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Rhetorical analysis on presidential speech
Rhetorical analysis on presidential speech
Analysis of obamas rhetoric
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In 1971, John Kerry stood in front of the Senate and spoke about his experiences in Vietnam as a soldier. There would be many that would agree with his position, some that would disagree and ultimately some that had no strong opinion at all. John Kerry knew that although he was speaking to the senate he was also speaking to the American people and through his intentional way of speaking he used this to his advantage. In John Kerry’s speech, strongly opposing the Vietnam War, Kerry successfully uses his persona as one who experienced the war head on, to reveal the lack of morality in Vietnam and paint the war as barbaric acts with no true purpose behind them.
Kerry paints himself as a man who experienced the war, therefore he can reveal information
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When discussing the truths that were revealed to Kerry through his experience at Vietnam he states, “We learned the meaning of free-fire zones, shooting anything that moves, and we watched while America placed a cheapness on the lives of Orientals.” Here Kerry shows the dehumanization that occurred as a result of the Vietnam war. By showing they were simply “shooting anything that moves” shows the how war sent these men to a thoughtless and barbaric state. He ultimately shows the loss of humanity. Kerry also gives insight into the many atrocities these men committed such as how they “cut off heads” and have “blown up bodies”. Through these graphics, Kerry takes a very distant war and makes it personal to his audience. He does not sugarcoat or dance around the barbarity of the war. Rather Kerry faces it head on and these descriptions create a truly barbaric …show more content…
Kerry brings about this argument in many ways including when he states, “Someone has to die so that president Nixon won’t be, and these are his words, ‘the first president to lose a war.’” By showing how Americans lives are being lost due to “America’s Pride” this poses the question: What is the true motivation for the war? He poses this question once again when he states, “We watched pride allow the most unimportant battles to be blown into extravaganzas, because we couldn’t lose, and we couldn’t retreat, and because it didn’t matter how many American bodies were lost to prove that point” He once again drills the lack of moral motivation behind the war into his audience’s heads. He refers to American’s lives as “American Bodies” showing once again how soldiers are being dehumanized ultimately to “prove a point”. In both of these statements Kerry intentionally leaves out the mention of a moral purpose because he is trying to get at the loss of those intentions. By revealing the Vietnam War for what it is, he hopes to shake his audiences reasoning for letting the war
The aftermath — No More Vietnams — is well-covered in Appy’s work. The No More Vietnam mantra is usually presented as avoiding quagmires, focusing on quick, sharp wins. Instead, Appy shows politicians have manipulated No More Vietnams into meaning greater secrecy (think Central America in the 1980’s), more over-the-top justifications (“You don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud”) and an emphasis on keeping American deaths inside the acceptable limits of the day to tamp down any public anti-war sentiment.
The Vietnam War has become a focal point of the Sixties. Known as the first televised war, American citizens quickly became consumed with every aspect of the war. In a sense, they could not simply “turn off” the war. A Rumor of War by Philip Caputo is a firsthand account of this horrific war that tore our nation apart. Throughout this autobiography, there were several sections that grabbed my attention. I found Caputo’s use of stark comparisons and vivid imagery, particularly captivating in that, those scenes forced me to reflect on my own feelings about the war. These scenes also caused me to look at the Vietnam War from the perspective of a soldier, which is not a perspective I had previously considered. In particular, Caputo’s account of
The Vietnam War was a psychological and physical battle for all the young men who were drafted or volunteered. Caputo's own reasons for volunteering illustrate the mentality for some of the men entering into this journey. Those who are inducted into Vietnam face disturbing moral dilemmas that can be expected in an "ethical wilderness." The draft introduced a myriad of young men to the once forgotten moral ambiguity of war. Average American citizens must balance right from wrong in a world without morals or meaning. Caputo himself struggles with the idea that killing in combat is morally justified.
The regrets of the many lives lost in Vietnam. The former secretary of defense Robert McNamara published a memoir, two decades after the war ended. In the memoir he admitted that the policy he helped create was “terribly wrong”. He stated that the ignorance of the history, the culture of Vietnam, and the misguided belief that every communist movement in the world was led by Moscow, had led the United States into a war that was unwinnable and regrettable. (Foner, 4th edition, pg.1030) The students of The Port Huron Statement were right by being against the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War was a military, political, and social disaster. Which only brought casualties in the lives of American people. It was an unforgivable mistake caused by Presidents that feared that the public would not forgive them for “losing” the Vietnam War.
In this chapter, O’Brien contrasts the lost innocence of a young Vietnamese girl who dances in grief for her slaughtered family with that of scarred, traumatized soldiers, using unique rhetorical devices
Politics is dirty and competitive and has not changed between 1879 and 2018. It is a complex system of jargon, charm, facts, and lies. Mark Twain’s “The Presidential Candidate” satirically expresses the essence of both old-world and modern politics as a presidential candidate who blatantly tells the truth of his wrongdoings. As a politician, one must be an open book. Their life must be truthfully written on the pages for the readers to analyze and evaluate their credibility as leaders. “The Presidential Candidate” resonates both in 1879 and 2018 with his use of humor, use of diction and use of subtlety.
