People Are People Song Comparison

“We don’t really care about diversity all that much in America” (132). In “People Like us” David Brooks takes a logical approach through examining the demographics of our neighborhoods, our educational institutions, and he touches on an emotional approach by having his audience examine their values; he does this with hopes of having his audience question their word choice for the American value diversity, and question if the way they are living their lives invites diversity.

In the Vietnam songs, all of the songs were made as protest songs against war. These songs sent a message that war is not something that we as humans should be doing and that we shouldn't have to solve our problems by killing each other. The American society felt the same way. Why are we doing this? This is not what we should be doing as humans, and this was partly why the American people didn't really welcome veterans back from war. They thought that what they were doing was "wrong" and it's not really solving anything, it's only taking lives. In the first song, "War" by Edwin Starr, there is a very clear message that war is good for nothing. Life is to short to spend fighting in wars. War is nothing but a heart-breaker and it shatters young

Hundreds of battered and bruised bodies littered the floor. Sounds of fiery explosions and endless gunfire filled the air. Soldiers, whose uniforms were splashed with crimson, fought viciously and ruthlessly. Their aggressiveness stemmed from a newfound desperation to stay alive, which in turn, was caused by the war: The Vietnam War. The Vietnam War had claimed over thousands of lives and left survivors haunted by its atrocious events. The Vietnam War had an especially huge impact on Terry Erickson’s father and George Robinson, two fictitious characters from the short stories “Stop the Sun” and “Dear America.” The differences and similarities between the two men are striking, and they merit rigorous scrutiny.

David Foster Wallace’s short story “Good People” uses the themes of division, isolation, and loneliness to suggest how communication can overcomes these psychological problems. These themes, prominent in the story of a young couple struggling with how to react to an unwanted pregnancy, are present in many of Wallace’s stories, and come from his own struggles and literary influences.

On March 16, 1968, over 300 unarmed civilians were killed in South Vietnam during an indiscriminate, mass murder event known as the My Lai Massacre. Conducted by a unit of the United States Army, the My Lai Massacre ranked one of most appalling atrocities carried out by US forces in an already savage and violent war. All victims involved were unarmed civilians, many of which were women, children, and the elderly. Victims were raped, tortured and beaten, even mutilated before being killed. The massacre was forever seared into the hearts and minds of the American people as the day “the American spirit died.”

In chapter 2 entitled “Living is for Everyone,” Davidson presents Jimmy Teyechea, a cancer fighter who has shown the readers an important yet neglected issue of the life on the border. The health problems found among the people who live in the borderland has raised questions of industrial contaminations since various cases of cancer happened. The waste disposal from the factories has apparently become a big issue and the fact that “properly disposing hazardous waste cost several hundred dollars a barrel” (62) opens an interstice to some irresponsible acts which in the long run pollute the environment and affect people’s health. With LIFE, an organization he formed with other cancer victim, Jimmy tries to look for the answer of the mystery within

The final theme I notice between Tim O’Brien and the Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam videos is the blame or guilt every soldier felt between things going wrong on missions or losing their friends. In “The Things They Carried”, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross takes the blame for the death of his soldier Ted Levander. In the story it states “He felt shame. He hated himself. He had loved Martha more than his men, and as consequence Lavender was now dead, and this was something he would have to carry like a stone in his stomach for the rest of the war”. Lt. Jimmy Cross often caught himself dreaming about a girl he loved to escape the war. He possibly thought about her too much which is why he took the blame. But in all reality, Lavender was shot while using the bathroom and that’s that. The only blame for that would be the war itself. In the video 60 Minutes: “My Lai Massacre”, a report on a very brutal attack on a Vietnamese village by U.S Soldiers, Hugh Thomson is a hero for saving many Vietnamese civilians from an awful fate. More than 150 women and children were marched

In “To My People “by Assata shakur, she’s infuriated that the white men has manipulated and oppressed the black men. She commands the colored men to advocate, assemble, and to fight for their rights, and freedom because the american society and law enforcement is corrupted. She contends that their isn’t any equality and justice for colored people. Also Assata Shakur illustrates that colored people should get their freedom and justice they should to fight for it because the white men corrupts the system to the point where the colored men will remain oppressed. She was a member of the Black Panthers and she was the most wanted person by the FBI and charged with of first degree murder, assault and battery of a police officer, assault with a

Calley and Charlie Company, we find out that the truth was worse than the stories. From the facts from the trial, we learn that there were anywhere from 343 - 504 fatalities and. that "[t]he crimes visited on the inhabitants of Son My Village included individual and group acts of murder, rape, sodomy, maiming, assault on noncombatants and the mistreatment and killing of detainees," ( Col. Wilson as qtd in Vietnam 562). You might think that what happened in My Lai was the worst of it all, but O'Brien says that, "Wreckage was the rule. Brutality was S.O.P." (566). Because the war was so confusing and because the soldiers couldn't tell who the enemy was, many felt that, "the army had no solution but to kill people, uniformed or not, old or young, male or female, proven Viet Cong or not," (Fussell 654). To me this is how some tried to justify killing but still some just couldn't make themselves feel as if they were justified.

This shows that Vietnam changes people. The land was so different, and so were the people, which both influenced craziness. The soldiers had to withstand all hardships and mental distractions while fighting for their country.

What makes a person good? Is it the way he or she looks, the way he or she thinks, his or her attitude, or his or her religion? For example, in “Good Country People”, People think that Manley is a good county wholesome young man because he is a bible salesman. In Flannery O’Connor’s “Good Country People,” Joy surprisingly becomes Manley’s victim due to her thinking that he is a good country person, her thinking she is smarter than everyone else, and due to him being very misleading.

People’s opinion on the war was greatly influenced by the media. During the Vietnam War, the horrors that were happening on the battlefield were shown to Americans in their living rooms. There was no censorship meaning Americans back home saw dead bodies, Vietnamese children being shot and villages being burnt, all done by American Soldiers. Watching children, babies and old people being killed caused people to label soldiers as murderers and baby killers. Before Vietnam, soldiers had always been shown in a heroic way. But now, reporters would show only parts of a story, the parts that made soldiers look bad. In the Vietnam War, reporters could literally follow soldiers onto the battle fields and show it on television. Also, most photographers were interested in showing the bad aspects of the war such as the remaining destroyed village of Vietnamese or the suffering of soldiers. The media built stereotypes of soldiers at war as part of anti- war protests so photographers would show the parts that benefited anti-war protests and captured only half the story in his photograph. For

Flannery O’Conner is known for her southern grotesque and partly religious short stories that are filled with lessons while some people might even call them parables. Her short stories are also filled with interesting characters that are known for being frank, ironic, and a bit racist. Flannery O 'Connor 's short story “Good Country People” displays irony through the characters names, as well as through the actions of both Manly Pointer and Joy.

There are many debates regarding the Vietnam War, but regardless of which side of the fence you sit on, none can argue that one of the most horrific massacres happened during this time. Most mothers and fathers would find it hard to believe that their sons would return home to them cold blooded murders. As one mother put it in an article while being interviewed by Mr. Hersh of the New York Times, “I gave them a good boy and they sent me back a murderer”.

Through O’Brien’s description of the Vietnamese monks, he highlights the absurdity of the effect of war on the Vietnamese people. Americans find themselves often forgetting the effect of their presence in foreign countries. The Vietnamese people and their needs were affected indefinitely by the Vietnam War. What is also underestimated is how much of an emotional toll the Vietnam War took on the average citizen.