Admittedly it is much harder for great speeches to be delivered in today's world - constrained by the sound byte that our news services seek, our potential opinion leaders have difficulty finding the opportunity to kick off the serious and detailed public discourse we need across so many issues. Instead we are left with comments or ideas which are used to test the public mood rather than harness it for productive change. We get door stop comments, thought bubbles, or worse still, a three word slogan. And the stupidity of those slogans debase us all.
The 24 hour news cycle tends to relegate even recent events to the dustbin of history before we've even had the chance to hear them properly, let alone digest them to the point where we can join the public discussion. And with a social media landscape filled with tweets, where there is no opportunity to say something meaningful in 140 characters or less, you begin to wonder how we will address the great challenges that face us.
How to include and engage all stakeholders in Nation building? A process that never ends.
What we are left with is top down government which gives us the likes of Campbell Newman and Tony Abbott, disingenuous men who say one thing and do something else in the hope they can change the state or the nation into their own Orwellian visions. Not a collective vision, actions we don't condone, not in our name!
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The greatest orator in my opinion was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The power of his voice and the gravity of his words bring a chill to my spine and a tear to my eye every time I hear them, and I'm struck by how relevant his words still are, 50 years after they were spoken.
Do yourself a favour and listen to one or both of the speeches below, and never forget that we all have worthy dreams, and we as a people can make it to the mountaintop.. and from there we can see the promised land... a place where there are no goodies and baddies.