First, You've Got To Get MAD

I'm tired of the business-as-usual kind of politicians. What ever happened to these "leaders" being a leader in the literal sense? Our founding fathers are turning over in their graves as our country is being lead down the garden path by a bunch of nincompoops. Yes, i just used the word "nincompoop" and I meant it. It seems that the majority of elected officials in this country are simpletons, with a clear lack of leadership ability and no sense of personal responsibility. This leads me to wonder how did these non-leaders get elected in the first place? Of course, by the people.... right? So is the root cause of our national leadership crisis in our hands? Yes it is and we need to own it.

We need politicians that are held accountable to their job performance. Where is their yearly review and performance evaluation? Isn't it true that when one is held accountable, that performance and productivity improves, just simply by paying attention to it? I.E.: The Hawthorne Effect. The US government is such a huge business, that accountability has become almost non-existent. Heads only roll when the press gets hold of some scandalous information and the people become outraged. If the fortune 500 companies ran their organizations the way the government does, America would not be the rich and prosperous country that she is (or shall I say, once was..).

I don't know what the answer is, but I know that more people are becoming disenchanted with the way things are being run in this country (on the left & right), and the "I'M MAD AS HELL and I'm-not-going-to-take-it-anymore" movement is growing stronger everyday.

Beale:

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 worth; 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 TVs 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 all know things are bad -- worse than bad -- they're crazy.

It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out any more. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we're 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 going to 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 gotta say, "I'm a human being, goddammit! 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!!"