Mad as Hell

"There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no Third Worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems! One vast and immane, interwoven, interacting multi-variant, multinational dominion of dollars! Petrol dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, Reich Marks, Rins, Rubles, Pounds, and Shekels!"
"It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today. And you have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and you will atone! Am I getting through to you Mr. Beale?"
"You get up on your 21-inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT and AT&T and Du Pont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today."
"What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state? Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments just like we do."
"We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime."
"And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that perfect world in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit in which men will hold a share of stock. All necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused."
"....At the bottom of all our terrified souls, we know that democracy is a dying giant. A sick, sick, dying, decaying political concept, writhing in it's final pain. I don't mean that the United States is finished as a world power. The United States is the richest, most advanced country in the world, light-years ahead of any other country, and the Communists won't take over the world because the Communists are deader than we are. What is finished is the idea that this great country is dedicated to the freedom and flourishing of every individual in it. It's the individual that's finished. It's the single, solitary human being that's finished. It's every single one of you out there that's finished. Because this is no longer a nation of independent individuals. It's a nation of some 200 odd million transistorized, deodorized, whiter-than-white, steel-belted bodies, totally unnecessary as human beings, and as replaceable as piston rods. Well, the time has come to say is "Dehumanization" such a bad word. Whether it's good or bad, that's what is so. The whole world is becoming humanoid. Creatures that look human but aren't. The whole world, not just us. We're just the most advanced country, so we're getting there first. The whole world's people are becoming mass produced, programmed, numbered......"



"......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 jobs. The dollar buys a nickel's worth. The banks are going bust. Shopkeepers keep guns under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street. Nobody anywhere 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. We sit watching our TV's while some local newscaster tells us that today we had 15 homicides, and 63 violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be! We know things are bad. They're 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 were 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, and I don't want you to riot, and 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, the Russians, and the crime in the streets. All I know is that first you've got to get mad! You've got to say, "I'm a human being godamit! 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!!"