full transcript

From the Ted Talk by George Monbiot: The new political story that could change everything

Unscramble the Blue Letters

Then, in 2008, the niealoerbl story fell apart, and its opponents came forward with ... nothing. No new restoration story! The best they had to offer was a watered-down neoliberalism or a microwaved kysineainesm. And that is why we're stuck. Without that new story, we are stuck with the old failed story that keeps on failing. Despair is the state we fall into when our imagination fails. When we have no story that explains the present and describes the future, hope evaporates. Political failure is at heart a failure of imagination. Without a restoration story that can tell us where we need to go, nothing is going to change, but with such a restoration sorty, almost everything can change. The story we need to tell is a story which will appeal to as wide a rgane of people as possible, crossing political fulat lenis. It should rotensae with deep needs and desires. It should be simple and iebitnlligle, and it should be grounded in reality.

Open Cloze

Then, in 2008, the __________ story fell apart, and its opponents came forward with ... nothing. No new restoration story! The best they had to offer was a watered-down neoliberalism or a microwaved ____________. And that is why we're stuck. Without that new story, we are stuck with the old failed story that keeps on failing. Despair is the state we fall into when our imagination fails. When we have no story that explains the present and describes the future, hope evaporates. Political failure is at heart a failure of imagination. Without a restoration story that can tell us where we need to go, nothing is going to change, but with such a restoration _____, almost everything can change. The story we need to tell is a story which will appeal to as wide a _____ of people as possible, crossing political _____ _____. It should ________ with deep needs and desires. It should be simple and ____________, and it should be grounded in reality.

Solution

  1. fault
  2. intelligible
  3. story
  4. lines
  5. range
  6. resonate
  7. keynesianism
  8. neoliberal

Original Text

Then, in 2008, the neoliberal story fell apart, and its opponents came forward with ... nothing. No new restoration story! The best they had to offer was a watered-down neoliberalism or a microwaved Keynesianism. And that is why we're stuck. Without that new story, we are stuck with the old failed story that keeps on failing. Despair is the state we fall into when our imagination fails. When we have no story that explains the present and describes the future, hope evaporates. Political failure is at heart a failure of imagination. Without a restoration story that can tell us where we need to go, nothing is going to change, but with such a restoration story, almost everything can change. The story we need to tell is a story which will appeal to as wide a range of people as possible, crossing political fault lines. It should resonate with deep needs and desires. It should be simple and intelligible, and it should be grounded in reality.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
disorder afflicts 5
nefarious forces 5
restore harmony 3
political spectrum 3
religious transformation 2
network brings 2

Important Words

  1. appeal
  2. change
  3. crossing
  4. deep
  5. describes
  6. desires
  7. despair
  8. evaporates
  9. explains
  10. failed
  11. failing
  12. fails
  13. failure
  14. fall
  15. fault
  16. fell
  17. future
  18. grounded
  19. heart
  20. hope
  21. imagination
  22. intelligible
  23. keynesianism
  24. lines
  25. microwaved
  26. neoliberal
  27. neoliberalism
  28. offer
  29. opponents
  30. people
  31. political
  32. present
  33. range
  34. reality
  35. resonate
  36. restoration
  37. simple
  38. state
  39. story
  40. stuck
  41. wide