IMAGINE giving peace a chance, world living as one: Lennon

Lennon 1969

Maybe not the only “Dreamers"

Excerpt, re-reporting [bracketed inserts], brief comment by Carolyn Bennett

IMAGINE…

Imagine there’s no Heaven /  It’s easy if you try / No Hell below us / Above us only sky / Imagine all the people / Living for today

Imagine there’re no countries /  It isn’t hard to do /Nothing to kill or die for / And no religion too

Imagine all the people / Living life in peace

You may say I'm a dreamer / But I’m not the only one / I hope someday you'll join us / And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions / I wonder if you can

"Imagine"
album cover

No need for greed or hunger / A [society] of [humankind]

Imagine all the people /  Sharing all the world

You may say I’m a dreamer /  But I’m not the only one / I hope someday you’ll join us /  And the world will live as one [Lennon]

PEACE

“All we’re saying is give peace a chance

Everybody’s talking about Bagism, Shagism, Dragism, Madism

Ragism, Tagism / This-ism, that-ism / Ism ism ism

John Lennon
Yoko Ono
1980

All we are saying is give peace a chance

Everybody’s talking about ministers, sinisters / Banisters and canisters, bishops and fishops / Rabbis and pop eyes, bye-bye, bye byes

All we are saying, is give peace a chance

                       

Everybody’s talking about revolution / Evolution, masturbation, flagellation / Regulation, integrations, meditations / United Nations, congratulations

 All we are saying is give peace a chance

Everybody’s talking about John and Yoko / Timmy Leary, Rosemary, Tommy Smothers / Bobby Dylan, Tommy Cooper, Derek Taylor / Norman Mailer, Alan Ginsberg / Hare Krishna, Hare Hare Krishna

 All we are saying is give peace a chance

 All we are saying is give peace a chance [Lennon]

Apt as Washington’s War on Syria echoes

Lennon 1964

Washington’s War on Vietnam

Wars on Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Somalia, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Bahrain, Yemen, Palestine, Sudan: Years of Moments of Madness

E

nglish musician, singer-songwriter John Winston Lennon MBE, Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (b. October 9, 1940 in Liverpool, moved to New York City in 1971 – d. December 8, 1980 in New York City, USA), gained worldwide fame as a founding member of the singing group, the Beatles. The anti-war movement adopted some of his songs as anti-war anthems.

Lennon’s father, Alfred Lennon, was a merchant seaman; his mother, Julia Lennon (née Stanley), bought her son his first guitar (1956), an inexpensive Gallotone Champion acoustic.

Lennon established his first band, the Quarrymen, in September 1956 when he was 15 years old. At the band’s second performance, Lennon met Paul McCartney and from the Quarrymen evolved the Beatles. He released the songs "Give Peace a Chance" and "Imagine" in 1969 and 1971. His final, award-winning album was Double Fantasy. 

Richard Nixon (left)
Resigned his presidency
August 8, 1974
J. Edgar Hoover (right)
notoriously entrenched
FBI Director 1924-1972

Today yesterday

U.S. hunt-and-destroy mission against peace, antiwar, nonviolence 

The FBI in the early 1970s conducted clandestine surveillance of musician, singer-songwriter John Lennon 

After the impact of “Give Peace a Chance” (and “Happy Xmas, War is Over”), lyrics strongly associated with the anti–Vietnam War movement, Richard Nixon, already under fire for high crimes against the U.S. Constitution and the people of the United States, determined that John Lennon’s anti-war activities could hamper his (Nixon's) re-election; and further politicizing the laws of the United States, Republican Sen. Strom Thurmond suggested in a February 1972 memo that ‘deportation would be a strategic counter-measure’ against Lennon. The next month the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) began deportation proceedings against the artist, arguing that a 1968 misdemeanor conviction for cannabis possession in London had made Lennon ineligible for admission to the United States. 

March 23, 1973, Lennon was ordered to leave the United States within 60 days (Yoko Ono, his wife, was granted permanent residence).

April 1, 1973, Lennon and Ono held a press conference at the New York City Bar Association, where they announced the formation of the state of Nutopia: a place with ‘no land, no boundaries, no passports, only people’. Waving the white flag of Nutopia (two handkerchiefs), they asked for political asylum in the United States.

