http://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechthegreatdictator.html

Hynkel: 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 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's 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 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, 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 the love of humanity in your hearts. You don't hate; only the unloved hate, 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, 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 you the 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.

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

---

Hannah, can you hear me? Wherever you are, look up, Hannah. 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 kindlier world, where men will rise above their hate, their greed and brutality.

Look up, Hannah. 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, Hannah. Look up.

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechtheshawshankredemptionparoleboard.html

Contains profanity

 

Parole Board Interviewer: Uh, well, it means you're ready to rejoin society --

 

Parole Board Interviewer: Well, are you?

 

Parole Board Interviewer: [Stamp: APPROVED]

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/billclinton1992dnc.htm

Governor Richards, Chairman Brown, Mayor Dinkins, our great host, my fellow delegates and my fellow Americans, I am so proud of Al Gore. He said he came here tonight because he always wanted to do the warm-up for Elvis. Well, I ran for President this year for one reason and one reason only: I wanted to come back to this convention and finish that speech I started four years ago.

Well, last night Mario Cuomo taught us how a real nominating speech should be given. He also made it clear why we have to steer our ship of state on a new course. Tonight I want to talk with you about my hope for the future, my faith in the American people, and my vision of the kind of country we can build together.

I salute the good men who were my companions on the campaign trial: Tom Harkin, Bob Kerrey, Doug Wilder, Jerry Brown, and Paul Tsongas!

One sentence in the Platform we built says it all: The most important family policy, urban policy, labor policy, minority policy, and foreign policy America can have is an expanding entrepreneurial economy of high-wage, high-skilled jobs.

And so, in the name of all those who do the work, pay the taxes, raise the kids, and play by the rules, in the name of the hardworking Americans who make up our forgotten middle class, I proudly accept your nomination for President of the United States. I am a product of that middle class, and when I am President, you will be forgotten no more.

We meet at a special moment in history, you and I. The Cold War is over. Soviet communism has collapsed and our values -- freedom, democracy, individual rights, free enterprise -- they have triumphed all around the world. And yet, just as we have won the Cold War abroad, we are losing the battles for economic opportunity and social justice here at home.

Now that we have changed the world, it’s time to change America.

I have news for the forces of greed and the defenders of the status quo: Your time has come and gone. Its time for a change in America.

Tonight 10 million of our fellow Americans are out of work. Tens of millions more work harder for lower pay. The incumbent President says unemployment always goes up a little before a recovery begins, but unemployment only has to go up by one more person before a real recovery can begin. And Mr. President, you are that man.

This election is about putting power back in your hands and putting the government back on your side. It’s about putting people first. You know, I’ve said that all across the country. And whenever I do, someone always comes back at me, as a young man did just this week at a town meeting at the Henry Street Settlement on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. He said, “That sounds good, Bill, but you’re a politician. Why should I trust you?”

Tonight, as plainly as I can, I want to tell you who I am, what I believe, and where I want to lead America.

I never met my father. He was killed in a car wreck on a rainy road three months before I was born, driving from Chicago to Arkansas to see my mother. After that, my mother had to support us, so we lived with my grandparents while she went back to Louisiana to study nursing. I can still see her clearly tonight through the eyes of a three-year-old, kneeling at the railroad station and weeping as she put me back on the train to Arkansas with my grandmother.

She endured that pain because she knew her sacrifice was the only way she could support me and give me a better life. My mother taught me. She taught me about family and hard work and sacrifice. She held steady through tragedy after tragedy, and she held our family -- my brother and I -- together through tough times.

As a child, I watched her go off work each day at a time when it wasn’t always easy to be a working mother.

As an adult, I’ve watched her fight off breast cancer, and again she has taught me a lesson in courage. And always, always, she taught me to fight.

That’s why I’ll fight to create high-paying jobs so that parents can afford to raise their children today.

That’s why I’m so committed to make sure every American gets the health care that saved my mother’s life and that women’s health care gets the same attention as men’s.

That’s why I’ll fight to make sure women in this country receive respect and dignity, whether they work in the home, out of the home, or both.

You want to know where I get my fighting spirit? It all started with my mother. Thank you, Mother. I love you.

When I think about opportunity for all Americans, I think about my grandfather. He ran a country store in our little town of Hope. There were no food stamps back then, so when his customers, whether they were white or black, who worked hard and did the best they could, came in with no money, well, he gave them food anyway. Just made a note of it. So did I. Before I was big enough to see over the counter, I learned from him to look up to people other folks looked down on.

My grandfather just had a high school education -- a grade school education -- but in that country store he taught me more about equality in the eyes of the Lord than all my professors at Georgetown, more about the intrinsic worth of every individual than all the philosophers at Oxford, more about the need for equal justice under the law than all the jurists at Yale Law School. If you want to know where I come by the passionate commitment I have to bringing people together without regard to race, it all started with my grandfather.

I learned a lot from another person, too, a person who for more than 20 years has worked hard to help our children, paying the price of time to make sure our schools don’t fail them; someone who traveled our state for a year, studying, learning, listening, going to PTA meetings, school board meetings, town hall meetings, putting together a package of school reforms recognized around the nation -- doing it all while building a distinguished legal career and being a wonderful, loving mother.

That person is my wife.

Hillary taught me. She taught me that all children can learn and that each of us has a duty to help them do it.

So if you want to know why I care so much about our children, and our future, it all started with Hillary.

I love you.

Frankly, I'm fed up with politicians in Washington lecturing the rest of us about family values. Our families have values. But our government doesn’t.

I want an America where family values live in our actions, not just in our speeches, an America that includes every family, every traditional family and every extended family, every two parent family, every single-parent family and every foster family -- every family.

I do want to say something to the fathers in this country who have chosen to abandon their children by neglecting their child support: Take responsibility for your children or we will force you to do so. Because governments don’t raise children; parents do. And you should.

And I want to say something to every child in America tonight who is out there trying to grow up without a father or a mother: I know how you feel. You're special too.

You matter to America. And don’t you ever let anybody tell you you can’t become whatever you want to be. And, if other politicians make you feel like you are not part of their family, come on and be part of ours.

The thing that makes me angriest about what's gone wrong in the last 12 years is that our government has lost touch with our values, while our politicians continue to shout about them. I’m tired of it!

I was raised to believe the American Dream was built on rewarding hard work. But we have seen the folks of Washington turn the American ethic on its head.

For too long those who play by the rules and keep the faith have gotten the shaft, and those who cut corners and cut deals have been rewarded.

People are working harder than ever, spending less time with their children, working nights and weekends at their jobs instead of going to PTA and Little League or Scouts. And their incomes are still going down. Their taxes are still going up. And the costs of health care, housing, and education are going through the roof.

Meanwhile, more and more of our best people are falling into poverty even though they work 40 hours a week.

Our people are pleading for change, but government is in the way. It's been hijacked by privileged private interests. It's forgotten who really pays the bills around here. It's taken more of your money and given you less in return. We have got to go beyond the brain-dead politics in Washington and give our people the kind of government they deserve, a government that works for them.

A President ought to be a powerful force for progress. But right now I know how President Lincoln felt when General McClellan wouldn’t attack in the Civil War. He asked him, “If you’re not going to use your army, may I borrow it?”

And so I say: "George Bush, if you won’t use your power to help America, step aside -- I will. 

Our country is falling behind. The President is caught in the grip of a failed economic theory. We have gone from 1st to 13th in the world in wages since Reagan and Bush have been in office.

Four years ago, candidate Bush said, “America is a special place, not just another pleasant country somewhere on the UN roll call between Albania and Zimbabwe.” Now, under President Bush America has an unpleasant economy struck somewhere between Germany and Sri Lanka. And for most Americans, Mr. President, life’s a lot less kind and a lot less gentle than it was before your administration took office.

Listen...yell it some more. [to audience chanting "No second term"]

Our country has fallen so far so fast that just a few months ago the Japanese Prime Minister actually said he felt sympathy for the United States. "Sympathy." When I am your President, the rest -- the rest of the world will not look down on us with pity, but up to us with respect again.

What is George Bush doing about our economic problems?

Now, four years ago he promised 15 million new jobs by this time, and he’s over 14 million short. Al Gore and I can do better.

He has raised taxes on the people driving pickup trucks and lowered taxes on the people riding in limousines. We can do better.

He promised to balance the budget, but he hasn’t even tried. In fact, the budgets he has submitted to Congress nearly doubled the debt. Even worse, he wasted billions and reduced our investments in education and jobs. We can do better.

So, if you are sick and tired of a government that doesn’t work to create jobs, if you’re sick and tired of a tax system that’s stacked against you, if you’re sick and tired of exploding debt and reduced investments in our future, or if, like the great civil rights pioneer Fannie Lou Hamer, you’re just plain old sick and tired of being sick and tired, then join us; work with us; win with us, and we can make our country the country it was meant to be.

Now, George Bush talks a good game, but he has no game plan to rebuild America, from the cities to the suburbs to the countryside, so that we can compete and win again in the global economy. I do.

He won’t take on the big insurance companies and the bureaucracies to control health costs and give us affordable health care for all Americans, but I will.

He won’t even implement the recommendations of his own commission on AIDS, but I will.

He won’t streamline the federal government and change the way it works, cut 100,000 bureaucrats and put 100,000 new police officers on the streets of American cities, but I will.

He’s never balanced a government budget, but I have 11 times.

He won’t break the stranglehold the special interests have on our elections and the lobbyists have on our government, but I will.

He won’t give mothers and fathers the simple chance to take some time off from work when a baby is born or a parent is sick, but I will.

We’re losing our farms at a rapid rate, and he has no commitment to keep family farms in the family, but I do.

He’s talked a lot about drugs, but he hasn’t helped people on the front line to wage that war on drugs and crime. But I will.

He won’t take the lead in protecting the environment and creating new jobs in environmental technologies for the 21st century, but I will. And you know what else? He doesn’t have Al Gore, and I do.

Just in case -- Just in case, you didn’t notice, that’s "Gore" with an "e" on the end.

