I have listened to the grand speeches of world leaders for easily 60 years but it took only the last 20 years to realize they were put together by professionals who knew what the public wanted to hear.
The last 20 years and the television and internet showed me that the speakers did not write the words they were given to read. I became horrified at the hypocrisy of the speakers to actually believe they had any truth behind their words. They often spoke for the check writers behind their actions and the hypocrisy was soon realized to represent actual truth..
The believers immediately went into a mode of telling questioners that two subjects would never be discussed; politics and religion. This stopped further questions and discussions of the purpose of the speech itself.
Personally I blame “faith” as a counter- non-action to even understand the state of our nation at any specific time. We are trained from childhood to have faith in our religion and in our political choices. This lack of involvement has elected some really bad leadership from the top down in our government. It also angered those faithful Americans to such a point of expressing downright hatred for any other point of view. The faithful followed the individual candidate within the party that preached faith as a “right of passage” for all Americans. Once the choice was made they could stop discussions of the politics of the day.
In one of my classes “Renaissance Art” I was asked by another student what I thought of Sarah Palin. I honestly said that if Governor Palin had a speech writer with her at all times, she might succeed as leadership quality. Her problem is her lack of conviction of her statements and alone she uses one-liners to get laughs without remembering these did not agree with her book or her previous statements. She is spontaneously stupid. But with training the voters probably would not notice.
I listened to President Obama this morning when he received his Nobel Peace Prize. His speech was brilliant and his delivery was flawless. But to me he represented the same hypocrisy that all our Presidents show when they speak in public.
Remembering these speeches from FDR all the way down including this one this morning and with my black cat on my lap, I shrugged like an old fat Atlas.
My problem is my complete lack of faith in anything; especially the federal government. I sometimes feel that this White House, Congress and Supreme Court were all designed by Cecil B. DeMille, with great actors portraying the parts cast for prominence and awards. When the lights go down and the cameras go off, the actors will return to their day jobs.
These day jobs have no interest in right versus wrong and there no allegiance to any part of the Constitution. They spend their time trying to keep from making a single decision knowing the majority of their voters will never discuss politics or religion.
America is spiritually dead and until we start some kind of movement for honesty, truth and integrity in our elections we will fade out to black.
18 thoughts on “Speech Writers, Their Responsibility”
In the last two years I have seen this act played out time and again. Tell me it’s for real this time?
We can spend the rest of our lives finding fault with everything we dislike. I’m giving up. Everything I write is my own opinion. I think of speech writer as I think of script writers. It is the audience that makes or breaks the movie. But when it comes to politics we have to blame something other than how the words are received versus presented.
I want an educated voter base with their agendas so accepted that they will in turn bring other voters in. This is how it worked before television and the internet.
My agenda is in opposition to others here and we will never agree even to disagree.
Almandine, the politicians are elected by the voters. When the voters get their ballots marked by their ministers we end up with a theocracy. Many here would want this because as some said earlier today Jesus is God and America should follow. I have no other choice than to back out and give up any hope of trying to get the voters to judge for themselves what is right and what is wrong. Not all of us are Christians but must we pretend just to be read here? I’m fighting a losing battle and I must stop trying to convince people that they are responsible for how our government operates.
The one thing I despise about this religious movement is that those who follow lose their sense of the absurd. I miss the sense of fun that used to be part of CHB. It may still be there at Reader Rant but not for me. In the last dozen years I realize I am not a part of American values. I cannot write on what the readers want.
Tell you what, you write for the home page and see how your ideas are accepted. I want to see if you can honestly blame the politicians for what we find unacceptable in American government. Of course the Lobbyists manipulate the congress for their own profits. It all comes back to the members of congress and the voters are the ones who elect them.
I work with the voters trying to get them to understand that a government must work on honesty and integrity and it may mean stepping out of the parties.
Under the surface CHB is still whining. I quit
Sandy
Your welcome, but in all fairness that was not my intent. Speech writers exist and serve in many capacities other than getting someone elected; they generally work from a set of ideas or goals provided by the one who will deliver the speech. The ability to “turn a phrase” is their value, as it is for those who write for any purpose… authors, columnists, newsmen, scientists, etc. The better the written word, the better the message.
The mesage you have here is that of politics, and how the people get hoodwinked by flowery, but misleading, prose and polemics delivered by and in the service of political hacks. I think your piece is mis-titled, as it’s the politicians who have the responsibility you feel is not being lived up to.
The bottom line is that speech writers perform a service for pay, or perhaps for the “cause”. The content is the responsibility of those who deliver the speeches.
Thank you Almandine. You made my point clearly. The purpose for speech writers is to get the person elected. The person is a product and the promotion is in the words.
