Understanding Rhetoric

Elbow Room: My estimation of the underlying message is that the song and images are communicating a language that justified westward exploration – using the phrase Manifest Destiny, which by its meaning, gave white settlers the God-given right to expand their borders through exploration. If you noticed, the words ‘Oregon or bust’ were spelt out on the covered wagons throughout the song suggesting the determination these settlers had about going west; they were going to get there if it costs them their lives. The song mentions the many fights they had to win in order to gain land rights, and how the West was meant to be their Manifest Destiny. Unfortunately, the message wasn’t complete in describing the types of fights that ensued, and how many Native Americans they slaughtered and starved to death by killing off their buffalo, which was their main source of food. The song “Elbow Room” has quite an interesting conclusion as it implicates justification, by using the Manifest Destiny phrase, that the next land to be conquered is the moon and that Americans have the right to take possession in the same manner as the West… Values contemporary American culture holds today: One very important value I feel has changed over the years is that of communication and personal interaction between each other. Social media along with cell phones and the Internet has basically caused the decline in communication among families both children and parents. A recent study which found that due to technology a “new connectedness” is being created by parents with their children, but as a consequence, old habits are disappearing. Internet browsing is replacing the once family activity of “television watching” as a group. Before technology, families shared meals at the dining room table, discussed their day at work and school. People communicated with each other! Newspapers were read and if there was something that needed researching, we went to the library. Technology has taken the place of “in person” communication. There has also been a decline in family values such as marriage; divorces are more common now as opposed to “back in the day.” Our children have lost respect not only for their parents, but for our school teachers and people of authority. “Although Americans may think of themselves as being more varied and unpredictable than they actually are, it is significant that they think they are. Americans tend to think they have been only slightly influenced by family, church or schools. In the end, each believes, ‘I personally chose which values I want to live my own life by.”…   Workers without Borders: Jennifer Gordon defines the problem in her opening statement, “Americans are hardly in the mood to welcome new immigrants.” She assumes her readers are aware of the reason for the problem which is undocumented workers providing employer’s jobs in all areas of our industry, and the situation causing competition and increasing job scarcity in the United States. She also notes that there is an urgent need for immigration reform, and that her readers are sympathetic to the problems with undocumented workers. I agree with her assumption that there should be immigration reform and that immigrants should have the same rights and equality in the workplace as Americans… Analysis: Developing a Solution: Jennifer Gordon's proposal for a transnational organization of workers without borders starts with a problem that many Americans will recognize immediately namely that undocumented workers are providing the labor for employers in the United States in agriculture, construction, gardening, hotels, restaurants, meat packing, manufacturing, and other industries. She doesn't spend much time laying out the problem; aside from noting it "traps migrants in bad jobs and ends up lowering wages all around." Her focus rather is on the solution and how to implement it. To make her case for migrant mobility, she cites the experience of the European Union. This is meant to be reassuring in that the influx of migrant workers did not lower native workers' wages or limit their employment. But in a key rhetorical move, she also concedes problems, in that some workers "were cheated on their wages and worked in unsafe conditions."… Global Warming and Climate Change Due to Carbon Pollution: We are all aware of global warming and climate change and the effects of carbon pollution as it has been a national problem for quite some time now. Global warming is contributed to greenhouse gases formed by high levels of carbon dioxide being emitted into the Earth’s surface atmosphere. The burning of fossil fuel, i.e., gasoline, coal, natural gas, etc. are all contributing factors which cause the rise of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide causing the increase in the Earth’s surface temperatures which affects humans, animals and plant life on Earth. There has been controversy as to whether global warming actually exists and, whether or not the contributing factor is carbon dioxide which is a derivative of fossil fuel. “On June 23, 1988, Doctor James Hansen testified before a congressional committee that he believed with a ‘high degree of confidence’ that the greenhouse effect had already caused global warming. After that testimony, there has been an increasingly acrimonious debate between those who see the problem as the most serious one facing humans today and those who refuse to believe there is any problem at all.”…