The Speech of the Great Dictator

[kentuck]

[efhmc]

1. Did Chaplin write this?

[Walleye]

2. I love that movie and that speech with where words just tumbled out of his heart

[kentuck]

3. They seemed timely.

And to think that it was made in 1940, before we entered the war.

[Walleye]

4. And it seems like we have to keep fighting the same war, over and over

This speech makes me sad because, like Louis Armstrong said, what a wonderful world it could be. Love, baby, love

[wnylib]

7. Throughout the 1930s there was a large group

of Americans who admired Hitler and supported Nazi Germany. Among the famous ones werex
Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh.

Ford published a strongly anti Semitic newspaper out of his own pocket because he did not want advertisers objecting to what he printed. He used slave labor from the concentration camps for his European factories.

Lindbergh openly praised Hitler and Nazi Germany and received the service cross of the German eagle from Goering.

Many of the America Firsters were sympathetic to the Germans. Lindbergh was the head of their movement. His stated reason for opposing US involvement in the war was that we should not be fighting against white people, but should be more concerned with being ready to fight "Asiatic" invaders because he believed that white nations needed to band together against "inferior people."

So, in 1940, before we got into the war, Chaplin's speech applied to many Americans.

[Uncle Joe]

5. The cosmic irony of such oratory from a silent movie star.

[Wednesdays]

6. A classic, as always.

It's even more moving, considering its context in the full story. You all should see the whole movie when you have the chance.