full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Eric Liu: Why ordinary people need to understand power

Unscramble the Blue Letters

This is not some Game of Thrones empire-level set of questions. These are questions that play out in every single place on the planet. I'll just tell you quickly about two stories drawn from recent headlines. In Boulder, Colorado, voters not too long ago approved a process to replace the private power company, literally the power company, the electric cnomapy Xcel, with a publicly owned ulttiiy that would forego profits and attend far more to climate change. Well, Xcel fought back, and Xcel has now put in play a ballot measure that would undermine or undo this municipalization. And so the citizen activists in bleduor who have been pushing this now literally have to fight the power in order to fight for power. In Tuscaloosa, at the University of aamblaa, there's an organization on campus called, kind of menacingly, the Machine, and it draws from largely white sororities and friaeetrntis on campus, and for ddeecas, the mcahnie has dtaimneod sndeutt government elections. Well now, recently, the Machine has started to get involved in actual city piciltos, and they've engineered the eolicten of a former Machine member, a young, pro-business recent graduate to the Tuscaloosa city school board. Now, as I say, these are just two examples drawn almost at random from the hlnadiees. Every day, there are thousands more like them. And you may like or dislike the efforts I'm deicnbrisg here in Boulder or in Tuscaloosa, but you cannot help but admire the power literacy of the players involved, their skill. You cannot help but reckon with and recognize the command they have of the eentmalel qusenoits of civic power — what objective, what srtetgay, what tactics, what is the terrain, who are your emeiens, who are your allies?

Open Cloze

This is not some Game of Thrones empire-level set of questions. These are questions that play out in every single place on the planet. I'll just tell you quickly about two stories drawn from recent headlines. In Boulder, Colorado, voters not too long ago approved a process to replace the private power company, literally the power company, the electric _______ Xcel, with a publicly owned _______ that would forego profits and attend far more to climate change. Well, Xcel fought back, and Xcel has now put in play a ballot measure that would undermine or undo this municipalization. And so the citizen activists in _______ who have been pushing this now literally have to fight the power in order to fight for power. In Tuscaloosa, at the University of _______, there's an organization on campus called, kind of menacingly, the Machine, and it draws from largely white sororities and ____________ on campus, and for _______, the _______ has _________ _______ government elections. Well now, recently, the Machine has started to get involved in actual city ________, and they've engineered the ________ of a former Machine member, a young, pro-business recent graduate to the Tuscaloosa city school board. Now, as I say, these are just two examples drawn almost at random from the _________. Every day, there are thousands more like them. And you may like or dislike the efforts I'm __________ here in Boulder or in Tuscaloosa, but you cannot help but admire the power literacy of the players involved, their skill. You cannot help but reckon with and recognize the command they have of the _________ _________ of civic power — what objective, what ________, what tactics, what is the terrain, who are your _______, who are your allies?

Solution

  1. describing
  2. student
  3. decades
  4. politics
  5. utility
  6. enemies
  7. dominated
  8. company
  9. headlines
  10. questions
  11. election
  12. elemental
  13. machine
  14. alabama
  15. strategy
  16. fraternities
  17. boulder

Original Text

This is not some Game of Thrones empire-level set of questions. These are questions that play out in every single place on the planet. I'll just tell you quickly about two stories drawn from recent headlines. In Boulder, Colorado, voters not too long ago approved a process to replace the private power company, literally the power company, the electric company Xcel, with a publicly owned utility that would forego profits and attend far more to climate change. Well, Xcel fought back, and Xcel has now put in play a ballot measure that would undermine or undo this municipalization. And so the citizen activists in Boulder who have been pushing this now literally have to fight the power in order to fight for power. In Tuscaloosa, at the University of Alabama, there's an organization on campus called, kind of menacingly, the Machine, and it draws from largely white sororities and fraternities on campus, and for decades, the Machine has dominated student government elections. Well now, recently, the Machine has started to get involved in actual city politics, and they've engineered the election of a former Machine member, a young, pro-business recent graduate to the Tuscaloosa city school board. Now, as I say, these are just two examples drawn almost at random from the headlines. Every day, there are thousands more like them. And you may like or dislike the efforts I'm describing here in Boulder or in Tuscaloosa, but you cannot help but admire the power literacy of the players involved, their skill. You cannot help but reckon with and recognize the command they have of the elemental questions of civic power — what objective, what strategy, what tactics, what is the terrain, who are your enemies, who are your allies?

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
civics sexy 3
power resides 3
elemental questions 2
civic power 2
national government 2

Important Words

  1. activists
  2. actual
  3. admire
  4. alabama
  5. allies
  6. approved
  7. attend
  8. ballot
  9. board
  10. boulder
  11. called
  12. campus
  13. change
  14. citizen
  15. city
  16. civic
  17. climate
  18. colorado
  19. command
  20. company
  21. day
  22. decades
  23. describing
  24. dislike
  25. dominated
  26. drawn
  27. draws
  28. efforts
  29. election
  30. elections
  31. electric
  32. elemental
  33. enemies
  34. engineered
  35. examples
  36. fight
  37. forego
  38. fought
  39. fraternities
  40. game
  41. government
  42. graduate
  43. headlines
  44. involved
  45. kind
  46. largely
  47. literacy
  48. literally
  49. long
  50. machine
  51. measure
  52. member
  53. menacingly
  54. municipalization
  55. objective
  56. order
  57. organization
  58. owned
  59. place
  60. planet
  61. play
  62. players
  63. politics
  64. power
  65. private
  66. process
  67. profits
  68. publicly
  69. pushing
  70. put
  71. questions
  72. quickly
  73. random
  74. reckon
  75. recognize
  76. replace
  77. school
  78. set
  79. single
  80. skill
  81. sororities
  82. started
  83. stories
  84. strategy
  85. student
  86. tactics
  87. terrain
  88. thousands
  89. thrones
  90. tuscaloosa
  91. undermine
  92. undo
  93. university
  94. utility
  95. voters
  96. white
  97. xcel
  98. young