Author: cbw5653

Issue Brief

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vyPZsF0Own7b5OZbNnNxlff-Lh0TTNWYGAs7-eYCd50/edit

 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rez5mZ_yBwlF1izsAM3E7gusMKRJRKpKwvt66t05_kE/edit

The words “I promise” have lost their meaning. Amongst the current vocabulary of society, “I promise” has become mixed together with any of the multiple affirmative phrases one may use to tell a friend they’ll save them a spot at dinner. I don’t like that. I believe promises to be more. I believe promises are guarantees made with the whole weight of somebody’s regard for another human being behind it. In my writing of this piece I knew well the instances I could draw from to describe the damage done to myself and those closest to me by promises broken, but that I’m here now in and of itself is a stunning display of the power held by promises kept.

At 5 years old my dad moved on from us and married a ranching woman that owned 64 acres outside the town of Loving, Texas. Not one for the ranching lifestyle, I spent the majority of my weekends with dad shut up in a large ranch house in the center of those 64 acres that sat on top of the sorriest looking hill you’d never remember seeing. Two floors, three bathrooms, an empty living room, adjacent kitchen, and a broken tv playing static accompanied by wind chimes was my entire world done up in camo and animal skin decorating for as long as I spent time there. I question what could have become of me in that ranch house if it hadn’t been for that ranching woman’s daughter. She was 4 years older than I was at the time and carried an air of blanket dissatisfaction with the world in general. Needless to say, I related to her instantly.

I suppose I could never know unless I asked but I suspect that being older than me, and having had her parents divorce around my age, that she may have looked at me ghosting around that house which could never be a home and recognized something of herself. or at least, she saw a bit of what she’d felt. Her first words to me were “Hey, have you read this?”, and I don’t think she could’ve picked better ones. I read the book she gave me, watched the film adaptation with her the next day, and that was that. It’d be unfair to say she was my best friend. She gave something that I never could’ve imagined existed in that godforsaken house. She became my family and kept me sane for the next 8 years.

I turned 13 and my dad does what he does and moved on once again. My last weekend there before he left for good and took me with him, she found me and asked plainly how I felt about it. I told her the truth. I wouldn’t miss the ranch. I wouldn’t miss the horses or the cows. I wouldn’t miss her mom, and I wouldn’t miss that perfect purgatory of a house. I would miss her. She started crying then and smiled at me through her tears in a way that I could never forget if I tried. She grabbed me and said “You’re my family. Nothing can change that or ever will. You know that, and we’ll see each other again. I promise.”

My dad and I left the next day and for four years I had my memories of her and nothing else. Dad didn’t keep their phone numbers, and you can be sure we weren’t welcome to visit. I lived with my mom, dad moved to Florida, and I approached my senior year of high school without any thought to being able to see her again but for the promise she made me. Her letter came in the mail one day and I read the name on it 4 times before opening it. She was graduating college, She was getting married, and She wanted her family there for both occasions. She meant me. I saw her for the first time in four years at her wedding rehearsal and I could’ve passed out from the hug I got when she recognized me. I told her that I was just so happy to see her again. She said “I promised.”

Promises aren’t just words. They’re tethers that hold people together and give kids wondering who their family still is the hope to look forward to the future. Promises are everything that make people worth knowing. This I believe.

The words “I promise” have lost their meaning. Amongst the current vocabulary of society, “I promise” has become mixed together with any of the multiple affirmative phrases one may use to tell a friend they’ll save them a spot at dinner. I don’t like that. I believe promises to be more. I believe promises are guarantees made with the whole weight of somebody’s regard for another human being behind it. In my writing of this piece I knew well the instances I could draw from to describe the damage done to myself and those closest to me by promises broken, but that I’m here now in and of itself is a stunning display of the power held by promises kept.

At 5 years old my dad moved on from us and married a ranching woman that owned 64 acres outside the town of Loving, Texas. Not one for the ranching lifestyle, I spent the majority of my weekends with dad shut up in a large ranch house in the center of those 64 acres that sat on top of the sorriest looking hill you’d never remember seeing. Two floors, three bathrooms, an empty living room, adjacent kitchen, and a broken tv playing static accompanied by wind chimes was my entire world done up in camo and animal skin decorating for as long as I spent time there. I question what could have become of me in that ranch house if it hadn’t been for that ranching woman’s daughter. She was 4 years older than I was at the time and carried an air of blanket dissatisfaction with the world in general. Needless to say, I related to her instantly.

I suppose I could never know unless I asked but I suspect that being older than me, and having had her parents divorce around my age, that she may have looked at me ghosting around that house which could never be a home and recognized something of herself. or at least, she saw a bit of what she’d felt. Her first words to me were “Hey, have you read this?”, and I don’t think she could’ve picked better ones. I read the book she gave me, watched the film adaptation with her the next day, and that was that. It’d be unfair to say she was my best friend. She gave something that I never could’ve imagined existed in that godforsaken house. She became my family and kept me sane for the next 8 years.

