Jackie Robak
Ben Arnold talks about the history of music and war, and how for every war there was songs wrote or played during it. I think that music is an important tool in war times. Lennon was very influential when if came to the music regarding Vietnam. I truly think that he did save lives with how he approached the revolution. All you have to do is look at the gathering and the concerts that were set up by him. Thousand upon thousands of people gathered and sang for peace. I think the fact that he was a Beatle helped him a lot. Young people listen to famous people. Because he already had star power he could get the message out better than anyone else.
This obviously scared the government. They were trying to fight a war that Lennon was protesting. Both sides knew it was a mistake to be there; it’s just like Iraq. If you ask the majority of the population why were there they wouldn’t know how to respond, not because of their incompetence on the subject matter but because we should not have gone over there. And the government does not admit to their mistakes, so instead of getting us out of Vietnam they would get rid of Lennon, the person fueling the mass protests.
In my opinion the government will always be corrupted in some way, and because they run the show, their going to get away with it. Like spying on people and putting them in jail for being a traitor to the U.S. for not supporting the war. I think it’s our responsibility as citizens to speak up when something is not right. We should not be punished for speaking out against the government in a country who was based on the ideal of freedom of speech. If this were going on today I would probably be in jail right now. Every chance I get to bash the Bush administration I do. I don’t think the “leave the country or shut up” is a good theory. It’s not fair to kick us out just because the administration is doing a shity job.
In the documentary Sicko by Michael Moore, they were in France talking about health care, and when he interviewed some of the citizens they told him that the government is sacred of the people. If things aren’t going the way they want it, protests and riots are thrown. In the U.S. the people are scared of the government. Our government is supposed to be for the people, and by the people. It was very obvious that the people were for John Lennon, yet our government tried to kick him out of the country because he was promoting peace.
It really says something about who’s running the country when they are against PEACE!