And George Bush -- George Bush won’t guarantee a women’s right to choose; I will.

Hear me, now: I am not pro-abortion; I am pro-choice, strongly. I believe this difficult and painful decision should be left to the women of America.

I hope the right to privacy can be protected and we will never again have to discuss this issue on political platforms. But I am old enough to remember what it was like before Roe v. Wade, and I do not want to return to the time when we made criminals of women and their doctors.

Jobs, education, health care -- these are not just commitments from my lips; they are the work of my life.

Our priorities must be clear; we will put our people first again. But priorities without a clear plan of action are just empty words. To turn our rhetoric into reality we’ve got to change the way government does business, fundamentally. Until we do, we’ll continue to pour billions of dollars down the drain.

The Republicans have campaigned against big government for a generation. But have you noticed, they’ve run this big government for a generation? And they haven’t changed a thing. They don’t want to fix government; they still want to campaign against it, and that’s all.

But, my fellow Democrats, its time for us to realize that we’ve got some changing to do too. There is not a program in government for every problem, and if we want to use government to help people, we have got to make it work again.

Because we are committed in this convention and in this platform to making these changes, we are, as Democrats, in the words that Ross Perot himself spoke today, “a revitalized Democratic Party.”

I am well aware that all those millions of people who rallied to Ross Perot’s cause wanted to be in an army of patriots for change. Tonight, I say to them: "Join us, and together we will revitalize America."

Now, I don’t have all the answers, but I do know the old ways don’t work. Trickle down economics has sure failed. And big bureaucracies, both private and public, they’ve failed too.

That’s why we need a new approach to government, a government that offers more empowerment and less entitlement, more choices for young people in the schools they attend -- in the public schools they attend. And more choices for the elderly and for people with disabilities and the long-term care they receive. A government that is leaner, not meaner; a government that expands opportunity, not bureaucracy; a government that understands that jobs must come from growth in a vibrant and vital system of free enterprise.

I call this approach a "New Covenant," a solemn agreement between the people and their government based not simply on what each of us can take but what all of us must give to our nation.

We offer our people a new choice based on old values. We offer opportunity. We demand responsibility. We will build an American community again. The choice we offer is not conservative or liberal. In many ways, it's not even Republican or Democratic. It's different. It's new. And it will work. It will work because it is rooted in the vision and the values of the American people.

Of all the things George Bush has ever said that I disagree with, perhaps the thing that bothers me most, is how he derides and degrades the American tradition of seeing and seeking a better future. He mocks it as the “vision thing.”

But just remember what the Scripture says: “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”

I hope -- I hope nobody in this great hall tonight, or in our beloved country has to go through tomorrow without a vision. I hope no one ever tries to raise a child without a vision. I hope nobody ever starts a business or plants a crop in the ground without a vision. For where there is no vision, the people perish.

One of the reasons we have so many children in so much trouble in so many places in this nation is because they have seen so little opportunity, so little responsibility, so little loving, caring community, that they literally cannot imagine the life we are calling them to lead.

And so I say again: Where there is no vision, America will perish. What is the vision of our New Covenant?

An America with millions of new jobs and dozens of new industries, moving confidently toward the 21st century.

An America that says to entrepreneurs and businesspeople: We will give you more incentives and more opportunity than ever before to develop the skills of your workers and to create American jobs and American wealth in the new global economy. But you must do your part; you must be responsible. American companies must act like American companies again, exporting products, not jobs.

That’s what this New Covenant's all about.

An America in which the doors of colleges are thrown open once again to the sons and daughters of stenographers and steelworkers. We'll say: Everybody can borrow the money to go to college. But you must do your part. You must pay it back from your paychecks or, better yet, by going back home and serving your communities.

Just think of it. Think of it. Millions of energetic young men and women serving their country by policing the streets or teaching the children or caring for the sick; or working with the elderly and people with disabilities; or helping young people to stay off drugs and out of gangs, giving us all a sense of new hope and limitless possibilities.

That’s what this New Covenant is all about.

An America in which health care is a right, not a privilege, in which we say to all of our people: “Your government has the courage finally to take on the health care profiteers and make health care affordable for every family.” But, you must do your part -- preventive care, prenatal care, childhood immunization, saving lives, saving money, saving families from heartbreak.

That’s what the New Covenant is all about.

An America in which middle-class incomes, not middle-class taxes, are going up.

An America, yes, in which the wealthiest few, those making over $200,000 a year, are asked to pay their fair share.

An America in which the rich are not soaked, but the middle class is not drowned, either.

Responsibility starts at the top.

That’s what the New Covenant is all about.

An America where we end welfare as we know it. We will say to those on welfare: You will have and you deserve the opportunity through training and education, through child care and medical coverage, to liberate yourself. But then, when you can, you must work, because welfare should be a second chance, not a way of life.

That’s what the New Covenant is all about.

An America with the world’s strongest defense, ready and willing to use force when necessary.

An America at the forefront of the global effort to preserve and protect our common environment -- and promoting global growth.

An America that will not coddle tyrants, from Baghdad to Beijing.

An America that champions the cause of freedom and democracy from Eastern Europe to Southern Africa -- and in our own hemisphere, in Haiti and Cuba.

The end of the Cold War permits us to reduce defense spending while still maintaining the strongest defense in the world, but we must plow back every dollar of defense cuts into building American jobs right here at home. I know well that the world needs a strong America, but we have learned that strength begins at home.

But the New Covenant is about more than opportunities and responsibilities for you and your families. It’s also about our common community.

Tonight, every one of you knows deep in your heart that we are too divided. It is time to heal America.

And so we must say to every American: Look beyond the stereotypes that blind us. We need each other --- all of us -- we need each other. We don’t have a person to waste, and yet for too long politicians have told the most of us that are doing all right that what’s really wrong with America is the rest of us -- "them."

Them -- the minorities. Them -- the liberals. Them -- the poor. Them -- the homeless. Them -- the people with disabilities. Them -- the gays.

We’ve gotten to where we’ve nearly "them'ed" ourselves to death: Them, and them, and them.

But, this is America. There is no "them." There is only "us."

One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

That -- That, is our Pledge of Allegiance, and that’s what the New Covenant is all about.

How do I know we can come together and make change happen? Because I have seen it in my own state. In Arkansas, we are working together, and we're making progress. No, there’s no Arkansas miracle, but there are a lot of miraculous people. And because of them, our schools are better, our wages are higher, our factories are busier, our water is cleaner, and our budget is balanced. We’re moving ahead.

I wish -- I wish I could say the same thing about America under the incumbent President. He took the richest country in the world and brought it down.

We took on of the poorest states in America and lifted it up.

And so I say to all of those in this campaign season who would criticize Arkansas, come on down -- especially -- especially if you’re from Washington, come on down.

Sure, you’ll see us struggling against some of the problems we haven’t solved yet, but you’ll also see a lot of great people doing amazing things, and you might even learn a thing or two.

In the end, my fellow Americans, this New Covenant simply asks us all to be Americans again -- old-fashioned Americans for a new time: Opportunity, responsibility, community.

When we pull together, America will pull ahead. Throughout the whole history of this country, we have seen time and time and time again, when we are united we are unstoppable.

We can seize this moment, make it exciting and energizing and heroic to be American again. We can renew our faith in each other and in ourselves. We can restore our sense of unity and community.

As the Scripture says, “our eyes have not yet seen, nor our ears heard, nor our minds imagined” what we can build.

But I can’t do this alone -- no President can. We must do it together. It won’t be easy and it won’t be quick. We didn’t get into this mess overnight, and we won’t get out of it overnight. But we can do it -- with commitment, creativity, diversity, and drive!

We can do it!

We can do it! We can do it! We can do it! We can do it! We can do it! We can do it!

I want every person in this hall and every person in this land to reach out and join us in a great new adventure, to chart a bold new future.

As a teenager, I heard John Kennedy’s summons to citizenship. And then, as a student at Georgetown I head that call clarified by a professor name Carol Quigley, who said to us that America was the greatest nation in history because our people had always believed in two things: that tomorrow can be better than today and that every one of us has a personal moral responsibility to make it so.

That -- That kind of future entered my life the night our daughter, Chelsea, was born. As I stood in the delivery room, I was overcome with the thought that God had given me a blessing my own father never knew -- the chance to hold my child in my arms.

Somewhere at this very moment a child is being born in America. Let it be our cause to give that child a happy home, a healthy family, and a hopeful future. Let it be our cause to see that that child has a chance to live to the fullest of her God-given capacities.

Let it -- Let it be our cause to see that child grow up strong and secure, braced by her challenges but never struggling alone, with family and friends and a faith that, in America, no one is left out; no one is left behind.

Let it be -- Let it be our cause that when this child is able, she gives something back to her children, her community, and her country.

Let it be our cause that we give this child a country that is coming together, not coming apart, a country of boundless hopes and endless dreams, a country once again lifts its people and inspires the world. Let that be our cause our commitment and our New Covenant.

My fellow Americans, I end tonight where it all began for me. I still believe in a place called Hope.

God bless you, and God Bless America.

 

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/billclintoniraqairstrikes.htm

Good evening. Earlier today, I ordered America's Armed Forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces. Their mission is to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programs, and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors. Their purpose is to protect the national interests of the United States and, indeed, the interests of people throughout the Middle East and around the world. Saddam Hussein must not be allowed to threaten his neighbors or the world with nuclear arms, poison gas, or biological weapons. I want to explain why I have decided, with the unanimous recommendation of my national security team, to use force in Iraq, why we have acted now and what we aim to accomplish.

Six weeks ago, Saddam Hussein announced that he would no longer cooperate with the United Nations weapons inspectors, called UNSCOM. They're highly professional experts from dozens of countries. Their job is to oversee the elimination of Iraq's capability to retain, create, and use weapons of mass destruction, and to verify that Iraq does not attempt to rebuild that capability. The inspectors undertook this mission, first, seven and a half years ago, at the end of the Gulf War, when Iraq agreed to declare and destroy its arsenal as a condition of the cease-fire.

