I don’t have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad.
\nIt’s a depression. Everybody’s out of work or scared of losing their job.
\nThe dollar buys a nickel’s worth; banks are going bust; shopkeepers keep
\na gun under the counter; punks are running wild in the street, and there’s
\nnobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there’s no end to it.<\/p>\n
We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat.
\nAnd we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today
\nwe had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes,
\nas if that’s the way it’s supposed to be!<\/p>\n
We all know things are bad \u2013 worse than bad \u2013 they’re crazy.<\/p>\n
It’s like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don’t go out any more.
\nWe sit in the house, and slowly the world we’re living in is getting smaller,
\nand all we say is, “Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms.
\nLet me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials,
\nand I won’t say anything. Just leave us alone.”<\/p>\n
Well, I’m not going to leave you alone. I don’t want you to protest. I don’t want you to riot. I don’t want you to write All I know is that first, you’ve got to get mad. So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!!”<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nI want you to get mad!<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nto your Congressman, because I wouldn’t know what to tell you to write.
\nI don’t know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the
\nRussians and the crime in the street.<\/p>\n
\nYou’ve gotta say, “I’m a human being, goddammit! My life has value!”<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nI want you to get up right now and go to the window, open it,
\nand stick your head out and yell:<\/p>\n