Inspiring Speeches Thread

[scm]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6llT2ZYg-4E

Churchill speaks before the war.

I find this speech very reassuring. Enjoy!
And feel free to post your own.

[bmc]

Great speech.

Sadly, Churchill was a douche.

[scm]

Douches - As are most people. Me too on some levels.

We need someone to unify the people.

Whether it be to fight a war.
Or fight for survival as Earth heats.
Or simply resource wars.

We need a cataclysmic event to shock the people.
It'll make em malleable.
Look for a charismatic leader.
Easy to control.
So the drones can die for the good of the Queen.

Hawking tells us we face extinction.
He says to colonize space. Wishful thinking?
Lovelock tells us the ice cube will melt in 10-20 years
Dawkin says we are still evolving.
And we will encounter an evolutionary bottleneck.

A war will speed up geoengineering research.

I know - I live in a different world.
But that's what I see happening.

[bmc]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 18317.html

[scm]

I don't really read news reports.

No point polarizing people.

[JakeYYZ]

The British stopped by for a few hundred years and brought civilization and a global language. The British also stopped the Indian custom of burning wives alive on their dead husband's funeral pyre,(suttee) and built irrigation systems hundreds of miles long to feed the Indian population, not to mention railways and the rule of law that still exist today, and a myriad other benefits. If only we had left them in their pure state, they would revel in hookworm and illiteracy.
Gimme a break. For three centuries just about everything that makes life tolerable has come from the West. I know it, you know it, the whole world knows it. And so do the academic assholes. They just don't like it. And no. All cultures are not equal.

[BibleMonkey]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6llT2ZYg-4E

Churchill speaks before the war.

I find this speech very reassuring. Enjoy!
And feel free to post your own.

Hitler made pretty good speeches-when you are bat-shit crazy, you can make really emotional speeches:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGhdX1SI ... re=related

Also, I guess, it probably helped that he could shoot anybody that didn't clap in the right pauses....

====
If you ever have to have a meeting with a dictator, make sure you bring a cigar:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Gusta ... Mannerheim

......After 11 minutes of Hitler's and Mannerheim's private conversation, Hitler's SS bodyguards spotted the cords coming out of the window and realized that the Finnish engineer was recording the conversation.

They gestured to him to stop recording immediately, and he complied. The SS bodyguards demanded that the tape be immediately destroyed, but YLE was allowed to keep the reel, after promising to keep it in a sealed container.

It was given to the head of the state censors' office Kustaa Vilkuna and in 1957 returned to YLE. It was made available to the public a few years later. It is the only known recording of Hitler speaking in an unofficial tone.[35][36]

There is an unsubstantiated story that during his meeting with Hitler, Mannerheim lit a cigar. Mannerheim supposed that Hitler would ask Finland for help against the Soviet Union, which Mannerheim was unwilling to give.

When Mannerheim lit up, all in attendance gasped, for Hitler's aversion to smoking was well known. Yet Hitler continued the conversation calmly, with no comment.

In this way, Mannerheim could judge if Hitler was speaking from a position of strength or weakness. He was able to refuse Hitler, knowing that Hitler was in a weak position, and could not dictate to him..."



==================

The " Great Communicator "
Reagan "A time for choosing '
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvg7lRsC ... re=related

He wrote most of his own speeches.

Clinton was a pretty good orator also.

[bmc]

Clinton was a pretty good orator also.

GWB rules. Untouchable.

[ScudRunner]

best ever Full Metal Jacket Drill Sergeant

[BibleMonkey]

Good movie, and scene.

I didn't know until quite a while after watching the movie that R. Lee Ermey actually was a U.S Marine Drill sergeant ( did a tour in Vietnam ) -he ad-libbed parts his dialogue.

He got the part after cursing at a bunch of the actors ( that were playing Marines ) for a long time without repeating himself

[Nark]

R Lee Ermey was also promoted from Staff Sergeant to Gunnery Sergeant after he was medically retired.












I also have to add, there is no such thing as a Marine Drill 'Sergeant'. Calling a Drill INSTRUCTOR a "drill Sergeant", is liable to get you killed.

[BibleMonkey]

I also have to add, there is no such thing as a Marine Drill 'Sergeant'. Calling a Drill INSTRUCTOR a "drill Sergeant", is liable to get you killed

Oops. Well. I learned something then-they all look like sergeants to me Thanks for that clarification.

And of course any speech thread has to include Eisenhowers farewell speech.


Although typically used as an example of prognostic warnings about an overly influential military industrial complex, in this day when we are expending ever- increasing amounts of tax payer sums chasing carbon molecules, I think this part of his speech is worth another look also:

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeche ... ewell.html

" ....research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research.

Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers. The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present -- and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite. ...."

[JakeYYZ]

Here is R Lee Ermey in my favorite commercial (31 Seconds).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhlWddAXSRA

[2R]

http://www.history.com/videos/fairburn- ... kes-dagger
He holds that dagger like a goddamned fairy