In this political cartoon, a woman is sitting in a room at the doctor’s office with a doctor who tells her some pretty depressing news. The doctor breaks the news to her that she has an illness that has no cure, and that since he can’t distribute medical marijuana, she basically just has to suffer. In the cartoon the doctor seems to be kind of sarcastic when he is telling her that there is nothing he can really do for her. I think this piece of communication was successful. I don’t think the author was simply trying to get people to think about medical marijuana in a different way. Not only seeing this as legalizing pot, but more of the aspect that medical marijuana could help people with their pain. Instead of having patients do unnecessary things like taking medicine that won’t really help their pain, and continuing to go to the doctor all the time.  This text was mainly based on the text of the picture rather than the picture itself. I think there was no other way to get this message across to the audience. I can’t think of a way to just have an image that represents what the author is trying to say. He needed to have the doctor talk in order to make it be known what was going on.

                There is clearly oppressive language in this political cartoon. The doctor is telling his patient that basically there is nothing he can do about her pain. He mentions how he could help her pain, then immediately took it back and gave her some highly generic way to “deal” with the pain. So the doctor tells her bad news, then some “good” news, then turns that good news into more bad news. I think this sarcastic, oppressive language helped the author portray the message they were trying to send. It puts emphasis on the fact that the government won’t make up their minds about legalizing medical marijuana. It shows that there are some situations where the usage of medical marijuana would actually help people, but because of the huge controversy on the matter, the patient just has to continue to suffer.  The author used this kind of oppressive language to put emphasis on thinking about medical marijuana from this point of view. In my opinion, using this language completely worked. If the author would have sugar coated the issue and made it all nice and innocent nobody would have been able to see the message that was trying to be made. 

Andra W.

(word count 430)

http://www.google.com/imgres?hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=DBu&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&biw=1252&bih=585&tbm=isch&tbnid=F32d6K4pWTZ8iM:&imgrefurl=http://garyhoff.com/cartoon.html&docid=hSYg4o0WidygDM&imgurl=http://garyhoff.com/images/cartoons/cartoonmedmarij.jpg&w=475&h=394&ei=dplaUI7lNYrC0QGT-4CQCg&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=210&vpy=138&dur=202&hovh=204&hovw=247&tx=108&ty=84&sig=102074260102623801568&page=1&tbnh=118&tbnw=142&start=0&ndsp=23&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0,i:73

Oppressive Language

When I first came across this piece of political rhetoric I knew right away what the meaning of the image and text was. Most people would rather look at an image and read the description then read a three page paper to find what the author is trying to tell us. At a glance the picture could be showing how America fought for their independence from the British. Once I figured out what the meaning of the image was I knew that there could not be any other meaning for the image and phrase. I believe that there is only one correct way of looking at the meaning of this picture. This piece of political rhetoric would be difficult to understand if you were not given both the image and text together. With the picture and text combined the meaning is clear and obvious compared to if the reader was only given the text or just the picture. This particular image and text means that the United States of America has a lot of power and weapons and will not hesitate to use them at any given time. If you look back at the history of the United States you will find that America does have the power and weapons needed to free a country from their corrupt government and will use them if needed.

When looking at this image I find that it is oppressive in more than one way. The image of the American flag in the back round of the bombs assumes that Americans will use power and weapons to get what they want at any given chance. When in reality Americans are not always violent. I feel that the author of this particular image believes that all Americans are violent at any opportunity and will only use power, weapons, and violence and not be friendly and nice to other countries and people. This is the authors view on the American government and there is nothing wrong with that. This piece refuses to acknowledge any kind of peace treaty or time that the United States did not use power, violence, or weapons to do something. This image is also very stereotypical of Americans saying that they are all violent and there is no other side to them. Stereotyping is often used by people who have nothing in common with the accused.

William

(394)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/discoweasel/353466683/

 

 

The picture of this horrible day has many oppressive meanings hidden in there. The main oppressive language that is implied is that all Muslims are horrible terrorists that want to destroy America.

This statement is wrong. There is s small sect that does want the destruction of America but the rest of the Muslim religion is like all others. Religions all call for peace among all people no matter what. The use of this caused many innocent Muslims to be accused of being a part of the terrible thing that happened in America that day.

It also makes it seem as though all airport security is lazy. No, it was not lazy, even 11 years ago. Due to what happened, it became much stricter and now it is very hard to sneak anything on a plane without being caught by the new security measures. Though the security tightened, we still have to see what happens when things are not taken seriously. Yes, 11 years ago security was not what it is now, but not everyone was lazy 11 years ago.

