A Message for Today in Charlie Chaplin's Great Dictator Speech

When Charlie Chaplin wrote, directed produced and starred in his most successful commercial film, The Great Dictator, in 1940,  Hitler was busy ravaging Europe, Benito Mussolini had just aligned fascist Italy with Nazi Germany and The United States was dithering on the sidelines.

While the news reports from Europe shocked many Americans, most were just going about their daily lives and wanted no part of what they considered a European war. Americans watched uneasily as Hitler spread his excesses and poisonous anti-Semitism across Europe, but in 1940, they were not prepared to get involved. That would not happen until the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December7,1942.

Against this backdrop, Chaplin created the character of  " The Great Dictator" and made a film that in terms of human, as well as artistic values, still resonates today.  In a pivotal soliloquy, The Great Dictator, played by the great Charlie Chaplin, himself, offers a defense of individual freedom and human dignity that is, if anything, more important in our post Hiroshima, post bunker buster, and post 9/11 world than it was on the cusp of World War II in 1940. 

The dream lives on in spite of everything.  Watch the video. You'll see what I mean

H/T  Ole Olson

Sinclair Lewis Had It Right About Sarah Palin

Every time Palin draws a crowd, lots of media attention and manages to skew reality to show herself as an innocent, God-fearing, REAL  American, I think of  Adolph Hitler and torchlight parades and how easily frightened, ignorant people can be led astray.

Sarah Palin Reminds Me of Hitler

Sarah Palin is going more than rogue these days.  Her book tour should be making Americans of all political persuasions very nervous.  Today is day four of the tour and she is in western Pennsylania  where more than a thousand people started lining up last night to actually get a chance to see the divine one.  According to her publisher, Palin's memoir sold more than 300,000 copies its first day--pretty stunning numbers if you ask me. The book's print run has already been increased from 1.5 million copies to 2.5 million copies.  Who knows where it will all end, but one way or another, Palin will end up with beaucoup bucks.  No wonder resigning as governer was not a problem for her.

Last week Sarah Palin  sat down with Oprah as part of her media blitz.  I, along with millions of others, tuned in and listened with rapt attention.  My conclusion?  This is a very dangerous woman with the power to twist truth and the vanity to think that she is doing it for the good of others and not for herself.  She is shrewd, narcissistic and  is into myth making as much as Hitler was.