What is a protest again???

In the beginning, I believed that a protest was an event or action taken to go against something in society or the world. I still believe that this is true. However, I believe a protest can be anything, big or small. Furthermore, I don't think a protest has to be a huge event in order to be considered a protest. A protest can be as small as a flier against war or a person holding a sign for Animal rights. Although I still think that in order for a desired action to occur after a protest, the protest must be big enough to gain public attention to it. By big, I mean that the protest must be a noticable event that occurs so that people will pay attention. Otherwise, there really is no point in protesting if nothing happens afterwards. People would just shrug off the protest and act as if it never happened if the protest wasn't big enough.

Nowadays, I think people should rely on the shock value to protest, but it's really hard to do so. People have seen too many shocking things to be surprised about anything any more. For instance, I never knew who Malachi Richter was until I read about him in class. It appears he burned himself to death to protest against the Iraq war or something. Although what he did to protest was shocking, it obviously wasn't that big of a deal. Not many remember him or even know about him. I think this was because he copied what others did to protest. If you see the same thing everyday, it no longer seems new or worth paying attention to. This is why I think that using the shock value is hard, but it's also the easiest way for people to listen to you. After all, I'm sad to say that our society is attracted to outrageous things.

Protest song

The protest song "Oh, Freedom" protests against the evils of slavery and prejudice. This song was made during the Civil Rights Movement. It talks about preferring death rather than slavery and calls out for freedom. In my opinion, protest songs are very effective. Music has always been an integral part of peoples' lives, no matter what the time period is. People use music to communicate to the world about emotions or events in their lives, so I think using songs to protest against something is a very productive way of protesting. Furthermore, people are able to remember songs more than they remember speeches because listening to songs is definitely more interesting than listening to speeches. However, giving speeches probably last longer than singing songs because there are too many songs in the world for people to pay attention to just one. When I was looking up my protest song assignment for "Oh, Freedom," it was difficult to find the complete lyrics for that song. I had to listen to the song on youtube and then write down the lyrics. Therefore, speeches last longer than songs because songs tend to disappear through time. However, I still think using music to protest is a better and more fun way of protesting against something, and I would use music to protest against something in society if I had a choice.

With friends like these--the rhetoric of Ann Coulter and Michael Moore

I consider Ann Coulter and Michael Moore both to be protestors because both are arguing against something or someone. Ann Coulter is protesting against liberals, and Michael Moore is protesting against the US government and President Bush. However, I find Michael Moore to be more persuasive than Ann Coulter. In Michael Moore’s documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, he provided many points and facts to support his arguments about President Bush. Ann Coulter, on the other hand, made fun of people and used false statements to support her argument. Because of this, I found Michael Moore to be more persuasive. However, I think Ann Coulter is more popular than Michael Moore because of the way she uses outrageous comments to interest people. She says things like “Hillary Clinton’s chubby legs” to shock people and get people interested in reading her books. Nevertheless, because her comments have no relation to her argument, people would usually disregard her point-of-views. Michael Moore, however, provided evidence for his views and arguments to prove his points, but everyone does this. Therefore, most people probably won’t pay as much attention to Moore as they did to Ann Coulter because he protests the way everyone else does. For instance, he doesn’t do anything outrageous but just points out facts to people to convince them of his argument.

Fallacies and Ann Coulter

After watching the clips about Ann Coulter and the arguments she makes, I didn’t find the things she said very persuasive. First of all, she makes fun of people’s physical appearance, and she tends to ignore and purposely misinterpret the ideas of others. For instance, she made fun of Hillary Clinton’s legs. I don’t see what Hillary’s legs have anything to do with politics and Coulter’s argument, yet Coulter seems to just randomly makes fun of people in her books just to make things interesting. Furthermore, she constantly makes false statements in her book. In the clip where Coulter talks with Al Franken, she basically ignored Franken when he pointed out that one of the quotes she made in her book was false, proving that she is untrustworthy.

Overall, what I really disliked about Ann Coulter was when she continued to disregard the opinions of others and then accuse others of doing that to her, especially the part she wrote about the widows. She says the widows shouldn’t come out and speak and allow others to speak, yet when the reporter told her that they never forbid Coulter to say anything, Coulter did not really respond to that statement. Instead, she just says the widows of 9/11 shouldn’t have the freedom to speak their opinions. Basically, Coulter wants to say that only she has the right to say something about the world and politics, and everyone else should shut up and listen. In my opinion, I think Coulter is a hypocrite and that everything that comes out of her mouth or from her book is false. I don’t think anyone should waste time speaking to her or arguing with her about her ideas because she’d probably ignore it and disregard it anyway.

