The Start

In order for anything to happen, there must first be a catalyst. This goes without saying. Its the basic laws of the universe.
So in order for social change to happen, there must be a catalyst. Due to the nature of humanity, this catalyst is often anger. It says a lot that for a species to change itself, its path, or its environment, it has to get angry and tap into its urge to destroy.

In order for us, as a species, to ensure our future, we have to destroy the walls we built up around ourselves. Humanity is the only species which can invent ways to be bored. That says a lot about the human condition. The moment we free our minds is the moment we grasp true freedom.

Now here is the first of many catalysts. I hope they inspire change in the thinking of the world, although many people will find it hard to change their thinking.

Network (1976)

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!

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 you have to get mad!