Soon after the press conference, Nixon’s involvement in a political scandal (Watergate) came to light. In June the Watergate hearings began in Washington, D.C.; 14 months later, U.S. President Nixon resigned from office. His successor, President Gerald Ford, showed no interest in persecuting Lennon. The deportation order was overturned in 1975.

October 8, 1975, a court of appeals barred the deportation attempt, stating ‘... the courts will not condone selective deportation based upon secret political grounds.’

The following year, Lennon’s U.S. immigration status was resolved and he received his Green Card, certifying his permanent residency.

January 1977 Lennon and Yoko Ono attended the Inaugural Ball when President Jimmy Carter was inaugurated.

October 8, 1980, early in the evening John Lennon autographed a copy of Double Fantasy (a 1980 album released by John Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono) for Mark David Chapman. Around 10:50 p.m. that night, as Lennon and Ono were returning to their New York apartment in the Dakota and entering the building, the same Mark David Chapman shot John Lennon four times in the back. At 11:07 p.m., Lennon was pronounced dead on arrival at nearby Roosevelt Hospital. 

Double Fantasy won “Album of the Year” in the 1981 24th Annual Grammy Awards.

Sources and notes

“IMAGINE” (Lennon’s most famous post-Beatles track, 1971)

John Lennon - Imagine Lyrics: Artist: John Lennon; Album: Imagine; Genre: Rock; Songwriters: John Lennon, http://www.songlyrics.com/john-lennon/imagine-lyrics/

Read more at http://www.songlyrics.com/john-lennon/imagine-lyrics/#VTAsZJshrR7wGQ1w.99

To the religionists Lennon reportedly explains: “If you can imagine a world at peace, with no denominations of religion—not without religion, but without this ‘my God is bigger than your God’ thing—then it can be true”: the world can be as one, the world can be in peace

“GIVE PEACE A CHANCE” (recorded in 1969 during Lennon and Ono’s second Bed-In for Peace)

John Lennon - Give Peace a Chance Lyrics: Artist: John Lennon; Album: Miscellaneous; Genre: Rock; Songwriters: John Lennon

Read more at http://www.songlyrics.com/john-lennon/remember-love-b-side-to-give-peace-a-chance-lyrics/#6YI5wJV6pzyh2DDP.99

Read more at http://www.songlyrics.com/john-lennon/give-peace-a-chance-lyrics/#MdAgmO8oalu1SW5s.99

http://www.songlyrics.com/john-lennon/imagine-lyrics/

  

Hare Krishna (note)

The Hare Krishna mantra appears in a number of famous songs, notably those sung by The Beatles (in the lyrics of George Harrison and John Lennon), and has been at the number 1 spot in the UK singles charts on more than one occasion within songs such as Harrison’s ‘My Sweet Lord’.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Hare Krishnas became confused with the hippie subculture, an erroneous association as the ideals of the groups are quite different.

The mantra was popularized by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu roughly around 1500 CE when he began his mission to spread this mantra publicly to ‘every town and village’ in the world, travelling throughout India, and especially within the areas of Bengal and Odisha.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hare_Krishna_(mantra) 

Yesterday today 

Reiteration of Madness

There is no such thing as limited warfare. 

It is endless in the heat of it and long after some politician claims its official end. 

Ask the people of Iraq and Afghanistan and any country where the U.S. has landed or sent its bombs and weapons, chemical and not, remote or from the air, sea or ground, by proxies or by whatever means.

Russia Today (RT)

“[U.S. President Barack] Obama reportedly considering two-day strike on Syria: White House officials say the United States may launch a limited military strike on Syria as early as this Thursday (August 29, 2013) as the intelligence community prepares to release a report justifying action and allies are rallied.” http://rt.com/usa/

“UK gathers warplanes, military hardware in Cyprus base near Syria – report: ‘Warplanes and military transporters’ have reportedly been moved to Britain’s Akrotiri Airbase in Cyprus in the latest sign of the allied forces’ preparations for a military strike on Syria amid bellicose rhetoric against the Syrian government.” http://rt.com/news/

Syrians opposing
foreign meddling

PressTV

Syrians opposing
foreign meddling

“U.S. begins war on Syria as early as Thursday, officials say: Senior American officials say the United States has planned to launch missile strikes against Syria ‘as early as Thursday’ in order to punish Damascus over the alleged use of chemical weapons.”  http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/08/27/320762/us-war-on-syria-as-early-as-thursday/

______________________________________

Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

______________________________________