Author Topic: Best political speeches  (Read 1570 times)

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Offline Smilodon

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Best political speeches
« on: September 02, 2012, 07:34:30 pm »
Post a quote of good political speeches.

Edit: pic removed due to inaccuracy.

Offline Witchyjoshy

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Re: Best political speeches
« Reply #1 on: September 02, 2012, 07:59:21 pm »
Sadly, not an actual quote, but it would be wonderful if it was.
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Offline Smilodon

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Re: Best political speeches
« Reply #2 on: September 02, 2012, 08:40:53 pm »
Sadly, not an actual quote, but it would be wonderful if it was.

Damn it, should have known it was too good to be true. *Sigh*

Offline The Right Honourable Mlle Antéchrist

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Re: Best political speeches
« Reply #3 on: September 02, 2012, 09:00:58 pm »
Some awesome Carl Sagan quotes, to spruce things up:

Quote
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

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Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense.

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I maintain there is much more wonder in science than in pseudoscience. And in addition, to whatever measure this term has any meaning, science has the additional virtue, and it is not an inconsiderable one, of being true.

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In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
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Offline Veras

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Re: Best political speeches
« Reply #4 on: September 03, 2012, 02:26:08 am »
Tony Benn, British MP (not exactly a speech, it was part of a debate, but it's awesome, so here it is)
Quote
I was born about a quarter of a mile from where we are sitting now and I was here in London during the Blitz. And every night I went down into the shelter. 500 people killed, my brother was killed, my friends were killed. And when the Charter of the UN was read to me, I was a pilot coming home in a troop ship: 'We the peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind.' That was the pledge my generation gave to the younger generation and you tore it up. And it's a war crime that's been committed in Iraq, because there is no moral difference between a stealth bomber and a suicide bomber. Both kill innocent people for political reasons.

Robert F. Kennedy, April 1968 (On the Mindless Menace of Violence--it's worth reading the whole thing http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Ready-Reference/RFK-Speeches/Remarks-of-Senator-Robert-F-Kennedy-to-the-Cleveland-City-Club-Cleveland-Ohio-April-5-1968.aspx)
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Too often we honor swagger and bluster and the wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of others. Some Americans who preach nonviolence abroad fail to practice it here at home. Some who accuse others of inciting riots have by their own conduct invited them.

Some looks for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is clear; violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleaning of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul.

Eugene V. Debs, Canton, OH 1918.  This speech landed him in jail.  Again, the whole thing is worth a read, in my opinion.  (http://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/works/1918/canton.htm)
Quote
Wars throughout history have been waged for conquest and plunder. In the Middle Ages when the feudal lords who inhabited the castles whose towers may still be seen along the Rhine concluded to enlarge their domains, to increase their power, their prestige and their wealth they declared war upon one another. But they themselves did not go to war any more than the modern feudal lords, the barons of Wall Street go to war. The feudal barons of the Middle Ages, the economic predecessors of the capitalists of our day, declared all wars. And their miserable serfs fought all the battles. The poor, ignorant serfs had been taught to revere their masters; to believe that when their masters declared war upon one another, it was their patriotic duty to fall upon one another and to cut one another’s throats for the profit and glory of the lords and barons who held them in contempt. And that is war in a nutshell. The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and all to lose—especially their lives.

They have always taught and trained you to believe it to be your patriotic duty to go to war and to have yourselves slaughtered at their command. But in all the history of the world you, the people, have never had a voice in declaring war, and strange as it certainly appears, no war by any nation in any age has ever been declared by the people.

And here let me emphasize the fact—and it cannot be repeated too often—that the working class who fight all the battles, the working class who make the supreme sacrifices, the working class who freely shed their blood and furnish the corpses, have never yet had a voice in either declaring war or making peace. It is the ruling class that invariably does both. They alone declare war and they alone make peace.

Yours not to reason why;
Yours but to do and die.
That is their motto and we object on the part of the awakening workers of this nation.
RIP Tony Benn (1925 - 2014)

"There is no moral difference between a stealth bomber and a suicide bomber. Both kill innocent people for political reasons."

“If we can find the money to kill people, we can find the money to help people.”

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