Columbia's as mad as H...and it's not going to take it anymore

Howard Beale from the 1976 movie Network.

His rant against an uncaring, callous establishment

 is similar to WIS-TV's handling of

Ben Hoover, and its audience. 

Is the outrage over the way a large corporate media operation in Columbia is treating Ben Hoover a sign? 

Hoover, a favorite of viewers, has released a statement saying WIS management was not upfront with him when he was fired. 

He said “never in discussions did (WIS management) indicate that my future at WIS was not an option. In fact, I got a very different response.”

Hoover was blindsided by WIS bigwigs. 

But good for Ben Hoover for standing up to the establishment and telling us what happened.

So often, a cog in the machinery of a bull dozier, like WIS GM Donita Todd, is rendered silent.

The people she bullies will not speak out, because they are left to pick of the pieces of their lives after she callously shatters it. What does she care? She is secure with a fat salary and a license to say anything she wants about the locals, no matter how insulting.

The people she steps on have to be good, protect their reputation, in hopes of finding another job.

But not this time. The masses are beginning to react to the large, tone-deaf machine that looks at us like chattel. The powerful seem to never be listening, never accounting. The untouchable giants, like Todd, pay lip-service to us, but then just do what they want.

In the 1976 film, Network, Howard Beale is a TV anchorman portrayed by Perter Finch. Beale goes on air, in a rage, and laments the:

"The Reckless Operation of a Corporation.
They are playing American Roulette and betting our
lives against our money, with out criminal accountability.
Are you their next victim?"
He yells “I'm as mad as H--- and I am not going to take it anymore!”

In the last month, the Midlands has had a Lexington County sheriff indicted, a Columbia mayor implicated and a staunch anti-tax reformer elected to Lexington County Council.

Change seems to be coming. One way or another.

People are mad, and fed up with being told what they must take.

Hopefully the reaction to how Hoover was treated is the start of something bigger.

Maybe there will be a movement in which people will stand up, and pull a Howard Beale, each time the powers-that-be push us around, lie to us, and walk away.

Maybe people will stand and say: I'm not going to take this anymore.  

It is long overdue.