Proposal for Essay 4

In this essay I plan to introduce my issue about poverty and how we need mobilize the people to get them out of it. I will then provide background information about the topic of income equality and how it has affected the American people. I will then go in depth about the problem by focusing on poverty. I will show what others have said about this issue by support it with facts. Then, I will present my own arguments and describe what I believe is the ultimate cause to income inequality and talk about my personal experiences dealing with income inequality and how it has impacted me. I will also talk how we need to have self-help and mobilization to get to a lower income inequality. I will support my claims by providing my argument with evidence. Finally, I will talk about how I will quality prior arguments.

I am still struggling on finding articles on poverty and income inequality. I need 3 that qualify the problem of poverty and the  mobilization for it. I have one article so far that does.

http://www.vjspl.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Bach_Layout_1-1-PDF.pdf

ind most/least persuasive and "entering the conversation,"

Any of the texts talk about how inequality has risen and we need to find ways to fix it. The first couple texts talk about the problems, but not talking really about ways to solve the problems. In Hacker’s text, I like how he states the problem of inequality and talks about how society needs to be more secure. He starts of by stating the facts and what politics have caused in inequality. One negative effect is that Hacker doesn’t talk about ways to actually solve it. I believe he did a good job by giving details about the issues, but he needs to provide ways to move forward. Lastly, Hacker does connect with the previous texts about mobilization. The only issue is that he is asking questions rather than stating the facts. Overall I think all of the texts give good understandings about inequality and how it has impacted America. The only problem is that they struggle on how the will fix the overall problem.

intersections/connections

Two of the three texts that I thought connected were Arthur Brooks, “Inequality and (Un)Happiness in America” and Maura Pennington, “To Fix Income Inequality, the Have-Nots Must Become The Do-Something. Both texts main focus was on the inequality of the American people. It is known that many people tend to blame the rich for consuming most of the money. Well, Brooks and Pennington point out that the reason why they are so successful is because of their hard work. The main issue today is that people are fighting over money. The poor are struggling because their income wages are going down. What Brooks and Pennington want the American people to do is make a difference and make a change. Both texts state how some people admire the top 1% for all of their achievements, which should be aspiring to all people .The overall message that they are trying to send is that people need to put in the hard work and do something about the economy instead of sitting around complaining about it.

In Reich’s documentary, “Inequality for all” he talks about how the American people control the economy. This connects with Arthur Brooks, “Inequality and (Un)Happiness in America” which talks about what the American people need to do to change the economy. Both Reich and Murray want the audience to understand is that us Americans are the core or the economic system and in order to change that, we have to get up and do something about it. People are unhappy, people are depressed, and people want a change in the income inequality. In order to do so, Reich states that we need to mobilize and energize other people to make a change and Brooks states that mobility is possible. So, the American people need to be influenced to get up and work hard to get the income they deserve.  

Inequality For All

Inequality For All

According to Reich, the reason for the rise in inequality among the American people is that we are not consuming enough. Most people blame the rich, but they are not the ultimate problem. In order to maintain stability, the middle class has be the consumer spending. Taxes keep rising and the wages are lowering. This affects the American people because they are loosing jobs not only because the job creators are laying people off but, interrelated things such as globalization and technological robotics are taking jobs away from them. Reich shows a graph that resembles a bridge, showing the rise and fall of the market between 1928 and 2007, which were the peak years. The great crash happened after both years and the graph appeared to look like a giant shaped letter U. So people wondered how this all happened. Reich figured out that it’s an endless cycle. After WWII people started getting educated and almost have of the people started joining unions, which became a virtuous cycle. Productivity grew, wages increased, workers bought more, tax revenues increased, companies hired, and government invested. This made the market go up. Soon people’s wages stayed the same. In order to keep spending when wages are flat, the American people came up with three ways to do so. Women got jobs, families worked longer hours, and they borrowed money going into debt. This turns the virtuous cycle into a vicious cycle, which completely reverses how it should work. The problem isn’t that the government is controlling the market or rich take all the money, its that no one is looking out for the American people. So, they need to take control and change the way the economy works. The United States needs to invest in the people and put them first or the market will keep crashing and keep going in a vicious cycle. People are worried about undermining democracy, which is only hurting themselves. Inequality was lowest when taxes were highest and vise versa Money isn’t new, the quantity is of it is. In order to solve this problem, the American people need to take action mobilizing and energizing other people and realize we control the economy. As for my family and I being in the middle class, it gets frustrating to know that my father who supports my family has to sacrifice paying enormous amount of taxes for people who sit back and watch the economy go down due to their lack of hard work. I think its hard to change the way society works. I just think the main issue today is that the democrats and republicans both want a better working economy but, they want two different ways of getting there.

