The U.S. vs. John Lennon

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The U.S. vs. John Lennon -- 1hr:40mins

The new documentary "The U.S. vs. John Lennon", tells the story of Lennon's transformation from loveable moptop to anti-war activist, and recounts the facts about Nixon's campaign to deport him in 1972 in an effort to silence him as a voice of the peace movement.

In the film, Walter Cronkite explains that J. Edgar Hoover "had a different conception of democracy" from the rest of us; George McGovern talks about losing the 1972 election to Nixon; Sixties veterans Angela Davis, Bobby Seale, John Sinclair and Tariq Ali recall their movement days; and G. Gordon Liddy happily explains the Nixon point of view: Lennon was "a high profile figure, so his activities were being monitored."

Those "activities" – planning a concert tour that would combine rock music with antiwar organizing and voter registration for the 1972 election – were stopped cold by Nixon's deportation order; but more than 30 years later, in the 2004 election, another group of rock stars finally did exactly what Lennon had been thinking about doing.

Although the Lennon film never explicitly connects the Vietnam war to Iraq, it's impossible not to think of the present when Nixon is shown saying, "as South Vietnamese forces become stronger, the rate of American withdrawal can become greater" (and then wipes sweat off his upper lip). But there's only one explicit reference to the present in the film, and it's brief: Gore Vidal says "Lennon represented life, and Mr. Nixon, and Mr. Bush, represent death."

Nixon got the idea of deporting Lennon from an unlikely source: Strom Thurmond, Republican Senator from South Carolina, who sent a letter to the White House in 1972 that outlined Lennon's plans for a US concert tour that would combine rock music with antiwar organizing and voter registration. Thurmond knew that 1972 was the first year 18-year-olds were given the right to vote, and that Nixon, up for reelection, worried about 11 million new voters -- who were probably all Beatle fans and mostly anti-war. Thurmond's memo observed that Lennon was in the U.S. as a British citizen, and concluded "deportation would be a strategic counter-measure."

It worked; the Lennon tour never happened.

For the next 30 years, the idea of a tour combining rock music and voter registration languished, until 2004, when Bruce Springsteen and a group of activist rock musicians did an election year concert tour of battleground states with a strategy very much like Lennon's. The "Vote for Change" tour, organized by MoveOn PAC, brought the Dixie Chicks, R.E.M., Pearl Jam, and a dozen others on a tour of swing states, with the explicit goal of getting young rock fans to register to vote and vote against the Republican in the White House.

If the idea of using rock concerts to register young voters was the same, the 2004 tour had different politics from its 1972 predecessor – that much is clear from the one concert Lennon did do before the deportation order came down: the "Free John Sinclair" concert in Ann Arbor in December, 1971. Sinclair was a Michigan activist who had been in prison for two years for selling two joints of marijuana to an undercover cop; 15,000 people turned out for the concert. "The U.S. versus John Lennon" features footage from that concert, including wildly radical speeches by Jerry Rubin, and Bobby Seale, who said "the only solution to pollution is a people's humane revolution!"

The Vote for Change tour had much less political talk, and much milder rhetoric. On opening night in Philadelphia in October, 2004, Bruce Springsteen made only a brief political statement: "We're here to fight for a government that is open, rational, forward-looking and humane," he said – not quite the same as Jerry Rubin at the 1972 concert shouting "what we are doing here is uniting music and revolutionary politics to build a revolution around the country!"

Of course 1972 and 2004 ended the same way – with the re-election of the Republican incumbent. In '72, Nixon won by a landslide; in 2004, Bush barely won the popular vote – you might call that progress.

One factor has remained the same over the last 35 years – young voters are the least likely to vote, and potentially a rich source of progressive support. The challenge of overcoming their apathy and ignorance remains – as does the strategy of reaching them through music. Thus what Lennon thought about in 1972, and what Bruce Springsteen, the Dixie Chicks and others did in 2004, remains a key to mobilizing young voters in the future.

As Lennon says in "The U.S. vs. John Lennon," "our job now is to tell them that there still is hope, we must get them excited about what we can do again."

Thinking beyond criticism.....

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Thanks to Lavanya, I landed on Thinking beyond criticism.

We burn buses at slightest provocation, we go on strike at whim , our players speak against their coach in public whilst in office, we counterprotest by being deliberately provocative and we have long history of violence inherent in our politics, even blogging; and for all the high falutin talk, us, the so called educated, are incapable to think beyond linking each other's posts and fuming at the failure of democracy before our keyboards at every such possible incident. We all, just blame one another.

These people, this world.

We arent one among them. We are different of course. We follow a pattern, a different one. Go to google and search for any of these issues: MMS scandal, Kareena Shahid Kapoor kiss, Shilpa Shetty racism, Da vinci code Delhi controversy, blogspot ban, Gandhi on youtube, Richard Gere Shilpa Shetty (oh yes) kiss etc, you would end up with a collection of snobbish looking templates heavier than War and Peace. Not once anywhere has there been a suggestion or any attempt to prevent such a incident again. Not even on any scale.

