BS: Your 5 greatest speeches

Subject: BS: Your 5 greatest speeches
From: Donuel
Date: 04 Jul 18 - 07:56 AM

Speeches have seen communication de/evolve into you tube productions and now tweeting Presidents which are an architecture of antisocial media digital dirty tricks via viral postings of 140 characters, memes, and other manipulated data that diminished the public's capacity to know and afforded new opportunities for dis information.

Old time great speeches however have a permanence.

My favorites came from Edward R Murrow, FDR (4 Freedoms), Lincoln (Gettysburg), Reagan (Immigrants make America great again), and perhaps Jesus (Sermon on the Mt.)

What are yours? Amos, Hamlet, Gurdjieff, Trump???



Communication is key. Alan Alda has a new podcast that on improving communication.

Subject: RE: BS: Your 5 greatest speeches
From: Donuel
Date: 04 Jul 18 - 08:26 AM

Gerald Ford "The truth is what binds our government and civilization"
Ronnie Reagan farewell "All the pilgrims from all the lost places are hurtling through the darkness toward home and we are home".
LBJ "We shall overcome"

George Carlin "We are going down the TUBES"


Alexander Hefner has a book of famous speeches 'Documentary History of the US.

Subject: RE: BS: Your 5 greatest speeches
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 04 Jul 18 - 08:47 AM

Mine are my own. They are very short, usually two words only, the second of which is "off".

Subject: RE: BS: Your 5 greatest speeches
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 04 Jul 18 - 09:35 AM

We'll bite them on the features.

Subject: RE: BS: Your 5 greatest speeches
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 04 Jul 18 - 09:49 AM

It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Your 5 greatest speeches
From: Jack Campin
Date: 04 Jul 18 - 09:51 AM

The last speech of Bartolomeo Vanzetti

John MacLean's Speech from the Dock

Subject: RE: BS: Your 5 greatest speeches
From: Donuel
Date: 04 Jul 18 - 11:48 AM

David Carter sounds like a tweet man.


The foolish Pfizer speech.

The Pfizer guys are haggling with the NICE
And while they talk, the cancer spreads again
You’ll get your pills when they’ve agreed a price

You’ll get your answer when they’ve rolled their dice
And dealt your hand out in their counting den
The Pfizer guys are haggling with the NICE

So just be patient, please heed our advice
At some point, they will tell the patients when
You’ll get your pills, when they’ve agreed a price

Shareholders and Execs must get their slice
Your longer life lies with the money men
The Pfizer guys are haggling with the NICE

It’s hard for them to make this sacrifice
Each penny off’s a penny less for them
You’ll get your pills when they’ve agreed a price

Nine months of talks to get the charge precise
Let’s hope that you can stay alive till then
The Pfizer guys are haggling with the NICE
You’ll get your pills when they’ve agreed a price

Twice as nice is the virus delivery devise
It is a one time treats all for life
instead of pricey pills for all your ills.



--------------


I moralize the most here on mudcat but rarely in real life.
BWL put it best regarding brief cycles in life and life and death itself.

"For what it's worth, I am a Taoist. I do not believe in a "supreme being" in the theistic sense. I do not believe in the Judeo-Christian concept of Heaven or Hell, but I am not a hard-core atheist who denies the possibility of "life after death".

What I do believe is that we humans are a bit like flying fish. We live in an ocean, we jump out of it and behave like birds for a while, then we flop back into the ocean and re-assume our true natures as fish."

cool speech

Subject: RE: BS: Your 5 greatest speeches
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Jul 18 - 12:36 AM

Yeah, I thought that was very well put too. I love the flying fish analogy.

Subject: RE: BS: Your 5 greatest speeches
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 05 Jul 18 - 02:45 AM

Absolutely not Donuel, if I have anything to say to anyone I will say it to their face.

Subject: RE: BS: Your 5 greatest speeches
From: Senoufou
Date: 05 Jul 18 - 02:49 AM

I like the words of nurse Edith Cavell:-

"Patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness for anyone."
These words were said before she was executed by the Germans in 1915, for helping soldiers from both sides in escaping from German-occupied Belgium.

She was from Norfolk!

