Artifact idea

Rough outline for speech

Topic: Voting yes on April 6th to bring American troops home the war in Vietnam

Purpose: To illustrate the effectiveness of rhetorical choices made by the artifact created by the Citizens For Immediate Withdrawal

Introduction:

Give a summary of the circumstances of the Vietnam War at the time of the artifact’s creation to demonstrate the reason for its invention. Speak on kairotic moments that will later be used.

• Poster released in 1971 per Wisconsin Historical Society displaying the number total deaths due to troop presence in Vietnam.
• americanwarlibrary.com lists total US and South Vietnamese casualties at over 16000 in the month of march 1971 alone.
• Citizens For Immediate Removal was an anti war group in Madison Wisconsin that advocated for the proposition of a cease fire to pass. The New York Times reported on April 7, 1971 that the proposition passed with a two to 1 majority the day before. An exactly worded proposition was defeated by 7000 votes three years previously.

Thesis: In order to rally the American people to respond affirmatively to the exigence of a vote to bring home soldiers from the war in Vietnam, the Citizens For Immediate Withdrawal instructs their audience to decide to vote with them, informed by both extrinsic statistics and intrinsic stylized images.

Preview: I’ll be presenting how this poster used three catalysts to promote the eventual yes vote

Body:

• Re-examine context and explain how the artifact is civic and explain common places in the artifact. Touch on ideology and culture.
• This artifact frames civic engagement as the preservation of peace through the recalling of troops.
• The artifact asks for action in the form of a “vote for peace”.

Kairotic Moment: The Citizens For Immediate Removal made this poster during 1971, when casualties were rising, more and more Americans were becoming opposed to the draft if not the war itself, and the media covering it all was as negative as it had ever been

• The Citizens For Immediate Removal created this poster in 1971, a year in which an already unpopular war had become doubly as costly as 7000 us casualties in march of 1970 became 16000 in march of 1971
• This was a year in which media coverage of Vietnam had already turned sour following a supreme court ruling  adding “sincerely held ethical and moral beliefs to the definition of allowable grounds for conscientious draft objection” in 1970 per PBS and Walter Cronkite’s reporting on the state of the in early 1968, in which he said according to the Washington Post  “[I]t is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could.”
• The Citizens For Immediate Withdrawal capitalized on these circumstances to corral the public towards the peace vote with their poster.

Intrinsic Proofs: The Citizens For Immediate Withdrawal uses intrinsic proofs such as pathos through specific coloring and imagery, and logos through the words written at the top, “The War Is Over”

•  The image of American soldiers injured, barely holding each other up, presented in black and white silhouette, offers for the viewer an idea of the forgotten soldier made nameless and faceless in the midst of an unjust conflict. The lack of defined features for the soldiers allows the audience to insert themselves or a family member into their position.
• Logos is utilized through the statement at the top. ” The War Is Over” projects onto the audience the viewpoint of the soldier in the poster, for whom the war is already lost, and it’s then that they would consider the grander perspective that an unpopular war is continuing to cost lives in order to achieve goals that have largely been meaningless. When this is accepted the only logical step forward is to vote yes on April 6 to bring your troops home.

Extrinsic: The Citizens For Immediate Withdrawal establish extrinsic proofs using casualty statistics for US and Vietnamese troops

• The number 55,000 is brought forward as a measure of American loss in this unpopular conflict that cannot be recovered, while the sharp spike upward towards a million for Vietnamese casualties makes the audience consider the consequences of their troops presence on those may otherwise would not have died. Framed in this way, it asks the question if a vague victory which cannot at this moment be foreseen is worth the cost of life that has been so far accrued and will be wrought in the future.

Conclusion: Re-state thesis and review main points + closing statement

• In the middle of a storm of media negativity and a building cost of life on the American and Vietnamese people in 1971, the Citizens For Immediate Withdrawal utilized this kairotic moment to mobilize a base of disaffected peoples to vote yes for peace through a use of extrinsic and intrinsic proofs. These proofs brought to the attention of the audience a lost war, and lost soldiers dying everyday for an imminently preventable conflict. And so in the face these truths, the only civic response the people of Madison, Wisconsin is one in the affirmative on the question of peace on April  6, 1971

Comparative Analysis Outline

Intro: Pre-20th century, the United States had maintained an isolationist record on major warfare. The Revolutionary War, The War of 1812, The Mexican-American War, and The Civil War all took place exclusively in the continental United States or the Americas. The first sharp divergence of this trend came on April 6, 1917 when the United States would declare war on Germany thus entering itself into the first world war. However, this certainly wasn’t the first time the American people had observed the possibility. Already on July 6, 1916 had an article entitled “What are you doing for preparedness?” (Knauer) come out in an issue of Leslie’s Weekly Magazine. On the cover that week’s issue was a now classic poster of Uncle Sam with three immortal words in big bold letters: :”I WANT YOU”. Over 60 years of warfare and millions of American lives lost later the Citizens For Immediate Withdrawal would release a poster of an entirely different sort. This poster, upon which the most prominent words are an admission that “The War Is Over”, is an outcry to the public to perform their civic duty to bring their soldiers home.

Comparative analysis thesis statement:  The Citizens For Immediate Withdrawal poster and the classic Uncle Sam poster both attempt to induce action from their audience for the purpose of good of the nation though in distinctly different ways. One attempts to recruit young Americans to join up while the other encourages the people to vote to bring home those currently engaged. Though one utilizes effective extrinsic proofs, both are dominated by stylized intrinsic proofs such as coloring and imagery.

Body 1: Although both the Citizens For Immediate Withdrawal’s and the classic “I WANT YOU” poster are strikingly different in tone and intention, they both intrinsic pathetic appeals to induce a state of action in their audience.

Body 2: The starkly contrasting tone and imagery of each reflects well their individual exigences and the kairotic moments that they were made for.

Body 3: Further matching their respective tones and the respective naivety and lack thereof for the American people at the times these two posters were released, one poster utilizes intentionally grim extrinsic statistics that are noticeably absent in the other.

Conclusion: While noticeably different in tone and outward intention, these artifacts both use pathetic appeals to corral the American people to take action for the purpose of the good of the nation.