Documentary Post 1: Inside Job

The 2008 economic crisis was one that rocked the world. Every single country in the world plunged into a recession; millions of homes foreclosed over bad mortgages, stocks plummeted, gigantic banks needed bailouts, and unprecedented amounts of individuals went unemployed. How could such a crises happen? Inside Job, narrated by Matt Damon(a Harvard graduate himself), explores the answer to this question. The basic premise of Inside Job is that the crises could have easily been avoided if it weren't for the greed of the banking industry. Inside Job also exposes who the banking industry has infested the government itself leading to dangerous deregulation and more risky lending on CDOs and faulty mortgages. Even more frightening, is that the banking industry has infiltrated economic classes at top universities such as Harvard, with top executives also being professors creating a conflict of interest. Inside Job takes interviews from those who saw the crises coming and also those who caused the mess but fail to realize the true consequences of their foolish actions. It is a documentary that left me astounded, shocked, and outraged.

Inside Job is one of the slickest documentaries I have ever watched, and I have seen many. From the beginning Inside Job seems to bill itself as more of a movie than anything else. The introduction starts out with flying cutover scenes of New York City highlighting the exorbitant lifestyles of New York executives. Of course, the most effective device used in Inside Job was all of the interviews of both the economists that knew that the economy would crash and those of the individuals who caused the crisis and failed to recognize the mess they were creating. Inside Job was very effective at stumping the interviewees who brought upon the crises making them seem incredibly foolish and causing the viewer to even laugh a few times at the ridiculousness. Inside Job also effectively debunks the myth that the economic crises was very complicated to understand and that it could not be avoided. Using flowcharts and diagrams the economic concepts behind the crisis are easily taught and allow the viewer to fully understand the true cause of the crisis and how stupidly simple it is. The documentary also makes full use of b-roll footage to supplement the arguments presented. Many of the footage is from C-SPAN and government hearings on the crisis issue to help portray the problems that the banking industry had created. Inside Job is a documentary that many saw essential to understand the true root causes of the 2008 crises. It is a documentary that would go on to win an Oscar and received great critical acclaim. The documentary was incredibly effective in riling up its audience and will hopefully lead to prevention of repeating mistakes made in the past.

TOW Reflection

 The progression of my TOWs of the course of the year is certainly evident. As a writer I have grew throughout the course and my TOWs show that. The writing style that was utilized in all of my pieces progressed from a more simple syntax and prose to a greater level of sophistication. Looking at the first post I wrote, on a more basic level of analysis. The rhetoric I identified in my pieces was fairly minimal and well-known. As the year progressed, I became more critical of the pieces I read and was able to better dissect the mind of the writer. One thing that I identified as a mistake in my pieces was the repetition of the same word starting all of my sentences. With time, I developed a sense of varying sentence structure and how they were composed. In doing so, my posts became even more sophisticated. This is important and essential for all branches of writing and will be helpful in the future.

Of course, there is still plenty of room for improvement in my posts. I always could use more and more analysis into rhetorical analysis of the pieces I read. Many times I would simply pick and choose some small rhetorical devices that did not have a massive impact on the audience. In doing so, I missed the larger point of the piece and possibly neglected more powerful devices. By reading closer and getting the entire gist of the piece, I would be better able to identify the overarching rhetorical devices; particularly when the author wields syntax, diction, and tone. I saw the TOWs as an experience to better hone my skills in regards to rhetorical devices. By better being able to identify them, I would also learn how to incorporate and integrate them into my own pieces similar to the pieces that I had already read.

The TOW pieces have made me a better rhetorical thinker. Without them, I would be not nearly as adept to the devices as I am today. I firmly believe that this identification had an influence on my own writing as I tried to mimic the sane style and prose of the writers that I had read. The one flaw that I can readily see in the TOWs is that sometimes they were hastily composed. Because of this, I was sometimes not able to derive the full benefit of doing the assignment and because of that TOWs may have seemed like a busywork assignment. If I took more time to sit and analyze the pieces I was reading, I would have benefited even more. All in all though, the TOWS have better developed me as both a critical reader and a writer.

Bashing the NRA: Using a touchy topic to arouse emotion.

The barrage of recent shootings in America has recently dominated public policy debates. Recently President Obama had promised to formulate legislation to enforce background checks on guns which eventually had been shot down. Many are blaming the very powerful NRA lobby for the failure of the bill. It has been argued that the NRA is blind to all of the pain and suffering that has stemmed from the recent gun violence.  In this cartoon the NRA is being portrayed as old and ignorant individuals. The various drawings of the NRA members essentially grab the stereotype of the person. For example, Wayne Lapierre has often been viewed as an angry gun-toting crooney whereas Sarah Palin has a stereotype unique to her own(I'm assuming you can figure out that one. The juxtaposition to the smiling young kids below the cartoons is very striking. This cartoon successfully accomplishes the task of bringing more anger in to the mix against the NRA. If one thing is for sure, the popularity of the NRA is rapidly diminishing. That being said, the NRA continues to be passionate in their endeavors  something that the gun control lobby has seemed to fail to accomplish.