I turned 13 and my dad does what he does and moved on once again. My last weekend there before he left for good and took me with him, she found me and asked plainly how I felt about it. I told her the truth. I wouldn’t miss the ranch. I wouldn’t miss the horses or the cows. I wouldn’t miss her mom, and I wouldn’t miss that perfect purgatory of a house. I would miss her. She started crying then and smiled at me through her tears in a way that I could never forget if I tried. She grabbed me and said “You’re my family. Nothing can change that or ever will. You know that, and we’ll see each other again. I promise.”

My dad and I left the next day and for four years I had my memories of her and nothing else. Dad didn’t keep their phone numbers, and you can be sure we weren’t welcome to visit. I lived with my mom, dad moved to Florida, and I approached my senior year of high school without any thought to being able to see her again but for the promise she made me. Her letter came in the mail one day and I read the name on it 4 times before opening it. She was graduating college, She was getting married, and She wanted her family there for both occasions. She meant me. I saw her for the first time in four years at her wedding rehearsal and I could’ve passed out from the hug I got when she recognized me. I told her that I was just so happy to see her again. She said “I promised.”

Promises aren’t just words. They’re tethers that hold people together and give kids wondering who their family still is the hope to look forward to the future. Promises are everything that make people worth knowing. This I believe.

A facet of this assignment I particularly enjoyed was the research. It’s a topic that’s very interesting to me and there’s always something new to learn and a different way to frame information about these people in particular. It also didn’t hurt that it cleared a lot of the research I’d have to do for the paradigm shift essay. I believe the thing I struggled with the most was keeping the information succinct.  This is obviously reflected in the run time of the video. I just couldn’t find a way to say what I wanted how I wanted to within the time limit. The thing I’m most proud of within my presentation would be that I kept the information straight for each subject while still managing to be entertaining. Though of course that did negatively impact the time it took to deliver the speech, ultimately I’d say it was worth it to present something I would’ve enjoyed seeing. If there was something I’d change it would be to improve the delivery on some of the punchier lines. I feel like some came out flat because I felt rushed. Maybe if I did it again I’d limit the subjects to two. That way I could go deeper on both while being able to be as creative with the delivery as I want to. Unfortunately, that might detract from the bigger picture being portrayed through the talk as a whole. Fortunately, the abundance of information needed for roasting three United States Representatives did more that a number on the amount of time I had to spend finding info for the paradigm shift. I’ll count that as a win. Ultimately, I wouldn’t be upset if I was told I had to another Ted Talk. Especially if the time limit is just a bit longer.

https://www.audacy.com/kxnt/hosts/the-glenn-beck-program

https://www.latimes.com/world/la-et-wink14-2008oct14-story.html

https://www.businessinsider.com/ron-paul-hospitalized-stroke-live-stream-vide0-2020-9

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2011/06/30/michele-bachmann-on-board-with-tax-holiday/?sh=1c9f6982167d

 

Outline

 

INTRO

• Gain attention-make a statement about the current time and challenges presented (get some laughs)
• Guide it to the tea party-explain briefly how it informed the transition to the state of politics now
• Introduce main players-Beck, Bachman, Palin, and Paul (special note-from my home of Texas) by name and epithet
• Cite reason for specific selections-https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/tea-party-canvass/

 

BODY

• RON PAUL, father of RAND-THE ELDER STATESMEN

• Brief History
• Give the highlights 
• Work through the Tea Party Express, presidential runs
• Talk briefly about Rand, current anti-vaxxer phase

 

MICHELE BACHMANN-THE LAWYER

• Brief History
• Give the highlights
• Hit on the Muslim Brotherhood, Tea Pary Express, Competition with Paul Ryan, sewing dissension in Republican Party
• Presidential candidacy, Hose Ethics Investigation, retirement

 

GLENN BECK-THE THEORIST

• Brief History
• Give the highlights (No, your eyes aren’t deceiving you, that’s Glenn Beck, not Alex Jones)
• Need to dedicate time to Obama theories, Books, GEORGE SOROS, TheBlaze
• Trump comments-didn’t like him, admitted to feeling bad for helping destroy political discourse, now likes Trump and enjoying political discourse being destroyed

 

SARAH PALIN-THE ONE, THE ONLY, THE MAD HATTER, THE ALASKAN JOKER HERSELF

• Brief History
• Give the highlights
• Governorship, 2008 election, being a deciding factor in McCain losing
• Campaigns for Tea Party candidates 2010-14, Fox News commentary
• Reality TV, endorsement of Trump
• Defamation lawsuit, possible Senate run in 2022

 

CONCLUSION

• Wrap up, rephrase general statements including all four
• Be serious for a change-hammer home the importance of history, and how current affairs were entirely predictable and preventable
• Lighten up again-even if people like these four stick around, at least they’re there to be laughed at

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.