A brilliant example is, of course, Governor Palin. She clearly outlined the RNC agenda which was her only purpose for being in the campaign. I find that agenda damaging to every American.
Sandy
I expect the American people to be able to tell political hype from political possibilities. I was no friend of either Bush Administrations but the reaction from the voters to clean out the government of the corruption was stunning. We saw a massive desire for change.
Americans have lost what America basically is. We are not comfortable with the all white Christian crusades and the voters split. I went through this in 1988 and I split from the GOP but did not go across the aisle. I ended up with Perot and then Paul.
President Obama made the right moves and said the right words; it worked. Americans will always get what they pay for and when they do not look into the product, it will fail them.
There is no proof in advertising and until the people demand proof we will end up like a tennis game with the ball being sent back and forth until it goes out of bounds.
Zengine, you gave your opinion and it was honest. I thank you for it.
Yes, sir, it is real. I work hard at writing my opinions. My opinions are mine and I do not expect anyone else to agree. I truly believe the problems in America are based on apathy and ignorance. After attending many churches and two revival meetings, I found the source of the ignorance.
The ignorance of the voters has allowed the government to control more of their lives than was designed by the founders. We went from a revolutionary mass of freedom fighters to a bunch of lemmings directed by a well-designed terrorist ghost.
Many here are no better and no worse than the average American fool. I gave it a go and I failed. I’m easily 10 years ahead of reality. The next generations of Americans will never accept the total corruption of the American voters. I truly am sorry that for a another chance at exposing the problems, I would be criticized for my opinions.
The damage has been done to the American People and they earned it. You can blame others including me but the people could not tolerate their own freedoms and needed Big Daddy in all aspects of their lives.
I will bet you will finally see the truth in 10 years. By then there will be little the voters can do. We have failed every chance at breaking away from well-planned destruction of our individual lives. It will take an enormous crash to wake you up to the realities that once your freedoms are gone, there is no place to go.
My spirit is broken by the American people. I know what is wrong in America and in our government but the American people would rather wallow in Oprah than take the responsibility for their own destruction.
Turn around and watch the next couple of generations stand up to this laziness of spirit found in American today. They will stop this obsession with needing Big Daddy to lead them. It is bad enough to vote for the government to tell them what not to do but this sky daddy is on his way out!. Can you handle it? Can you handle total independence as a man?
Sandy
Speechwriters are marketing experts. Selling any product is done by exposure to the buyers. It is the same empty promisers made by the politicians no matter how high or low they claim to want.
You are right about people wanting power over others. This may be the same force we saw in our tribal battles. The best tool for power has always been using terror to win points. The many Gods developed over the many years when we could stand and walk on two feet, learned that scaring the tribe made them successful leaders.
Body language is a learned skill. I was involved in the master of body language when he taught body movement as well as timing of the words performed on the stage. He was trained on the New York stage and was called back when television took over the direction and the art of live stage production was lost. There were two directors in our area at that time and one was Will Geer and the other John Houseman. Will died in 1978 and Houseman took over and I left the company 6 months later. I did the costumes for these productions and the costumes down to the color helped the actor on the stage. There is little difference between what we did and what the RNC and DNC do to the candidates.
If you listen to President Obama he is as carefully programmed in his gestures, his high and low notes as anyone on the Shakespearean stage today. In 2008, the RNC was so fixated on Christian candidates that during a debate they were asked who did not believe evolution. That did me in and just the question being asked was an insult.
My patience is very thin when I watch commercials and political speeches. There was one candidate who gave no bullshit and the people laughed as his honesty and that was Ross Perot.
They should make it a new order of evaluation: “does this politician write his own speeches? No? What a clod!”
Imagine being too busy to explain policy to the citizenry in one’s own words. Stage managed tripe, most of it just a smokescreen to sell people with empty feel-fuzzies while the real power, the real string pullers strip you of your national resources, national integrity, and international respect.
When I say ‘you’, it’s just a pov thing. I write from outside of the US. I’m an American citizen, even served in the Marine Corps from 86′ to 90′ with a recall in 91′ for Desert Storm. I currently live in Canada, though. Have for the last ten years. It’s a lovely country and I’d be happy to live out the rest of my life here. They’re probably more free than Americans are, despite all the rhetoric coming from south of the border about being the ‘freest, richest country in the world’. They certainly have a healthier population, anyhow, and some control over their politicians and banks, and have managed to gimp the control of money over their elected officials. We still have Harper, of course, a true neocon. Still, the corruption is only aspiring to reach the levels seen in the US.
Don’t know why I felt inclined to include that last paragraph. But it felt right so I went with it.
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