I don't have to tell you things are bad...

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression.

Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's work, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TV's while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be.

We know things are bad - worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, "Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone."

Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot - I don't want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad.

You've got to say, "I'm a HUMAN BEING, Goddamnit! My life has VALUE!"

So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, "I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!"

I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell - "I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!"

Things have got to change. But first, you've gotta get mad!... You've got to say, "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!"

...

Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it:

"I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!".

This is spoken by the character Howard Beale in the 1976 Oscar-winning film, Network. This speech is probably screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky's finest moment. I saw it when it came out and I have loved it since, almost as much as I love Rand's works.

It is weirdly prophetic for today's crisis.

For those who want to see a clip from the film in video, here is one from YouTube. It gives a bit before and a bit after for context.

Rand disagreed with Chayefsky, but she has written as if she deeply admired his skill. No wonder.

Michael

[algernonsidney]

Network is better now than it was back then. It predicted what television has become.

Everybody is great in the movie.

[sbeaulieu]

The power of one is a pebble in the pond.

Now I have got to see this movie!

~ Shane

[Brant Gaede]

Albert Finey (sp?) died of a heart attack before he was awarded best actor oscar.

--Brant