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America Needs More Than Voices, Words
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Published: July 4, 2008
There was nothing on the car radio, and I couldn't reach the CD case below the passenger seat. I fumbled around in the car's door pocket, felt an old cassette tape and stuck it in the player.
"This is WKGB, Radio Pahokee," the voice intoned, and I recognized right off it was Harry Ryder. The late Judge Herboth Ryder of the 2nd District Court of Appeal fancied himself an amateur DJ and, along with a dozen or so others with the same dreams, created his own make-believe radio station and then passed the cassette around.
The WKGB moniker worked for Ryder, who had served as an American intelligence officer in World War II Germany.
Today was always a huge day for the judge. He would invite a group of friends over to his house, where they would first walk over a Nazi flag on the floor and sing a few patriotic songs. The high point would be when he would hand out index cards with the Bill of Rights on them. Each guest would read an amendment, and that would be followed by some commentary from the judge. Ryder took his patriotism seriously.
Voices And Words
This particular tape was one Harry called "Voices." It was a recording of speeches and bits of speeches given at momentous times in the 20th century. One on top of another were the words of Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, Douglas MacArthur, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr. and others.
Most of the speeches were at defining moments. There was Roosevelt in front of Congress, starting out "Yesterday, December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy..." on down to the young and charismatic John Kennedy on a cold January morning, asking a nation to "ask not what your country can do for you ..."
I've always thought one of the more interesting was Eisenhower's farewell address. Ike was never a charismatic speaker, but his final talk to his country was remarkable, as he said, "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex."
He warned of what could happen in universities as "the prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded."
Anyone Listening?
On the other hand, if you listen to a speech made by former President Jimmy Carter, you realize that the power of words has its limitations, at least when nobody is listening.
In 1979, in a speech in which the subject was energy, he said, "Beginning this moment, this nation will never use more foreign oil than we did in 1977. ... Never.
"From now on, every new addition to our demand for energy will be met from our own production and our own conservation. The generation-long dependence on foreign oil will be stopped dead in its tracks right now."
Yeah, well, if anyone was listening, the siren call of the SUV and the growing demand for more and more energy buried those words for two decades.
We're going to be hearing a lot of words between this July Fourth and the November elections. The question is if anybody will listen, and then do something.
Keyword: Otto Graphs, to read more Steve Otto columns and to comment on his blog.
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