Demagoguery: Powerful Revolutionaries

Demagoguery: Powerful Revolutionaries

Over the past decades, The United States has been battling the issue about the equality of the American people. Looking back at segregation verses integration, anyone can agree that this ongoing topic can get very personal. Just like Martin Luther King representing his people and the KKK representing their people, both opposing parties made an affect on the nation as a whole. During this racial era, famous speeches were made by many revolutionary people like the notorious leader Hitler who is one of the biggest demagogues known in history. Demagoguery is a kind of discourse that undermines the quality of public argument, particularly by creating a situation in which dissent is dangerous/closing down discussion. In Patricia Roberts-Miller, “Democracy, Demagoguery, And Critical Rhetoric”, Roberts-Miller claims that in order for democracy to work correctly, there has to be specific guidelines. She states the argumentation rules that inherit such behavior for the critical rhetoric speakers. This relates to the demagogue, George Wallace and his Inaugural Speech as Governor of Alabama, January 14, 1963. Wallace’s goal was to persuade to the people of Alabama to choose him as Governor. He represents himself as an equal giving man whose cause is to give society the freedom of integration. To his opponents, he bashes on communism and states that the federal government does nothing but fear the people. In this paper I will analyze one element of demagoguery in George Wallace’s Inaugural speech, one fallacy Wallace uses and how it relate to Roberts Miller’s text, and apply Roberts Miller text to an outside text by Adolf Hitler.
            In George Wallace’s Inaugural speech, many types of demagoguery are used sporadically. Like I said before, demagoguery is a kind of discourse that undermines the quality of public argument, particularly by creating a situation in which dissent is dangerous/closing down discussion. One element of demagoguery that Wallace uses during his speech is Scapegoating. When he says,

“It is a government that claims to us that it is bountiful as it buys its power from us with the fruits of its rapaciousness of the wealth that free men before it have produced and builds on crumbling credit without responsibilities to the debtors, our children,”(Wallace, p.3)

 he is blaming the federal government for taking the freedom away from the American people and is taking no responsibilities for their actions. Wallace believes that the children’s future will be ruined if they continue control the American people. Also, he is saying that the government is fearing the people and not protecting the people Wallace states that the government is taking credit away from the American people and is raising police power, making them masters of the people instead of servants of the people. By bashing on his opponent, making them look like the bad guy, Wallace makes the federal government seem like the core of the problem. He used this type of demagoguery in the contexts to persuade the audience that the federal government is responsible for the situation and that scapegoating is a unifying tactic that gives Wallace a sense if righteousness.

