[Music]
it’s great to feel like you’re part of
something bigger than yourself so give
yourself a round of applause please
so two things
first I must explain this hat I bought
this has to embarrass my children and
but it’s turned into a magical hat
because wherever I wear it wherever I go
in the world it appears to be an
invitation to a conversation people stop
and say amazing hat and then I talked to
them and I found out how amazing they
are but I’ll put it down here so as to
not distract us the second thing I want
to point out is that he made it sound
heroic that I came here by boat sailed
here by boat I think he said no I came
on a cruise ship
in luxury and and then I came by train
from Hamburg to here and that was an
expiring as experience because nobody
stopped me and nobody asked me who I was
or while is there and yet a mere 13
years before I was born coming by train
to Poland meant something very different
for you
and for the people on the train and in
fact in September when that happened my
mother who was born in the United States
and a naturalized American at you know
born American citizen and her father who
is a German American escaped from Italy
on the last plane out of Rome and to
Portugal where they sailed on the last
boat before the u-boat u-boat started
sinking them and when they arrived in
New York City and presented their
passports they said welcome home
I’d like you to go on a journey with me
so sit down and relax and close your
eyes and imagine you’re at home and it’s
cold out but there’s a warm fire and
you’re a father and your only son has
been called to fight in a war that you
consider illegal immoral and unwinnable
now open your eyes
my father was that father I was that son
and the war was the Vietnam War it’s the
middle of January 1973 and I’ve received
notice I’m to report to the Army on the
last day of that month and my father
sits me down at our dining room table
and he says now it is time to talk about
war
he says war does things to you that can
never be undone
he says dying is the easy part
because then for you the war is over
he says worse is seeing a buddy die and
worse still is to see a buddy die and
know you could have prevented it but the
worst thing of all he says is to look
through your gun sight at someone’s
father someone’s son someone’s brother
and someone’s husband and know you’re
about to execute a man for the crime of
one thing to kill you as much as you
want to kill him he says that is when
you see evil in your own soul he says in
world war ii when he was fighting the
japanese he was not fighting to oppress
the Japanese or the Germans but to
liberate them from tyranny and that war
would not be over until the Japanese and
the Germans were glad that we had won he
says when you look through your gunsight
at a soldier in Vietnam you should know
why he wants to kill you he’s defending
his home but you must ask yourself do
you know why you want to kill him he
says you have two choices if you believe
your country is under a credible threat
you must heed the call to war and join
or if you’re if you feel your country
needs you to speak with a dissenting
voice then you must not go and go to
jail and speak from there
he says both those choices are honorable
and I’ll be proud of you and they’re
both patriotic and then he bursts into
tears and he says I asked why and he
says well I can’t stand the thought of
losing you to a war
I consider immoral illegal and
unwinnable and I’m thinking about
suggesting you sneak into Canada and and
I consider that shameful and unpatriotic
because it’s abandoning your country and
time of need and give me a second I’ve
thought a lot recently about what it
means to be an American because I’ve
been ashamed of our electoral politics
and because now our elected leaders are
asking us to make America great again so
it would seem reasonable I know what
that means and so I started asking my
fellow Americans and they said they’re
surprisingly the majority refused to
answer so I thought back to how I was
raised and what I was raised every day
in school we were asked to stand and to
recite this the pledge of allegiance to
the flag of the United States of America
and to the Republic for which it stands
one nation under God indivisible with
liberty and justice for all except that
I stopped saying under God because it
seems arrogant and not like liberty and
justice for all and later during the
Vietnam War
some people said the war was wrong and
other people said my country right or
wrong but I was raised to believe that
the that the protestor and the platoon
leader were both Patriots so I stopped
saying I played I stopped pledging
allegiance the United States of America
but only to Republican form of
government and to liberty and justice
for all
and I was free to do that you don’t have
to say that play
now little about the history that I was
taught oh I’m sorry
the Pledge as it turns out I have
returned to the pledges it was
originally penned in 1892 by a minister
named Francis Bellamy I pledge
allegiance to my flag and to the
