{"id":9635,"date":"2015-10-05T09:27:55","date_gmt":"2015-10-05T13:27:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/?p=9635"},"modified":"2015-10-05T09:32:24","modified_gmt":"2015-10-05T13:32:24","slug":"neutralizing-john-lennon-one-man-against-the-monster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/neutralizing-john-lennon-one-man-against-the-monster\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Neutralizing\u2019 John Lennon: One Man Against the \u2018Monster\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"10-05-2015_Lennon_SocialCard_Gadfly\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cYou gotta remember, establishment, it\u2019s just a name for evil<\/a>. The monster doesn\u2019t care whether it kills all the students or whether there\u2019s a revolution. It\u2019s not thinking logically, it\u2019s out of control.\u201d\u2014John Lennon (1969)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

John Lennon, born 75 years ago on October 9, 1940, was a musical genius and pop cultural icon.<\/p>\n

He was also a vocal peace protester and anti-war activist and a high-profile example of the lengths to which the U.S. government will go to persecute those who dare to challenge its authority.<\/p>\n

Long before Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden were being castigated for blowing the whistle on the government\u2019s war crimes<\/a> and the National Security Agency\u2019s abuse of its surveillance powers<\/a>, it was Lennon who was being singled out for daring to speak truth to power about the government\u2019s warmongering, his phone calls monitored and data files collected on his activities and associations.<\/p>\n

For a little while, at least, Lennon became enemy number one in the eyes of the U.S. government.<\/p>\n

Years after Lennon\u2019s assassination<\/a> it would be revealed that the FBI had collected 281 pages of files<\/a> on him, including song lyrics, a letter from J. Edgar Hoover directing the agency to spy on the musician, and various written orders calling on government agents to set the stage to set Lennon up for a drug bust. As reporter Jonathan Curiel observes, \u201cThe FBI\u2019s files on Lennon \u2026 read like the writings of a paranoid goody-two-shoes<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the New York Times<\/em> notes<\/a>, \u201cCritics of today\u2019s domestic surveillance object largely on privacy grounds. They have focused far less on how easily government surveillance can become an instrument for the people in power to try to hold on to power. \u2018The U.S. vs. John Lennon\u2019 \u2026 is the story not only of one man being harassed, but of a democracy being undermined.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, as I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People<\/em><\/a>, all of the many complaints we have about government today\u2014surveillance, militarism, corruption, harassment, SWAT team raids, political persecution, spying, overcriminalization, etc.\u2014were present in Lennon\u2019s day and formed the basis of his call for social justice, peace and a populist revolution.<\/p>\n

For all of these reasons, the U.S. government was obsessed with Lennon, who had learned early on that rock music could serve a political end by proclaiming a radical message. More importantly, Lennon saw that his music could mobilize the public and help to bring about change. Lennon believed in the power of the people. Unfortunately, as Lennon recognized: \u201cThe trouble with government as it is, is that it doesn\u2019t represent the people. It controls them<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, as\u00a0Martin Lewis writing for Time<\/em> notes<\/a>: \u201cJohn Lennon was not God. But he earned the love and admiration of his generation by creating a huge body of work that inspired and led. The appreciation for him deepened because he then instinctively decided to use his celebrity as a bully pulpit for causes greater than his own enrichment or self-aggrandizement.\u201d<\/p>\n

For instance, in December 1971 at a concert in Ann Arbor, Mich., Lennon took to the stage and in his usual confrontational style belted out \u201cJohn Sinclair,\u201d a song he had written about a man sentenced to 10 years in prison for possessing two marijuana cigarettes<\/a>. Within days of Lennon\u2019s call for action, the Michigan Supreme Court ordered Sinclair released.<\/p>\n

What Lennon did not know at the time was that government officials had been keeping strict tabs on the ex-Beatle they referred to as \u201cMr. Lennon.\u201d FBI agents were in the audience at the Ann Arbor concert, \u201ctaking notes<\/a> on everything from the attendance (15,000) to the artistic merits of his new song.\u201d<\/p>\n

The U.S. government was spying on Lennon.<\/p>\n

By March 1971, when his \u201cPower to the People\u201d single was released, it was clear where Lennon stood. Having moved to New York City that same year, Lennon was ready to participate in political activism against the U. S. government, the \u201cmonster\u201d that was financing the war in Vietnam.<\/p>\n

