President Noynoy’s State of the Nation Address and Speechwriting 101

The President’s SONA and Speechwriting 101

This is a very little blog, but it will honor the 100-day honeymoon.

(Kindness.)

Inquirer columnist Conrad de Quiros said of the President’s SONA, in yesterday’s PDI column (excerpted)

Quote “His speech missed out on the awesome historicity of the moment. The country has just been delivered from despotic rule, a rule not unlike the pitiless one Marcos mounted despite its patina of democratic respectability. It wasn’t just our bodies that were stolen, it was our souls. For the first time in nine years, we could actually look at a SONA with expectation rather than with dread. A people who have just been liberated do not just need to be sated, they need to be elated. A people who have just tasted freedom do not just need to be assured, they need to be inspired. A people who have just had a past taken away from them do not just need to have a present presented to them, they need to have a future unfolded before them.

Quote “Far more than that, P-Noy’s speech missed out on the awesome ferocity of his mandate, or the sea change, or paradigm shift, or paradise gained that has happened with his presidency. He didn’t do a bad job of apprising his countrymen of what they might expect from his government. From stopping corruption to settling strife, from hounding wrongdoers to protecting whistle-blowers, from uniting administration and opposition to unifying private and public, local and national. What he did a bad job of was apprising his countrymen of what he expected them to do for his government. He didn’t do it at all.

Quote “It should have been obvious from the campaign that the people were no longer in the mode of “What’s in it for me?” They were in the mood of “What can I do to help?” If it were just the first, the people would have voted for Manny Villar or Joseph Estrada who promised to rescue them from their immediate poverty by buying their votes and their long-term one by stealing their trust with promises of ending kahirapan. They voted for P-Noy because he was the one who embodied their dreams, because he was one of them, because he would bring them to change the world and themselves. In fact they did not just vote for him, they campaigned for him. In fact they did not just campaign for him, they fought for him. In fact they did not just fight for him, they won the battle for him.

Quote “I thought the SONA offered the huge opportunity to harp on the spirit of voluntarism that sprung with his candidacy, that soared on the hope the people would not just be passive observers in the drama of their lives. I thought the SONA offered the huge opportunity to dwell on the real meaning of government, which like the Church, really means the community, the leaders and the led, you and me, bound together by a common purpose, working together for a common end. I thought the State of the Nation Address offered a huge opportunity to address something that John F. Kennedy merely proposed in his time but which is already a reality in P-Noy’s time, which is a people, rekindled, reawakened, reborn, asking not what their country can do for them but what they can do for their country.

Quote “P-Noy passed up the opportunity. No wonder people felt:

Quote “Bitin.” Closed-quote.

As fate would have it, or as the Universe would have it, or, as multi-tasking habits would have it, blog admin was listening to the news while reading the opinion-editorial page. So, here’s an example from last night’s news, chosen randomly, of an “ordinary” speech that recognizes the “historicity of the moment” (i’m not saying this is what Conrad meant, he might get angry with my choice, so this is with apologies to all, but it’s a random example from a “routinary” day (last night.)

Speechwriting, or even writing in general, isn’t about putting together complex words, or stringing clauses and sentences, or widening your listener’s vocabulary.

Writing (just my opinion) isn’t about “thinking up” of what words to use.

It’s about conveying ideas. And sentiments. And ideas are not just useless “abstractions”. Sometimes, ideas are transformed into action when they move people to change their future (Oh, Noynoy already knows this, he practised it in the best possible historical example of his time, for crying out loud! — it just has to be articulated in his speeches.)

Ideas can sometimes lay out a plan.

Conrad refers to an idea expressed in a classic oft-quoted textbook example, with an illustration by way of two lines from that JFK speech.

This one quoted here is a random example of a speech that captures the “historicity of the moment”; from a day like any other, just to show that giftedness manifests even on, or especially on, a normal, “uneventful” day.

From last night’s news, ordinarily. It’s Speechwriting 101.

