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Ken Burch

(50,254 posts)
Sat Mar 31, 2012, 02:12 AM Mar 2012

I wish somebody running for president would give THIS speech...

(It's the speech Charlie Chaplin's Jewish barber character in THE GREAT DICTATOR, at the end of the movie(his character has also been passing himself as the Hitler-like tyrant Adenoid Hynkel. Hynkel-actually the barber in disguises-is meant to speak at a mass fascist rally and could, if he wished, take the power Hynkel held for himself...but chooses not to.)

(note:for clarity's sake, I've removed references to "soldiers" and to Hanna, the love interest of the Chaplin character, in order to make the speech more universal for our purposes).

I don't want to be an emperor. That's not my business. I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible; Jew, Gentile, black men, white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each others' happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men's souls; has barricaded the world with hate; has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical; our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost. The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in man; cries out for universal brotherhood; for the unity of us all.

Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me, I say "Do not despair." The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.

Don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you and enslave you; who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel! Who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder! Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men---machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have a love of humanity in your hearts! You don't hate! Only the unloved hate; the unloved and the unnatural.

Don't fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In the seventeenth chapter of St. Luke, it’s written “the kingdom of God is within man”, not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people, have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy, let us use that power.

Let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfill their promise. They never will! Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people! Now let us fight to fulfill that promise! Let us fight to free the world! To do away with national barriers! To do away with greed, with hate and intolerance! Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness.

In the name of democracy, let us all unite!

can you hear me? Wherever you are! The clouds are lifting! The sun is breaking through! We are coming out of the darkness into the light! We are coming into a new world; a kind new world, where men will rise above their hate, their greed, and brutality. Look up, Hanna! The soul of man has been given wings and at last he is beginning to fly. He is flying into the rainbow. Into the light of hope! Into the future! The glorious future! That belongs to you, to me, and to all of us. Look up Look up!


http://home.datacomm.ch/rezamusic/chaplin_speech.html

6 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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I wish somebody running for president would give THIS speech... (Original Post) Ken Burch Mar 2012 OP
I hope posting this helps people keep up their courage and confidence in these times Ken Burch Mar 2012 #1
It's a good speech. sabrina 1 Mar 2012 #2
Obviously, I also wish that whoever gave it Ken Burch Mar 2012 #3
But could they? That's what I've been wondering lately. sabrina 1 Mar 2012 #4
The United States of Corporate America.. The party with the most money crunch60 Mar 2012 #6
Youtube clip of the speech from the movie... PoliticAverse Mar 2012 #5
 

Ken Burch

(50,254 posts)
1. I hope posting this helps people keep up their courage and confidence in these times
Sat Mar 31, 2012, 02:14 AM
Mar 2012

(also, my apologies for the exclusively male pronouns...this was the Thirties, and that's just how people spoke in those days).

sabrina 1

(62,325 posts)
4. But could they? That's what I've been wondering lately.
Sat Mar 31, 2012, 02:22 AM
Mar 2012

Even if the best possible most progressive president managed to win and fully intended to everything s/he promised, with the system the way it is, I am thinking that one person could not fight all the special interests that seem to have taken control of everything.

 

crunch60

(1,412 posts)
6. The United States of Corporate America.. The party with the most money
Sat Mar 31, 2012, 02:46 AM
Mar 2012

will win the election. I believe only the brave and courageous people of OWS will disrupt the corporate plutocracy and lead this country on the road to the recovery
of our democracy.

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