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

In some ways...OK...in MANY ways, I've grown up under a rock.

Several weeks ago, Shusli asked if I had ever seen the movie, "Network." My answer was, of course, "no."

"Network" was written by Paddy Chayefsky and directed by Sidney Lumet. It stars Faye Dunniway, Robert Duvall, William Holden, Ned Beatty, and Peter Finch plays the great Howard Beale.

As a larger faceless corporation works to take over the UBS Network, one of the first things they wish to do is restructure the news which loses 33 million a year in revenue. Thus, Howard Beale, the news anchor, is the first to get axed because his numbers are terribly low. Howard decides to kill himself on the air and tells his audience that in a week he will blow his brains out on television. The ratings start to rise. Howard, over the ensuing days, starts to let loose. He starts to explain to the news audience how he sees things more clearly and thus, the "Howard Beale Show" is born.

Looking back, as I was alive during this time, I was raised by the television as Howard tells folks during one of his programs. Family life wasn't the best, it definitely was not the worst, but the greatest distraction was the television. TV taught me everything I needed to know about life. Stuff my parents were incapable of teaching me. I never watched the news. Not at that age.

Network news is nothing more than infotainment these days. What got me to hating network news was about 12 years ago, when with my first wife, I was watching some network news and got "MAD AS HELL!" when I saw a five minute plus in-depth report on...wait for it...HAMMERS.

In one of the most quoted and memorable scenes of the movie, Howard Beale really lets people have it:

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!"

And the way watching that in depth report on hammers made me feel was like throwing my television through the front window. And had I actually done so, and had I seen this fantastic movie, "Network," I would have been willing to cut my hands on the broken shards of glass as I leaned out the window and started shouting at the top of my lungs as well:

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

Don't be afraid of your anger. Getting mad doesn't mean you have to hurt or kill others. It gives you permission to vent your frustration at a world that doesn't seem to give a shit about you or anyone in it. It gives a shit about PROFITS. And there really doesn't seem to be a whole lot you can do about it, but you have to start somewhere. Might as well try. What else are you gonna do? Watch TV? Watch network news?

On the last "Mitakuye Oyasin" radio show, Jim Craven was letting people know that as they gain knowledge and share it with others, you become unpopular. You create enemies. You also create friends. You also create alliances. You also open other doors where some doors have been closed. And...occasionally...those doors reopen and some of those folks who disapproved of you sharing truths with them will come over and stand beside you again. Not always, but it does happen.

"Network." A must see. Get "mad as hell," then do something, help others.