:)

If you haven't seen it, please do. It was produced by Charlie Chaplin in the late 1930s, when it became clear that the war was going to happen, and came out in 1940 after it had started. Essentially, Chaplin realized that his famous mustache was about to be usurped forever by a fascist, and that fascist was going to kill a lot more people in the future than he had already.

It's a parody, made before the worst horrors of the Nazi regime were known to the general public, so there is discomfort here (if you've seen Disney's Der Fuhrer's Face, you'll get the idea), but the movie ends with Chaplin essentially saying "fuck it, no one else seems to be speaking out about this and I'm going to use my platform to do that."

For context, this character is a Jew who has been mistaken for the dictator (for obvious mustache-related reasons), and has been sent onstage at a rally to give a speech. Instead of trying to impersonate Hitler, he says what he really thinks. And keep in mind, Chaplin was coming out of semi-retirement for this. It was the first time most people had ever heard him speak, and this is what he said:

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; 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. It has barricaded the world with hate. It 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 would 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. It 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 that 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 17th chapter of the book of St. Luke, it is written that the Kingdom of God is within Man, not one man nor a group of men, 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! And let us fight for a new world! A decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give you a future, and old age a security.

By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfill that promise, they never will! Dictators free themselves, the enslave the people!

Hello long time no see I made this goodbye