The international community had good reason to set this requirement. Other countries possess weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles. With Saddam, there's one big difference: He has used them, not once but repeatedly, unleashing chemical weapons against Iranian troops during a decade-long war, not only against soldiers, but against civilians; firing Scud missiles at the citizens of Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Iran -- not only against a foreign enemy, but even against his own people, gassing Kurdish civilians in Northern Iraq. The international community had little doubt then, and I have no doubt today, that left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will use these terrible weapons again.

The United States has patiently worked to preserve UNSCOM, as Iraq has sought to avoid its obligation to cooperate with the inspectors. On occasion, we've had to threaten military force, and Saddam has backed down. Faced with Saddam's latest act of defiance in late October, we built intensive diplomatic pressure on Iraq, backed by overwhelming military force in the region. The U.N. Security Council voted 15 to zero to condemn Saddam's actions and to demand that he immediately come into compliance. Eight Arab nations -- Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, and Oman -- warned that Iraq alone would bear responsibility for the consequences of defying the U.N.

When Saddam still failed to comply, we prepared to act militarily. It was only then, at the last possible moment, that Iraq backed down. It pledged to the U.N. that it had made -- and I quote -- "a clear and unconditional decision to resume cooperation with the weapons inspectors." I decided then to call off the attack, with our airplanes already in the air, because Saddam had given in to our demands. I concluded then that the right thing to do was to use restraint and give Saddam one last chance to prove his willingness to cooperate. I made it very clear at that time what "unconditional cooperation" meant, based on existing U.N. resolutions and Iraq's own commitments. And along with Prime Minister Blair of Great Britain, I made it equally clear that if Saddam failed to cooperate fully, we would be prepared to act without delay, diplomacy, or warning.

Now, over the past three weeks, the U.N. weapons inspectors have carried out their plan for testing Iraq's cooperation. The testing period ended this weekend, and last night, UNSCOM's Chairman, Richard Butler, reported the results to U.N. Secretary General Annan. The conclusions are stark, sobering, and profoundly disturbing. In four out of the five categories set forth, Iraq has failed to cooperate. Indeed, it actually has placed new restrictions on the inspectors. Here are some of the particulars:

- Iraq repeatedly blocked UNSCOM from inspecting suspect sites. For example, it shut off access to the headquarters of its ruling party, and said it will deny access to the party's other offices, even though U.N. resolutions make no exception for them and UNSCOM has inspected them in the past.

- Iraq repeatedly restricted UNSCOM's ability to obtain necessary evidence. For example, Iraq obstructed UNSCOM's effort to photograph bombs related to its chemical weapons program. It tried to stop an UNSCOM biological weapons team from videotaping a site and photocopying documents, and prevented Iraqi personnel from answering UNSCOM's questions.

- Prior to the inspection of another site, Iraq actually emptied out the building, removing not just documents, but even the furniture and the equipment. Iraq has failed to turn over virtually all the documents requested by the inspectors; indeed, we know that Iraq ordered the destruction of weapons related documents in anticipation of an UNSCOM inspection.

So Iraq has abused its final chance. As the UNSCOM report concludes -- and again I quote -- "Iraq's conduct ensured that no progress was able to be made in the fields of disarmament. In light of this experience, and in the absence of full cooperation by Iraq, it must, regrettably, be recorded again that the Commission is not able to conduct the work mandated to it by the Security Council with respect to Iraq's prohibited weapons program." In short, the inspectors are saying that, even if they could stay in Iraq, their work would be a sham. Saddam's deception has defeated their effectiveness. Instead of the inspectors disarming Saddam, Saddam has disarmed the inspectors.

This situation presents a clear and present danger to the stability of the Persian Gulf and the safety of people everywhere. The international community gave Saddam one last chance to resume cooperation with the weapons inspectors. Saddam has failed to seize the chance. And so we had to act, and act now. Let me explain why.

First, without a strong inspections system, Iraq would be free to retain and begin to rebuild its chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons programs in months, not years.

Second, if Saddam can cripple the weapons inspections system and get away with it, he would conclude that the international community, led by the United States, has simply lost its will. He will surmise that he has free rein to rebuild his arsenal of destruction. And some day, make no mistake, he will use it again, as he has in the past.

Third, in halting our air strikes in November, I gave Saddam a chance, not a license. If we turn our backs on his defiance, the credibility of U.S. power as a check against Saddam will be destroyed. We will not only have allowed Saddam to shatter the inspections system that controls his weapons of mass destruction program, we also will have fatally undercut the fear of force that stops Saddam from acting to gain domination in the region.

That is why, on the unanimous recommendation of my national security team, including the Vice President, Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of State, and the National Security Advisor, I have ordered a strong, sustained series of air strikes against Iraq. They are designed to degrade Saddam's capacity to develop and deliver weapons of mass destruction, and to degrade his ability to threaten his neighbors. At the same time, we're delivering a powerful message to Saddam: If you act recklessly, you will pay a heavy price.

We acted today because, in the judgment of my military advisors, a swift response would provide the most surprise and the least opportunity for Saddam to prepare. If we had delayed for even a matter of days from Chairman Butler's report, we would have given Saddam more time to disperse his forces and protect his weapons.

Also, the Muslim holy month of Ramadan begins this weekend. For us to initiate military action during Ramadan would be profoundly offensive to the Muslim world, and therefore, would damage our relations with Arab countries and the progress we have made in the Middle East. That is something we wanted very much to avoid without giving Iraq a month's head start to prepare for potential action against it.

Finally, our allies, including Prime Minister Tony Blair of Great Britain, concurred that now is the time to strike.

I hope Saddam will come into cooperation with the inspection system now and comply with the relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions. But we have to be prepared that he will not, and we must deal with the very real danger he poses. So we will pursue a long-term strategy to contain Iraq and its weapons of mass destruction, and work toward the day when Iraq has a government worthy of its people.

First, we must be prepared to use force again if Saddam takes threatening actions, such as trying to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction or their delivery systems, threatening his neighbors, challenging... challenging allied aircraft over Iraq, or moving against his own Kurdish citizens. The credible threat to use force and, when necessary, the actual use of force, is the surest way to contain Saddam's weapons of mass destruction program, curtail his aggression and prevent another Gulf War.

Second, so long as Iraq remains out of compliance, we will work with the international community to maintain and enforce economic sanctions. Sanctions have caused Saddam more than 120 billion dollars -- resources that would have been used to rebuild his military. The sanctions system allows Iraq to sell oil for food, for medicine, for other humanitarian supplies for the Iraqi people. We have no quarrel with them. But without the sanctions, we would see the oil-for-food program become oil-for-tanks, resulting in a greater threat to Iraq's neighbors and less food for its people.

The hard fact is that so long as Saddam remains in power, he threatens the well-being of his people, the peace of his region, the security of the world. The best way to end that threat once and for all is with the new Iraqi government, a government ready to live in peace with its neighbors, a government that respects the rights of its people. Bringing change in Baghdad will take time and effort. We will strengthen our engagement with the full range of Iraqi opposition forces and work with them effectively and prudently.

The decision to use force is never cost-free. Whenever American forces are placed in harm's way, we risk the loss of life. And while our strikes are focused on Iraq's military capabilities, there will be unintended Iraqi casualties. Indeed, in the past, Saddam has intentionally placed Iraqi civilians in harm's way in a cynical bid to sway international opinion. We must be prepared for these realities. At the same time, Saddam should have absolutely no doubt: If he lashes out at his neighbors, we will respond forcefully.

Heavy as they are, the costs of action must be weighed against the price of inaction. If Saddam defies the world and we fail to respond, we will face a far greater threat in the future. Saddam will strike again at his neighbors; he will make war on his own people. And mark my words, he will develop weapons of mass destruction. He will deploy them, and he will use them. Because we're acting today, it is less likely that we will face these dangers in the future.

Let me close by addressing one other issue. Saddam Hussein and the other enemies of peace may have thought that the serious debate currently before the House of Representatives would distract Americans or weaken our resolve to face him down. But once more, the United States has proven that, although we are never eager to use force, when we must act in America's vital interests, we will do so.

In the century we're leaving, America has often made the difference between chaos and community, fear and hope. Now, in a new century, we'll have a remarkable opportunity to shape a future more peaceful than the past -- but only if we stand strong against the enemies of peace. Tonight, the United States is doing just that.

May God bless and protect the brave men and women who are carrying out this vital mission, and their families. And may God bless America.

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Video Source: Linked directly to www.pbs.org

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/tombrokawemorycommencement.htm

Thank you all very much, especially those of you who are graduating. But as a parent, let me say to those of you who are gathered around the perimeter of this felicitous setting: Remember that today you're not just gaining a college graduate in your family; you're regaining a checking account.

I'm very happy to come back to Atlanta. It was one of the most important stops in my career. I was a young man working in Omaha, Nebraska in the mid 1960s when I received a call, and I was summoned to Atlanta to work at WSB. It was, for me, the beginning of a real education about the South.

Now there were some things that I had to learn once I got here. I had to learn it was not Ponce de Leon, it was "Ponce de Lee-on." I had to learn that it was "Howston," not Houston. I had to learn to say "hey," not "hi." I had to learn to love biscuits and gravy and butterbeans with a little fatback. I especially learned to love chili dogs at The Varsity. But I never found a taste for boiled peanuts in all the time that I was here. Most of all I came to appreciate and love the many layers of this rich culture in the Southeastern part of the United States, and especially this city, because I was witness, first hand, to the defining moral of our time, the struggle for civil rights.

And when people ask me now about my most memorable moments in a broadcasting career, I often refer to those days in the dark of night in America, in Selma, in Haneyville, Alabama and other places where there was a great conflict between those people who were determined to keep the old ways and those people who were determined to have the rule of law in America apply to people of all colors. The great courage that I saw then stays with me now.

So much has changed. When I was living here, Peach Tree and Sweet Auburn were really separate universes. But people of goodwill were determined to advance the great cause of civil rights and the great cause of this great city and all of its institutions, including Emory. The struggle is not over. We are doing much better, but as you leave here today you must keep that rich heritage in your mind as well.

