The real meaning of MAD

mad (mad) adj.  mad'der, mad'est  [< OE (ge) maedan, make mad]
The dictionary definition goes on to define mad.  Mentally ill, insane, frantic, foolish and rash, having rabies, in an angry mood.
Why is everybody mad?  I think the last definition is where we are, but I think one of the first four could work, too. Maybe we need to define our mood as the British do, assuming that the mad people are out of their minds. When people are riled up they are upset that things seem out of control, chaotic. 
But maybe, just maybe, what we're experiencing is that most esoteric of esoteric phenomena, the paradigm shift.  Maybe everyone has taken things like prosperity, jobs for everyone, the stock market rise, the way things are (or were) for granted.  Maybe we're readjusting, and it will take a while.
New things need time to get traction.  We haven't paid enough attention to our decaying infrastructure, our environment, things that we don't want to see because they cost money.  Maybe we haven't paid much attention to the have-nots.  Maybe the economy is forcing us to get busy, start up things like wind farms-(Google is already doing it), repair highways, invent new cars that don't use gas, rethink our policy towards people who used to work at the old jobs, and now have no job.
Just cutting back as some conservatives have proposed, what would that do?  It would attempt to keep the status quo in place, and that's why we're stuck.
We shouldn't look to these people as our saviors, they're wolves in sheep's clothing.
A famous quote from Charles Dickens, back in the Victorian times, has Ebeneezer Scrooge saying about poor people not having enough to eat, that it decreases the surplus population.  We're not in the 1880s, thank goodness, but we're at a time when we have to decide what to do.
Suggestions:  Recycle, drive less, eat less, walk more, listen to NPR!