The entire government was useless in the aftermath of the terror attack on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. The problem with thinking this is that the government knew nothing about this happening. There was no warning to what would happen. This has never happened in our history and reacting is hard. How does the President react to being attack while surrounded by school children and try not to make a scene? It is incomprehensible back then that we would be under attack on our own soil. The fact that there was no warning made it difficult to go and help New York and those who had been lost in this horrible event.

There are beliefs that no one had an evacuation plan in place in case of an emergency. This is wrong. A man by the name of Rick Rescorla had a plan in place just in case something like this happened again. Following the ’93 terrorist attack against the Twin Towers, Rescorla made up a plan of escape for anything that could possibly happen at any time. Those who worked for Morgan Stanley were prepared for and had a way to get out of the building and did so when they noticed that the other building had been attacked.

Oppressive language is hard to try and stop using because people do not want to either acknowledge or want to make people uncomfortable with what the topic is.

Word count -- 422

Baylea Hall

Oppressive Language

What the above image reveals is a political cartoon. This means that it depicts an exaggerated, and possibly amusing, illustration of a political opinion. These cartoons are almost perfect examples of oppressive language. For the most part, they tend to take a political stance, and stand up for it by bashing the opposite stance. It is an often brutal strategy for making their strategy, though effective. Yet, as I stated, political cartoons are often exaggerated, and not quite accurate. They usually take a bit more analysis.

This specific cartoon quotes Republican candidate Mitt Romney from a video recently aired on YouTube. It is his answer to the question asked of him as to how he plans to win the votes of the U.S. population’s votes. The illustration quotes him replying: “It’s not my job to worry about to worry about the 47% of Americans who are irresponsible.” Then he apparently regrets saying it that way, stating that he did not say it very “elegantly.” The cartoon then shows Romney riding a horse, and repeating the same exact quote. This cartoon is oppressive in two ways that I see. First it uses his words to make him sound despicable to the American public, specifically uncaring for a large portion of Americans: namely, the poor. The cartoon then makes fun of his interest in dressage (and indirectly his wealth) by putting him on the horse while saying the same heartless comment.

While I am avoiding taking a biased political stance, for the benefit of all my readers, most of these cartoons after all are not entirely accurate. They are often not meant to be completely accurate; nevertheless, I must point out a few problems here. First of all, I watched the video. This cartoon completely misquoted Romney. As I stated above, this quote was taken from his answer to the question of his strategy when winning votes. His point is that there is a bloc of Americans, approximately 47%, that will vote for Obama no matter what. These people tend to be those who depend more on the government, and thus do not like the Republican policy of small government. He goes on to say that he also has his bloc, and that his job is to win the small percentage of votes in the middle. He was not bashing the “poor” or anything; he was answering the question in very logical terms. Furthermore, though he did in fact make the “elegant” comment, the cartoon fails to notice his meaning, that he should have used better wording, so as to not leave a doubt. I would agree with him; the setting at the interview had been semi-casual, and he was not careful with his wording.

            Oppressive language can be found in nearly any political article, whether it be slamming an opponent or overgeneralizing a foreign population. The language is often so subliminal though that the reader does not even notice it. One of the most widely accepted ways of political oppression is Political cartoons; it was once a popular way of gaining public favor for politicians. Political cartoons are thought to originate from Leonardo de Vinci which later morphed to an easy and efficient way to spread information. Political cartoons more often than not have very little text involved in the pictures themselves; the picture should contain everything it needs to communicate to its viewer visually everything that the author wants the reader to be thinking about. This particular political cartoon, which was made by Chris Britt, has a member of the Catholic Church and an older man in Boy Scout uniform wearing a smug smirk.  

It is notable that the man representing the Catholic Church is much larger; this is a pun on the Church being a bigger organization then the Boy Scout organization. The subject matter is of the recent Boy Scout sex abuse cover up scandal where since 1919 there have been “perversion files” which sex abuse cases were not reported to the police. The older man in the Boy Scout uniform is winking at the other because he managed to evade public notice longer then the Catholic Church was able to. The Church is in envy of how long they were able to keep it under the rug before the world found out.

The fact that there both represented as older men is a huge stereotype, when you think of a molester that is often what you think of. There is no law though that says you have to be over age 50 to commit these acts but this Political cartoon makes it quite blatant to keep the typical American view of a child molester. Another stereotype is that people of the church, specific Catholic Church, are seen as child molesters. While there are cases where men of faith have violated children it is much to overgeneralized, there are plenty of people who are religious who are not like that. People should avoid these stereotypes because it creates a sort of animosity even for people who have nothing in common with the actual offenders, besides that they share the same religion.

