Note: I wrote this back when The Nation article was published and the issue was fresh. I didn't post it for some reason and when I came across it recently, I thought someone might enjoy it. Plus it's always appropriate to smack down republican propaganda. And this is republican propaganda of the most bone-headed kind.
Some rightwing republicans are claiming John Lennon as their own.
Man! Talk about revisionist history. What's next? Hunter S. Thompson was a Reagan Democrat? Abbie Hoffman's secret crush on Nixon? Apparently if you're a rightwing republican you get to just make shit up to suit you. It's what they do:
WMDs in Iraq? Check. Trickle down economics? Check. Reagan was a great president? Check. Global warming is a hoax? Check. Trees make pollution? Check. George W. Bush wasn't an unmitigated disaster for America? Check. The poor need to shoulder more of the burden? Check. Cutting taxes for millionaires and billionaires creates jobs for the peons? Check.
Now this. This is so weak and shameful it may be setting a new low.
Here are the basic facts that prompted this diary, kindly provided by The Nation:
A guy named Fred Seaman is all over the conservative blogs today for a new documentary in which he claims that John Lennon was “a closet Republican” at the time he was shot. This seems unlikely.
First of all, who is Fred Seaman? He’d been a personal assistant to John and Yoko at the Dakota in the late seventies, but he’s also a convicted criminal. He was found guilty of stealing John Lennon’s personal belongings, including his diaries, after Lennon had been killed. He was sentenced to five years probation.
You might say that weakens his credibility.
What exactly were Lennon’s political views at the end of 1980? Late that November, Lennon spoke out on behalf of striking workers in Los Angeles and San Francisco. (The story is told in my book Come Together: John Lennon in His Time.) The strike was against Japan Foods Corporation, a subsidiary of the Japanese multinational Kikkoman, best known for its soy sauce. The US workers, primarily Japanese, were members of the Teamsters. In LA and San Francisco, they went on strike for higher wages. The shop steward of the LA local, Shinya Ono, persuaded John and Yoko to make a public statement addressed to the striking workers:
“We are with you in spirit.… In this beautiful country where democracy is the very foundation of its constitution, it is sad that we have to still fight for equal rights and equal pay for the citizens. Boycott it must be, if it is the only way to bring justice and restore the dignity of the constitution for the sake of all citizens of the US and their children.
“Peace and love, John Lennon and Yoko Ono. New York City, December, 1980.”
That was Lennon’s last written political statement. It doesn’t seem to be the work of a “closet Republican.”
Seaman says Lennon told him he was disillusioned with Jimmy Carter in 1980. Lots of people on the left were disillusioned with Jimmy Carter in 1980, and for good reasons. That didn't make you a Republican, closeted or otherwise.
John Lennon: NOT a Closet Republican
So a rightwing thief wants to convince us of the absurd notion that John Lennon was, well...you know. This is laughable on its face. Anyone familiar with John's work and life would know better. Anyone. Anyone with an honest bone in their body anyway.
Some rightwing republicans just want to be selfish, petty, mean and cruel without giving up their pathetic pretensions to being hip. Sorry. You can't have it both ways. Either you're a loving, caring and smart human being like John Lennon and so many others on the left, or you are the opposite, in which case you are not, and will, in the absence of major personal transformation, never be anything even remotely like hip or cool or a decent human being. That's why 'compassionate conservative' is such a pathetic joke. There simply is no such thing.
Now at this point some people are going to step in and defend the 'good' republicans they know. I sometimes make exceptions for old friends and family myself. But I must confess that I find it very hard to rationalize the fact that anyone can still self-identify as a republican after 8 years of the Bush/Cheney rape of America.
Some people are just low-information ideologues. That's the only excuse I can come up with. I do believe that explains most of the republican rank and file. Most of them don't have a clue what their leadership is about. They just hear things like 'small government', and it sounds good if you don't think too hard about its implications. Of course they want small government so they'll be free to rip us off without govt interference: jack up our insurance rates, spew pollutants into the air, land and sea, sell us over-priced poison calling it medicine, and rip off consumers left and right who in their minds are just suckers after all. It's all about the Benjamins baby. Profit over people and all that jazz.
It's not cool to love war and all republicans are 'strong on defense,' which is their euphemistic way of saying pro-war, pro-empire and pro-Military Industrial Complex. John was pretty damned clear on his views regarding war and war mongers. He was against them. Just consider his life's work (but for rightwingers this may seem too much like looking at the facts).
You really don't have to look very far to find ample evidence of John's philosophical views. I mean how could anybody miss it? While John Sinclair is far from his best work, it's pretty illuminating as to his philosophy, which is decidedly un-republican.
John Sinclair by John Lennon
It ain't fair, John Sinclair
In the stir for breathing air
Won't you care for John Sinclair?
In the stir for breathing air
Let him be, set him free
Let him be like you and me
They gave him ten for two
What else can the judges do?
Gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta set him free
If he'd been a soldier man
Shooting gooks in Vietnam
If he was the CIA
Selling dope and making hay
He'd be free, they'd let him be
Breathing air, like you and me
They gave him ten for two
What else can the judges do?
Gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta set him free
They gave him ten for two
They got Ali Otis too.
Gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta set him free
Was he jailed for what he done?
Or representing everyone
Free John now, if we can
From the clutches of the man
Let him be, lift the lid
Bring him to his wife and kids
They gave him ten for two
What else can the bastards do?
Gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
gotta, gotta, gotta set him free
So John Lennon was a republican, eh? I suppose that's why Nixon and Kissinger (two iconic republican war criminals) tried so desperately to deport him. That's why the FBI hounded him, tapped his phones and documented his every move, that's why John worked so hard to support war, discrimination and hatred.
Attica State by John Lennon
What a waste of human power
What a waste of human lives,
shoot the prisoners in the towers
Forty-three poor widowed wives
Media blames it on the prisoners,
But the prisoners did not kill
"Rockefeller pulled the trigger"
That's what the people feel.
Attica, Attica state, we're all
mates with Attica state.
Free the prisoners, free the judges
Free all the prisoners everywhere,
All they want is truth and justice
All they need is love and care
They all live in suffocation,
Let's not watch them die in sorrow,
Now's the time for revolution,
Give them all chance to grow.
Attica state......
Come together join the movement,
Take a stand for human rights,
Fear and hatred clouds our judgment,
Free us all from endless night,
Attica state....
We are all mattes...
We all live in......
Attica, Attica, Attica state.
So I ask you. Rightwing republican or leftwing revolutionary? Only a real dimwit could get this wrong.
"It just was a gradual development over the years. I mean last year was 'all you need is love.' This year, it's 'all you need is love and peace, baby.' Give peace a chance, and remember Love. The only hope for us is peace. Violence begets violence. You can have peace as soon as you like if we all pull together. You're all geniuses, and you're all beautiful. You don't need anyone to tell you who you are. You are what you are. Get out there and get peace, think peace, and live peace and breathe peace, and you'll get it as soon as you like."
John Lennon
Sounds just like Tricky Dick or George W. doesn't he?
John Lennon was not only a member of the radical revolutionary left, he was one of it's most outspoken and influential leaders. So get busy rewriting that history all you little republican history re-writers. We wouldn't want the truth to leak out, now would we?
“The thing the sixties did was show us the possibility and the responsibility that we all had. It wasn’t the answer. It just gave us a glimpse of the possibility.”
John Lennon six hours before he was killed.
A working class hero is something to be.
The only thing more ridiculous than rightwingers claiming John Lennon is the way they have claimed Jesus as their own. Jesus would've kicked their lying asses.