Let me also say to the graduates that it's a great pleasure for me to be standing before this graduating class. In recent years, I've delivered Class Day or commencement addresses at Yale, Harvard, and Duke. And it's a relief to come here, because at those institutions I had to speak much more slowly and use much shorter words than I will have to here today.

And I know, as well, that southern hospitality is alive and well. Before I came down here I was invited to spend the night at the Pi Kappa Alpha House. But I wandered the campus last night: Has anyone seen the "Pikes"? I don't know what happened to them here in the course of the last year.

Take a moment and take in this setting. This is the realization of the American Dream. These cherished ceremonies are, for me, annual rituals of renewal. I come to these academies across America with a sense of awe, humility, and envy -- awe, that the American Dream is so fully realized in these environs, where the working class and the privileged mingle in common pursuit of learning and advancement, where immigrants, fresh from foreign lands, had equal claim to economic opportunity and rule of law in our great system. And, if they choose, they have the privilege of taking their newfound skills back home.

I'm also humbled by the sacrifices of so many who have helped you to this promising place in your lives, your family, your teachers, and some that you may not have considered this moment. There are, as we gather here, young men and women in uniform, in harm's way, in far off places, who are dedicating their lives to your security and you must remember them, as well, on this occasion.

I'm also envious of what you carry from here. More than the degree or honors, what you will come to treasure are the friendships and the fellowship, some of which will accompany you the rest of your years. I envy you the experience of exploring new frontiers of knowledge, while rediscovering the ancient truths. Most of all, I envy you the road ahead, the 21st century with its transformational technology, emerging democracies, developing economies, shifting power centers, and yes, cultural conflicts demanding great attention.

These are the themes of commencement speeches across the broad spectrum of campuses this spring, and I am fully prepared to expand on them momentarily. But first, I am compelled to offer somewhat lofty -- somewhat less lofty, but useful observations. You have been hearing all of your life that this occasion is a big step into what is called the real world. "What," you may ask, "is that real world all about?" "What is this new life?" Ladies and gentlemen of the class of 2005 at Emory, real life is not college; real life is not high school. Here is a secret that no one has told you: Real life is junior high.

The world that you're about to enter is filled with junior high adolescent pettiness, pubescent rivalries, the insecurities of 13-year-olds, and the false bravado of 14-year-olds. 40 years from now, I guarantee it: You will still make a silly mistake every day. You will have temper tantrums and you're feelings will be hurt for some trivial sleight. You'll say something dumb at the wrong time. And you will wonder at least once a week, "Will I ever grow up?" You can change that. In your pursuit of your passions, always be young. In your relationship with others, always be grown-up. Set a standard, and stay faithful to it.

In this new life, you'll also have to think about money in a new way. Life, after all, is not an ATM. Now you have to earn the money. Think about how you can hang on to some of it, and if you're fortunate use the money that is beyond what you need to save a life, to save a neighborhood, to save the world.

You may be -- may be surprised to learn that it is that use of money that is the most satisfying and gratifying. In our family, where we began with no money, we like to say that we have discovered that God invented money so those who have it can help others. Moreover, while money helps, it is discounted, somehow, if it doesn't carry your full personal value and commitment.

A few years ago in a ceremony similar to this, I declared, "It's easy to make a buck, but it's tough to make a difference." A father of one of the graduates, a Wall Street success, wrote to me suggesting a rewrite of that line. He said, "It's tough to make a buck, but if you make a lot of bucks you can make a hell of a difference." A or B? You decide because there is no wrong answer.

But before you get to that, let's assign your class a marker and explore the consequences. The marker, of course, is 9-11, the terrorists attack on America, the worst single, physical assault in this nation's history. You are the class of 9-11. You have the dizzying experience of entering college as your country was beginning a shooting war, as a clash of cultures and ideals was altering political, and economic, and spiritual landscapes far beyond these sleepy environments.

You found sanctuary here in the comforting certainty that if you played by the rules, this important passage in your life would be successfully completed in four years. Alas, there is not a comparable orderliness about the other passage, the rough ride as a result of the horrific events of 9-11.

We are still working our way across open water, forced to navigate by the stars, as the old navigational charts are of little use to us. Our destination remains uncertain. Some seas have been rougher than expected. Certain forecasts proved to be perilously wrong. And unexpected currents keep pushing us closer to dangerous shoals. Our direction is not of our choosing. It is time, as they say at sea, for all hands to be on deck, for this is a common journey and it requires a common effort and a collective wisdom of the crew and passengers alike.

Your individual dreams and plans will be seriously compromised if the ship of state is allowed to drift or steer a hazardous course. We cannot pretend that simply because there has not been another 9-11 that the world is as it once was. We are not near the end of this epic struggle between the Western ideal of the rule of law, tolerance, pluralism, and modernity, and, the advocates of a crazed vision of Islam.

We cannot wish away the complex set of conditions that fuel a rage across a broad band of the globe, where too many young men and young women your age are caught in a cross-fire of claims on their faith -- and another way of life playing out on the ever-wider screens that reflect the images of a world that they don't understand, of unveiled women and material excess, secular joy, disconnected from their lives of deprivation and uncertainty.

They don't represent the whole world of Islam, but they represent a great band of Islam. They are not incidental to the world that you are entering. They are the fastest growing population in an already over- crowded part of the world, where self-determination is at best a work in progress, or at best a faint rumor, or a distant promise. For most of the 20th century Christianity represented 30 percent of the world's population, and Islam represented about 20 percent -- in the closing days. By the year 2025, those numbers will change.

Many of those young people -- and I have encountered them in Afghanistan, and Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia, the universities in Bagdad, in Indonesia -- understand our culture and speak our language, but to them, we show no interest in returning the favor. So many of them love the idea of America, but hate our government, envy our freedoms, and deeply resent what they see as our sense of entitlement. The worst among them had to be punished, and the fight goes on, but no army can conquer them all or force them all to change.

So as you leave here in pursuit of your dreams, try to imagine their dreams. Stand tall. Don't apologize for what you have or what you believe in, but get to know what they don't have and why. Take the lead in establishing a common ground between generations, a common ground of appreciation and understanding, a shared destiny of self-determination and economic opportunity. See the ancient Arab culture as something much more than just a pipeline from their natural riches to our insatiable appetite for energy.

This is a place to begin, but fair warning: It will be hard work, challenging, stimulating, frustrating, and hard. For this common ground cannot be found in a piece of software on your laptop computer. It is not hidden in the settings on your toolbar. There is no delete button for intolerance, no insert button for understanding. This new technology that defines your generation is a transformational tool, but, as a tool, really it's only an extension of your head and your heart.¹

It will do us little good to wire the world if we limit our vision.

It will do us little good to wire the world if we short-circuit our souls.

No, the world still requires, everyday, personal, hands-on, be-brave, speak-out individual courage.

We, as the most powerful political, military, and industrial super-power ever imagined, requires citizens, more than ever, who understand that "patriotism" means to love your country, but always believe that it can be improved -- and that improvement comes not exclusively from the Left or the Right, but much more often from the Center, from the arena of public debate and participation, where ideology always has a place, but where ideological bullies must be confronted. If we present ourselves to the world as the patrons of democracy and the oxygen that it requires -- free speech without fear of punishment -- then we must be the vigilant stewards of it at home as well.

We have another obligation. It will do us little good to export democracy and economic opportunity, to use our military power wisely and efficiently, to nurture tolerance and cross-cultural appreciation if we wind up at the end of they day on a dead planet. Mindless consumption of the basic resources of this precious place we inhabit is a form of blasphemy and suicide -- nothing less.

In my generation, we have been witness to the power of awareness of an environmental consciousness and the modest triumphs of renewal, but we continue to lose -- lose ground and clean water, creatures large and small at an alarming rate everyday. Slowing the destruction and reversing the damage does not require sackcloth and hobbit huts, but it does require imagination and temperance. It does require a re-definition of convenience and need. It does require you and all the rest of us to love our mother -- Mother Earth -- and live our lives in a manner that will allow future generations to know her succor and wonder.

Let me conclude by briefly sharing with you another generation of young Americans. Sixty years ago this spring and summer they were beginning to return home to restart their lives after more than a dozen years of brutal deprivation, sacrifice, separation, death, and grievous wounds. Sixty years ago, Nazi Germany and imperial Japan were defeated in a great war by these young men and women your age and their allies -- in a war that has been described by the British military historian John Keegan as the greatest single event in the history of mankind.

These young Americans had come of age in the Great Depression, when life was about deprivation and sharing -- sharing clothing, and shoes, and food, and jobs, and what little money a family could muster. Children dropped out of school in the eighth grade, not to buy a 110-dollar pair of sneakers, but to put food on the table, or to pay for medical care for their mothers and fathers.

Ragged bands of hungry men rode the rails, looking for any kind of work. Families left their dried up family farms for hard labor in California; city kids slept four to a room in a walk-up apartment. Banks failed and hope had to be renewed every 24 hours. And just as these young people, your age and younger, were beginning to emerge from those dark and difficult days, they were summoned to the great cause of defeating Nazi Germany and imperial Japan.

These young men and their families answered the call with alacrity. In 1938, America had been the 16th military power in the world. But overnight, we stopped the production of civilian vehicles and began the production of tanks, and war planes, and heavy bombers that were drawn by night and produced by day. Young men went from being bellhops in Rochester, Minnesota to flying multi-engine bombers in nine months. City kids went to sea. And everywhere in America everyone joined in by making one kind of a sacrifice or another.

And when they answered that call, they were forced to fight their way across North Africa, the deadly beaches of France and Italy, in the freezing winters of central Europe, in the searing heat of little-known islands across the South Pacific. On all the seas and all the skies, day in and day out, they fought bloody, face-to-face battles of unspeakable cruelty and death.

At home, farmers grew more food and civilians ate less so the soldiers could be well-fed. Young wives and children didn’t see their husbands or fathers, or hear from them, for months at a time, if ever again. Women left the house and put on overalls and work boots and hard hats and carried lunchboxes and went onto the assembly lines.

