Critical Introduction & Texts

About Us

Hello readers, thank you for exploring our blog; it is an honor to share our thoughts with you. We are four undergraduate students who attend the University of Maryland,College Park- Oluwatobi Ajide, Jordyn Berry, Mihir Powers, and Dylan D'Andrea. Our goal was to compare and contrast two pieces of anti-war rhetoric from the 1960’s; more specifically texts that criticized the draft. Both the song “Fortunate Son” by Creedence Clearwater Revival and Kiyoshi Kuromiya’s poster “Fuck The Draft” use ethos and a strong appeal to pathos to express the feelings of anger and discontents held by the draftees and their families during the Vietnam War.

Both texts were published in the late 1960’s within a year of one another at the height of the Vietnam war, and have a strong anti-draft sentiment. In “Fortunate Son”  CCR attempts to show how unfair the draft was to all but the richest and luckiest young men. It indirectly protests the Vietnam war by making it clear that many young men have no desire to serve, but are forced to anyway. “Fuck the Draft” takes a much more direct approach. It uses frank boldfaced text and a striking image to show outright rejection of the draft and the war as a whole, encouraging people to take action and protest. Both texts were published in the late 1960’s within a year of one another at the height of the Vietnam war.

We chose to focus on these two texts because while they both were published around the same time and attacked the same issue, they have very different philosophies on how to express their message. The narrator of “Fortunate Son” is a dejected draftee whose views are meant to reflect the views of young men at the time, and in turn make the audience question the country’s actions at the time. The poster overtly denounces the draft and the war. It too is meant to be sympathetic to those people who were facing the draft and their families, but instead of force the audience to question what the country was doing, it takes the argument one step further and pushes them to act out in defiance.

Now, the order of the analyses within the blog is admittedly a little strange, but we agreed that it was most important to analyse the kairos and audience of both texts first, because it is important to have the proper historical context before trying to understand the appeals the creators made. We discussed the social climate around the draft at the time, and also considered the countercultural following that both texts were primarily made for. Next we wanted to explore the extrinsic ethos of the creators of the texts, and how they used strong appeals to pathos to bring their similar opinions across in such different ways.  Once the creators, the time period, and the feelings present were all established, we finished up by explaining the main idea of each text and why they were exigent, taking into account all the previous information.

We hope the blog has enlightened you all to the opinions of people in the late 1960’s draft time, and given you a new insight on an old topic. We also encourage you all to take something away from this analysis. Maybe even try and compare the arguments made here to modern anti-war sentiments and ask yourself what has changed in the past 60 years.

"Fortunate Son" by Creedence Clearwater Revival:

Some folks are born made to wave the flag
Ooh, they're red, white and blue
And when the band plays "Hail to the chief"
Ooh, they point the cannon at you, Lord
It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no senator's son, son
It ain't me, it ain't me; I ain't no fortunate one, no

Yeah!
Some folks are born silver spoon in hand
Lord, don't they help themselves, oh
But when the taxman comes to the door
Lord, the house looks like a rummage sale, yes

It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no millionaire's son, no
It ain't me, it ain't me; I ain't no fortunate one, no

Some folks inherit star spangled eyes
Ooh, they send you down to war, Lord
And when you ask them, "How much should we give?"
Ooh, they only answer More! more! more! yoh

It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no military son, son
It ain't me, it ain't me; I ain't no fortunate one, one

It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no fortunate one, no no no
It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no fortunate son, no no no

Anti-draft Poster:

Exigence of "Fuck the Draft"

            The exigence of this poster derives from everyone’s building hate for the draft. People were being drafted constantly and everyone began to get tired of it. The teenager burning the draft is because no one wanted to be drafted into the war. It stopped being a patriotic thing and started to feel like they were being forcibly dragged into it. There were many people protesting the draft and fighting. This poster meant a lot to the movement and exemplifies the feelings of many. People began to burn actual draft tickets and were being fined for it, some even sent to jail. Even to this day the idea of the draft is hated.