My Opinion on JESUS CAMP

After watching Jesus Camp, I can honestly say that I am not convinced on whatever the argument the documentary is trying to make. It seems to me that the documentary is trying to convince others to become Christians by using children as a persuasive weapon. In my opinion, there are good and bad sides to everything, but the documentary mostly showed the good side of Christianity. There were no other point-of-views from other children who do not believe in Christianity, and to me, that was what made it unconvincing. Furthermore, I think they should not have used children to portray their argument. Children believe in everything anyone tells them. I know, because I believed in everything my teacher or my parents said as a child. I didn’t know how to think for myself. Therefore, I don’t think using children to persuade others into spreading Christianity was very wise.

Another thing I noticed most about the documentary was that the main speaker, Becky Fisher, was not very persuasive in her argument, especially the one about sins. She spoke of people sinning, but it doesn’t seem like she has been doing her part. She spoke of fasting, but it doesn’t look as if she has been fasting in the name of the Lord as well. From my experience, Christianity seems to mean generosity towards others and not being judgmental against others because that’s God’s job. Yet, from the documentary, I see people criticizing others who are different from them. For instance, the Harry Potter comment made no sense to me. I’m positive that Harry Potter has nothing to do with Christianity, so I don’t think Fisher should have used that example to make her points.

Overall, I think the documentary was okay. I didn’t dislike it, but I didn’t find it very convincing either. If the purpose of the documentary was to show the faiths of children, it should have shown other types of religion that children can have. Anyway, I hope no one got offended by my opinions on the documentary, as I realize that religion is a very sensitive subject. I don’t want to insult anyone with my comments, and I just wrote the truth as I see it.

My Writing Process

When I start to write a paper, I always try to make sure I understand the topic first. I will spend the first day after getting the assignment thinking about the topic and planning my introduction for a paper. After I am confident about understanding the topic of the paper, I usually begin writing. I tend to free write because I think outlines are a waste of time. In high school, my teachers would tell me to write an outline of a paper assignment, and they never helped. My paper never followed the outlines, and I never looked at the outlines to write my paper. I always change everything, so that the paper turns out to be completely different from the outline.

Furthermore, I think free writing is better because it makes your paper sound better. When I free write, I always wait until I feel like it before writing the next sentence. I think this is the best way to write a fluent paper. I also liked to be surprised by my sentences, and I think it makes writing a paper fun. In my opinion, writing should be fun.

The hardest part about writing a paper for me is developing ideas about a topic I dislike. In the past, there were some topics I either didn’t like writing a paper about or just had difficulty understanding the topic. I think it’s very hard to write about something that you don’t like. It’s hard to develop good ideas about a topic if you don’t even like that topic, and I kind of dislike it when people expect something good out of the paper that you hated writing about. I suppose that we can’t have everything we want in life, and I guess I just have to deal with it.

The kind of environment I like writing in is when there is background music. I hate it when it’s really quiet, because the kind of environment that I grew up in was never quiet. My family has always been noisy, so I like it when there is music playing when I’m doing something. It’s what I’m used to.

How does appearance affect protest?

After watching the Yes Men, I really liked the way that the Yes Men presented themselves. Mike and Andy provided humor and dramatics to prove their point that the World Trade Organization was not helping other developing countries to improve. I liked how they would try to pretend they were representatives of the WTO and speak about them and how their audience would never react to the outrageous comments they made. I think they were not very effective, though, because many of their audiences did not react to their claims that the WTO was actually trying to make money by taking advantages out of poor countries. They even made outrageous costumes that were really silly to prove their points that the WTO was a silly organization. The Yes Men would wear business suits and would lie that they were representatives of WTO while making outrageous comments about WTO at the same time. I thought this was really funny, but I probably would not support them because I think lying does not help with their ethos. Who would be willing to believe the Yes Men and support them if they use lies as a technique to advocate their opinions?

I think appearance is very important for a protest group to advocate their opinions against someting. If a protest group seemed very professional and looked like they know what they are talking about, people would most likely take the protest group seriously and be willing to support them. However, if a protest group uses a silly and laughable appearance, most people would not take the protest group seriously and would most likely laugh off the protest group’s opinions.