(Greetings and salutation removed)

“Today, as we commemorate what the ADA accomplished, we celebrate who the ADA was all about. It was about the young girl in Washington State who just wanted to see a movie at her hometown theater, but was turned away because she had cerebral palsy; or the young man in Indiana who showed up at a worksite, able to do the work, excited for the opportunity, but was turned away and called a cripple because of a minor disability he had already trained himself to work with; or the student in California who was eager and able to attend the college of his dreams, and refused to let the iron grip of polio keep him from the classroom — each of whom became integral to this cause.

“And it was about all of you. You understand these stories because you or someone you loved lived them. And that sparked a movement. It began when Americans no longer saw their own disabilities as a barrier to their success, and set out to tear down the physical and social barriers that were. It grew when you realized you weren’t alone. It became a massive wave of bottom-up change that swept across the country as you refused to accept the world as it was. And when you were told, no, don’t try, you can’t do — you responded with that age-old American creed: Yes, we can. (Applause.)

Audience member: (Inaudible.)

Speaker: “Yes, we can!

“Sit-ins in San Francisco. Demonstrations in Denver. Protests in Washington, D.C., at Gallaudet, and before Congress. People marched, and organized, and testified. And laws changed, and minds changed, and progress was won. (Applause.)

“Now, that’s not to say it was easy. You didn’t always have folks in Washington to fight on your behalf. And when you did, they weren’t as powerful, as well-connected, as well-funded as the lobbyists who lined up to kill any attempt at change. And at first, you might have thought, what does anyone in Washington know or care about my battle? But what you knew from your own experience is that disability touches us all. If one in six Americans has a disability, then odds are the rest of us love somebody with a disability.

“I was telling a story to a group that was in the Oval Office before I came out here about Michelle’s father who had MS. By the time I met him, he had to use two canes just to walk. He was stricken with MS when he was 30 years old, but he never missed a day of work; had to wake up an hour early to get dressed –

Audience member: “ So what.

Speaker: “ — to get to the job, but that was his attitude — so what. He could do it. Didn’t miss a dance recital. Did not miss a ball game of his son. Everybody has got a story like that somewhere in their family.

“And that’s how you rallied an unlikely assortment of leaders in Congress and in the White House to the cause. Congressmen like Steny Hoyer, who knew his wife Judy’s battle with epilepsy; and Tony Coehlo, who waged his own; and Jim Sensenbrenner, whose wife, Cheryl, is a tremendous leader and advocate for the community. And they’re both here today. (Applause.)

(part of the speech that gives credit to lawmakers removed by blog admin for brevity purposes)

xxx

“Equal access — to the classroom, the workplace, and the transportation required to get there. Equal opportunity — to live full and independent lives the way we choose. Not dependence — but independence. That’s what the ADA was all about. (Applause.)

“But while it was a historic milestone in the journey to equality, it wasn’t the end. There was, and is, more to do. And that’s why today I’m announcing one of the most important updates to the ADA since its original enactment in 1991.

“Today, the Department of Justice is publishing two new rules protecting disability-based discrimination — or prohibiting disability-based discrimination by more than 80,000 state and local government entities, and 7 million private businesses. (Applause.) And beginning 18 months from now, all new buildings must be constructed in a way that’s compliant with the new 2010 standards for the design of doors and windows and elevators and bathrooms — (applause) — buildings like stores and restaurants and schools and stadiums and hospitals and hotels and theaters. (Applause.)

“My predecessor’s administration proposed these rules six years ago. And in those six years, they’ve been improved upon with more than 4,000 comments from the public. We’ve heard from all sides. And that’s allowed us to do this in a way that makes sense economically and allows appropriate flexibility while ensuring Americans with disabilities full participation in our society.

“And for the very first time, these rules will cover recreational facilities like amusement parks and marinas and gyms and golf facilities and swimming pools — (applause) — and municipal facilities like courtrooms and prisons. (Applause.) From now on, businesses must follow practices that allow individuals with disabilities an equal chance to purchase tickets for accessible seating at sporting events and concerts. (Applause.)

“And our work goes on. Even as we speak, Attorney General Eric Holder is preparing new rules to ensure accessibility of websites. (Applause.)

Audience: “ Yes, we can.

Speaker: “Yes, we can.