When that great war was over, when the terrible, hateful evils of the Third Reich and imperial Japan had been defeated, this generation of Americans, your age, returned to their homes or established new communities. They went to college in record numbers and they married in record numbers. They gave us new laws expanding the freedoms of those who had been left behind too long.

They did something that ever [never] been done in the history of warfare. They rebuilt their enemies. They gave us new art, new science, and new industries. They gave us great institutions like the one that you enjoy here today. They gave us no less than the lives that we have in this country now.

They did not lay down their arms and say as they could’ve, “I’ve done my share.” Instead, they came home and became immersed in their communities and their churches and their schools. They ran for political office, for mayor, and for governor, and for Congress, and for the Senate, and for the Presidency. They formed service clubs and they never gave up on the idea of "common cause" and their role in it.

Some are here today in their distinctive gold robes. They're looking on with pride and humility at the promise of your generation -- the opportunities available to you that would have been unimaginable to them. I call them, "The Greatest Generation." They asked so little of us, and yet we owe them so much.

Remember them as you leave here.

Remember how they rose as one to meet far greater challenges than we face today.

Remember them, as you put the mark of greatness on your generation.

Good luck and Godspeed.

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/stokelycarmichaelblackpower.html 

Thank you very much. It’s a privilege and an honor to be in the white intellectual ghetto of the West. We wanted to do a couple of things before we started. The first is that, based on the fact that SNCC, through the articulation of its program by its chairman, has been able to win elections in Georgia, Alabama, Maryland, and by our appearance here will win an election in California, in 1968 I'm going to run for President of the United States. I just can't make it, 'cause I wasn't born in the United States. That's the only thing holding me back.

We wanted to say that this is a student conference, as it should be, held on a campus, and that we're not ever to be caught up in the intellectual masturbation of the question of Black Power. That’s a function of people who are advertisers that call themselves reporters. Oh, for my members and friends of the press, my self-appointed white critics, I was reading Mr. Bernard Shaw two days ago, and I came across a very important quote which I think is most apropos for you. He says, "All criticism is a[n] autobiography." Dig yourself. Okay.

The philosophers Camus and Sartre raise the question whether or not a man can condemn himself. The black existentialist philosopher who is pragmatic, Frantz Fanon, answered the question. He said that man could not. Camus and Sartre was not. We in SNCC tend to agree with Camus and Sartre, that a man cannot condemn himself.¹ Were he to condemn himself, he would then have to inflict punishment upon himself. An example would be the Nazis. Any prisoner who -- any of the Nazi prisoners who admitted, after he was caught and incarcerated, that he committed crimes, that he killed all the many people that he killed, he committed suicide. The only ones who were able to stay alive were the ones who never admitted that they committed a crimes [sic] against people -- that is, the ones who rationalized that Jews were not human beings and deserved to be killed, or that they were only following orders.

On a more immediate scene, the officials and the population -- the white population -- in Neshoba County, Mississippi  -- that’s where Philadelphia is -- could not -- could not condemn [Sheriff] Rainey, his deputies, and the other fourteen men that killed three human beings. They could not because they elected Mr. Rainey to do precisely what he did; and that for them to condemn him will be for them to condem themselves.

In a much larger view, SNCC says that white America cannot condemn herself. And since we are liberal, we have done it: You stand condemned. Now, a number of things that arises from that answer of how do you condemn yourselves. Seems to me that the institutions that function in this country are clearly racist, and that they're built upon racism. And the question, then, is how can black people inside of this country move? And then how can white people who say they’re not a part of those institutions begin to move? And how then do we begin to clear away the obstacles that we have in this society, that make us live like human beings? How can we begin to build institutions that will allow people to relate with each other as human beings? This country has never done that, especially around the country of white or black.

Now, several people have been upset because we’ve said that integration was irrelevant when initiated by blacks, and that in fact it was a subterfuge, an insidious subterfuge, for the maintenance of white supremacy. Now we maintain that in the past six years or so, this country has been feeding us a "thalidomide drug of integration," and that some negroes have been walking down a dream street talking about sitting next to white people; and that that does not begin to solve the problem; that when we went to Mississippi we did not go to sit next to Ross Barnett²; we did not go to sit next to Jim Clark³; we went to get them out of our way; and that people ought to understand that; that we were never fighting for the right to integrate, we were fighting against white supremacy.

Now, then, in order to understand white supremacy we must dismiss the fallacious notion that white people can give anybody their freedom. No man can given anybody his freedom. A man is born free. You may enslave a man after he is born free, and that is in fact what this country does. It enslaves black people after they’re born, so that the only acts that white people can do is to stop denying black people their freedom; that is, they must stop denying freedom. They never give it to anyone.

Now we want to take that to its logical extension, so that we could understand, then, what its relevancy would be in terms of new civil rights bills. I maintain that every civil rights bill in this country was passed for white people, not for black people. For example, I am black. I know that. I also know that while I am black I am a human being, and therefore I have the right to go into any public place. White people didn't know that.Every time I tried to go into a place they stopped me. So some boys had to write a bill to tell that white man, "He’s a human being; don’t stop him." That bill was for that white man, not for me. I knew it all the time. I knew it all the time.

I knew that I could vote and that that wasn’t a privilege; it was my right. Every time I tried I was shot, killed or jailed, beaten or economically deprived. So somebody had to write a bill for white people to tell them, "When a black man comes to vote, don’t bother him." That bill, again, was for white people, not for black people; so that when you talk about open occupancy, I know I can live anyplace I want to live. It is white people across this country who are incapable of allowing me to live where I want to live. You need a civil rights bill, not me. I know I can live where I want to live.

So that the failures to pass a civil rights bill isn’t because of Black Power, isn't because of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; it's not because of the rebellions that are occurring in the major cities. It is incapability of whites to deal with their own problems inside their own communities. That is the problem of the failure of the civil rights bill.

And so in a larger sense we must then ask, How is it that black people move? And what do we do? But the question in a greater sense is, How can white people who are the majority -- and who are responsible for making democracy work -- make it work? They have miserably failed to this point. They have never made democracy work, be it inside the United States, Vietnam, South Africa, Philippines, South America, Puerto Rico. Wherever American has been, she has not been able to make democracy work; so that in a larger sense, we not only condemn the country for what it's done internally, but we must condemn it for what it does externally. We see this country trying to rule the world, and someone must stand up and start articulating that this country is not God, and cannot rule the world.

Now, then, before we move on we ought to develop the white supremacy attitudes that were either conscious or subconscious thought and how they run rampant through the society today. For example, the missionaries were sent to Africa. They went with the attitude that blacks were automatically inferior. As a matter of fact, the first act the missionaries did, you know, when they got to Africa was to make us cover up our bodies, because they said it got them excited. We couldn’t go bare-breasted any more because they got excited.

Now when the missionaries came to civilize us because we were uncivilized, educate us because we were uneducated, and give us some -- some literate studies because we were illiterate, they charged a price. The missionaries came with the Bible, and we had the land. When they left, they had the land, and we still have the Bible. And that has been the rationalization for Western civilization as it moves across the world and stealing and plundering and raping everybody in its path. Their one rationalization is that the rest of the world is uncivilized and they are in fact civilized. And they are un-civil-ized.

And that runs on today, you see, because what we have today is we have what we call "modern-day Peace Corps missionaries," and they come into our ghettos and they Head Start, Upward Lift, Bootstrap, and Upward Bound us into white society, 'cause they don’t want to face the real problem which is a man is poor for one reason and one reason only: 'cause he does not have money -- period. If you want to get rid of poverty, you give people money -- period.

And you ought not to tell me about people who don’t work, and you can’t give people money without working, 'cause if that were true, you’d have to start stopping Rockefeller, Bobby Kennedy, Lyndon Baines Johnson, Lady Bird Johnson, the whole of Standard Oil, the Gulf Corp, all of them, including probably a large number of the Board of Trustees of this university. So the question, then, clearly, is not whether or not one can work; it’s Who has power? Who has power to make his or her acts legitimate? That is all. And that this country, that power is invested in the hands of white people, and they make their acts legitimate. It is now, therefore, for black people to make our acts legitimate.

Now we are now engaged in a psychological struggle in this country, and that is whether or not black people will have the right to use the words they want to use without white people giving their sanction to it; and that we maintain, whether they like it or not, we gonna use the word "Black Power" -- and let them address themselves to that; but that we are not going to wait for white people to sanction Black Power. We’re tired waiting; every time black people move in this country, they’re forced to defend their position before they move. It’s time that the people who are supposed to be defending their position do that. That's white people. They ought to start defending themselves as to why they have oppressed and exploited us.

Now it is clear that when this country started to move in terms of slavery, the reason for a man being picked as a slave was one reason -- because of the color of his skin. If one was black one was automatically inferior, inhuman, and therefore fit for slavery. So that the question of whether or not we are individually suppressed is nonsensical, and it’s a downright lie. We are oppressed as a group because we are black, not because we are lazy, not because we're apathetic, not because we’re stupid, not because we smell, not because we eat watermelon and have good rhythm. We are oppressed because we are black.

And in order to get out of that oppression one must wield the group power that one has, not the individual power which this country then sets the criteria under which a man may come into it. That is what is called in this country as integration: "You do what I tell you to do and then we’ll let you sit at the table with us." And that we are saying that we have to be opposed to that. We must now set up criteria and that if there's going to be any integration, it's going to be a two-way thing. If you believe in integration, you can come live in Watts. You can send your children to the ghetto schools. Let’s talk about that. If you believe in integration, then we’re going to start adopting us some white people to live in our neighborhood.

So it is clear that the question is not one of integration or segregation. Integration is a man's ability to want to move in there by himself. If someone wants to live in a white neighborhood and he is black, that is his choice. It should be his rights. It is not because white people will not allow him. So vice versa: If a black man wants to live in the slums, that should be his right. Black people will let him. That is the difference. And it's a difference on which this country makes a number of logical when they begin to try to criticize the program articulated by SNCC.

