This is mass madness, you maniacs

It's my favorite movie. And every year it gets less hyperbolic and more real. Except for one thing: No one is yelling yet. No one is listening to Howard Beale. Today, there are no mass protests, no swell of angry popular movement against the utter mismanagement of this country. Today, we watch the TV and the Internets as people tell us about bad stuff. But we don't get mad.

Financial institutions run everything. They can make us. They can ruin us. And they have ruined us. And now we're paying for their mistakes. But we don't get mad. We won't get mad. We will sit and watch our screens, as we have been doing for 30 years, and think, "Gee, this is bad. I hope things get better."

Case in point: I will publish this blog post, then return to work, happy to collect a paycheck while they still come to me. I will pick up some dry-cleaning, go to a show tonight, go home, watch TV or the Internets, sleep, get up and do it all again. I will pray that things stay okay, or I will ignore the distinct possibility they will not. But I won't do anything to affect the outcome. I will merely stay in bomb-drill mode, hands over my head, against a wall.