Howard 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!!
We're in a lot of trouble!!
WHY?
Because you people and 62 million other Americans are listening to me right now.
Because less than 3 percent of you people read books.
Because less than 15 percent of you read newspapers.
Because the only truth you know is what you get over this tube.
Right now, there is a whole, an entire generation that never knew anything that
didn't come out of this tube.
This tube is the gospel, the ultimate revelation.
This tube can make or break presidents, popes, prime ministers.
This tube is the most awesome goddamn force in the whole godless world.
And woe is us if it ever falls into the hands of the wrong people.
And that's why woe is us that Edward George Ruddy died.
Because this company is now in the hands of CCA -- the Communication Corporation
of America. There's a new Chairman of the Board, a man called Frank Hackett,
sitting in Mr. Ruddy's office on the 20th floor. And when the 12th largest
company in the world controls the most awesome goddamn propaganda force in the
whole godless world, who knows what shit will be peddled for truth on this
network.
So, you listen to me. Listen to me!
Television is not the truth. Television's a goddamn amusement park. Television
is a circus, a carnival, a traveling troupe of acrobats, storytellers, dancers,
singers, jugglers, sideshow freaks, lion tamers, and football players.
We're in the boredom-killing business.
So if you want the Truth, go to God.
Go to your gurus.
Go to yourselves!
Because that's the only place you're ever gonna find any real truth.
But, man, you're never gonna get any truth from us. We'll tell you anything you
wanna hear. We lie like hell. We'll tell you that Kojak always gets the killer
and that nobody ever gets cancer at Archie Bunker's house. And no matter how
much trouble the hero is in, don't worry. Just look at your watch. At the end of
the hour, he's gonna win. We'll tell you any shit you want to hear.
We deal in illusions, man. None of it is true!
But you people sit there, day after day, night after night -- all ages, colors,
creeds.
We're all you know!
You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here!
You're beginning to think that the tube is reality and that your own lives are
unreal.
You do whatever the tube tells you --
You dress like the tube.
You eat like the tube.
You raise your children like the tube.
You even think like the tube.
This is mass madness, you maniacs!
In God's name, you people are the real thing.
We are the illusion!
So turn off your television sets. Turn them off now! Turn them off right now!
Turn them off and leave them off. Turn them off right in the middle of this
sentence I'm speaking to you now.
Turn them off!!
