OK, someones might do a short humourous version, but here's the full thing/thingy.Originally Posted by Mystic13
As said on the launch of Kiwibiker ...
I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history
as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of the motor bike.
Over five score years the great emancipators, BSA, Harley-Davidson, Moto-Guzzi, Ducati, Honda, Suzuki and Kawasaki, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, have brought us their products. This has come as a great beacon of hope to millions of car-slaves, who had been seared in the flames of whithering unconditioned vinyl interiors. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity in traffic jams. But one hundered years later, the biker is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of the biker is still sadly crippled by the manacle of segregation and the cheese-cutting chains of discrimination and traffic fines.
One hundred years later, the biker lives on a lonely island of indifference in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity for the car owner. One hundred years later, the biker is still languishing in the corners of society and finds himself an exile in his own land So we have come here today to
dramatize a shameful condition.
In a sense we have come to to cash a check. When the architects of our government wrote the magnificent words of the road code they were signing a promissory note to which every biker was to fall heir.
This note was a promise that all men, yes, biker men as well as car men, would be guaranteed to the inalienable rights of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness (but not for scooter riders), access to roads and parking.
It is obvious today that this has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her bikers concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, the government has given its bikers people a bad check, and a bad rep; a check that has come back marked "insufficient funds" - "insufficient funds" to fund safe cager training, "insufficient funds" to replace the deadly cheesecutter, "insufficient funds" not to need to fine us off the roads.
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity to replace the cheesewire. So we have come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and security of justice.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of it's motor-biking citizens. This sweltering summer will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality where we all have some great rides. 2009 is not an end but a beginning. Those who hope that the bikers needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to
business as usual. Which it might well do after we have blown off some steam on this here forum. As usual.
There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the biker is granted his full rights (unless see above). The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations ofour nation until the bright day of justice emerges (or not). Maybe Bronz might do something.
We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, especially the sport-bike riders, the tourers a little less so, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities, because of poor bike security. I imagine the 2-smokers might be very unrested if they have come a long way.
We cannot be satisfied as long as the biker's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one, unless there's really good twisties on that journey.
We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating "no bikers"
No, no we are not satisfied and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty
stream.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of your dangerous driving trials and tribulations. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by storms of persecutions and staggered by the winds of police brutality.
You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive (ed. note. check for accuracy).
Go back to Wellington, go back to Auckland, go back to South Auckland go back to West Auckland, go back to that South Island place, go back to the slums and ghettos of our Christchurch, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.
Let us not wallow in the valley of dispair. I say to you, my friends, we have the difficulties of today and tommorrow.
I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the biking dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will saddle up and live out the true meaning of its creed. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, although some bikes are clearly better than others. In fact scratch that earlier bit, bikers are better than others.
I have a dream that one day out in the hills of the Waitakeres the sons of former sport-bike riders and the sons of former cruiser-riders will be
able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood with some traffic cops, and maybe sort them out a little bit.
I have a dream that one day even Christchurch, a city sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice, although I am not holding my breath on that one.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by what they ride, but by how they ride.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day down in Hamilton, with its vicious speed cops, that one day right down in Hamilton little biker boys and biker girls will be able to join hands with little cager boys and cager girls as sort-of understairs inferior sisters and brothers, but family none-the-less.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall sealed, every hill shall be s-bended and every mountain shall be into a series of long straights, chicanes and switch-backs, the rough places will be for motor-x and the crooked places will be made even more wind-y, and the glory of the motorbike (not scooters) shall be revealed and all shall see it together, and want to ride real bad.
This is our hope. This is the faith that I will ride away with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.
With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphomy of exhaust-pipe brotherhood.
With this faith we will be able to work together, ride together, learn basic repairs together such as simple oil changes, to struggle together, to go to jail together (although this should be optional), to climb up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
And if we are to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the hilltops of the waikato. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of Southern Alps.
Let freedom ring from the heightening Rimutakas.
Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Mt Cook.
Let freedom ring from the curvacious slopes of miss Hamilton 2009 (is this right? Ed.)
But not only that, let freedom, ring from Police central.
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill and beehive of Wellington and every mountainside.
When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every tenement and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, bikers and cagers, sport-bike riders and Cruisder riders, dirt-bikers and tourers (not scooter riders) will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old spiritual, "Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last. Now get our motors running, head out on the highway, looking for adventure, our whatever comes our way ..."
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