The American Ruling Class (2005)

Paul Cantagallo: Mike Vanzetti

Quotes 

• Jack Bellamy : Well, I've got an offer from Goldman Sachs to work in investment banking in New York City.

  Lewis Lapham - Fmr. Editor Harper's Magazine : That's fantastic. Are you excited about that?

  Jack Bellamy : Sure, I guess.

  Lewis Lapham - Fmr. Editor Harper's Magazine : No guess. Great career. You meet a lot of nice people. Make a lot of money. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, Jack. And what about you, Mike?

  Mike Vanzetti : Actually, I thought I might take a year to write and work some odd jobs.

  Lewis Lapham - Fmr. Editor Harper's Magazine : A shocking misuse of your parent's money.

  Mike Vanzetti : So they tell me.

  Lewis Lapham - Fmr. Editor Harper's Magazine : Both you gentlemen have a chance to become members of the American ruling class and I don't see why you don't avail yourself of that opportunity.

  Jack Bellamy : Ruling class?

  Lewis Lapham - Fmr. Editor Harper's Magazine : As was true in the early years of the Republic, the country is governed by a commercial oligarchy and the citizen who cannot afford the luxury of a contrary opinion learns, of necessity, to dance the beggar's waltz.

• Pete Seeger - Folksinger : /singing/ Some say that human kind won't long endure. What makes them feel so doggone sure? I know that you who hear my singing could make those freedom bells go ringing.

  Mike Vanzetti : No offense, but do you really think you can change things, much less the world, by walking down a country road singing a song? By singing a song anywhere, at any time, for anybody, for that matter?

  Pete Seeger - Folksinger : I suppose not, but I am going to make darn sure the world isn't going to change me. It's like this. Imagine a big sea saw and one end is on the ground, because it has a basket half full of rocks in it. The other end is up in the air, because it has a basket one-quarter full of sand. And some of us got teaspoons and we are trying to fill it. And of course most people are kinda scoffing at us. They say, "Don't you see it's leaking just as quick as you are putting it in? People like you been trying for centuries, but it's never going to change." And we say, "You might be right, but we think we get more people with teaspoons all the time and one of these days that whole seasaw is going to go zooop, and people will say 'Gee, how did it happen so suddenly?' Us and all our little teaspoons, over the centuries." Who knows? /Starts singing/ And so we keep on, while we live, and have no, no long to give. And when these fingers can strum no longer, and the old banjo to young ones stronger.

• Mike Vanzetti : So as chairman and publisher, how do you balance all these competing interests you've got - the family, the trust, the newsroom, the audience, the advertiser?

  Arthur Sulzberger - Chairman, New York Times Company : The stock market?

  Mike Vanzetti : Thank you.

  Arthur Sulzberger - Chairman, New York Times Company : We worry a little bit about our earnings and our stock prices. Once every quarter, the executive editor, in this case, Bill Keller, gets into the ring and the CEO, Russ Lewis at the moment but soon Janet Robinson, and they duel it out. They just have a fistfight, and whoever wins for the next quarter we worry more about the journalism or we worry about the profits. It's a very simple operation. It's a balancing act. It's easy. Anyone can manage for one. Anyone can manage for the other. You manage for nothing but the quality of the journalism. You can manage for nothing but the quality of the profits. And that's easy. The challenge is to manage for both.