“We’re also placing a new focus on hiring Americans with disabilities across the federal government. (Applause.) Today, only 5 percent of the federal workforce is made up of Americans with disabilities — far below the proportion of Americans with disabilities in the general population. In a few moments, I’ll sign an executive order that will establish the federal government as a model employer of individuals with disabilities. (Applause.) So we’re going to boost recruitment, we’re going to boost training, we’re going to boost retention. We’ll better train hiring managers. Each agency will have a senior official who’s accountable for achieving the goals we’ve set. And I expect regular reports. And we’re going to post our progress online so that you can hold us accountable, too. (Applause.)

“And these new steps build on the progress my administration has already made.

“To see it that no one who signs up to fight for our country is ever excluded from its promise, we’ve made major investments in improving the care and treatment for our wounded warriors. (Applause.) To ensure full access to participation in our democracy and our economy, we’re working to make all government websites accessible to persons with disabilities. (Applause.)

“We’re expanding broadband Internet access to Americans who are deaf and hard of hearing. We’ve followed through with a promise I made to create three new disability offices at the State Department and Department of Transportation and at FEMA.

“And to promote equal rights across the globe, the United States of America joined 140 other nations in signing the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities — the first new human rights convention of the 21st century. (Applause.)

“America was the first nation on earth to comprehensively declare equality for its citizens with disabilities. We should join the rest of the world to declare it again — and when I submit our ratification package to Congress, I expect passage to be swift. (Applause.)

“And to advance the right to live independently, I launched the Year of Community Living, on the 10th anniversary of the Olmstead decision — a decision that declared the involuntary institutional isolation of people with disabilities unlawful discrimination under the ADA. (Applause.)

“So HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan have worked together to improve access to affordable housing and community supports and independent living arrangements for people with disabilities. And we continued a program that successfully helps people with disabilities transition to the community of their choice. (Applause.) And I’m proud of the work that the Department of Justice is doing to enforce Olmstead across the country.

“And we’ve finally broken down one discriminatory barrier that the ADA left in place. Because for too long, our health care system denied coverage to tens of millions of Americans with preexisting conditions — including Americans with disabilities. It was time to change that. And we did. Yes, we did. (Applause.)

“So the Affordable Care Act I signed into law four months ago will give every American more control over their health care -– and it will do more to give Americans with disabilities control over their own lives than any legislation since the ADA. I know many of you know the frustration of fighting with an insurance company. That’s why this law finally shifts the balance of power from them to you and to other consumers. (Applause.)

“No more denying coverage to children based on a preexisting condition or disability. No more lifetime limits on coverage. No more dropping your coverage when you get sick and need it the most because your insurance company found an unintentional error in your paperwork. (Applause.) And because Americans with disabilities are living longer and more independently, this law will establish better long-term care choices for Americans with disabilities as a consequence of the CLASS Act, an idea Ted Kennedy championed for years. (Applause.)

“Equal access. Equal opportunity. The freedom to make our lives what we will. These aren’t principles that belong to any one group or any one political party. They are common principles. They are American principles. No matter who we are — young, old, rich, poor, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled or not — these are the principles we cherish as citizens of the United States of America. (Applause.)

“They were guaranteed to us in our founding documents. One of the signers of those documents was a man named Stephen Hopkins. He was a patriot, a scholar, a nine-time governor of Rhode Island. It’s also said he had a form of palsy. And on July 4, 1776, as he grasped his pen to sign his name to the Declaration of Independence, he said, “My hand trembles. But my heart does not.” My hand trembles. But my heart does not.

“Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. Words that began our never-ending journey to form a more perfect union. To look out for one another. To advance opportunity and prosperity for all of our people. To constantly expand the meaning of life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. To move America forward. That’s what we did with the ADA. That is what we do today. And that’s what we’re going to do tomorrow — together.

“So, thank you. God bless you. And God bless the United States of America. Let me sign the order. (Applause)”

Another random example, also a contemporary one, from last year, just to show that writing isn’t about “thinking up” of what words to use — this speech wasn’t even in English when delivered, this one here is just a translation; from last year’s commemoration of D-Day in Normandy: four heads of state came together. They delivered speeches one after the other.

