It's a great movie moment, better experienced via the movie than in text alone. You can watch that clip on:

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechnetwork2.html

"The single journey through consciousness should be participated in as fully as possible by the individual no matter how dangerous or cruel or terror-filled that experience may be."

Using that quote from the movie was intended as tongue in cheek. I knew my post was somewhat zealous and using that as the title was a nod to that (if you knew its context in the film). You raise interesting points, in the film the reaction of the audience was benign they saw all of this as good entertainment and the TV execs started marketing him. In the real world though, if such an event were to happen, and that message got through to the masses and they accepted it? It would depend on their philosophy. What makes them mad? What are they going to do about it? The anarcho-socialists would blow up banks, the Islamofascists would keep doing what they do, the Christians would stone; well everyone, 'basically the worst parts of the bible'. Telling everyone to act on their anger would be suicidal at best.

So, if it was fatalistic in the movie, Lance, what do you think the reaction would be in real life?

There's a similar scene in ATLAS, though somewhat different: Reardon makes his big speech in court, and is acquited. He is cheered on by the people. But he knows this won't last: That they would turn on him in the end. I wonder if Rand was aware of the Hosanna's Jesus recieved shortly before his crucifixion. At any rate, a wise person had this to say about the Free State Project's goal to show the world how a free society could be done: If the spectacle of 200 years of American history is not enough, what makes them think that will be?

You can get people mad, awake, ready for action, but if they haven't accepted the principles of a rational philosophy, what then?

Timothy McVeigh was mad as hell, too...

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Spaceplayermusic.com

The movie is quite fatalistic, despite Beale's best intentions and desire to change the world, the status quo remains in place.
In one impassioned diatribe, Beale galvanizes the nation with his rant, "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" and persuades Americans to shout out their windows during a spectacular lightning storm. Soon Beale is hosting a new program called The Howard Beale Show, top-billed as a "mad prophet of the airways." Ultimately, the show becomes the highest rated (Duvall's character calls it "a big fat, ... big-titted hit!") on television, and Beale finds new celebrity preaching his angry message in front of a live audience that, on cue, repeats the Beale's marketed catchphrase en masse. His new set is lit by blue spotlights and an enormous stained-glass window, supplanted with segments featuring polls and astrology.

"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!!"

Then what? Be careful what you wish for...

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Spaceplayermusic.com

In case anyone missed the pop-culture reference of the title, it is from the 1976 film Network. Peter Finch deservingly won Best Actor for his role.

"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!!"

I don't think it's wired into us, certainly not into me anyway. When I was younger it seemed like that was what you were supposed to wind up doing, but when presented with the actual prospect of children I took some convincing. But now I figure if you can't convince people to become thinkers, why not breed your own!

The kick in the pants to get involved was the overall asinine response to Lindsay's 'Death to Islamofascism' Salient articles, they were infuriating. They were the trigger that set me off. My initial introduction to Objectivism was via Lindsay's Politically Incorrect show some time in 1997 I think it was, and I'm sorry to say that in those 10 years since then I was generally apathetic, hell, I've only just read my first Ayn Rand. My only concern was securing an income, finding a wife, raising some kids, and hopefully die of old age before the world turned to shit. Now though, I will not accept this as inevitable.

Gratifying to see the asinine response of the student "intellectuals" led to something good. After "finding a wife and raising some kids" (ugh) you've got some atoning to do, Lance.

Is this wife-and-kids thing wired into us, do you suppose, or do folk just do it because other folk do it? No rational person would ever do it out of independent thought and choice. It really is a fearful waste. All that money that could go on Shiraz.

Stay mad as hell, Lance. Maintain the rage!

Thanks Peter. At least now if the world goes to hell in a handbasket, it won't be because I didn't try to stop it.

"Now though, I will not accept this as inevitable."

Good for you, Lance. Bravo!

She can't help it, she's a teacher in a state school, it's a job requirement isn't it? Anyway, she is redeemed slightly by the fact that she is a music teacher, and a kick-ass trombone player.

Lance!

I enjoyed reading about your activities during the last decade (although you really should get rid of the socialist Wife, take her back and get another model) and delighted you are making a worthwhile contribution to the website.

The Politically Incorrect Show was all great fun...funny to think how long ago that was.

We really need some more Libertarian/Objectivist media in addition to the Free Radical.