...of the struggle over how the war would be remembered. Blanketed by the discourse of disability, the struggle over the memory of veterans and the country alike would be waged with such obliquity as to surpass even the most veiled operations of Nixon’s minions. While Nixon’s plumbers were wrenching together the Gainesville case against VVAW in the spring of 1972, mental health and news-media professionals were cobbling together the figure of the mentally incapacitated Vietnam veteran. More than any other, this image is the one that would stick in the minds of the American people. The psychologically damaged veteran raised a question that demanded an answer: what happened to our boys that was so traumatic that they were never the same again? As it came to be told, the story of what happened to them had less to do with the war itself than with the war against the war.
The Vietnam War was a conflict that many people did not comprehend. In fact, the war was atrocious and bloody. According to The Vietnam War: a History in Documents, 58,000 US soldier died and more than 700,000 came back with physical and emotional marks (Young, Fitzgerald & Grunfeld 147). For many Americans this war was meaningless. In the same way, O’Brien admits, “American war in Vietnam seemed to me wrong; certain blood was being shed for uncertain reason” (40). O’Brien believes the war was not significance. Furthermore, the lack of logic in the matter makes him confused about going to war. That’s why, he does not understand why he was sent to fight a war for which causes and effects were uncertain. The author continues by saying, “I was too good for...
The deceitful interpretation presented in "How to tell a true war story", is an example of Historicism. Today, people hear about the vietnam war through family members, friends and veterans. When people tell war stories they try to make themselves seem victorious. It makes the person listening feel as if it was all in the good of the people by killing people. O'Brian somehow justifies a point in his book by stating, "A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encouraged virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done." In actual reality more harm was done than good. People were forced off of their lands to hide in safety and the economic consequence is fatal. To derive to the point, O' Brian is saying there is no real war story if the audience feels that killing people had made a big and better consequence. To look back upon the Vietnam war it brought Vietnam to it's knees. The Americans assisted someone who asked them not to interfere and in the end there was no winner. The Americans had nothing to gain by fighting this war. The title was a contridictary of how to tell a true war story.
It is understandable that some Americans strongly opposed the United States getting involved in the Vietnam War. It had not been a long time since the end of World War II and simply put, most Americans were tired of fighting. Mark Atwood Lawrence is one of the people who opposed our involvement in the Vietnam War. In his essay, “Vietnam: A Mistake of Western Alliance”, Lawrence argues that the Vietnam War was unnecessary and that it went against our democratic policies, but that there were a lot of things that influenced our involvement.
In Hedges' first chapter of the book titled, "The Myth of War," he talks about how the press often shows and romanticizes certain aspects of war. In war there is a mythic reality and a sensory reality. In sensory reality, we see events for what they are. In mythic reality, we see defeats as "signposts on the road to ultimate victory" (21), Chris Hedges brings up an intriguing point that the war we are most used to seeing and hearing about (mythic war )is a war completely different than the war the soldiers and journalists experience ( sensory war), a war that hides nothing. He states, "The myth of war is essential to justify the horrible sacrifices required in war, the destruction and death of innocents. It can be formed only by denying the reality of war, by turning the lies, the manipulation, the inhumanness of war into the heroic ideal" (26). Chris Hedges tries to get the point across that in war nothing is as it seems. Through his own experiences we are a...
-Marshall McLuhan, 1975 Newspaper reporters and television commentators were free to question the wisdom of fighting the war When the war initially began, the US marines were backed fully buy the people of America. Hundreds of men volunteered to join the army and felt that this was their duty to protect their country. But as the war dragged on the press soon began to change its point of view and was eventually accused of being 'un patriotic' and even guilty of 'helping the enemy'. There were various reasons why public opinion changed as the war hauled through for such a long period of time, leaving lasting scars in the history of the world. Possibly one on the most significant and emotional events which occurred in Vietnam was far before US marines were actually fighting a guerilla war in Vietnam.
When the Vietnam War was heating up, he tried his very best to keep his words very straightforward and honest. He used pathos in his speech through the usage of the phrases, “a celebration of freedom,” and, “forge against these enemies.” By using these phrases, instead of making the war a task for the people, he made it out as saving the country for the people and for their kids. It wasn’t just a "go and fight," but more of a "go, win, and when you come back enjoy what you have accomplished. " Ask not what your country can do for you but ask what you can do for your country.”
The speech that I chose to analyze and critique is from John Forbes Kerry “Vietnam Veterans Against the War” to the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. In this speech he did not represent himself, he represented the group of 1000 veterans that feels the same way he does about the war.
In Kirby Dick’s influential documentary “The Invisible War,” filmmaker Kirby Dick uses pathos, ethos and logos to gain information and supplementary details to make his point that there is an epidemic of rape in throughout the DOD (Department of Defense) and the fact that military sexual trauma (MST) in the United States military goes unheard, mostly unpunished and needs to be addressed at a higher level.