World War 2 Rhetorical Analysis

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The Motive In the years during World War Two, America and its people stood up to fight for the freedom of our Asian neighbors, but not for the ones at home. Propaganda on the TV, in newspapers, and in the local movie theatres encouraged Americans to apply, work, join, train, and fight for the U.S. military but to also fear and hate the Japanese including the ones that are American citizens. Fearing them and using the Pearl Harbor bombings as a catalyst to enlist. The Good War: An Oral History of World War II by Studs Terkel provides interviews of what Japanese-Americans went through and what occurred to many American soldiers during and after the bombings. Including what happened during the Pacific Theatre, at Pearl Harbor, and at home to Japanese …show more content…
This left many Americans reckless. The Pearl Harbor bombings left many in fear and recklessness. Fear that another attack would occur and reckless scrambling to find a way out and away from the Japanese. A phrase by Dennis Keegan was “We reacted like a bunch of nuts.” (Terkel, Dennis Keegan) We mean the people of San Francisco after a false article about the Japanese invading the West Coast, had Dennis and others terrified. This also included the whole city of Los Angeles to be alerted. Tom Bradley was a police officer in 1941 when he recalled, “It was panic. Here we are in the middle of the night, there was no enemy in sight, but somebody thought they saw the enemy. They were shooting at random.” In the middle of the night, all policemen were to be reserved in their stations and to be ready. Ready for any orders that may come in but “none” came, because there was nothing. It was panic that simply overwhelmed us.” (Terkel, Mayor Tom Bradley)This was some of the power of propaganda; terrifying individuals and motivating them to do something to protect their country. This is what the Human Comedy showed in its