An inspirational take on Charlie Chaplin’s “The Greatest Speech Ever Made”

"One of the most important speeches in recorded history was given by a comedian by the name of Charlie Chaplin. If you like what you see please share the video any way you can and pass the message on." 

That copy links to 14 different subtitled translations.

This copy has the full trancript:

I'm sorry but 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 man, white. We all want to help one another, human beings are like that. We all want to live by each other's 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 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 men, 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. . .

Soldiers: 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 as cattle, 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 the love of humanity in your hearts. You don't hate, only the unloved hate. Only the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers: don't fight for slavery, fight for liberty.

In the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke it is written:
- "The kingdom of God is within man"
Not one man, nor a group of men, but in all men; in you, the people.

You the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy let's 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 you the future and old age and security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie. They do not fulfil their promise, they never will. Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfil that promise. Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, 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.

Soldiers! In the name of democracy: let us all unite!

Let the Book Burning Begin

Re: Supreme Court‘s ruling, Jan 21, 2010, in the case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

(Transcript here)

My words:

As the result of this ruling, and in the name of free speech, corporations are now allowed to spend infinite money to influence the political process. Corporate shills will whine of the equality of such a measure, claiming that ALL corporations can do the same.

NOT TRUE.

Green corporations, renewable fuel corporations, corporations that exist to improve life on this planet in any way shape or form, by their very nature, exist to help, or at the very least, do no harm. And so will be the nature of their political influence, benign. They are guarded by conscience.

Such is NOT the case with corporations who’s ONLY GOAL is to accrue more power for themselves. Lives lost, maimed and ruined do not fit into the equation when it comes to their bottom line: More.

Karl Popper: “Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. Read more...

Similarly, capitalism without regulation cannot be sustained.

Without regulation, restriction or limit, the stronger corporations buy up the lesser ones, and so on and so on, until there is one monopolizing interest that decides the prices, the wages, the laws, everything. A tyranny. The Supreme Court of the United States just legalized tyrannical rule. Democracy is dead.

So, congratulations all you non-thinking, Bush-loving, gun-toting, flag-waving, war-mongering, anti-environmentalist, climate-change denying, materialistic, ego-addicted, religious supremacist, creationist, “pro-life,” gay-bashing, imbecilic, sociopathic, holier-than-thou bastions of hypocrisy, you’ll finally get the theocratic police state you’ve been longing for.

And for the rest of us, welcome to the beginning of hell on Earth.

A curse well done.

From Box Turtle Bulletin (of all places). As Gabriel Arana says: "Normally Box Turtle’s brow is a bit higher... ...but could you ever imagine this sort of humor coming out of the other camp?"
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To all the hateful, bigoted, anti-gay "Christians" out there, who feel they aren't getting the tolerance they "deserve" for their intolerance, this one's for you:



Visit their (mostly French) website for more: http://www.gayclic.com/
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Edit: title, 6-8-09 AM