The release of Lennon\u2019s Sometime in New York City<\/em> album, which contained a radical anti-government message in virtually every song and depicted President Richard Nixon and Chinese Chairman Mao Tse-tung dancing together nude on the cover, only fanned the flames of the conflict to come.<\/p>\n

The official U.S. war against Lennon began in earnest in 1972 after rumors surfaced that Lennon planned to embark on a U.S. concert tour that would combine rock music with antiwar organizing and voter registration. Nixon, fearing Lennon\u2019s influence on about 11 million new voters (1972 was the first year that 18-year-olds could vote), had the ex-Beatle served with deportation orders \u201cin an effort to silence him as a voice of the peace movement<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then again, the FBI has had a long history of persecuting, prosecuting and generally harassing activists, politicians, and cultural figures, most notably among the latter such celebrated names<\/a> as folk singer Pete Seeger, painter Pablo Picasso, comic actor and filmmaker Charlie Chaplin, comedian Lenny Bruce and poet Allen Ginsberg.<\/p>\n

Among those most closely watched by the FBI was Martin Luther King Jr., a man labeled by the FBI as \u201cthe most dangerous and effective Negro leader in the country.\u201d With wiretaps and electronic bugs planted in his home and office, King was kept under constant surveillance by the FBI with the aim of \u201cneutralizing\u201d him. He even received letters written by FBI agents suggesting that he either commit suicide or the details of his private life would be revealed to the public. The FBI kept up its pursuit of King until he was felled by a hollow-point bullet to the head in 1968.<\/p>\n

While Lennon was not\u2014as far as we know\u2014being blackmailed into suicide, he was the subject of a four-year campaign of surveillance and harassment by the U.S. government (spearheaded by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover), an attempt by President Richard Nixon to have him \u201cneutralized\u201d and deported. As Adam Cohen of the New York Times<\/em> points out, \u201cThe F.B.I.\u2019s surveillance of Lennon is a reminder of how easily domestic spying can become unmoored from any legitimate law enforcement purpose<\/a>. What is more surprising, and ultimately more unsettling, is the degree to which the surveillance turns out to have been intertwined with electoral politics.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Lennon\u2019s FBI file shows, memos and reports about the FBI\u2019s surveillance of the anti-war activist had been flying back and forth between Hoover, the Nixon White House, various senators, the FBI and the U.S. Immigration Office.<\/p>\n

Nixon\u2019s pursuit of Lennon was relentless and in large part based on the misperception that Lennon and his comrades were planning to disrupt the 1972 Republican National Convention. The government\u2019s paranoia, however, was misplaced.<\/p>\n

Left-wing activists who were on government watch lists and who shared an interest in bringing down the Nixon Administration had been congregating at Lennon\u2019s New York apartment. But when they revealed that they were planning to cause a riot, Lennon balked. As he recounted in a 1980 interview, \u201cWe said, We ain\u2019t buying this. We\u2019re not going to draw children into a situation to create violence so you can overthrow what? And replace it with what? . . . It was all based on this illusion, that you can create violence and overthrow what is, and get communism or get some right-wing lunatic or a left-wing lunatic. They\u2019re all lunatics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the fact that Lennon was not part of the \u201clunatic\u201d plot, the government persisted in its efforts to have him deported. Equally determined to resist, Lennon dug in and fought back. Every time he was ordered out of the country, his lawyers delayed the process by filing an appeal. Finally, in 1976, Lennon won the battle to stay in the country when he was granted a green card. As he said afterwards, \u201cI have a love for this country…. This is where the action is. I think we\u2019ll just go home, open a tea bag, and look at each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lennon\u2019s time of repose didn\u2019t last long, however. By 1980, he had re-emerged with a new album and plans to become politically active again.<\/p>\n

The old radical was back and ready to cause trouble. In his final interview on Dec. 8, 1980, Lennon mused, \u201cThe whole map\u2019s changed and we\u2019re going into an unknown future, but we\u2019re still all here, and while there\u2019s life there\u2019s hope.\u201d<\/p>\n

That very night, when Lennon returned to his New York apartment building, Mark David Chapman was waiting in the shadows<\/a>. As Lennon stepped outside the car to greet the fans congregating outside, Chapman, in an eerie echo of the FBI\u2019s moniker for Lennon, called out, \u201cMr. Lennon!\u201d<\/p>\n