Republic for which it stands one nation
indivisible with liberty and justice for
all and he did not write that for the
United States but for peoples of all
countries who believed in
self-government and in liberty and
justice for all
so they could remind themselves of what
they stood for and it was in the 1920s
that we added the United States of
America and only twelve days before I
was born in 1952 we added under God to
distinguish ourselves from godless
communists and it worked but it made us
less one nation and more divisible now a
bit about our nation this is the
battlefield at Gettysburg in our most
bloody civil war over what it means to
be an American and who gets liberty and
justice for all
does it include slaves and at that field
our President Abraham Lincoln said these
people must not have died in vain but
rather so that our nation can have a
rebirth and freedom and so that
government of the people by the people
and for the people shall not perish from
this earth and the world needed that to
not perish from this earth because other
countries were having problems take
France for example they had a problem
the problem was Napoleon the third
Napoleon the first nephew was elected in
1848 democratically as head of the
second French Republic were republic 2.0
but he proved to be less of a Republican
more than and more of a sales salesman
and he established the Second Empire and
made himself M
in a bid to make France great again and
it was during that time that the French
people decided to give us a heroic
statue this statue it’s a tourist
attraction in New York Harbor but they
did not give it to us to attract
tourists they gave it to us to remind
themselves and they called it Liberty
enlightening in the world and in the
crook of her right I’m sorry in the in
her right arm she holds a flame
representing Liberty and in the crook of
her left arm are the laws that are
necessary if there’s to be liberty and
justice for all
now two days ago I had an unexpected
experience who here has heard of that
something called couchsurfing okay so
more than half this audience the rest of
you asked them it’s an organization of
over 7 million people so the size of the
large city earth or a small country and
these are people who will host the
stranger when they travel and I got six
of them together
one American three poles one Ukrainian
and I’d agreed it treated them to dinner
sex including me and I treated them to
dinner and I asked them what does it
mean to you to be American and the
American says I don’t know I think of
myself as a human first
and a woman second and I’m embarrassed
to think of myself as a woman because I
don’t see that separates me from men and
and and the poll said I don’t know and
and the Ukrainians said I think I know
and I’m ashamed of it because he was
running from his draft he said because
he’s being asked to fight either on the
side of crux or on the side of tyrants
and he wants to have nothing to do with
that so then I asked him what it means
to be a couch surfer and they exploded
and they explained what that was and
then I remember I received a letter I
asked the woman a young woman in Vietnam
well actually I asked a friend of
– 75 year-old the Vietnam War veteran
was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam and
now a couch surfer and he’s been to
Vietnam seven times building libraries
in rural parts of Vietnam so I asked him
what it meant to him and he forwarded it
to his young friends in Hanoi and this
is what I got back less than 20 minutes
later let me read it says couch surfing
brings me friendship and joys and
chances as a starter I have a good pen
pal in Spain it says I bring close
friends that and I know I can be welcome
anywhere I go and as a result I had a
couchsurfing community in Hawaii and we
often do voluntary work with orphans so
couchsurfing is not really in its
black-and-white meaning finding a couch
for the homeless above that it is where
people share their love hobbies
community we’re only the greatest people
exist where no wars happen where the
safety and laughter exist couchsurfing
saves people from the uncertainty and
loneliness excuse me all from
couchsurfing we start to get to know
friends of our beloved couch surfers
besides me besides laughter it has
brought me love there and best friends I
think it can speak for all the community
of Celt surfers that we consider our
couchsurfing as home and I think about
my mom being invited home and I think
about when I was teaching at university
I had a student who is a recovering
heroin act addict and I said why you’re
smart why would you take heroin and he
said because it feels like home he says
when you know what it feels like to be
home you will do anything for that
feeling so let’s try another thought
experiment hey get comfortable close
your eyes relax
let your brain go to sleep and go down
into your heart and then past your heart
go to your soul and notice that there’s
evil there lurking behind fear which is
what Stokes evil and then turn to the
light and see love and feel it in