Simply, nothing has happened. We survive, we live. We blog.

Probably there is a reason for it all: We quite simply do not know beyond that.

Unless we get out of our new found post-modern elitism and cease regarding others: self appointed moral policers, nut-wingers, rightists, religious goons, this and that, whoever for however disagreeable they are for whatever reasons and take us all as one whole single unit, we shall only be speaking for ourselves. So, by implication we do not have any right to speak for a country. Which means, in other words, we shall be unable to look into solving these issues, by whatever means. That is the bigger shame.

Before us would be, two options, firstly, if we see ourselves as an elitist cohort exclusive of the rest of the citizens of our country, then we simply have to shut up this self-patting culture of blame blogs which we very well know only we ourselves read.

Secondly, if we take to see ourselves as a part of all these, then, I am certain we wouldn’t be writing any of these blogs.

yes, Thought provoking but I must admit comfort of blackberry lifestyle limit us to get our hands dirty. truth is we are out of touch. and we studied hard, work hard to get to that status of 'out of touch'.

Deep down a sense of guilt, may be the reason for an out pouring blogs and to be a silence vote of support for greater good. yes, I admit today Iam lazy but I too have passion may be with no direction & motivation. I intend not to stay the same for ever and that very thought makes me sleep without feeling (too much) guilt.

I think options are-- Ignorance and care of none. or understanding reality, share your cry/blog with like minded and to HOPE to create better awareness thus creating knowledge base which would help change a step at time which gives hope for better future.

I choice later... and I find comfort in doing so..

Patriotism, a venture to suggest that what we mean is a sense of national responsibility ... a patriotism which is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.

HIV was Deliberately Created for Military purposes ??

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We occasionally see articles where someone in government or the media, in this case Drudge and ABC News, take as unknown something well established if you know where to look. These reports are always curious because they reveal the dumbed down nature of mass media. Here, though, a famous woman spoke out and some in the media listened a little. In this case bringing back to our attention the major end-times plague of blood.

Wangari Maathai was the first African woman to win the Nobel prize. On October 9, 2004, she reiterated her belief that the HIV virus was created by a germ warfare agency for military purposes. The original ABC News article is here. (By the way, that is the Australian Broadcasting Company, this would never make it in the American media.)

A book, Emerging Viruses AIDS and Ebola, Nature, Accident or Intentional by Leonard G. Horowitz, D.M.D., M.A., M.P.H., that covers the history of HIV. Well worth a read, and likely one of Maathai's original sources. The net of Horowitz's book is that the supposed discoverer of the AIDS virus was in fact the inventor who could easily identify the bug because it was made by his own hand. Very curiously, he was also one of the criminals pardoned by President Clinton in his last few hours in office. The book is also interesting because it is huge, over 600 pages, and contains photo copies of all the supporting United States Government documentation, since nobody would believe this story without the documents, it is so strange.

Horowitz's book is also interesting because of his personal testimony. In his call from Jesus to study this question he was lead by the Holy Spirit to some of the key documents. Though a radically different subject than Bible Time, there is significant similarity in the way Jesus called me on Bible Time. also interesting because it is the book most commonly cited by home schoolers explaining why nobody should be getting flu shots, nor any other shots for that matter.

Source : Bible Time

alone (Un)Defined...

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When the day turns to night
there with your thoughts
your part of this fragile world
is settled into their own

Does your mind wander like mine?
Retrieving latent bits of broken dreams
Wondering what would have happened
if there was another path
Or would there have been a wall
to slam against till the pain
was unbearable, leading to
yet another sad parallel universe

But in that one, you die
not from violence or torture
unless one considers that
its self inflicted.

Alone is never so quiet when theres
no one to blame but 'YOU',
Laugh with the clowns
cry with the saints

Time is the only thing
that I know
because each step we take
Brings us closer to our end

Stars so bright in the sky
morning sun lights on the face as the dark sky fades away
moments frozen in time kept alive by every breathe
as another day You will survive

...You are alone until you don't reach out...

Choices (Un)Defined…

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Ayn Rand said.. Every wo/man builds his world in his/her own image. S/He has the power to choose, but no power to escape the necessity of choice. And I say, Life is not always about choice but about priorities and much of those may not be determined by you.

Life build with so many details of happenings,
the life itself continue to grow, to move,
moment of life begins to the time being, amazingly done
by the creator of life.
We move to the direction we make,
the choices and changes in life.

But there are
So many choices ahead of me
and so many I've made behind
Who am I trying to please here?
I don't know what I'm trying to find

and there are
So many problems in my head
I don't know what I want to do

But what clear is, the one making decisions here is definitely me.

We all make our own decisions
Our lives are based on the ones we choose
and we Lose when Choose the wrong.
so Dreams demand good choices