We're Mad As Hell...

It's time for The Howard Beale Show.

In Network, Paddy Chayefsky and Sidney Lumet's biting satire of all things 70s, Howard Beale was a network anchor-gone-mad.  One night on the evening news, Beale let loose an empassioned diatribe about everything that was wrong with America, and entreated those who agreed with him to get out of their easy chairs, open their windows and shout at the top of their lungs: "we're mad as hell, and we're not going to take this anymore."

Mr. Bush, it's time for The Howard Beale Show.

Because many of us are out there this morning getting out of our easy chairs and walking to the window...

Update: After posting this, I came upon David Brooks' op-ed in today's Times.  I guess some metaphors are just too powerful not to be used.

Comments

[Jon Husband]

When David Brooks starts complaining about Bush, you can be certain something's rotten, as he has been one of the most consistently supportive apologists for Bush one can imagine.

[Michael Wagner]

Bruce Mau has this to say about accidents, disasters and crises in his book Massive Change.

“When systems fail we become temporarily conscious of the extraordinary force and power of design, and the effects that it generates. Every accident provides a brief moment of awareness of real life, what is actually happening, and our dependence on the underlying systems of design.”

It would be a shame if we as a nation wasted this “brief moment of awareness of real life” by blaming when we could be about the creation of a better day.

[Tom]

I concur, Michael. It's through the failure of systems that learning takes place. The Toyota Production System, for example, has developed an extraordinary capacity to learn from unanticipated outcomes, large and small. Ordinary workers stop the production line to freeze the system in place when something unexpected happens; all the better to understand the context in which the event occurred. They then use an array of methods, including the simple, powerful, "Five Whys" to understand the root cause of the problem.

Unfortunately, most systems are not this rigorously focused on solutions.

We've come to use the trivializing phrase, "blame game" as a way of deflecting a larger point: when an approach doesn't work, or hasn't worked, another approach is called for. When root causes of system failures are determined, it is inevitable that questions of accountability for the conditions will arise. This is particularly true when politicians are involved.

Many of the projected thousands of deaths in New Orleans were very likely preventable. How should we treat that realization?

[Michael Wagner]

Tom, I think you are right. We are deflecting the larger point.

And I really like your final point. If indeed we discover that many deaths were preventable the question will be the question you pose: how should we treat that realization. As a citizen I will be listening very carefully for the answers given by both parties.

[fouroboros]

Tom, you threw me back...

Max: It's too late, Diana. There's nothing left in you that I can live with. You're one of Howard's humanoids. If I stay with you, I'll be destroyed. Like Howard Beale was destroyed. Like Loreena Hobbs was destroyed. Like everything that you and the institution of television touch is destroyed. You're television incarnate, Diana -- indifferent to suffering, insensitive to joy...

War, murder, death -- all the same to you as bottles of beer, and the daily business of life is a corrupt comedy. You even shatter the sensation of time and space into split seconds, instant replays. You're madness, Diana. Virile madness, and everything you touch dies with you. But not me. Not as long as I can feel pleasure and pain... and love.

I love Chayefsky and Lumet's work. Works like The Americanization of Emily, Fail-Safe, Network, and Being There remain so relevant--glaringly, scarily so.

William James said that for a new truth to be accepted, it must be grafted onto an old truth. Well, there's no old truth like the anxiety of being "protected" by the incompetent with no escape clause; of fearing your leaders' efforts to "help" as much as one fears the unknown. Not to be hyperbolic, but that truth is also the seed of revolt.

If, as the below Kentucky newspaper article suggests, the National Disaster Medical System's DMORT group is projecting that we can expect upwards of 40,000 dead once we're done, well, Max's "corrupt comedy" above, will turn dark and sober in very troubling ways.

I am angry in the extreme.

http://www.t-g.com/story/1116806.html