Now we maintain that we cannot be afford to be concerned about 6 percent of the children in this country, black children, who you allow to come into white schools. We have 94 percent who still live in shacks. We are going to be concerned about those 94 percent. You ought to be concerned about them too. The question is, Are we willing to be concerned about those 94 percent? Are we willing to be concerned about the black people who will never get to Berkeley, who will never get to Harvard, and cannot get an education, so you’ll never get a chance to rub shoulders with them and say, "Well, he’s almost as good as we are; he’s not like the others"? The question is, How can white society begin to move to see black people as human beings? I am black, therefore I am; not that I am black and I must go to college to prove myself. I am black, therefore I am. And don’t deprive me of anything and say to me that you must go to college before you gain access to X, Y, and Z. It is only a rationalization for one's oppression.

The -- The political parties in this country do not meet the needs of people on a day-to-day basis. The question is, How can we build new political institutions that will become the political expressions of people on a day-to-day basis? The question is, How can you build political institutions that will begin to meet the needs of Oakland, California? And the needs of Oakland, California, is not 1,000 policemen with submachine guns. They don't need that. They need that least of all. The question is, How can we build institutions where those people can begin to function on a day-to-day basis, where they can get decent jobs, where they can get decent houses, and where they can begin to participate in the policy and major decisions that affect their lives? That’s what they need, not Gestapo troops, because this is not 1942, and if you play like Nazis, we playing back with you this time around. Get hip to that.

The question then is, How can white people move to start making the major institutions that they have in this country function the way it is supposed to function? That is the real question. And can white people move inside their own community and start tearing down racism where in fact it does exist? Where it exists. It is you who live in Cicero and stop us from living there. It is white people who stop us from moving into Grenada. It is white people who make sure that we live in the ghettos of this country. it is white institutions that do that. They must change. In order -- In order for America to really live on a basic principle of human relationships, a new society must be born. Racism must die, and the economic exploitation of this country of non-white peoples around the world must also die -- must also die.

Now there are several programs that we have in the South, most in poor white communities. We're trying to organize poor whites on a base where they can begin to move around the question of economic exploitation and political disfranchisement. We know -- we've heard the theory several times -- but few people are willing to go into there. The question is, Can the white activist not try to be a Pepsi generation who comes alive in the black community, but can he be a man who’s willing to move into the white community and start organizing where the organization is needed? Can he do that? The question is, Can the white society or the white activist disassociate himself with two clowns who waste time parrying with each other rather than talking about the problems that are facing people in this state? Can you dissociate yourself with those clowns and start to build new institutions that will eliminate all idiots like them.

And the question is, If we are going to do that when and where do we start, and how do we start? We maintain that we must start doing that inside the white community. Our own personal position politically is that we don't think the Democratic Party represents the needs of black people. We know it don't. And that if, in fact, white people really believe that, the question is, if they’re going to move inside that structure, how are they going to organize around a concept of whiteness based on true brotherhood and based on stopping exploitation, economic exploitation, so that there will be a coalition base for black people to hook up with? You cannot form a coalition based on national sentiment. That is not a coalition. If you need a coalition to redress itself to real changes in this country, white people must start building those institutions inside the white community. And that is the real question, I think, facing the white activists today. Can they, in fact, begin to move into and tear down the institutions which have put us all in a trick bag that we’ve been into for the last hundred years?

I don't think that we should follow what many people say that we should fight to be leaders of tomorrow. Frederick Douglass said that the youth should fight to be leaders today. And God knows we need to be leaders today, 'cause the men who run this country are sick, are sick. So that can we on a larger sense begin now, today, to start building those institutions and to fight to articulate our position, to fight to be able to control our universities -- We need to be able to do that -- and to fight to control the basic institutions which perpetuate racism by destroying them and building new ones? That’s the real question that face us today, and it is a dilemma because most of us do not know how to work, and that the excuse that most white activists find is to run into the black community.

Now we maintain that we cannot have white people working in the black community, and we mean it on a psychological ground. The fact is that all black people often question whether or not they are equal to whites, because every time they start to do something, white people are around showing them how to do it. If we are going to eliminate that for the generation that comes after us, then black people must be seen in positions of power, doing and articulating for themselves, for themselves.

That is not to say that one is a reverse racist; it is to say that one is moving in a healthy ground; it is to say what the philosopher Sartre says: One is becoming an "antiracist racist." And this country can’t understand that. Maybe it's because it's all caught up in racism. But I think what you have in SNCC is an anti-racist racism. We are against racists. Now if everybody who is white see themself as a racist and then see us against him, they're speaking from their own guilt position, not ours, not ours.

Now then, the question is, How can we move to begin to change what's going on in this country. I maintain, as we have in SNCC, that the war in Vietnam is an illegal and immoral war. And the question is, What can we do to stop that war? What can we do to stop the people who, in the name of our country, are killing babies, women, and children? What can we do to stop that? And I maintain that we do not have the power in our hands to change that institution, to begin to recreate it, so that they learn to leave the Vietnamese people alone, and that the only power we have is the power to say, "Hell no!" to the draft.

We have to say -- We have to say to ourselves that there is a higher law than the law of a racist named McNamara. There is a higher law than the law of a fool named Rusk. And there's a higher law than the law of a buffoon named Johnson. It’s the law of each of us. It's the law of each of us. It is the law of each of us saying that we will not allow them to make us hired killers. We will stand pat. We will not kill anybody that they say kill. And if we decide to kill, we're going to decide who we going to kill. And this country will only be able to stop the war in Vietnam when the young men who are made to fight it begin to say, "Hell, no, we ain’t going."

Now then, there's a failure because the Peace Movement has been unable to get off the college campuses where everybody has a 2S and not going to get drafted anyway. And the question is, How can you move out of that into the white ghettos of this country and begin to articulate a position for those white students who do not want to go. We cannot do that. It is something -- sometimes ironic that many of the peace groups have beginning to call us violent and say they can no longer support us, and we are in fact the most militant organization [for] peace or civil rights or human rights against the war in Vietnam in this country today. There isn’t one organization that has begun to meet our stance on the war in Vietnam, 'cause we not only say we are against the war in Vietnam; we are against the draft. We are against the draft. No man has the right to take a man for two years and train him to be a killer. A man should decide what he wants to do with his life.

So the question then is it becomes crystal clear for black people because we can easily say that anyone fighting in the war in Vietnam is nothing but a black mercenary, and that's all he is. Any time a black man leaves the country where he can’t vote to supposedly deliver the vote for somebody else, he’s a black mercenary. Any time a -- Any time a black man leaves this country, gets shot in Vietnam on foreign ground, and returns home and you won’t give him a burial in his own homeland, he’s a black mercenary, a black mercenary.

And that even if I were to believe the lies of Johnson, if I were to believe his lies that we're fighting to give democracy to the people in Vietnam, as a black man living in this country I wouldn’t fight to give this to anybody. I wouldn't give it to anybody. So that we have to use our bodies and our minds in the only way that we see fit. We must begin like the philosopher Camus to come alive by saying "No!" That is the only act in which we begin to come alive, and we have to say "No!" to many, many things in this country.

This country is a nation of thieves. It has stole everything it has, beginning with black people, beginning with black people. And that the question is, How can we move to start changing this country from what it is -- a nation of thieves. This country cannot justify any longer its existence. We have become the policeman of the world. The marines are at our disposal to always bring democracy, and if the Vietnamese don’t want democracy, well dammit, "We’ll just wipe them the hell out, 'cause they don’t deserve to live if they won’t have our way of life."

There is then in a larger sense, What do you do on your university campus? Do you raise questions about the hundred black students who were kicked off campus a couple of weeks ago? Eight hundred? Eight hundred? And how does that question begin to move? Do you begin to relate to people outside of the ivory tower and university wall? Do you think you’re capable of building those human relationships, as the country now stands? You're fooling yourself. It is impossible for white and black people to talk about building a relationship based on humanity when the country is the way it is, when the institutions are clearly against us.

We have taken all the myths of this country and we've found them to be nothing but downright lies. This country told us that if we worked hard we would succeed, and if that were true we would own this country lock, stock, and barrel -- lock, stock, and barrel -- lock, stock, and barrel. It is we who have picked the cotton for nothing. It is we who are the maids in the kitchens of liberal white people. It is we who are the janitors, the porters, the elevator men; we who sweep up your college floors. Yes, it is we who are the hardest workers and the lowest paid, and the lowest paid. 

And that it is nonsensical for people to start talking about human relationships until they're willing to build new institutions. Black people are economically insecure. White liberals are economically secure. Can you begin to build an economic coalition? Are the liberals willing to share their salaries with the economically insecure black people they so much love? Then if you’re not, are you willing to start building new institutions that will provide economic security for black people? That’s the question we want to deal with. That's the question we want to deal with.

We have to seriously examine the histories that we have been told. But we have something more to do than that. American students are perhaps the most politically unsophisticated students in the world, in the world, in the world. Across every country in this world, while we were growing up, students were leading the major revolutions of their countries. We have not been able to do that. They have been politically aware of their existence. In South America our neighbors down below the border have one every 24 hours just to remind us that they're politically aware.

And we have been unable to grasp it because we’ve always moved in the field of morality and love while people have been politically jiving with our lives. And the question is, How do we now move politically and stop trying to move morally? You can't move morally against a man like Brown and Reagan. You've got to move politically to put them out of business. You've got to move politically.

You can’t move morally against Lyndon Baines Johnson because he is an immoral man. He doesn’t know what it’s all about. So you’ve got to move politically. You've got to move politically. And that we have to begin to develop a political sophistication -- which is not to be a parrot: "The two-party system is the best party in the world." There is a difference between being a parrot and being politically sophisticated.

We have to raise questions about whether or not we do need new types of political institutions in this country, and we in SNCC maintain that we need them now. We need new political institutions in this country. Any time -- Any time Lyndon Baines Johnson can head a Party which has in it Bobby Kennedy, Wayne Morse, Eastland, Wallace, and all those other supposed-to-be-liberal cats, there’s something wrong with that Party. They’re moving politically, not morally. And that if that party refuses to seat black people from Mississippi and goes ahead and seats racists like Eastland and his clique, it is clear to me that they’re moving politically, and that one cannot begin to talk morality to people like that.

