Page 103 - People & Places In Time

You’ve Got To Be Taught
Oscar Hamerstein
You've got to be taught to hate And fear
You've got to be taught
From year to year
It’s got to
Be drummed in your dear little ear You've got to
Be carefully taught
You've got to be taught
To be afraid of people Who's eyes are oddly made And people whose skin is a
different shade
You've got to be carefully taught You've got to be taught
Before it's too late
Before you are six
Or seven or eight
To hate all the people
Your relatives hate
You've got to
Be carefully taught
You've got to
Be carefully taught Emile De Beque
Temptations, “War” . . . as the lyrics asks, “what is it good for? and answers, Nothing, absolutely nothing . . . ”
The innocence had vanished Whether you went to Vietnam by joining up or had been drafted, or you found yourself deferred by one means or another, the prospect was at the forefront of everyone’s think- ing. Most men and some women faced a decision at the crux of this societal division. On the one hand were those who would support the war effort alongside those who did serve. Just as others from their position of protected status, protested the war outright, and
a few simply defected, or more accurately ran away
to Canada or somewhere. Culminating with Country Joe McDonald singing “I Feel Like I’m Fixing to Die” at Woodstock in 1969. In any case we found ourselves in a terribly divided state of affairs and there seemed no resolution . . . there was no turning back.