In “Why We Fight: Prelude to War”, Frank Capra describes two worlds, the free world and the slave world. Fascist leaders are threatened by the principles of democracy, equality, and liberty of the free world because they believe democracy is a sign of weakness. So as a result, the Axis Powers enforce dictatorship and militarism as justifications to progress into a more dominant and prosperous nation. According to the film, the United States entered the war to protect and aid countries who were unable to do so themselves. Capra emphasizes how high the stakes are; it is “us or them,” explaining if we lose our freedoms, then we succumb to the tyranny of the Axis Powers. This is not just a war, this is to free people’s life and death struggle against
In the 1940’s a series of propaganda films titled Why We Fight were produced for the purpose of defining the enemies of World War 2 to justify the necessity of America’s involvement in war. Hitler needed to be defeated, Nazism had to be destroyed, and tyranny had to be stopped for the sake of the American way of life by any means necessary. How could society argue against America’s role in the world war when freedom was being threatened? As Martin Luther King Jr. said “Injustice anywhere is a threat to everywhere.” No questions asked, Americans mobilized in the name of liberty and freedom. However the 2005 documentary film Why We Fight directed by Eugene Jarecki is not a sequel or war propaganda. The film informs the audience and questions America 's military industrial complex that has since dictated policy since the victory of World War 2. With the help of narration, soundbites, and credible speakers Jarecki shines light on the pernicious impact of the armed industry on our government, army, and citizens.
The article The Ending the War: The Push for National Reconciliation by David Blight, explains how they reunite their differences through avoiding the hard work to change the Union, to actually reconstruct the social order that was needed against the confederate hostility, but only continues to embrace their white Southern remembrance, for example songs like, A Southern Song Opposes Reconstruction and war memorials. The evolution of Memorial Day during its first twenty years was even a show of differences from the Northern and Southern perspective, Northerners result was the freedom of African-Americans and the preservation of the Union and the Southern version of Memorial Day were rooted in the resistance to the reconstruction. Nonexistence
I think the central idea of “From War To America” by Kristen Lewis is that hope is stronger than fear. I think this because in the text it says, “...Six million Syrians have lost their homes...”. This is a time that you need hope and not fear because you have lost the little you have and the place you grew up in. Another example where you need hope more than fear is, “ ...4 million people at risk of starvation…”, this text shows that if the people of Syria lost hope they would have died and let fear get the best of them. One last example of how hope is stronger than fear is, “Bullets whizzed around them. They ducked behind a wall to catch their breath.” This shows that if they would have let fear get the best of them, they would have been in
Joseph Conrad once observed that “a belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.” As a result of the violence that is necessary during wartime, soldiers are permitted to engage in savage behavior that is normally forbidden in society. In The Wars by Timothy Findley, however, soldiers act in violent ways even when they are not actively engaged in battle. The inherently savage nature of humankind is evident when Robert Ross kills the German soldier after the gas attack, when Robert is raped in the baths, and when Robert kills Captain Leather. These violent events that occur outside the direct action of the war demonstrate the evil inherent in
In “War is a Racket” General Butler laments the use of propaganda in World War 1, and he notes
“The Cause of War” is a book written by Australian author Geoffrey Blainey. The book is a collection of studies from wars since 1700’s and it analysis the relation of rivaling nations. The book is divided in four parts it starts discussing the weakness behind the current theories of peace, it then moves to talk the “ingredients” which are key for a nation to determine whether they will go to war or not. Third part of the group is about some misleading theories of war, and the last part just deals with the variety of war.
As a child in the United States you are given the idea that freedom is what we fight for. This is the backdrop given to us all, but the reality behind it just gets a whole lot bigger. The film “Why we Fight” by Eugene Jarecki effectively incorporates the opinions of civilians, government officials, media, and the others on the other side of the mirror including videos of Middle East debacles while also adding in important facts on the military-industrial complex. Jarecki included video clips of the responses given when civilians were asked why we fight. Many of the younger ones had the idea that the United States fights for freedom and liberty, but as the age number increased the confidence in their responses decreased.