yourself and reflect it and all the
people around you and then know with
your heart did everyone in this room and
has your back right now come back up
from your soul through your heart to
your head and open your eyes and with
your brain know that everyone in this
room has your back
welcome home that’s what it feels like
so I thought about what I would pledge
my allegiance to and I decided to write
my own pledge not to a country but to an
idea and a dream that was Napoleon the
third he’s not my dream and this is why
I hadn’t thought about what it means to
be American since January 28 1973 when
this was the headline two days before I
was due to report to the Army Peace
signed draft ended and I was told I
didn’t have to go so I stopped thinking
about what it means to be an American
until recently and I realized what I
have to think about is what it means to
be me so what do I pledge my allegiance
to so I pledged my allegiance to an idea
that all people have an equal right to
liberty and justice and to the dream
the government of the people by the
people and for the people shall not
perish from this earth and I’d love for
you perhaps silently or out loud if you
wish and a few minutes I’ll repeat this
and perhaps you will too you don’t need
your nation or your neighbor to believe
as you do you just have to believe it
and you only have to believe it for this
moment and you can change your mind
tomorrow but the reason I’d like you to
do it is because in my nation some
people are into building walls they’re
building walls between rich and poor
between red and blue between me and you
and I fear they will build walls so high
that and so gold-plated that the
reflected light of Lady Liberty’s torch
will blind us into self-righteousness
while extinguishing her light to God the
rest of the world and one day I might
need one of you to set up a megaphone
outside one of our walls and shout mr.
president tear down this wall and then
perhaps we will find the courage to turn
tear down our own walls just as happened
not long ago here all over Europe so
this is my pledge perhaps you’ll read it
and you’ll hear it in your own head I
pledge allegiance to an idea and it that
all people have an equal right to
liberty and justice and to the dream the
government of the people by the people
and for the people shall not perish from
this earth
I didn’t mean this is a political speech
I’m just here in the spirit of Ted and
hope you’ll spread my idea in my dream
thank you
[Applause]
it’s great to feel like you’re part of
something bigger than yourself so give
yourself a round of applause please
so two things
first I must explain this hat I bought
this has to embarrass my children and
but it’s turned into a magical hat
because wherever I wear it wherever I go
in the world it appears to be an
invitation to a conversation people stop
and say amazing hat and then I talked to
them and I found out how amazing they
are but I’ll put it down here so as to
not distract us the second thing I want
to point out is that he made it sound
heroic that I came here by boat sailed
here by boat I think he said no I came
on a cruise ship
in luxury and and then I came by train
from Hamburg to here and that was an
expiring as experience because nobody
stopped me and nobody asked me who I was
or while is there and yet a mere 13
years before I was born coming by train
to Poland meant something very different
for you
and for the people on the train and in
fact in September when that happened my
mother who was born in the United States
and a naturalized American at you know
born American citizen and her father who
is a German American escaped from Italy
on the last plane out of Rome and to
Portugal where they sailed on the last
boat before the u-boat u-boat started
sinking them and when they arrived in
New York City and presented their
passports they said welcome home
I’d like you to go on a journey with me
so sit down and relax and close your
eyes and imagine you’re at home and it’s
cold out but there’s a warm fire and
you’re a father and your only son has
been called to fight in a war that you
consider illegal immoral and unwinnable
now open your eyes
my father was that father I was that son
and the war was the Vietnam War it’s the
middle of January 1973 and I’ve received
notice I’m to report to the Army on the
last day of that month and my father
sits me down at our dining room table
and he says now it is time to talk about
war
he says war does things to you that can
never be undone
he says dying is the easy part
because then for you the war is over
he says worse is seeing a buddy die and
worse still is to see a buddy die and
know you could have prevented it but the
worst thing of all he says is to look
through your gun sight at someone’s
father someone’s son someone’s brother
and someone’s husband and know you’re
about to execute a man for the crime of
one thing to kill you as much as you
want to kill him he says that is when
you see evil in your own soul he says in
world war ii when he was fighting the