            

Stasis/Main Argument of FTD

The main argument of the "Fuck the Draft" poster is a criticism of the draft used in the Vietnam War and of its ethics and rational. The draft was famously used during the Vietnam War in a fight that many Americans did not want to get involved in. The draft was initiated because the US government could not gain enough support from the American people (except from the rich) to join the military and get involved in the war. Lower-class citizens and minorities believed that the draft unfairly chose them rather than the upper class and wealthy people. The people who least wanted to get involved in the conflict were the most impacted by the war, paying the highest price for the battles of others. In the poster, the pictures highlights the anger towards this unfairness and and gives an uncensored opinion of blue collar perspective in the 1960s. The poster calls for Americans to stand up against the draft and calls for the government to get rid of the draft. Although this poster doesn't specifically cite who should take action, the poster appeals toward the American people standing up for their rights and their safety by commanding the people to not follow the draft. Going back to the poster's overall message, the intent of its message was not to go into detail of all the things wrong with the draft; it does simply point to the draft being wrongly used and bluntly criticizes it. It takes little words to communicate the detriment the draft had on America's families and youth and this picture is an attempt to show the raw emotion against the war as a whole and its methods.

Audience for "Fuck the Draft"

There is a wide range of people for who is the intended audience for this poster. During the time period, many young men would be looking at this poster and appreciate its message. Men from the ages of 18-35 were all affected by the draft. At any time their number could be called upon and they would be called out to serve. Many believed the war should have finished many years prior to its actual end. The war was drawn out, and a lot more people were sent in then should’ve been. Mothers as well are apart of this intended audience. In their eyes their children were being taken away from them and being sent to fight at a young age. No one liked the draft and this type of poster resonated deeply with a lot of people.

Ethos of Anti-war Poster (FTD)

The highly controversial Anti-draft poster was created by Kiyoshi Kuromiya, an important civil rights and gay rights activist who was born in a Japanese-American internment camp in 1943. According to Kuromiya, the man on the poster was a young person from the Detroit who was doing prison time for burning his draft card. Kuromiya's ethos in this poster was extrinsic because this poster appeared in an underground radical newspaper made specifically for his counter-cultural audience. Before even knowing what his intention was in this poster, Kuromiya's audience already was aware of his experience in anti-war and political activism, therefore making his appeal to ethos extrinsic. This poster was used alongside a call for people to send the picture to famous mothers in politics as a political message against the Vietnam War. The text's ability to call for so much action and to garner so much attention with so little features speaks to Kuromiya's persuasiveness and the text's efficacy. I believe this text is so effective because of its shock value. The text's bold caption catches the eye and draws the viewer's attention towards the image. The poster's efficacy is high because the bold statement it makes causes people to question the draft and its purpose as well as the war itself and who it is affecting. This text brings into the question the ethics of the draft and of the war itself.

http://dangerousminds.net/comments/fuck_the_draft_the_amazing_story_of_kiyoshi_kuromiya_creator_of_the_iconic

Pathos of 'Fuck the Draft'

The first thing the audience may notice about this poster, besides the rather blunt wording, would be the curious expression on the man's face. It's a sort of half smile, a expression that says he thinks burning his draft card is a cheeky thing to do. Of course, doing such a thing would have been interpreted as borderline treasonous at the time, especially to the older generation, those who generally supported the war. That expression flies in the face of the grave, serious nature of the draft, and says to its audience that it's okay to object, we think it's unfair too. The expression contrasts the shock factor of seeing someone burn their draft card at that point in time, which can even be interpreted as an act of fearlessness. The boldfaced vulgar caption only adds to this attitude. The poster was mean to provoke a feeling of confidence, and empower draft objectors who were being persecuted by society. It appeals to feelings of power and determination in these young people, bringing up the spirits of those who felt as if their own country saw them as cowards. Who can call someone a coward who so boldly stands behind their opinions?

Stases of "Fortunate Son"

The song "Fortunate Son" focuses on the facts, the consequences, action and jurisdiction of the stasis theory. Through facts, the song identifies that during the Vietnam War, men were drafted to fight in the war. "Ohh, they send you down to war, Lord...How much should we give...More! more!... If you are drafted you have to fight in the war- which is the consequence of being drafted. But the overall the definition, the song, is trying to explain is that certain people are excused from the draft- the "fortunate one[s]." They are the rich people's sons that paid their way out of being drafted like others.  So it just means that the "senator" and the  "millionaire" actually decide who gets drafted since they eliminated their sons from the draft- which means the poor people are left to fight the war. A war the that the "senator" created- congress has the power declare war according to the constitution. Even though it is not directed stated in the song, the band, Creedence Clearwater Revival wants the voice of the unheard to be heard and the bias in the drafting of men to be changed.