Subject: RE: BS: Your 5 greatest speeches
From: Senoufou
Date: 05 Jul 18 - 02:54 AM

I also love Malala Yousafzai's speech to the United Nations Youth Assembly. Wonderful words.

Subject: RE: BS: Your 5 greatest speeches
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 05 Jul 18 - 03:04 AM

Hilary Benn's magnificent speech!!

Subject: RE: BS: Your 5 greatest speeches
From: BobL
Date: 05 Jul 18 - 03:23 AM

Neil Kinnock's speech to the Labour Party Conference on October 1985, in which he hammered home the fact that the party could not achieve any of its aims while the extremists (i.e. Militant) were making it unelectable.

Subject: RE: BS: Your 5 greatest speeches
From: gnomad
Date: 05 Jul 18 - 03:37 AM

Gordon Wilson (look him up if you don't know, far too much to summarise) It is more than 30 years and I still don't have a clue how he did it.

Subject: RE: BS: Your 5 greatest speeches
From: Senoufou
Date: 05 Jul 18 - 03:59 AM

I've just read through the entire text of Enoch Powell's 'Rivers of Blood' speech (actually he was alluding to Virgil's Aeneid, "I seem to see the Tiber foaming with much blood")

It's astonishing how far we've come in UK from that viewpoint. His racism is almost laughable in its intensity. 'Piccaninnies' indeed!

My parents lived in a quiet suburb in West London, and not long before they moved to Norfolk in their retirement, their whole street was inhabited by Pakistani immigrants. My parents got to know them all, and my mother became much-loved for her home-baked buns and cakes which she often gave to the children. They hadn't an ounce of racism in them, and really missed their Pakistani neighbours when they came to Norfolk to be nearer me.

That's why I think Powell's speech is important as a warning. Racism can be created and encouraged by such stuff. Pupils should study it in order to be made aware of its dangers.

Subject: RE: BS: Your 5 greatest speeches
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 05 Jul 18 - 05:06 AM

Mark Anthony's speech as a superb example of the use of political rhetoric.

Subject: RE: BS: Your 5 greatest speeches
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 05 Jul 18 - 05:16 AM

Powell's speech is an example of incitement to racism, without necessary being racist in itself, an insidious method used by despicable people like Robinson, Trump, Farage (who is even worse through use of visual imagery). In the old days they would be referred to as shit-stirrers, In the words of the Bard: Now let it work. Mischief, thou art afoot. Take thou what course thou wilt.

Subject: RE: BS: Your 5 greatest speeches
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 05 Jul 18 - 05:27 AM

"Let me have men about me that are fat,
Sleek-headed men and such as sleep a-nights.
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look.
He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous."

Nothing like a bit of prescience. I wonder how lean Brutus was.

Subject: RE: BS: Your 5 greatest speeches
From: Senoufou
Date: 05 Jul 18 - 06:19 AM

I've always loved Othello's explanation of how he and Desdemona got together:-


"She loved me for the dangers I had passed
And I loved her that she did pity them."

I was struck by this at the age of sixteen (doing 'A' level Eng Lit)
and it seems to have been prophetic in my case!

Subject: RE: BS: Your 5 greatest speeches
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 05 Jul 18 - 06:22 AM

Mark Anthony's speech as a superb example of the use of political rhetoric.

Which one?

"O pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth . . ."
"Friends, Romans, countrymen . . ."

Subject: RE: BS: Your 5 greatest speeches
From: Senoufou
Date: 05 Jul 18 - 06:22 AM

Apart that is from being strangled in a fit of misplaced jealousy! :)

Subject: RE: BS: Your 5 greatest speeches
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 05 Jul 18 - 06:38 AM

Clearly the "Friends..." one, Nigel. That's the one containing the political rhetoric that SBS referred to.

Subject: RE: BS: Your 5 greatest speeches
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 05 Jul 18 - 07:59 AM

"5 greatest speeches"?

"I am a Ranger! We walk in the dark places no others will enter. We stand on the bridge, and no one may pass! We live for the One, we die for the One!"

Marcus Cole (Babylon 5)

Subject: RE: BS: Your 5 greatest speeches
From: keberoxu
Date: 05 Jul 18 - 02:27 PM

Senoufou/Eliza referred to Enoch Powell;

the phrase that haunts me comes from
an English translation of a speech by
Ayatollah Khomeini, remember him?