japanese he was not fighting to oppress
the Japanese or the Germans but to
liberate them from tyranny and that war
would not be over until the Japanese and
the Germans were glad that we had won he
says when you look through your gunsight
at a soldier in Vietnam you should know
why he wants to kill you he’s defending
his home but you must ask yourself do
you know why you want to kill him he
says you have two choices if you believe
your country is under a credible threat
you must heed the call to war and join
or if you’re if you feel your country
needs you to speak with a dissenting
voice then you must not go and go to
jail and speak from there
he says both those choices are honorable
and I’ll be proud of you and they’re
both patriotic and then he bursts into
tears and he says I asked why and he
says well I can’t stand the thought of
losing you to a war
I consider immoral illegal and
unwinnable and I’m thinking about
suggesting you sneak into Canada and and
I consider that shameful and unpatriotic
because it’s abandoning your country and
time of need and give me a second I’ve
thought a lot recently about what it
means to be an American because I’ve
been ashamed of our electoral politics
and because now our elected leaders are
asking us to make America great again so
it would seem reasonable I know what
that means and so I started asking my
fellow Americans and they said they’re
surprisingly the majority refused to
answer so I thought back to how I was
raised and what I was raised every day
in school we were asked to stand and to
recite this the pledge of allegiance to
the flag of the United States of America
and to the Republic for which it stands
one nation under God indivisible with
liberty and justice for all except that
I stopped saying under God because it
seems arrogant and not like liberty and
justice for all and later during the
Vietnam War
some people said the war was wrong and
other people said my country right or
wrong but I was raised to believe that
the that the protestor and the platoon
leader were both Patriots so I stopped
saying I played I stopped pledging
allegiance the United States of America
but only to Republican form of
government and to liberty and justice
for all
and I was free to do that you don’t have
to say that play
now little about the history that I was
taught oh I’m sorry
the Pledge as it turns out I have
returned to the pledges it was
originally penned in 1892 by a minister
named Francis Bellamy I pledge
allegiance to my flag and to the
Republic for which it stands one nation
indivisible with liberty and justice for
all and he did not write that for the
United States but for peoples of all
countries who believed in
self-government and in liberty and
justice for all
so they could remind themselves of what
they stood for and it was in the 1920s
that we added the United States of
America and only twelve days before I
was born in 1952 we added under God to
distinguish ourselves from godless
communists and it worked but it made us
less one nation and more divisible now a
bit about our nation this is the
battlefield at Gettysburg in our most
bloody civil war over what it means to
be an American and who gets liberty and
justice for all
does it include slaves and at that field
our President Abraham Lincoln said these
people must not have died in vain but
rather so that our nation can have a
rebirth and freedom and so that
government of the people by the people
and for the people shall not perish from
this earth and the world needed that to
not perish from this earth because other
countries were having problems take
France for example they had a problem
the problem was Napoleon the third
Napoleon the first nephew was elected in
1848 democratically as head of the
second French Republic were republic 2.0
but he proved to be less of a Republican
more than and more of a sales salesman
and he established the Second Empire and
made himself M
in a bid to make France great again and
it was during that time that the French
people decided to give us a heroic
statue this statue it’s a tourist
attraction in New York Harbor but they
did not give it to us to attract
tourists they gave it to us to remind
themselves and they called it Liberty
enlightening in the world and in the
crook of her right I’m sorry in the in
her right arm she holds a flame
representing Liberty and in the crook of
her left arm are the laws that are
necessary if there’s to be liberty and
justice for all
now two days ago I had an unexpected
experience who here has heard of that
something called couchsurfing okay so
more than half this audience the rest of
you asked them it’s an organization of
over 7 million people so the size of the
large city earth or a small country and
these are people who will host the
stranger when they travel and I got six
of them together
one American three poles one Ukrainian
and I’d agreed it treated them to dinner
sex including me and I treated them to
dinner and I asked them what does it
mean to you to be American and the
American says I don’t know I think of
