A Year of Living on the Brink: Ebola, ISIS, Ukraine, a stock-market wipeout--there's nowhere to hide
http://online.wsj.com/articles/dan-henninger-a-year-of-living-on-the-brink-1413414887tesla=y&mg=reno64wsj&url=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB12555689437384833539804580216550709340506.html
The Wall Street Journal, 15 October 2014
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Daniel Henninger's most recent post at the moment addresses certain issues that concern the well-being and securities of nations and continents. He introduces the piece with a brief reference to a book that supposedly predicted such tragedies, shortly following with an unfortunate reassurance of the fact that [w]e're there, at the brink." Then, Henninger develops the piece by elaborating upon what defines "the brink"; he mentions the Ebola outbreak, ISIS threat, Ukraine division, and recent stock-market failures. From this list, Henninger breaks down his perception of the recent economic depressions as they are a large result of the stock-market. In particular, he notes Obama's "failures" to stimulate the economy and compares his actions with many other historical, successful situations of economic growth. Henninger finalizes the piece with a line that closely resembles a literary claim and appears as some sort of call-to-action: political courage is severely lacking--our current president could be the reason why.
Henninger's central argument analyzes recent economic depressions and attributes them to fault decisions within our government. Much of his support derives from a multitude of statistics and similar historical situations. Because of Henninger's emphasis upon cold, hard facts, his logical appeal is the most prominent within the piece. When it comes to structuring this piece, Henninger organized it as though it was an argumentative essay, something I have seen before in his pieces. It begins with a rather grasping introduction, leads into a body of support, and ends with a claim.
I was almost shocked on the formatting and organization of the article, and as he introduced all the issues that economists are having globally, as you call it a "grasping introduction." I was a bit interested on what Henninger's own political perspective was, as when I read, I was unsure of what his opinions would be. I also found it interesting that he supported (more or less, he acknowledged its success) of Gerhard Schröder, a member of the German socialist party, yet he appears every Sunday on Fox news, a source typically associated with right leaning people.
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ReplyDeleteAt first glance, I saw this piece as a "call-to-arms" against the many issues that concern the well-being of countries and their people. Its argument is solid to say the least--such support indicates attributes a certain validity indeed. But when taken into context the central contention (the idea that Americans are lacking an effective president), many of the introduced flaws lose their sting. Half of them are irrelevant to Obama's decisions. The way Henninger introduces the piece almost implies as though he is responsible for such tragedies. Other than that, I can not help but admire the finesse with which he addresses the topic and supports it. Henninger's rhetorical appeals, in particular the appeal to logos, are prominent and effective within this piece.
I commented on Gabrielle's blog, Charles' blog, and Gavin's blog.
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