Lennon turned and was met with a barrage of gunfire as Chapman\u2014dropping into a two-handed combat stance\u2014emptied his .38-caliber pistol and pumped four hollow-point bullets into his back and left arm. Lennon stumbled, staggered forward and, with blood pouring from his mouth and chest, collapsed to the ground.<\/p>\n

John Lennon was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. He had finally been \u201cneutralized.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet where those who neutralized the likes of John Lennon, Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Robert Kennedy and others go wrong is in believing that you can murder a movement with a bullet and a madman.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, Lennon\u2019s legacy lives on in his words, his music and his efforts to speak truth to power. As Yoko Ono shared in a 2014 letter to the parole board tasked with determining whether Chapman should be released: \u201cA man of humble origin, [John Lennon] brought light and hope to the whole world with his words and music. He tried to be a good power for the world<\/a>, and he was. He gave encouragement, inspiration and dreams to people regardless of their race, creed and gender.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sadly, not much has changed for the better in the world since Lennon walked among us. Peace remains out of reach. Activism and whistleblowers continue to be prosecuted for challenging the government\u2019s authority. Militarism is on the rise, with police acquiring armed drones<\/a>, all the while the governmental war machine continues to wreak havoc on innocent lives. Just recently, for example, U.S. military forces carried out airstrikes in Afghanistan that left a Doctors without Borders hospital in ruins<\/a>, killing several of its medical personnel and patients, including children.<\/p>\n

For those of us who joined with John Lennon to imagine a world of peace, it\u2019s getting harder to reconcile that dream with the reality of the American police state. For those who do dare to speak up, they are labeled dissidents, troublemakers, terrorists, lunatics, or mentally ill and tagged for surveillance, censorship or, worse, involuntary detention.<\/p>\n

As Lennon shared in a 1968 interview:<\/p>\n

I think all our society is run by insane people for insane objectives\u2026 I think we\u2019re being run by maniacs for maniacal means. If anybody can put on paper what our government and the American government and the Russian\u2026 Chinese\u2026 what they are actually trying to do, and what they think they\u2019re doing, I\u2019d be very pleased to know what they think they\u2019re doing. I think they\u2019re all insane. But I\u2019m liable to be put away as insane for expressing that<\/a>. That\u2019s what\u2019s insane about it.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So what\u2019s the answer?<\/p>\n

Lennon had a multitude of suggestions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there\u2019d be peace.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cProduce your own dream. If you want to save Peru, go save Peru. It\u2019s quite possible to do anything, but not to put it on the leaders\u2026.You have to do it yourself. That\u2019s what the great masters and mistresses have been saying ever since time began. They can point the way, leave signposts and little instructions in various books that are now called holy and worshipped for the cover of the book and not for what it says, but the instructions are all there for all to see, have always been and always will be. There\u2019s nothing new under the sun. All the roads lead to Rome. And people cannot provide it for you. I can\u2019t wake you up. You can wake you up. I can\u2019t cure you. You can cure you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLife is very short, and there\u2019s no time for fussing and fighting my friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPeace is not something you wish for; It\u2019s something you make, Something you do, Something you are, And something you give away.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want peace, you won\u2019t get it with violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSay you want a revolution \/ We better get on right away \/ Well you get on your feet \/ And out on the street \/ Singing power to the people.\u201d<\/p>\n

And my favorite advice of all: \u201cAll you need is love. Love is all you need.\u201d<\/p>\n

WC: 2117<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Lennon, born 75 years ago on October 9, 1940, was a musical genius and pop cultural icon.<\/p>\n

He was also a vocal peace protester and anti-war activist and a high-profile example of the lengths to which the U.S. government will go to persecute those who dare to challenge its authority.<\/p>\n

Long before Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden were being castigated for blowing the whistle on the government\u2019s war crimes and the National Security Agency\u2019s abuse of its surveillance powers, it was Lennon who was being singled out for daring to speak truth to power about the government\u2019s warmongering, his phone calls monitored and data files collected on his activities and associations.<\/p>\n

For a little while, at least, Lennon became enemy number one in the eyes of the U.S. government.<\/p>\n

READ MORE.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":9636,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,214,218,212],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9635"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9635"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9639,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9635\/revisions\/9639"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}