The Napalm Girl- The Picture

On June 8, 1972 a photographer captured this picture of 9 year old Kim Phuc running down the street screaming after her village had just been hit with napalm bombs. Kim’s burns were so severe that doctors determine she would not survive. After undergoing 17 surgeries and being hospital for 14 months Kim was finally released.

The photographer who captured this picture Nick Ut, hope that this horrifying image would show people all around the world what is really happening in Vietnam, and it did. Many people denied the photo was real and said nothing about the war, whereas others, such as famous artists and bands took it to themselves to use their fame as an international voice to speak out about the war. Artists like Bruce Springsteen, John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan are just some singers that dedicated songs the war so people would realise what was actually going on and try to stop it.

Bruce Springsteen’s song “Born in the USA”, named one of the most misunderstood political campaign songs in history. It may have sounded like a strong patriotic song about the love for his country but that’s usually because every only sing is the chorus and never bothers to read the versus. The song speaks about a hopeless young man from the state that goes off to fight in the war. It talks about how the Americans were treating the Vietnam vets, the effects the war had on the veterans and supposably about a friend of Springsteen’s that was killed serving in the war.

Songs like these really captured the nation to think and look at events such as the Napalm girl. It influenced people to take a stand for what is right and wrong and challenge the government on what they were doing for the future of their country. Many bands and artist get their sound and their lyrics from controversial events that are happening around the globe and that’s exactly what they were doing with the Vietnam War.

Vietnam War- The alphabet

Australia
Bombs
Communism
Domino effect
Europe
Fighting
Guerrilla soldiers
Helicopters
Injured
Jungle
Khmer Rouge
Laos
Military
Napalm
Order of battle
Punji traps
Q
Republic of Vietnam
South Vietnam
Tunnels
United States
Viet Cong
Weapons
X
Yankee
Z

JFK assassination- What if?

On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas, Texas. Since then, questions have been asked as to what would have happened if JFK was never killed, who was involved and why Kennedy was killed.

There were three major historical events that were in process when Kennedy died; the Vietnam War and how it was either going to escalate or fade away, the finality of the Civil rights movement and the act for the right of equality between white people and African Americans and men and women.

JFK was committed to running again in 1964 and based on theories; he had a good chance of winning. His popularity rating was at 58% right before the assassination and just after he had served 1,000 days in office as the president. Although he seemed like he had it in the bag, President Kennedy was expecting a tough re-election campaign because of his support of civil rights.

President Kennedy had introduced his historic Civil rights act in June 1963. It was stalled in congress when Kennedy died. After his death, President Lyndon Johnson told the nation that passing the Civil Rights Act would be the best way to honour Kennedy’s legacy and long-time leadership, but it took until July 1964 for Johnson and his allies to get the act approved. If Kennedy had lived on the debate over the Civil Rights Act may have occurred during an election year.

While in office and before he was assassinated, JFK was caught on tape showing his concern about the crisis in Vietnam with the war battling out and was firing questions at two men who had returned from Asia about the situation over there. There were theories that Kennedy would have taken a more safer option if he didn’t die rather then what Johnson did, which was send in more troops.

Although many theories along the way do make perfect sense, how the president, John F. Kennedy would have handled the Vietnam war during an election year or the civil rights act or who was behind the master plan of assassinating him and their reasons behind it remains and forever will be a mystery.

The Beatles- Influence

The Beatles were undeniably the world’s biggest band. The influences they had on society in the 60’s and the influence they have on the modern day population is still going as strong as ever. Their commercial success commenced an immediate wave of changes not just in the UK or US but all over the world.

Naturally, the Beatles’ influence was the strongest during their active career, in the sixties. During Beatle mania (approximately 1963-1966), when their fame reached a high, they had an unbelievable impact on the young and a strong influence on everyone else. They very much influenced they minds of young teenagers, upcoming musicians, men’s fashion, the way people looked at the war going on and using their music they got messages about problems in the world so everyone would listen.

The Beatles were a group that changed the landscape of the music industry. The Beatles produced the first music video (Paperback Writer/Rain), invented the concept album (Sgt. Pepper) and created Apple, their own record label. But the Beatles’ most important contribution may be the inspiration given to a generation of artists to create their own music. Many bands over the past 50 years see the inspiration and influence to perform, write and sing music came from the incredible impact that the Beatles made in the music business. Artist such as Dave Grohl (drummer for Nirvana with lead singer, late Kurt Cobain and he also is the founder and lead singer of The Foo Fighters) said that Paul McCartney and The Beatles inspired him at an early age. “When I was young, that’s how I learned how to play music – I had a guitar and a Beatles songbook. I would listen to the records and play along. Of course, it didn’t sound like the Beatles, but it got me to understand song structure and melody and harmony and arrangement. So, I never had a teacher – I just had these Beatles records.”

