President Ronald Reagan Address to the Nation on the Berlin Wall (1:57)
_ Who is speaking? Ronald Reagan
_ Why was/is the speech important to society? To address the nation about the Berlin Wall during the Cold War, Reagan traveled to Berlin to challenge Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev to destroy the Berlin Wall
_ Why do you feel it is important or interesting? This speech contains what is argued to be the most significant four words in Reagan's presidency: "Tear down this wall!" And though it might not have been the direct cause for the removal of the wall about 2 years later, the words from this speech forever resonate as an important part of history.
_ What is the emotion, mood, tone, personality, feeling of the speech? His words are from experience and are emotionally charged. They paint a picture of physical and psychological oppression that was felt by Western Berlin from the communist nation of Eastern Berlin.
_ What is intonation, emphasis, what is loud, stressed, or soft. Where are there pauses?
SEGMENT: 43 second segment, beginning at 1:04 and ending at 1:57
/ short pause
bold stressed word(s)
{{}} segment
() side mentioned words
// emphasized pause
You’ve been hearing and reading
reports that nothing was really
accomplished at the summit and the United
States, in particular, came home empty handed. / Well this was my seventh summit and the seventh time I’ve hear that same chorus.
/ You know, / it might be appropriate, a noted bull fighter / wrote a poem of a
few lines of which do seem appropriate / the bull fight critiques ranked and
rose, fill the enormous plaza full / but
only one is there who really knows /
and he is the one who fights the bull.
/ The truth is that we came home from this summit with everything we’d hoped to
accomplish, / and tonight I want to report to you on decisions made there that
directly affect you and your children’s economic future. / I also have a
special message, one that is about our own economy, / about actions that could
jeopardize the kind of progress we made toward our economic health last week in
Venice / as well as the prosperity that during the last six years, all of us
here in America have worked so hard to achieve. / {{ But before beginning, / I
must make a personal note about
something we saw on the last day of our journey.
/ When we stopped in Berlin to celebrate the 750th anniversary of
that noble city / I know that over the years, many of you seen the pictures and
news clips of the wall that divides Berlin. But believe me / no American that has seen these first hand—the concrete and mortar, / the
guard posts and machine gun towers, / the dog runs / and the barbed wire—can ever
again take for granted his or her freedom
/ or the precious gift that is America. That gift of freedom is
actually the birth right of all humanity // and that’s why, / as I stood there,
I urged the Soviet Leader (Mr. Gorbachev) to send a new signal of openness to the world // by tearing down that wall. }}
_ What do you FEEL should be loud or soft, long pause or rushed? His final statement, "Tear down this wall," is the climax of the speech. It should be loud and stated with a sense of purpose. The words need to be emphasized and deliberate. The descriptions of the wall boundaries (dog runs, guard posts, etc.) should be spoken slowly and at a moderate to soft tone. They need to allow the audience to soak in the visual imagery.
_ Is there a call to action? When listening to it what are key/emphasized words? The speech is definitely a call to action, it is a challenge not only to the leader of the Soviet Union specifically to have the wall removed, but to the people of Eastern Berlin to rise above the oppression and not accept that fate any longer. "But believe me, no American that has seen these first hand—the concrete and mortar, the guard posts and machine gun towers, the dog runs and the barbed wire—can ever again take for granted his or her freedom or the precious gift that is America. That gift of freedom is actually the birth right of all humanity and that’s why, as I stood there, I urged the Soviet Leader (Mr. Gorbachev) to send a new signal of openness to the world by tearing down that wall."
_ How does it make you feel? With the right music and typographic movement, this speech could give me goosebumps. I already empathize with those who suffer from oppression in Western Berlin and I am subconsciously persuaded to want the wall to be torn down.
_ How do imagine that the audience felt? Moved to free the people faced with communist oppression, a stir to rise against the forces of evil, a swelling of hope for change and renewal
_ Could there be another interpretation of the speech? The line in the speech that directly challenges Gorbachev to remove the wall was controversial. Some speech-writers advised against it, thinking that the words would embarrass Gorbachev in front of his people by increasing the East-West tension and tarnish the good relationship Reagan had built up with the Soviet Union Leader.
_ Write/find a short bio, of the person giving the speech.
Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was the 40th President of the United States (1981–89). Prior to that, he was the 33rd Governor of California (1967–75), and a radio, film and television actor.
Born in Tampico, Illinois, and raised in Dixon, Reagan was educated at Eureka College, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics and sociology. After graduating, Reagan moved first to Iowa to work as a radio broadcaster and then, in 1937, to Los Angeles where he began a career as an actor, first in films and later television. Some of his most notable films include Knute Rockne, All American (1940), Kings Row (1942), and Bedtime for Bonzo (1951). Reagan served as President of the Screen Actors Guild and later as a spokesman for General Electric (GE); his start in politics occurred during his work for GE. Originally a member of the Democratic Party, his positions began shifting rightward in the 1950s, and he switched to the Republican Party in 1962. After delivering a rousing speech in support of Barry Goldwater's presidential candidacy in 1964, he was persuaded to seek the California governorship, winning two years later and again in 1970. He was defeated in his run for the Republican presidential nomination in 1968 and in 1976, but won both the nomination and general election in 1980, defeating incumbent Jimmy Carter.
As president, Reagan implemented sweeping new political and economic initiatives. His supply-side economic policies, dubbed "Reaganomics", advocated reducing tax rates to spur economic growth, controlling the money supply to reduce inflation, deregulation of the economy, and reducing government spending. In his first term he survived an assassination attempt, took a hard line against labor unions, and ordered an invasion of Grenada. He was re-elected in a landslide in 1984, proclaiming that it was "Morning in America". His second term was primarily marked by foreign matters, such as the ending of the Cold War, the 1986 bombing of Libya, and the revelation of the Iran-Contra affair. Publicly describing the Soviet Union as an "evil empire", he supported anti-communist movements worldwide and spent his first term forgoing the strategy of détente by ordering a massive military buildup in an arms race with the USSR. Reagan negotiated with Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, culminating in the INF Treaty and the decrease of both countries' nuclear arsenals.
Reagan left office in 1989. In 1994, the former president disclosed that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease earlier in the year; he died ten years later at the age of 93. A conservative icon, he ranks highly in public opinion polls of U.S. Presidents and is credited for generating an ideological renaissance on the American political right.
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| I wasn't quite sure how to go about this so I went to my favorite way to get ideas out: pen and blank printer paper. I am actually surprised we did so few... but more process, I am sure, is coming. (Maybe I'm just used to Andrea or Tad) |
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