Our newest community reporter Spring Heeled Jack has written a series of short articles which we will share over the next few weeks.
Here is the latest installment of Hard Times.
End of the worldwide conflict-more Hard Times to come
On returning to the situation after the end of World War 2, it could readily be seen that war creates so many problems for the existing generation having to cope with it, then also the children of their parents who have to confront their demons and horrors because of this.
It should be noted that 50 million people died from 1939 to 1945, a six year period that affected so many countries involved in a worldwide war.
It can be safely mentioned that there are no winners in war, which creates devastation to every country’s infrastructure who are involved in these conflicts.
The human cost of war can be seen where serving servicemen and women are often sacrificed for political and economic agendas.
In addition, war causes the destruction of buildings, it ruins essential services such as fuel and affects the food chain, supplying people with vital food and fuel supplies.
It also affects civilians by frequently making them homeless, destitute with nowhere to go and no shelter from the elements, making them refugees when fleeing conflicts.
Moreover, ordinary people and service personnel often have no means of surviving by feeding themselves or finding a new place to live and find work.
Existing buildings are invariably blitzed by bombings and close fighting conflicts with this shown on many films and documentaries produced such as the World at War by Jeremy Isaacs and narrated by Laurence Olivier back in 1973.
In 1973 the American singer and musician, Edwin Starr wrote the song ‘War’.
The opening lyrics ask a rhetorical question: ‘War, what’s it good for?’
This is followed immediately by Starr’s response: ‘Absolutely nothing’.
In the 1960s and 1970s America had been split in two; for and against the Vietnam war from its intervention in 1964 until the conflict finally ended in 1975.
Starr’s song was a pointed message to the American government about the folly of war and the problems it creates for ordinary people.
Other singers and musicians such as Joan Baez and Bob Dylan used music to inform the general public and to embarrass the American government about their intervention in a war thousands of miles from their home country.
The Deer Hunter was a harrowing film made in 1978, which was designed to prick the conscience of
American politicians and the American public by sending a message that war is futile, creating massive problems for service personnel conscripted to fight with no alternative other than prison for what was then known as ‘draft dodging’ in the United States of America.
Article submitted by Spring Heeled Jack.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and not the Digital Sentinel.
