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Politics : Sioux Nation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SiouxPal who wrote (164812)	4/1/2009 9:30:41 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Respond to of 361706

We all won :>) This just hit me in the emotions,. Full circle. Like ?John M.; he was at the Battle of Chicago, and then watched O's victory speech happen there. I think this was pretty much the seminal event for the student movement of the 60's and 70's. Mario, himself, effected us the same way OMan does. He could move crowds like few other. And he lives forever... The Gears & The Levers I finally got around to watching the season two finale for Battlestar Galactica (why it took me so long to watch the season finale to my favourite show is a long and boring story... and by the way, for any Americans who might be reading this, the finale was only aired here in Canada about a month ago. So I'm not THAT late in watching it). While watching the part where Chief Tyrol gives his union speech, I thought it seemed somewhat familiar. When he got to the "gears and levers" bit, I realized why. The Chief's speech was paraphrased from the speech given by Mario Savio on the steps of Sproul Hall in 1964 as part of Berkeley's Free Speech Movement. Compare: Chief Tyrol: "There comes a time when you realize that the engine you built with your blood and your sweat and your tears is being used for something so foul, so perverted, it makes you sick in your heart. And it's then that you must throw your body on the gears, and on the levers, and on the machine itself and make it stop! And you have to show the people who run it, the people who control it, that unless we're free that machine will be prevented from working at all!" Mario Savio: "There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part, you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies on the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!" Now I hope you don't see this as Battlestar Galactica ripping off Mario Savio. I think Mario Savio was an incredible man and see this as more of an homage. And I think it's amazingly cool that a BSG writer would be familiar with the Savio speech, identify the perfect context in which to use it and reword it in the Chief's unique voice. Bravo! P.S. I did a little research and found out that BSG actually got permission from Savio's family to use the speech. Maybe this sounds a little corny (or Klingon-ish), but it kinda makes me proud that they acted with such honour. P.P.S. Allow me to highly recommend the documentary "Berkeley in the Sixties" by Mark Kitchell. That film is what made me fall in love with Mario Savio in the first place. Update May 1, 2007: I've just embedded a video of Mario Savio's speech in a new post: Watch Mario Savio's Gears & Levers Speech. Update May 16, 2007: I've just embedded video of Chief Tyrol's speech in a new post: Watch BSG's Gears & Levers Speech. Labels: battlestar galactica, film, politics, pop culture, tv www3.telus.net