"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!"
Howard Beale (Network-1976)