The Beatles influenced countless bands and artists, one of them being Billy Joel. The Beatles inspired Joel to become a musician during an era of clean-cut teen idols. Billy Joel say that the one moment he realised he wanted to be a musician for the rest of his life was when he saw The Beatles perform on The Ed Sullivan Show.  Other bands including Oasis, Radiohead, Pink Floyd, Coldplay, U2 and Green day all say that the reason for becoming musicians and the sound of their music and what they write about is all thanks to the Beatles for inspiring and influencing them at a young age.

In the 1960’s Beatle mania was the most talked about topics in the world. This distracted the people to be distracted from all the bad that was happening in the world and find something to believe in for a couple of minutes. The voice that The Beatles put out there influenced people all over the globe. Inspiration was spread throughout the world and just to think if we never had the Beatles, where would we all be today?

The alphabet: Queen

a: Awesome

b: Brian May

c: Concerts

d: Drums

e: English

f: Freddie Mercury

g: Guitar

h: Hit songs

i: Illness

j: John Deacon

k: kool-cats

l: Live Aid

m: Money

n: Number 1 singles

o: outstanding

p: Progressive rock

q: Queen

r: Roger Taylor

s: Seventies

t: The Smile

u: umbrella

v: vocals

w: We will rock you

x: X-ray

y: You’re my best friend

z:  Zanzibar

Napalm Girl: The Picture

 

The picture in question here is the historic photo of the “Napalm Girl”, Phan Thi Kim Phuc, running down the street naked while being burnt with napalm. There is much to take in when looking at this photo and the more we analyse it the most horrors of destruction are unveiled. In the background we can see the heavy smoke of fire, in the middle a road desolate of cars or other vehicles instead we see numbers of distraught children, and none of them are with parents or other guardians. Behind them numerous soldiers are seen following the children, their faces are indistinguishable, a great contrast to the horrified faces of the children who are screaming and weeping. Finally in the middle we see the “Napalm Girl”, naked and defenseless slowly dying.

This photo, and others like it, helped change the world’s attitude to the war in Vietnam. Earlier on during the Vietnam war the war itself was seen in a more positive light, as it was seem as a more necessary war need to stop communism not only taking Vietnam but to stop it from spreading across the rest of the Western world. Soon, through with the help of the large amount of media coverage of the war, attitudes changed. Was what once believed became a long war, what was once believed to be an easy war became grueling and lethal many more than predicted.

This picture, taken in 1972, is a clear example of some of the media shown that changed public opinion. As this was not an attack on enemy soldiers either; this was a napalm attack on innocent refugees that the war had created. It is easy to say that you are going into battle for the greater good, but does that good have to involve the slaughter of innocent civilians?

The war in Vietnam ended in 1975 with America and its allies leaving Vietnam, leaving the government in North Vietnam to take control of the state.

Brainstorm – Gough Whitlam

Gough Whitlam was the 21st Prime Minister of Australia, serving from 1972 to 1975, when he was dismissed from his post by the Governor-General of Australia, Sir John Kerr. While Whitlam was Prime Minister he implemented a lot of changes in Australia that now affects me as a citizen of Australia.

Gough Whitlam Created Medibank, which is now Australia’s largest health insurance. My family have Medibank health insurance, and without it, I wouldn’t have all the health privileges that I have. Medibank covers numerous things, such as dental (including orthodontics), healthcare travel insurance, hospital cover, ambulances are free for me, my parents are covered if they were to be injured at work, and we all get free doctor visits. Without Medibank I wouldn’t have braces. I wouldn’t have been able to travel to the places I have because the risk of getting hurt and not treated would be too high. I wouldn’t be able to go to the doctor when I needed to. And if my parents were hurt at work, well they’d just have to suck it up and be crippled. Medibank has done a great deal of good in my life, thanks to Gough Whitlam.

Whitlam also fought for equal pay for women. If Whitlam hadn’t have fought for equal pay, I would be earning far less then my fellow male colleagues. Even if I passed Uni and had obtained top grades and then men at my work hadn’t done as well as me, I would have still been payed less than them. Also if Gough Whitlam hadn’t fought for women’s equal pay, my mother wouldn’t earn the money she does now, and then my family and I wouldn’t have been able to travel overseas, let alone interstate.

