of the United States government, I fail to see the connection there.

Well you don't think this makes much of a difference really, do you? These activities.

Much of a difference in what? I'm really not understanding.

In effecting public opinion and ultimately foreign policy.

Well it's not for me to judge.

As a reporter you know what effects public opinion.

There are pollsters and experts that figure that out.

What I mean is personally they don't change your mind much? What do you mean? Talking about me personally? I'm not speaking as an individual.

When I want to do that I'll take my card off.

I'm speaking right now as a spokesman for the company.

I'm saying that we don't have a corporate position on this.

People have a right to protest if they wish.

Back.

We're going to do the whole thing today.

Very orderly.

Is this going to be like an in -house home movie? Our spokesman is over there Mr.

LaGrasche.

I believe you've already spoken to him.

He doesn't speak real clearly.

But I guess you know what I mean.

Oh we have no comment.

Did you press the charges against the demonstrators? Distinguished members of Congress, honored guests and fellow citizens.

Only a month ago...

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We're backing a majority view here.

Because there aren't a million of us out there right now.

And break the fast.

Mr.

Speaker, Mr.

President.

I said I want you to fast.

And I want you to go on a fast.

And I said, well Lord, how do I do this? And he said, just fast.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Have this.

This.

What should I drink sleep water? Have this.

Thank you.

Stop yours.

Identifier
F.2005-08-0239
Date Of Production
circa June 20 1983
Abstract
A finished film by Bill Stamets that depicts members of the Disarm Northrop Coalition and other anti-nuclear activists as they block a road leading to the Northrop Corporation’s Defense Systems Division plant and are subsequently arrested by police in Rolling Meadows, Illinois on Disarmament Action Day, June 20, 1983. Footage includes audio of Ronald Reagan’s closing remarks during the presidential candidates debate on September 21, 1980, an interview with Northrop Corporation’s spokesman Greg LaBrache, Christian protestors, neo-Nazis, outdoor festival attendees, the Chicago River dyed green, televised broadcasts of Psycho, The Wizard of Oz, and Kiss Me Deadly, a parade’s celebrations, the “Fighting African Elephants” at the Field Museum of Natural History, and various industrial machinery in use.
Format
Super 8
Extent
200 feet
Color
color and B&W
Sound
Mag Stripe
Reel/Tape Number
1/1
Has Been Digitized?
Yes
Language Of Materials
English
Element
Reversal Positives
Genre
Documentary
Form
Short
Subject
Demonstrations
Neo-Nazism
Nuclear weapons
Machinery
Police
Political Activists
Political campaigns
Television
Preservation Sponsor

Related Collections
Subseries I: Completed Works

Related Places
North America ➜ United States ➜ Illinois ➜ Chicago ➜ Loop
North America ➜ United States ➜ Illinois ➜ Chicago ➜ Near South Side

Main Credits
Stamets, Bill (is filmmaker)

 
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