myself as a human first
and a woman second and I’m embarrassed
to think of myself as a woman because I
don’t see that separates me from men and
and and the poll said I don’t know and
and the Ukrainians said I think I know
and I’m ashamed of it because he was
running from his draft he said because
he’s being asked to fight either on the
side of crux or on the side of tyrants
and he wants to have nothing to do with
that so then I asked him what it means
to be a couch surfer and they exploded
and they explained what that was and
then I remember I received a letter I
asked the woman a young woman in Vietnam
well actually I asked a friend of
– 75 year-old the Vietnam War veteran
was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam and
now a couch surfer and he’s been to
Vietnam seven times building libraries
in rural parts of Vietnam so I asked him
what it meant to him and he forwarded it
to his young friends in Hanoi and this
is what I got back less than 20 minutes
later let me read it says couch surfing
brings me friendship and joys and
chances as a starter I have a good pen
pal in Spain it says I bring close
friends that and I know I can be welcome
anywhere I go and as a result I had a
couchsurfing community in Hawaii and we
often do voluntary work with orphans so
couchsurfing is not really in its
black-and-white meaning finding a couch
for the homeless above that it is where
people share their love hobbies
community we’re only the greatest people
exist where no wars happen where the
safety and laughter exist couchsurfing
saves people from the uncertainty and
loneliness excuse me all from
couchsurfing we start to get to know
friends of our beloved couch surfers
besides me besides laughter it has
brought me love there and best friends I
think it can speak for all the community
of Celt surfers that we consider our
couchsurfing as home and I think about
my mom being invited home and I think
about when I was teaching at university
I had a student who is a recovering
heroin act addict and I said why you’re
smart why would you take heroin and he
said because it feels like home he says
when you know what it feels like to be
home you will do anything for that
feeling so let’s try another thought
experiment hey get comfortable close
your eyes relax
let your brain go to sleep and go down
into your heart and then past your heart
go to your soul and notice that there’s
evil there lurking behind fear which is
what Stokes evil and then turn to the
light and see love and feel it in
yourself and reflect it and all the
people around you and then know with
your heart did everyone in this room and
has your back right now come back up
from your soul through your heart to
your head and open your eyes and with
your brain know that everyone in this
room has your back
welcome home that’s what it feels like
so I thought about what I would pledge
my allegiance to and I decided to write
my own pledge not to a country but to an
idea and a dream that was Napoleon the
third he’s not my dream and this is why
I hadn’t thought about what it means to
be American since January 28 1973 when
this was the headline two days before I
was due to report to the Army Peace
signed draft ended and I was told I
didn’t have to go so I stopped thinking
about what it means to be an American
until recently and I realized what I
have to think about is what it means to
be me so what do I pledge my allegiance
to so I pledged my allegiance to an idea
that all people have an equal right to
liberty and justice and to the dream
the government of the people by the
people and for the people shall not
perish from this earth and I’d love for
you perhaps silently or out loud if you
wish and a few minutes I’ll repeat this
and perhaps you will too you don’t need
your nation or your neighbor to believe
as you do you just have to believe it
and you only have to believe it for this
moment and you can change your mind
tomorrow but the reason I’d like you to
do it is because in my nation some
people are into building walls they’re
building walls between rich and poor
between red and blue between me and you
and I fear they will build walls so high
that and so gold-plated that the
reflected light of Lady Liberty’s torch
will blind us into self-righteousness
while extinguishing her light to God the
rest of the world and one day I might
need one of you to set up a megaphone
outside one of our walls and shout mr.
president tear down this wall and then
perhaps we will find the courage to turn
tear down our own walls just as happened
not long ago here all over Europe so
this is my pledge perhaps you’ll read it
and you’ll hear it in your own head I
pledge allegiance to an idea and it that
all people have an equal right to
liberty and justice and to the dream the
government of the people by the people
and for the people shall not perish from
this earth
I didn’t mean this is a political speech
I’m just here in the spirit of Ted and
hope you’ll spread my idea in my dream
thank you
[Applause]
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