We must begin to think politically and see if we can have the power to impose and keep the moral values that we hold high. We must question the values of this society, and I maintain that black people are the best people to do that because we have been excluded from that society. And the question is, we ought to think whether or not we want to become a part of that society. That's what we want to do.

And that that is precisely what it seems to me that the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee is doing. We are raising questions about this country. I do not want to be a part of the American pie. The American pie means raping South Africa, beating Vietnam, beating South America, raping the Philippines, raping every country you’ve been in. I don’t want any of your blood money. I don’t want it -- don't want to be part of that system. And the question is, How do we raise those questions? How do we ....How do we begin to raise them?

We have grown up and we are the generation that has found this country to be a world power, that has found this country to be the wealthiest country in the world. We must question how she got her wealth? That's what we're questioning, and whether or not we want this country to continue being the wealthiest country in the world at the price of raping every -- everybody else across the world. That's what we must begin to question. And that because black people are saying we do not now want to become a part of you, we are called reverse racists. Ain’t that a gas?

Now, then, we want to touch on nonviolence because we see that again as the failure of white society to make nonviolence work. I was always surprised at Quakers who came to Alabama and counseled me to be nonviolent, but didn’t have the guts to start talking to James Clark to be nonviolent. That is where nonviolence needs to be preached -- to Jim Clark, not to black people. They have already been nonviolent too many years. The question is, Can white people conduct their nonviolent schools in Cicero where they belong to be conducted, not among black people in Mississippi. Can they conduct it among the white people in Grenada?

Six-foot-two men who kick little black children -- can you conduct nonviolent schools there? That is the question that we must raise, not that you conduct nonviolence among black people. Can you name me one black man today who's killed anybody white and is still alive? Even after rebellion, when some black brothers throw some bricks and bottles, ten thousand of them has to pay the crime, 'cause when the white policeman comes in, anybody who’s black is arrested, "'cause we all look alike."

So that we have to raise those questions. We, the youth of this country, must begin to raise those questions. And we must begin to move to build new institutions that's going to speak to the needs of people who need it. We are going to have to speak to change the foreign policy of this country. One of the problems with the peace movement is that it's just too caught up in Vietnam, and that if we pulled out the troops from Vietnam this week, next week you’d have to get another peace movement for Santo Domingo. And the question is, How do you begin to articulate the need to change the foreign policy of this country -- a policy that is decided upon race, a policy on which decisions are made upon getting economic wealth at any price, at any price.

Now we articulate that we therefore have to hook up with black people around the world; and that that hookup is not only psychological, but becomes very real. If South America today were to rebel, and black people were to shoot the hell out of all the white people there -- as they should, as they should -- then Standard Oil would crumble tomorrow. If South Africa were to go today, Chase Manhattan Bank would crumble tomorrow. If Zimbabwe, which is called Rhodesia by white people, were to go tomorrow, General Electric would cave in on the East Coast. The question is, How do we stop those institutions that are so willing to fight against "Communist aggression" but closes their eyes to racist oppression? That is the question that you raise. Can this country do that?

Now, many people talk about pulling out of Vietnam. What will happen? If we pull out of Vietnam, there will be one less aggressor in there -- we won't be there, we won't be there. And so the question is, How do we articulate those positions? And we cannot begin to articulate them from the same assumptions that the people in the country speak, 'cause they speak from different assumptions than I assume what the youth in this country are talking about.

That we're not talking about a policy or aid or sending Peace Corps people in to teach people how to read and write and build houses while we steal their raw materials from them. Is that what we're talking about? 'Cause that’s all we do. What underdeveloped countries needs -- information on how to become industrialized, so they can keep their raw materials where they have it, produce them and sell it to this country for the price it’s supposed to pay; note that we produce it and sell it back to them for a profit and keep sending our modern day missionaries in, calling them the sons of Kennedy. And that if the youth are going to participate in that program, how do you raise those questions where you begin to control that Peace Corps program? How do you begin to raise them?

How do we raise the questions of poverty. The assumptions of this country is that if someone is poor, they are poor because of their own individual blight, or they weren’t born on the right side of town; they had too many children; they went in the army too early; or their father was a drunk, or they didn’t care about school, or they made a mistake. That’s a lot of nonsense. Poverty is well calculated in this country. It is well calculated, and the reason why the poverty program won’t work is because the calculators of poverty are administering it. That's why it won't work.

So how can we, as the youth in the country, move to start tearing those things down? We must move into the white community. We are in the black community. We have developed a movement in the black community. The challenge is that the white activist has failed miserably to develop the movement inside of his community. And the question is, Can we find white people who are going to have the courage to go into white communities and start organizing them? Can we find them? Are they here and are they willing to do that? Those are the questions that we must raise for the white activist.

And we're never going to get caught up in questions about power. This country knows what power is. It knows it very well. And it knows what Black Power is 'cause it deprived black people of it for 400 years. So it knows what Black Power is. That the question of, Why do black people -- Why do white people in this country associate Black Power with violence? And the question is because of their own inability to deal with "blackness." If we had said "Negro power" nobody would get scared. Everybody would support it. Or if we said power for colored people, everybody’d be for that, but it is the word "black" -- it is the word "black" that bothers people in this country, and that’s their problem, not mine -- they're problem, they're problem.

Now there's one modern day lie that we want to attack and then move on very quickly and that is the lie that says anything all black is bad. Now, you’re all a college university crowd. You’ve taken your basic logic course. You know about a major premise and minor premise. So people have been telling me anything all black is bad. Let’s make that our major premise.

Major premise: Anything all black is bad.

Minor premise or particular premise: I am all black.

Therefore...

I’m never going to be put in that trick bag; I am all black and I’m all good, dig it. Anything all black is not necessarily bad. Anything all black is only bad when you use force to keep whites out. Now that’s what white people have done in this country, and they’re projecting their same fears and guilt on us, and we won’t have it, we won't have it. Let them handle their own fears and their own guilt. Let them find their own psychologists. We refuse to be the therapy for white society any longer. We have gone mad trying to do it. We have gone stark raving mad trying to do it.

I look at Dr. King on television every single day, and I say to myself: "Now there is a man who’s desperately needed in this country. There is a man full of love. There is a man full of mercy. There is a man full of compassion." But every time I see Lyndon on television, I said, "Martin, baby, you got a long way to go."

So that the question stands as to what we are willing to do, how we are willing to say "No" to withdraw from that system and begin within our community to start to function and to build new institutions that will speak to our needs. In Lowndes County, we developed something called the Lowndes County Freedom Organization. It is a political party. The Alabama law says that if you have a Party you must have an emblem. We chose for the emblem a black panther, a beautiful black animal which symbolizes the strength and dignity of black people, an animal that never strikes back until he's back so far into the wall, he's got nothing to do but spring out. Yeah. And when he springs he does not stop.

Now there is a Party in Alabama called the Alabama Democratic Party. It is all white. It has as its emblem a white rooster and the words "white supremacy" for the write. Now the gentlemen of the Press, because they're advertisers, and because most of them are white, and because they're produced by that white institution, never called the Lowndes Country Freedom Organization by its name, but rather they call it the Black Panther Party. Our question is, Why don't they call the Alabama Democratic Party the "White Cock Party"? (It's fair to us.....) It is clear to me that that just points out America's problem with sex and color, not our problem, not our problem. And it is now white America that is going to deal with sex and color.

If we were to be real and to be honest, we would have to admit -- we would have to admit that most people in this country see things black and white. We have to do that. All of us do. We live in a country that’s geared that way. White people would have to admit that they are afraid to go into a black ghetto at night. They are afraid. That's a fact. They're afraid because they’d be "beat up," "lynched," "looted," "cut up," etcetera, etcetera. It happens to black people inside the ghetto every day, incidentally, and white people are afraid of that. So you get a man to do it for you -- a policeman. And now you figure his mentality, when he's afraid of black people. The first time a black man jumps, that white man going to shoot him. He's going to shoot him. So police brutality is going to exist on that level because of the incapability of that white man to see black people come together and  to live in the conditions. This country is too hypocritical and that we cannot adjust ourselves to its hypocrisy.

The only time I hear people talk about nonviolence is when black people move to defend themselves against white people. Black people cut themselves every night in the ghetto -- Don't anybody talk about nonviolence. Lyndon Baines Johnson is busy bombing the hell of out Vietnam -- Don't nobody talk about nonviolence. White people beat up black people every day -- Don't nobody talk about nonviolence. But as soon as black people start to move, the double standard comes into being.

You can’t defend yourself. That's what you're saying, 'cause you show me a man who -- who would advocate aggressive violence that would be able to live in this country. Show him to me. The double standards again come into itself. Isn’t it ludicrous and hypocritical for the political chameleon who calls himself a Vice President in this country to -- to stand up before this country and say, "Looting never got anybody anywhere"? Isn't it hypocritical for Lyndon to talk about looting, that you can’t accomplish anything by looting and you must accomplish it by the legal ways? What does he know about legality? Ask Ho Chi Minh, he'll tell you.

So that in conclusion we want to say that number one, it is clear to me that we have to wage a psychological battle on the right for black people to define their own terms, define themselves as they see fit, and organize themselves as they see it. Now the question is, How is the white community going to begin to allow for that organizing, because once they start to do that, they will also allow for the organizing that they want to do inside their community. It doesn’t make a difference, 'cause we’re going to organize our way anyway. We're going to do it. The question is, How are we going to facilitate those matters, whether it’s going to be done with a thousand policemen with submachine guns, or whether or not it’s going to be done in a context where it is allowed by white people warding off those policemen. That is the question.

And the question is, How are white people who call themselves activists ready to start move into the white communities on two counts: on building new political institutions to destroy the old ones that we have? And to move around the concept of white youth refusing to go into the army? So that we can start, then, to build a new world. It is ironic to talk about civilization in this country. This country is uncivilized. It needs to be civilized. It needs to be civilized.