Not only does Wallace use many characteristics of demagoguery in his speech, he also uses many types of fallacies. A fallacy is an argument that uses weak meaning. One in particular that I noticed was the Straw Man fallacy when Wallace does not accurately represent his opponent’s argument. During his speech he holds the federal government responsible for the societies dilemma and also name calls them. He talks about how the government is taking over the people by becoming their God. Wallace is trying to persuade the people of Alabama that if he is Governor, he will bring back God giving them freedom so that the government will stop being the master of the people and go back to being the servant of the people. Although he is trying to explain to the people that the federal government is the bad guy in the sense, he is calling them names and holding them responsible for the freedom being taken away from the southerners. By presenting a weak and caricatured version of the argument by not backing himself up with facts, this makes Wallace look unprofessional and unfair. Instead, Wallace should be focusing on himself and how he can personally benefit society on an individual. This leads to “Democracy, Demagoguery, And Critical Rhetoric” by Patricia Roberts-Miller and van Eemeren and Grotendoorst’s basic assumption that argumentation is discourse oriented toward resolving a dispute, and there certain rules inherent in such behavior. The first rule is “Parties must not prevent each other from advancing stand- points or casting doubt on standpoints”(Roberts-Miller, p.466). In Wallace’s speech, he uses various strategies by personally attacking the federal government and discrediting them. Wallace portrays himself as if he represents the southerners. So, when Wallace makes assumptions about the federal government, he is making more of a personal opinion with no statistics to back him up. Wallace is generalizing his opponent, which is a violation to Roberts Mills guidelines. Wallace engages in personal attack by blaming the federal government, calling them ungodly, and holding them responsible for freedom being taken away from the American people. The government is supposed to represent the American people as their protector and with what Wallace is representing them is completely opposite. Thereby, this is all fallacious, which shows a weak side to Wallace’s speech.

In the history of time, many demagogues revolutionized themselves impacting people all around the world. A demagogue is a political leader who gains their power by fearing the public people and appealing to the popular prejudices. One demagogue in particular is Adolf Hitler, a Nazi leader of Germany who’s corrupted his country killing off anyone who was not his blonde hair, blue eye ideal race. In his speech at the Berlin Sportspalast January 30, 1940, Hitler talks about the lessons of the First World War, democracy. He believes that before his time in power, when democracy was present, the people of Germany begged and hoped for a new world. Hitler disrupted democracy by taking over Germany turning it in to a Nazi Party believing it was more feasible within the framework of the constitution. In his speech he is making the “new Germany” superior to his opponents who believes in the ideas of democracy. Hitler states that the others have to learn their lesson about democracy just like the people of Germany did themselves. He makes his audiences feel bad for him for the League of Nations not making him feel “welcome” because they disagree with Hitler’s stand points. Hitler makes his country seem like the insiders, which make the rest of the world outsiders.  All of these elements relate to Roberts-Miller’s text and the characteristic of demagoguery. In Roberts-Miller’s text she says, “Demagogues polarize a complicated (and often frightening) situation by presenting only two options: their policy, and some obviously stupid, imprac- tical, or shameful one”(Roberts-Miller, p.462). Roberts-Miller believes that demagogues always insist that people who don’t agree with them are their enemy. Hitler wants the people of Germany to know that the outsiders who want democracy are against Germany, wanting war. Just like when Roberts-Miller says, “The notion of an embattled and victimized Germany against all others predated Hitler,”(Roberts-Miller, p.462) she is talking about now Hitler makes people look at him as innocent. Also, when miller says,

“That is, demagogues rely on a common way for people to view the world: there are some people whom we think of as “like us” in some important regard, and others who are very different from us in some equally important regard,”(Roberts-Miller, 462)

 she is stating that demagogues believe that they are the insiders and the rest are outsiders just like how Hitler believes the democrats are the outsiders. Over all Hitler uses polarization through out his speech making life seem very black and white.

All in all the characteristics of demagoguery and fallacies play a huge part in George Wallace Inaugural speech. Wallace was and still is seen as a revolutionary man who strived for segregation for many years. No matter what, he kept fighting for what he wanted and was confident that he could change the way our nation was working if he were governor of Alabama. Looking back at his speech and the reaction of the people, many could say he was successful with persuading the southerners to vote for him. Anyone who participates in politics or is fascinated towards it would be drawn to George Wallace’s speech. Because he was a notorious man, most people already know about this event even though it happened decades ago. With that said, I have learned so much from his speech. I personally already knew about the argument about segregation against integration but, after reading, writing, and reflecting George Wallace’s speech made me understand this issue more in depth. For what happened to George Wallace, he was eventually elected governor of Alabama in 1963-1967, 1971-1979, and 1983-1987. He continued to be a rallying cry for the people opposing integration and the civil rights movement. Wallace didn’t only influence many people in both positive and negative ways during his time but was also remembered for the rest of his life.