At first, it looked (to me) like it was going to be a “contest” of who would deliver the best commemorative speech, but the solemnity of the occasion brought out this poignant piece (i chose it for its imagery, vivid narrative, and its human interest angle).

(i can just hear Noynoy’s speechwriters: “But the medium is the message – we were trying to contrast this President from the previous one, that’s why, etc etc. Anyway.)

Speechwriting 101, another random example. Not even in English originally:

(Greetings and salutation removed)

“They were 135,000 in thousands of boats. They formed two armies: one American, the other British and Canadian. A few hours earlier, Eisenhower had wished them “Good luck! ”. All were silent. What did these young soldiers think, their glance fixed on the thin black tape of the coast which emerged little by little from the fog? With their very brief life? With the kisses which their mothers tenderly planted on their faces when they were children? To recall the suppressed tears of their fathers when they left? Those who awaited them on the other side of the sea? What must have been their thoughts, these young soldiers into whose hands destiny had put the fate of many people, but that at 20 years it was too early to die? Their silence was like a prayer. On the beaches 50,000 Germans awaited them, also in silence. Deathly moment. The day before:

“The Resistance had dynamited 500 bridges. Between midnight and two hours and half of the morning, the parachutists of the 82nd and 101st American airborne divisions and those of the 6th British airborne division had been released behind the first lines of defence. Between 3:15 and 5:00 of that morning, 5,000 bombers had pounded the entire coast. At 4:15 the troops had started to be transported on the barges. With 5:45 the guns of 1,200 warships had opened fire. With 6:30 the landing started. The wind blew extremely hard. The barges were battered by waves several meters high. The soaked soldiers, shivering of cold, patiently bailed with their helmets.

“Those who landed and disembarked too early drowned. Boats ran aground before arriving at the goal. Of 19 tanks on the whole, a Canadian armored unit lost 15 of them before reaching the beach. Those that got as far as the beach unloaded among the dead and the casualties who floated on the water, carried by the tide. Then they had to traverse through corpses lying on the sand. One of the first American soldiers unloaded on Omaha Beach would write: “all that seemed unreal, like i woke up from a nightmare.

“One could almost walk over the entire length of the beach without touching the ground because it was covered with bodies”. Opposite, the German soldier who aimed at him above with the machine-gun went through the same feeling of nightmare by looking in front of him and seeing “the space of bloody vase where hundreds and hundreds of lifeless bodies were strewn”. In the evening of June 6, more than 120,000 allied soldiers had landed, which the 32,000 men of the airborne divisions reinforced. Among their ranks one counted more than ten thousand dead, wounded or disappeared. The Staff had envisaged 25,000 of them.

“In the evening of June 12, after six days of fighting without mercy, the Allies had succeeded in establishing an 80- km perimeter and a continuous and deep front line of from 10 to 30 kms. But the battle of Normandy was going to last until August 29. On this date, two million allied soldiers would have landed, 38,500 would have been killed, 158,000 wounded, 19,000 missing. The Germans would have had 60,000 killed men, 140,000 wounded, 210,000 captured. Nearly 20,000 civilians would have lost their lives.

“The battle of Normandy decided the fate of the war. It was gained on the beaches and in the sunken lanes of barbed wire by peasants and workmen Americans whose fathers had fought in the Meuse and Argonne in 1918, by British soldiers in whom were incarnated the heroic virtues of the great people which in the most terrible test of history had not yielded, by Canadian soldiers which as of the first days of the war had joined voluntarily, not because their country was threatened, but because they were convinced that it was a question of honor. The battle of Normandy was gained by the soldiers of the 1st Polish armor-plated division engaged in the combat of the Cliff pocket and which armored itself with glory by pushing back the German counter-attack of the 19th, 20th and August 21st, 1944 when 2,300 of them were killed or wounded. The battle of Normandy was gained by aviators: Czech, Danish, Norwegian, by Belgian and Dutch parachutists, by the soldiers of Leclerc, the commandos of Kieffer, SAS who fought under the English uniform. The battle of Normandy was gained by some twenty-year old soldiers who killed in order not to be killed, who feared dying but who fought far from their homelands with an admirable courage against a ruthless enemy with as much dedication as if the fate of their own fatherland were at stake. The battle of Normandy was the revenge, the divide that Czechoslovakia and Poland, Belgium and the controlled Netherlands, France had overcome in five weeks. It was the revenge of Sedan, of Dunkirk, of Dieppe.