And that we must begin to raise those questions of civilization: What it is? And who do it? And so we must urge you to fight now to be the leaders of today, not tomorrow. We've got to be the leaders of today. This country -- This country is a nation of thieves. It stands on the brink of becoming a nation of murderers. We must stop it. We must stop it. We must stop it. We must stop it.

And then, therefore, in a larger sense there' the question of black people. We are on the move for our liberation. We have been tired of trying to prove things to white people. We are tired of trying to explain to white people that we’re not going to hurt them. We are concerned with getting the things we want, the things that we have to have to be able to function. The question is, Can white people allow for that in this country? The question is, Will white people overcome their racism and allow for that to happen in this country? If that does not happen, brothers and sisters, we have no choice but to say very clearly, "Move over, or we’re going to move on over you."

Thank you.

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/stevelargenthalloffame.htm

Thank you. This is a very special moment, and it's made more special by each of you participating here this morning. And I want to thank you -- especially my family and friends who have made it very special for me.

But I also want to thank the former enshrinees seated to my right, and want you guys to know that from my heart that -- my career, players of my era, the players that play today -- we stood on your shoulders, and we thank you for what you've done in creating the greatest football game -- the greatest sport in the world. Thank you.

Thank each of you for the honor of this moment.

I want to share this honor equally with my wife, my best friend. Words could not possibly express, or adequately express, or time allow, to say "Thank you" to my wife, Terry. Thank you. You really have made every good thing possible in my life.

I also want to thank my children: Kyle and Casie and Kelly and Kramer -- that you guys are my most treasured possession, most valuable trophies in my life. Thank each of you.

You know, my most significant accomplishments have always come in the context of a team. And I also want to thank my teammates in victory and defeat, especially Jim Zorn and Dave Krieg, who are both here this afternoon.

But I also want to share with you, briefly this afternoon, the message of my life. My story, like so many others, is a story of mentors -- of people who challenged me when I questioned myself, of people who believed in me against all the evidence: my mother who never missed a game and never missed a practice -- in fact, she talked me out of quitting football when I was a sophomore in high school; my grandfather, who stepped into the gap when my folks were divorced; my coaches, Jerry Rhome, who rescued me off of the waiver wire in 1976; Steve Moore and Chuck Knox; Jerry Potter, my high school coach, who had the wisdom to demote me to wide receiver. They've taught me the game of football and the meaning of leadership. When I close my eyes, I can still hear their voices, hear their whistles. They still shape my character and my life.

I was one of those players, as you know, who was labeled early as "too small" and "too slow." I came to depend on people who saw me actually as bigger and faster than I really was. We all need people who believe in us. They expand the boundaries we place on our own lives. In my case, their influence did more than improve my performance in this great game; it filled a hollowness in my own life I could not explain, or even understand.

When a child grows up today without a father, there's an empty place where someone must stand, providing an example of character and confidence. If no one takes that place, a child can live in a shadow all their lives. Their emptiness is often filled by despair, by anger, or even violence. This commonplace tragedy has become the central problem of our society; it has caused an epidemic of secret suffering.

But if someone takes that place, a child can escape the shadows. He can find confidence and courage and conscience -- and perhaps even find his way to the football Hall of Fame.

I have the extraordinary respect for men and women who accept that responsibility and play that role in young life's [sic] today. They leave an influence more lasting than any law. The really heroic people are not those who break records. The really heroic people are those who can mend a broken spirit. My accomplishment today is a tribute to those people in my life who were willing to do that for me.

Finally, I want to say that whatever favor I have gained is ultimately due to the God I serve. God's grace is particularly clear in life's great challenges and in life's great moments. This is one of those moments for me, and I owe a debt of gratitude that is hopeless to repay.

My faith is not a system of belief, not a code of honor, but a relationship with Jesus Christ, who provided his love in a lonely death. I could explore God's grace to me forever and never reach its depth and never find its limits. His blessing is the ultimate explanation for whatever is praiseworthy in my career and in my life. In football, I found temporary achievements and lasting relationships. It tested and shaped my character.

I've seen the glory of this game. To be here in this place, at this moment, for this reason, is an honor beyond all my expectations. I owe you my deepest thanks.

Thank you.

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/stevejobsstanfordcommencement.htm

Thank you.

I'm honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. Truth be told, I never graduated from college, and this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today, I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots. I dropped out of Reed College after the first six months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife -- except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl.

So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking, "We've got an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said, "Of course." My biological mother found out later that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would go to college. This was the start in my life.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life.

So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out okay. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked far more interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms. I returned coke bottles for the five cent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the seven miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the "Mac" would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on that calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards 10 years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something -- your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever -- because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path, and that will make all the difference.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky -- I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz¹ and I started Apple in my parents' garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a two billion dollar company with over 4000 employees. We'd just released our finest creation -- the Macintosh -- a year earlier, and I had just turned 30.

And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. And so at 30, I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down -- that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me: I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world's first computer-animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, and I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometime life -- Sometimes life going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love.

And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking -- and don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking -- don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I've looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything -- all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure -- these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for "prepare to die." It means to try and tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and, thankfully, I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept: No one wants to die.

Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It's Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it's quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma -- which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the "bibles" of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 60s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along. It was idealistic, overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I've always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechcitizenkane2.html

 

Campaigner: There is only one man who can rid the politics of this State of the evil domination of Boss Jim Gettys. I am speaking of Charles Foster Kane, the fighting liberal, the friend of the working man, the next Governor of this State, who entered upon this campaign --

Kane: with one purpose only: to point out and make public the dishonesty, the downright villainy, of Boss Jim W. Gettys' political machine -- now in complete control of the government of this State! I made no campaign promises, because until a few weeks ago I had no hope of being elected.

Now, however, I have something more than a hope. And Jim Gettys -- Jim Gettys has something less than a chance. Every straw vote, every independent poll shows that I'll be elected. Now I can afford to make some promises!

The working man -- The working man and the slum child know they can expect my best efforts in their interests. The decent, ordinary citizens know that I'll do everything in my power to protect the underprivileged, the underpaid, and the the underfed!

Well, I'd make my promises now if I weren't too busy arranging to keep them.

Here's one promise I'll make, and boss Jim Gettys knows I'll keep it: My first official act as Governor of this State will be to appoint a Special District Attorney to arrange for the indictment, prosecution, and conviction of Boss Jim W. Gettys!

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechtheshawshankredemptiondufresnetrial.html

District Attorney: Mr. Dufresne, describe the confrontation you had with your wife the night that she was murdered.

Dufresne: It was very bitter. She said she was glad I knew, that she hated all the sneaking around, and she said she wanted a divorce in Reno.

District Attorney: What was your response?

Dufresne: I told her I would not grant one.

District Attorney: "I'll see you in hell before I see you in Reno." Those were the words you used, Mr. Dufresne, according to the testimony of your neighbors.

Dufresne: If they say so. I really don't remember. I was upset.

District Attorney: What happened after you argued with your wife?

Dufresne: She packed a bag -- she packed a bag to go and stay with Mr. Quentin.

District Attorney: Glenn Quentin, a golf pro at the Snowed-In Hills Country Club, the man you had recently discovered was your wife's lover. Did you follow her?

Dufresne: Went to a few bars first. Later I drove to his house to confront him. They weren't home, so I parked in the turn-out and waited.

District Attorney: With what intention?

Dufresne: I'm not sure. I was confused, uh, drunk. I think mostly I wanted to scare them.

District Attorney: When they arrived, you went up to the house and murdered them.

Dufresne: No. I was sobering up. I got back in the car and I drove home to sleep it off. Along the way, I stopped and I threw my gun into the royal river. I feel I've been very clear on this point.

District Attorney: Well where I get hazy is where the cleaning woman shows up the following morning and finds your wife in bed with her lover riddled with 38 caliber bullets. Now, does that strike you as a fantastic coincidence, Mr. Dufresne, or it just me?

Dufresne: Yes, it does.

District Attorney: Yet you still maintain that you threw your gun into the river before the murders took place. That's very convenient.

Dufresne: It's the truth.

District Attorney: The police dragged that river for three days and nary a gun was found. So there could be no comparison made between your gun and the bullets taken from the blood-stained corpses of the victims. And that, also, is very convenient, isn't it, Mr. Dufresne.

Dufresne: Since I am innocent of this crime, sir, I find it decidedly inconvenient that the gun was never found.

Presiding Judge: [Sentencing phase] By the power vested in me by the State of Maine, I hereby order you to serve two life sentences back-to-back, one for each of your victims. So be it!

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechsavingprivateryan.html

Captain John Miller: Address to unit on saving Private Ryan

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Private Reiben: Well put your money where your mouth is and do it! Do it! Pull the trigger already!

Sergeant Horvath: You don't know when to shut up. You don't know how to shut up.

Corporal Upham: Captain, please!

Captain Miller: Mike? What's the pool on me up to right now? What's it up to? What is it three hundred dollars -- is that it? Three hundred? I'm a school teacher. I teach English Composition in this little town called Addley, Pennsylvania. The last eleven years, I've been at Thomas Alva Edison High School. I was coach of the baseball team in the spring time.

Sergeant Horvath: I'll be doggone.

Captain Miller: Back home when I tell people what I do for a living, they think, well, that, that figures. But over here its a big, a big mystery. So I guess I've changed some. Sometimes I wonder if I've changed so much my wife is even gonna to recognize me whenever it is I get back to her -- and how I'll ever be able to tell her about days like today.

Ryan -- I don't know anything about Ryan. I don't care. Man means nothin' to me. It's just a name. But if -- you know -- if going to Ramel and finding him so he can go home, if that earns me the right to get back to my wife -- well, then, then that's my mission.

You wanna leave? You wanna go off and fight the war? Alright. Alright, I won't stop you. I'll even put in the paperwork. I just know that every man I kill the farther away from home I feel.