“Give War a Chance” is an article written by the American economist, historian and military strategist Edward Nicolae Luttwak in 1999, in the American magazine Foreign Affairs. It make an easily understandable “buzz”, since its main assumption is that most kind of peacekeeping or humanitarian operations are, in an objective point of view, a bad thing for the peace, and that it tends, paradoxically, to slower its establishment. We will analyze here the main hypothesis that Luttwak is developing among the article, the first one being the destruction of the legitimacy usually accorded to peacekeeping operations, led by the UN or by other military organizations, and the second one being the obstacle to a durable peace establishment, created
The real underlying cause of the Civil War is one that has remained unresolved since the Revolution, nearly one hundred years earlier, namely the question of sovereignty and the right of each individual state to govern itself as the people saw best fit. Before the Revolution, each of the original thirteen states had been a colony administered by locally elected council and a royal government (Bridenbaugh 131). They were all different in climate, outlook, character, and even religion. One thing united them all, a growing resentment for rule from London (Bridenbaugh 66). In 1774, each colony sent delegates to a Continental Congress in Philadelphia to discuss their response to the British "Intolerable Acts." A bitter struggle followed that
The seduction of war is one that plagues today’s society and causes individuals to still view war through a romantic lens. Some, such as Chris Hedges, goes as far to describe war as “Even with its destruction and carnage it can give us what we long for in life. It can give us purpose, meaning, a reason for living” (Hedges 2002, pg.3). I argue that it is because of the seduction of war that many are forced to find meaning in all the death and destruction that surrounds them, and eventually, people become addicted to the chaos that follows war. One way in which people are seduced by war and then find meaning is through the idea of becoming a man or being baptized through fire.
Wars can change the way a person acts, perceptions of man and unleashes the true self of human nature, which is exactly shown in the novel The Wars. The Wars is a 1977 novel by Timothy Findley that follows Robert Ross, a nineteen-year-old Canadian who enlists in World War I. After the death of his beloved older sister, in an attempt to escape both his grief and the social norms of the repressive Victorian era he enlists himself as a soldier in the Canadian army. However, throughout the novel, we see as the war progresses, it has corrupted the innocence and the pure heart of each and every character in the novel, including Robert Ross. From these events of corruption and the evils that are shown through wars, it affected character growth,
Many people say that the metal of a man is found in his ability to keep his ideals in spite of anything that life can through at you. If a man is found to have done these things he can be called a hero. Through a lifelong need to accept responsibility for all living things, Robert Ross defines his heroism by keeping faith with his ideals despite the betrayal, despair and tragedy he suffers throughout the course of The Wars by Timothy Findley.
The notion of an American way of war informs how scholars, policymakers, and strategists understand how Americans fight. A way of war—defined as a society’s cultural preferences for waging war—is not static. Change can occur as a result of important cultural events, often in the form of traumatic experiences or major social transformations. A way of war is therefore the malleable product of culturally significant past experiences. Reflecting several underlying cultural ideals, the current American way of war consists of three primary tenets—the desire for moral clarity, the primacy of technology, and the centrality of scientific management systems—which combine to create a preference for decisive, large-scale conventional wars with clear objectives and an aversion to morally ambiguous low-intensity conflicts that is relevant to planners because it helps them address American strategic vulnerabilities.
The Reason for Going to War Since the beginning of the war on Iraq, over 8243 civilians, 11000 Iraqi soldiers and 642 Coalition soldiers have died. There has not been one day since a US soldier was killed and since the beginning of the occupation, 39750 bombs have been dropped and $117 billion dollars have been spent. And no weapons of mass destruction have been found.
“Tomorrow When The War Began” by John Marsden, is a novel of survival, friendship, love and war. He uses many language techniques (e.g. simile, metaphor, personification, oxymoron, irony, symbol, allusion etc.) to get across to the reader the importance of each of the themes discussed. He also uses these techniques to set the mood in each chapter and to help emphasise each major point in the novel. “We’ve learnt a lot and had to figure out what’s important- what matters, what really matters.”- Ellie