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 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. [shouting] You've got to say: 'I'm a human being, god-dammit! 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 gonna 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! --- Network
ReplyDeleteNetwork was an awesome movie. I don't know your full story, Lisette just having found your blog. But if I can add any help I will say this, getting mad, getting ballistic mad and not taking it anymore is an instigator to action. Utilize this. It is the power of justice- seeking and in your gut knowing you have the backing of many who believe in you. Then go out and do what this calls for. Find a good lawyer. Call on your trusted friends to help you find someone. I know this may be hard to do for a scapegoat. I don't want to make presumptions about your place. So, take this as me just saying how I dealt with insurmountable odds at one point. I called a big-wig. I was shaking in my boots to do so. That undeserving and unworthy self talk is relentless. It is that exact killer we have to battle to gain permission to BE. You have the right to be.
The lawyer was a client through my work for a while at the time and I knew him to be an upstanding person. But, he felt out of my range to contact. My right to ask anything of him felt far-reached - my case small compared to what he handled. I did it anyway. He helped me. It was one of the few times in my life I had the backing of someone who solved the issue. I just had to get over that feeling of being undeserving. There ARE people who are inherently just and make it their mission to be so. Just take the step to ask, and ask around keep asking around. Best to you.