Gough Whitlam also ended conscription. If Whitlam hadn’t have ended it, it could have still been happening today. And what then? My brother and father would be shipped off to wherever they needed soldiers, against their will, leaving me and my mother to survive by ourselves.

Gough Whitlam changed a lot of things in Australia when he was running as Prime Minister, and they have all turned out to influence the way I live today.

By Indira Wright

THE ROLLING STONES – THE INFLUENCE

THE ROLLING STONES – the influence.

The rolling stones began playing in the early 60’s  and were marketed and sold as antithesis of the Beatles. The Rolling Stones wanted to be different and not be marked the same as the Beatles, they wanted to be wilder, crazier and a more independent band. The Rolling stones first big song was ‘satisfaction’ and spent a month at number  1 on the music charts. After the song hit number 1 it set a benchmark for all other bands, people started thinking of them differently and not like antithesis of the beatles.  On top of being a close rock n roll band the stones became a cultural icons. They did there jobs  so well then became the greatest rock n roll band in the world.

From the stones ‘ music and actions, bands and artists alike drew inspiration and began to model themselves as such. Some of the bands were Aerosmith, Guns & Roses, Foo fighters, the Flamin Groovies and The Sex Pistols. Mick Jagger really set the level of lead singers in rock n roll.

If you listen to rock n roll music from the 70’s you may be able to hear  the people who were influenced by the stones and the ones who were. There is a certainty of their being multiple and that the stones set a very high benchmark for every other rock n roll artist till today.

The Combination

The band and artist I would like to discuss is U2 and Bruce Springsteen.

U2 is a very influential band that sometimes uses historical events to create their music. For example, the song Sunday, Bloody Sunday was written about the massacre in Northern Ireland in a town called Derry. It was a civil rights march, where Northern Irish walked the streets, trying to promote their civil rights movement. As the Northern Irish marched, the British Army opened fire into the crowd. 26 civil rights protesters and bystanders were shot by soldiers of the British Army. Thirteen males, seven of whom were teenagers, died immediately or soon after, while the death of another man four-and-a-half months later was attributed to the injuries he received on that day. Two protesters were also injured when they were run down by army vehicles. This event is a blemish in our history. U2 where hit very deeply when this massacre occurred, so they wrote the song Sunday, Bloody Sunday, to create awareness regarding the troubles in Northern Ireland. Sunday, Bloody Sunday is not only about the massacre in Derry, it reflects on a lot of the war acts that were a result of the troubles. But the song was majorly influenced by Bloody Sunday.

Bruce Springsteen is renowned for his songs that are influenced by historical events. One of his songs that is most known is Born in the USA. This song is largely misinterpreted by most people, they believe that it is a patriotic song, but really, it is the exact opposite. Bruce Springsteen was influenced to write Born in the USA by the dishonorable way American treated their Veteran when they returned from Vietnam. The soldiers were promised they would be heroes and would be worshiped for their sacrifices when they returned home, but instead they were left to unemployment, no pension, nothing. They were just meant to get back to daily life, like they had never fought and risked their lives, like they hadn’t lost mates in the war. Bruce Springsteen was largely disappointed in the way the people of America treated the Veterans, which in turn, influenced the creation of Born in the USA.

By Indira Wright 

The 2 Sides – Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Thatcher, was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (UK) from 1979 to 1990. She was the longest-serving British Prime Minister of the 20th century and the only woman in history to have been leader of office. She is also known as the “Iron Lady”, a nickname that became associated with her political strong willed work and leadership style.

There a two sides that view Margaret Thatcher differently. The first are the people that adored her, and thought that what she did saved The United Kingdom. And the opposing side are the people that thought she was a bad leader and caused more troubles than needed.

The side that were for Margaret Thatcher as leader believe that she did immense amounts of greatness for the UK in the time she served as Prime Minister. She launched a successful war against Argentina, she created a global idea that UK and America were of equal powers, most of her privatization efforts were successful, such as the British Telecom and she stood up for the rights of the people of the Falkland Islands.

On the other hand, the opposing side names her as “Britain’s Most Hated Politician.” To them the only good things she did was allow ten Irish hunger strikers to die, abolish free milk for school children, and left the economy in recession, with inflation, unemployment, and interest rates rising.

The divide in this matter is so big because of the way she portrayed herself. To some she came across as militant and aggressive, but to others she was a smart woman who put The United Kingdom back on it’s feet. Either way, she is still today, one of the most influential women in history.

~ Tyla Smith