“In front of the nine thousand American tombs of this cemetery where we joined together today, Mr. President of the United States, I want to pay homage, in the name of France, to those who have spilled their blood on Norman ground and who now sleep there for eternity. I want to say thank you to the last survivors of this tragedy present today and through them all those whose courage made it possible to overcome one of worst cruelties of all times. They fought for a cause which they knew at the bottom of their hearts was larger than their own lives. Not one retreated. One cannot cite them all, these heroes to whom we owe so much.

“They were numerous. But we will never forget them. Among them, Mr. President, there were your grandfather, sergeant in the American army and his two brothers. For all the French, you are thus twice, Mr. President, by the office which you hold and the blood which runs in your veins, the symbol of America which we love. America which defends the highest spiritual values and morals. America which fights for freedom, democracy and human rights. Open, tolerant, generous America.

“Mr. President of the United States, Mister Prime Minister of Canada, the American and Canadian soldiers came to fight twice at the side of the English and the French. What would have befallen us if they had not arrived? From this question the answer to which is both obvious and tragic, was born Europe. Before the ruins and coffins, each understood that it was necessary that the infernal cycle of revenge be stopped which each war had sown to reap another war, and which had brought the European people to the edge of the destruction. And then, we brought peace and we created Europe so that it would endure. We owe it to all the innocent victims. We owe it to all these young soldiers who had sacrificed themselves for it. We owe it to our children to save them from the same sufferings. We owe it to all the men whom Europe had involved in its misfortunes. All those who had fought against Nazism and fascism while dreaming of building a better world where right would replace might. We know the way which remains to be taken. We know that this way is long, that this way is difficult. But we know also what Europe and America, faithful to its values, can achieve together. Great totalitarianisms of the 20th century were overcome.

“The threats which weigh today on the future of humanity are of another nature. They are not less serious. What will become of the world if global warming deprives hundreds of million of men, women and children of water and food? If a capitalism of speculation and revenue destroys the goods of a million people? If extreme poverty pushes part of humanity to despair? What would become of the world if by cowardly abandonment the democracies were to leave the field free to terrorism and fanaticism? If they renounce the defense of human rights and the rights of the people? From the fight of free people against Nazism was born the ideal of the United Nations. Our duty, Mr. President, is to live this ideal. If not, of what use was so much spilled blood, sacrifices, and sufferings? Heroic deaths that lie here should not only belong to history. More than that, the most valuable homage that we can give back to them, the only one that really counts, is to seek to be worthy of what they achieved for us.

“When on June 7, 1944 sergeant Bob Slaughter found himself on Omaha Beach where he had landed the day before — he was overwrought by the sight of all these men washed away along these waves, men he knew since childhood and whom he had grown with. This thought then crossed his mind: “we were brothers, we will always be. They died so that we can live. I thank them for what they gave us”. Throughout his life, there remained haunting memories of “these austere faces, large eyes and mouths opened, fixed in the cold of death”.

“Like the German sergeant, Hein Severloh, which “for this time, always and without stop had seen a GI isolated emerging from the gray floods of his dreams and unloaded over there on the beach. With his shoulder and his rifle, he aims and draws. His helmet rolls idly, it whirls above the sand, bathes in the waves which came to die at the water’s edge then, slowly, the soldier crumbles and falls face forward…”

“Like the American soldier who, in Dachau or Buchenwald, encountered for the first time the hallucinatory glance of an amazed deportee, amazed to have survived the unforgettable hell. He had just understood why he had fought… From all the suffering that they carried in them and of which they could not be spared, the combatants of this atrocious war drew a great dream from justice and peace. Can we, Mr. President, ever forget in turn what was this suffering was, or give

up this dream? Can we share this dream with our children? This great dream of justice and peace.”

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