The Irish national elections are coming up sometime in the next twelve months (note to self – check I’m on the register since we moved!).

By 2007 the current coalition government will have been in government for 17 of the last 20 years. Simon McGarr has written an empassioned post listing some of their many failures and calling for change in Ireland.

It kind of reminds me of Sidney Lumet’s movie Network and Peter Finch’s character, news anchor Howard Beale imploring his viewers:

You’ve got to say, ‘I’m a HUMAN BEING, Goddamnit! 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 want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell – ‘I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!’ Things have got to change. But first, you’ve gotta get mad!… You’ve got to say, ‘I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!’ Then we’ll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it:

[screaming at the top of his lungs] “I’M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!”

Well, possibly Simon wasn’t quite that impassioned, but then again maybe he should have been!