He said that on behalf of his constituents
(no, that isn't what he called them)
he would
"drain the cup of poison ..."

it's important to remember what was said by the person you fear,
not just what was said about that person.
Which brings us to ... erm ... there are too many. I'll stop there.

Subject: RE: BS: Your 5 greatest speeches
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 05 Jul 18 - 03:32 PM

I don't believe that Mark Anthony one, I think Shakespeare made that up.

Subject: RE: BS: Your 5 greatest speeches
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 05 Jul 18 - 04:59 PM

You're probably right.
I doubt Marc Antony's English was that good.

Subject: RE: BS: Your 5 greatest speeches
From: Joe_F
Date: 05 Jul 18 - 09:24 PM

Lincoln's 2nd inaugural.

Subject: RE: BS: Your 5 greatest speeches
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Jul 18 - 09:04 AM

FDR's 1st inaugural speech

The only thing you have to fear IS FEAR ITSELF

Subject: RE: BS: Your 5 greatest speeches
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 Jul 18 - 09:33 AM

"Goodbye Bill: I die like a true rebel. Don’t waste any time mourning — organize! It is a hundred miles from here to Wyoming. Could you arrange to have my body hauled to the state line to be buried? I don’t want to be found dead in Utah.
Joe Hill"
MORE HERE
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Your 5 greatest speeches
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 06 Jul 18 - 09:33 AM

"Goodbye Bill: I die like a true rebel. Don’t waste any time mourning — organize! It is a hundred miles from here to Wyoming. Could you arrange to have my body hauled to the state line to be buried? I don’t want to be found dead in Utah.
Joe Hill"
MORE HERE
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Your 5 greatest speeches
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 06 Jul 18 - 11:54 AM

I hated the way we had to read Shakespeare for English Lit, came across as just very dry text, without going into the magnificent craftmanship of his writing. Being at an age of not having experienced or knowledge of the ways of the world detracts so much from understanding the works, as does not visualising the plays in a theatrical setting.

Subject: RE: BS: Your 5 greatest speeches
From: Senoufou
Date: 06 Jul 18 - 12:50 PM

We had a superb teacher SPB, his name was Mr Shearn, and he put his heart into reading extracts from the plays with enormous panache. He had excellent acting ability and really brought the drama to life.

I think he may have been gay, and I absolutely loved his teaching methods. (A bit like that film 'The Dead Poets' Society')

We'd sit entranced as he cavorted about at the front of the class and acted out scenes for us.

He also got us into the habit of noting down good quotes in a special notebook he gave each of us. I learnt such a lot from him.
In contrast, the lectures at Edinburgh Uni were rather boring and stultifying, delivered in a dry way as you describe.

Subject: RE: BS: Your 5 greatest speeches
From: Donuel
Date: 06 Jul 18 - 01:28 PM

How do you know his panache was enourmous?

Sounds like a 'more pefect' union !^/

Subject: RE: BS: Your 5 greatest speeches
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 07 Jul 18 - 04:53 PM

And if we are allowed Shakespeare's Mark Anthony, then surely we are allowed Roy Batty's "Tears in Rain".

Subject: RE: BS: Your 5 greatest speeches
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Jul 18 - 12:06 PM

,^/ zzz kkk zzz kkk

The upcoming speech about European History a' la Trump.

Subject: RE: BS: Your 5 greatest speeches
From: fat B****rd
Date: 10 Jul 18 - 03:10 PM

Hank the Cinq pre Agincourt and Don Vito Corleone to the assembled family heads in The Godfather.

Subject: RE: BS: Your 5 greatest speeches
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 11 Jul 18 - 06:47 AM

2nd great speech - Harper Lee - Atticus Finch's final summing up in the trial of Tom Robinson. Those who are quick to make popularist slurs towards and demonise their neighbours can learn from it.

Subject: RE: BS: Your 5 greatest speeches
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 12 Jul 18 - 08:29 PM

3rd fro The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist - cant find my copy to refer to the actual chapter. It is the book I read to remind me why I am a socialist

Subject: RE: BS: Your 5 greatest speeches
From: Donuel
Date: 12 Jul 18 - 10:32 PM

?