400 words

Political Rhetoric

When I first heard that we were going to do a blog post about politics, I'm not going to lie. I was scared. I understand it somewhat but I'm definately not an expert at it, and I really didn't think I knew enough to be able to write a post about it and actually sound like I know what I'm talking about either. But once I started looking at different pictures I gained more knowledge about it. Yes, some of them were pretty hard to understand. But some of them were pretty short and sweet, and to the point. Like the one I have chose.

As all of you probably know, the "Donkey" stands for the "Democrats" and the "Elephant" stands for the "Republicans." I'm not the brightest crayon in the box, but I do know that much. Looking at this cartoon you could prossibly see it in many different ways, but the way I see it, there is really only one right way to look at it.

First of all, they are running against each other in hurdles otherwise known as a track event. Just like the Republicans and the Democrats run against each other in a "race" for President. This cartoon is saying that the Democrats set low standards for themselves and for the country, which would be why their hurdle is sitting so low to the ground. But, the Republicans set really super high standards for themselves and for the country, which is why their hurdle is way higher up than the Democrats. However, if you notice that the Elephant (Republicans) is trying to jump over their super high hurdle and they knock it over. So in all reality, they are setting higher standards but they aren't achieving them so they really aren't doing anymore or even as much work as the Donkey (Democrats).

The reason I say they aren't doing anymore work is because there are still failing, they didn't successfully jump over the hurdle. So, the Elephant is doing all this extra hard work to jump over their above average hurdle just to get knocked down right back to the same level as the Donkey.

Makayla Stark

Word Count:360

The use of signs and pictures in the public are a great way to catch people's attention. Signs are easier for the public to read compared to reading a whole textual document because the picture plus a few words can be interpreted much quicker. The author of this particular sign would probably be a state government, a local government, or a local business in the south during segregation. By using a sign, the author can portray his or her message very simply. Signs are usually straight to the point and very informative. The public audience knows exactly what the author wants. In this case the author is very successful. The government policy of segregation, primarily in the south, lasted nearly 100 years. The implied message displayed in the image is that whites and coloreds are different, so they should be separated. Also, the sign shows that the author is racist. Whether the author is a government agency or a local business, they are using their authority to impose segregation. The arrows pointing in opposite directions, and my knowledge of segregation led me to this conclusion.

In this case, this sign has many aspects of oppressive language. It is racist, discriminatory, stereotypical, and disrespectful to people who don't believe the same thing. To begin with, segregation is a racist policy. It assumes that coloreds are inferior to whites. The policy discriminates against coloreds by excluding them from the freedoms that whites were able to have. This is clearly the author's view on the topic, but he she does not consider those who do not agree with the situation. I believe the author uses the oppressive language to express their authority. I believe the author created the sign to do two things. It gives whites a sense of power, and it demoralizes coloreds. The language used by the author is very effective in reaching his or her audience. The sign is easy to understand and to the point. The public audience could easily understand the meaning of the sign and follow the instructions. Evidence shows its effectiveness. The instructions were followed by many people during the time this sign was in use. However, the author's oppressive language also worked against him or her. The author's oppressive language led to oppressive language from those who were being discriminated against. All of the oppressive language directed towards coloreds led to things like the Civil Rights Movement. Eventually coloreds received their rights, and the oppressive language kind of backfired on the author.

David Sacre
(417 words)

http://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view;_ylt=A0PDoKryf1pQ9CQAgJiJzbkF;_ylu=X3oDMTBlMTQ4cGxyBHNlYwNzcgRzbGsDaW1n?back=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3Fp%3Dsegregation%2Bsigns%26fr%3Dyfp-t-701%26fr2%3Dpiv-web%26tab%3Dorganic%26ri%3D2&w=600&h=353&imgurl=www101.pair.com%2Fmsdb%2Fmrb-papersign-RestRooma.jpg&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fitm%2FBLACK-SEGREGATION-SIGN-L-N-RAILROAD-REST-ROOMS-%2F360289744811&size=29.1+KB&name=BLACK+SEGREGATION+SIGN+L%26amp%3BN+RAILROAD+REST+ROOMS+%7C+eBay&p=segregation+signs&oid=7f196d128cb3ba52da99ce842c3de2e7&fr2=piv-web&fr=yfp-t-701&tt=BLACK%2BSEGREGATION%2BSIGN%2BL%2526amp%253BN%2BRAILROAD%2BREST%2BROOMS%2B%257C%2BeBay&b=0&ni=128&no=2&ts=&tab=organic&sigr=12kus56b4&sigb=13an0m5nf&sigi=11gb16ee5&.crumb=OqwaGcM0Nal