JFK Inaugural Address
1. Who is speaking?
a. John F. Kennedy
2. Why was/is the speech important?
a. During a time of racial tension and there was a need for an increase of civil rights. War was looming and soviet aggression was spreading.
3. Why do you feel in is important or interesting?
a. The speech focuses on freedom. This is what America feels is its greatest calling is to spread and keep people and countries free. Even now, we fight for our rights and liberties. People always demand things of the government, but never think about the actions they can take to better their own situation. This is definitely an issue in America today with health care, Iraq, obesity, and welfare.
4. What is the emotion, mood, tone, personality, feeling of the speech?
a. Emotion: hopeful with caution built in
b. Mood: inspirational
c. Tone: forceful
d. Personality: Serious and in askance
e. Feeling of the speech: Powerful, gets people to react and move
5. What is intonation, emphasis, what is loud, stressed, or soft? Where are the pauses?
a.
6. What do you FEEL should be loud or soft, long pause or rushed?
7. Is there a call to action?
a. To get people involved in the country. Everyone should take a stand, not just the government
8. When listening to it, what are key/emphasized words?
a.
9. How does it make you feel?
a. Stirred to action. Ready for change. Hopeful that my actions can make a difference
10. How do you image the audience felt?
a. Very uplifting, gave confidence that he was the right man for the presidency (from daddy) Proud to be an American
11. Could there be another interpretation of the speech?
a. Foreign leaders might have felt this was a warning, especially communist leaders.
12. Write/find a short bio, of the person giving the speech:
On November 22, 1963, when he was hardly past his first thousand days in office, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was killed by an assassin's bullets as his motorcade wound through Dallas, Texas. Kennedy was the youngest man elected President; he was the youngest to die.
Of Irish descent, he was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, on May 29, 1917. Graduating from Harvard in 1940, he entered the Navy. In 1943, when his PT boat was rammed and sunk by a Japanese destroyer, Kennedy, despite grave injuries, led the survivors through perilous waters to safety.
Back from the war, he became a Democratic Congressman from the Boston area, advancing in 1953 to the Senate. He married Jacqueline Bouvier on September 12, 1953. In 1955, while recuperating from a back operation, he wrote Profiles in Courage, which won the Pulitzer Prize in history.
In 1956 Kennedy almost gained the Democratic nomination for Vice President, and four years later was a first-ballot nominee for President. Millions watched his television debates with the Republican candidate, Richard M. Nixon. Winning by a narrow margin in the popular vote, Kennedy became the first Roman Catholic President.
His Inaugural Address offered the memorable injunction: "Ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country." As President, he set out to redeem his campaign pledge to get America moving again. His economic programs launched the country on its longest sustained expansion since World War II; before his death, he laid plans for a massive assault on persisting pockets of privation and poverty.
Responding to ever more urgent demands, he took vigorous action in the cause of equal rights, calling for new civil rights legislation. His vision of America extended to the quality of the national culture and the central role of the arts in a vital society.
He wished America to resume its old mission as the first nation dedicated to the revolution of human rights. With the Alliance for Progress and the Peace Corps, he brought American idealism to the aid of developing nations. But the hard reality of the Communist challenge remained.
Shortly after his inauguration, Kennedy permitted a band of Cuban exiles, already armed and trained, to invade their homeland. The attempt to overthrow the regime of Fidel Castro was a failure. Soon thereafter, the Soviet Union renewed its campaign against West Berlin. Kennedy replied by reinforcing the Berlin garrison and increasing the Nation's military strength, including new efforts in outer space. Confronted by this reaction, Moscow, after the erection of the Berlin Wall, relaxed its pressure in central Europe.
Instead, the Russians now sought to install nuclear missiles in Cuba. When this was discovered by air reconnaissance in October 1962, Kennedy imposed a quarantine on all offensive weapons bound for Cuba. While the world trembled on the brink of nuclear war, the Russians backed down and agreed to take the missiles away. The American response to the Cuban crisis evidently persuaded Moscow of the futility of nuclear blackmail.
Kennedy now contended that both sides had a vital interest in stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and slowing the arms race--a contention which led to the test ban treaty of 1963. The months after the Cuban crisis showed significant progress toward his goal of "a world of law and free choice, banishing the world of war and coercion." His administration thus saw the beginning of new hope for both the equal rights of Americans and the peace of the world.
Address on Vietnam War - Spiro Agnew
Address on Vietnam (4-09) – Spiro Agnew
1. Who is speaking?
a. Spiro Agnew
2. Why was/is the speech important?
a. There were many riots going on about the Vietnam War. He was addressing the ignorance of the youth involved in these acts hoping to stop their rioting
3. Why do you feel in is important or interesting?
a. I like this speech a lot because it makes me think about my generation and the music that has been inflamed by Bush’s acts in Iraq. Everyone took the “anti-government” side without really considering why America did what they did. They didn’t try to change things by listening to both sides or helping volunteer. Bands just made more music about how crappy American government was (Green Day’s American Idiot) and their followers just jumped on the band wagon. Now we are more conscious about supporting the soldiers, but the feeling is the same; senseless war and senseless death
4. What is the emotion, mood, tone, personality, feeling of the speech?
a. Emotion: Outraged by the stupidity in our country
b. Mood: Scornful
c. Tone: Scolding
d. Personality: Intelligent and thought out, but more as an upset adult yelling at stupid kids
e. Feeling of the speech: Makes you feel like an idiot
5. What is intonation, emphasis, what is loud, stressed, or soft? Where are the pauses?
a.
6. What do you FEEL should be loud or soft, long pause or rushed?
a.
7. Is there a call to action?
a. To get the youth more interested in knowing the facts and stop just following others and making trouble
8. When listening to it, what are key/emphasized words?
a.
9. How does it make you feel?
a. It makes me want to make an effort in learning about which government topics I feel strongly about. It makes me want to think through decisions instead of acting rash.
10. How do you image the audience felt?
a. Defensive. They believed what they were doing was right.
11. Could there be another interpretation of the speech?
a. People who were not involved in the war really didn’t think anything about Agnew’s address. Also, he was the VP…who remembers the VP’s speeches? My parents don’t
Write/find a short bio, of the person giving the speech:
(b. Baltimore, 9 Nov. 1918; d. 17 Sept. 1996) US; Vice-President, 1968 – 73 Agnew was a new "ethnic" American, born the son of a Greek immigrant father. He dropped out of Johns Hopkins University and then studied law in his spare time. After war service he became a lawyer and entered Baltimore politics. He rose rapidly and was elected Republican Governor for Maryland in 1966. At this time he was a relatively liberal figure in the party. He achieved national prominence for his tough law and order stand in handling the riots in Baltimore which followed the killing of Martin Luther King. In his bid for the presidency in 1968 the Republican Richard Nixon selected Agnew to be his running mate. Agnew was a compromise figure, acceptable to conservatives in the south and the border states, as well as to the liberals. Nixon was also aware of private polls which indicated that all leading candidates would on balance hurt his election chances, but Agnew would not. As Vice-President, Agnew carried the attacks to Nixon's critics over the Vietnam War and his speech writers gifted him many colourful phrases. He claimed to speak for the "silent majority" and attacked the media as "nattering nabobs of negativism". These abrasive speeches pleased the right wing and articulated some concerns over the role of the media. Not long after he and Nixon were re-elected in 1972 Agnew was accused of taking bribes, or kick-backs, from contractors in Maryland. He denied the charges but in court did not contest the charges of evading federal income tax and he resigned in disgrace. Only one other Vice-President, J. C. Calhoun in the nineteenth century, had resigned, and that was because of political differences with the President.
