Howard Beale's America

As referenced last week, Howard Beale was the fictional news anchor in the classic film Network who told his viewers to throw open their windows and shout, "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" In the movie, countless members of his TV audience do exactly that, much to the amazement of network executives who turn Beale’s rant into a ratings bonanza.

In writing my blog piece about Beale’s character, I watched the entire clip during which he bemoans the deteriorating moral and economic conditions in America. I was transfixed as I watched Peter Finch deliver the memorable lines that won him a posthumous Academy Award for Best Actor. However, what amazed me the most was that the screenplay was written in 1976, but it perfectly – and eerily – describes the United States in 2024.

Here is the full context of his remarks, minus one profanity… and see if you reach the same conclusion as me.

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 anymore. 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! 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!"

Pretty prophetic, isn’t it? The only problem I see is that it’s not enough to simply voice our anger and displeasure at America’s demise. We need to A-C-T… and act both swiftly and decisively.

No, I am not advocating a revolution, but I am calling for what Richard Nixon once called “The Silent Majority” to be silent no more. We – the good, patriotic, law-abiding, and Godfearing people of America – must rise up and throw the bums out this November. That means every Progressive Democrat who hates America and what it has traditionally stood for has to go down in flames at the ballot box. And in their place, we must elect representatives who will uphold not only the Constitution, but also our founding Judeo-Christian principles.

If we fail to do so, America itself will fail… and we will have no one to blame but ourselves.