"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, God damn it! 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!'" -- excerpt from the iconic "Howard Beale" rant from the film "Network," by screenwriter, author and playwright Sidney Aaron "Paddy" Chayefsky, who was born on this day one hundred years ago. "Network" foreshadowed reality television long before reality television was inflicted on us, and stands as a warning to the desensitizing effect that television has on us. Chayefsky was harshly critical of the abominations of McCarthyism and was a strong defender of Israel's right to exist.
Chayefsky also authored such works as the screenplays for "Marty," "Middle of the Night," "The Tenth Man," "The Americanization of Emily," and "Paint Your Wagon," and the novel "Altered States".
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