Imagine Free Thought (Video)

By on July 1, 2011 in News 20

Holy macaroni, read the full comment thread here and comments -> there. I guess most over at Facebook, throw an open mind out the window.

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  • Anonymous

    So he’s supposed to have been a closet Republican?

    Again, I don’t think so.

    We miss you John, be at peace.

  • Mr. Coffee

    Closeted on the right maybe, but not a Republican.

    These labels of “Democrat” and “Republican” mean little ever since their rebranding (sponsered by McDonalds TM, I’d hit it!) to mean “I support the rich fucking me in the ass as long as they use a condom” and “I’ll suck the pulsating cock of anything with a net worth over 50 million and brag about it”

  • SCHMN

    Bill Hicks’ dad just called me and told me that his sons dying wish was for little George W. Bush to one day become president like his illustrious dad. Believe it!!

  • Godozo

    Lennon becoming conservative..maybe. His music had veered more to the personal, there was little political vindictive in “Double Fantasy” and “Milk and Honey,” and with Carter being the representative Democrat (Good man, lousy politician, ugly times; should never have been president) he could easily have been a softcore Reagan Republican.

    The big question would be “how would he have responded to Patco and the firing by Reagan.” Had Lennon cheered the Patco firing, it’s entirely possible that he would now be one of the mouthpieces of the tea party right, with the lefties amongst us raising our eyes in exasperation at a hero long gone to seed. If not, I could see him being a softer version of himself today.

  • Anonymous

    John Lennon, for all his promotions of peace and love etc. was just a man. He got angry like most people can.
    He even used to berate some of his adoring and fanatical fans for being mindless idol worshipers. If someone out there knows more details about a certain concert the Beatles performed in (I think it was) Germany where he cursed the audience in English even while they cheered him on. Many in the audience didn’t understand English very well, supposedly. 

    Even the comment “we’re bigger than Jesus” that had people burning their records was sarcastic and shows he was just a man who happened to get famous (deservedly in my opinion). 

    So, even if he leaned toward Reagan back then, so what. Being as famous as he was, he defiantly attracted fanatics of all kinds. Who could really blame the guy for viewing at least some of his fans as sycophants? 
    Let’s face it a lot of “hippies” were kind of whiney, stupid “trolls”.
    I’m not trying to put down the hippie movement as a whole, indeed it had many good things about it, but many hippies were similar in some respect to the asinine ”Tea-baggers” of today. Idiots and sycophants. 

  • Ronniedobbs

    Difference between hippies (the real 60′s kind not your contemporary kind) and tea-baggers: At their worst hippies were just naieve and overly idealistic; tea-baggers are willifully ignorant and proud of it. 

    That said, you do have a point. 

  • Anonymous

    John Lennon just probably picked and chose whatever resonated with him at the time, ignoring labels. Tearing down preconceptions about many things was one of John Lennon’s many talents. He attacked arbitrary polarities where he saw them. The whole song “Imagine” is all about that.

    You have to give Reagan some credit for his public image. He was reasonably charming and said a lot of things that made many people listen to him. Not every thing he had to say was “bad” even to reasonable “liberals”. Obviously, what he said and what he did are two different things. That unfortunately, is mainly seen in hindsight which is of course much closer to 20/20. 

    So what if John liked Reagan, if it’s even true at all. It doesn’t make him a closet Republican even if he did.
    At worst, it makes him out to be as gullible as the rest of us, which is certainly no high crime or a reason to suddenly hate John Lennon, which seems to be the aim of this “closet republican” smear job.

  • jackedu317

    isn’t that the communist manifesto he’s singing about… no religion, no countries, no possessions… sounds like communism to me…

  • Mr Willow

    Lennon himself said it was “virtually the Communist Manifesto, even though I am not particularly a communist and belong to no movement.”

    So, in a word, yes.

  • Mr Willow

    Oh, absolutely. 

    I actually wasn’t alive during the majority of Reagan’s time in office (born in ’88), but every now and again I’ll see something Reagan actually said (thank you Moment of Zen) and be amazed the current Republicans even associate themselves with old Ron, let alone revere him the way they do. 

    If I were alive and old enough to be a part of the political process in the 80s–based purely upon the things I have seen him say and taking into account hindsight being 20/20–I might have voted for him, despite the fact most would define me as “liberal”.

  • Anonymous

    The world is a commune of sorts whether you like the word “communism” or not. While John Lennon may have approved of communal living and sharing, it doesn’t make him a communist.

    A commune is essentially a family unit or a group of people who co-operate as a means of survival, at their own free will and serving the best interests of all. Necessity creates the order of things.
    Communism is something else and only loosely related.

    “Communism” speaks of a political order and enforced policy of “you must contribute to the group or else”. It’s a threat from an arbitrary and disconnected source or elitist authority. Communism enlists authoritarian enforced “harmony” and mutual-ism. Ultimately, its not that different from the so called “free market” (another term with a definition that is dubiously twisted) -capitalist world of  ”you must contribute to the market or else”. Ironically, all the control of resources ends up in the hands of the few “elites”, whether they be called comrade or citizen. Socialism is a sub-concept of he “communist manifesto”.True communism has never really been achieved on a national scale, (mainly cause it was swallowed up by the certain forces in the world who didn’t want to play that particular game) so little is actually known about it on a mass scale. Although, the world as a whole is already Communist (albeit a chaotic version compared to ideals) to some extent in terms of the necessity of co-operation between peoples. We DO co-operate, at least sometimes, however reluctantly.

  • Getreal

    Yeah, Reagan was great. you know, the way he condoned the murder
    of those nuns in South America, and who can forget the death squads.

    Yeah, Reagan was just fantastic if you like “trickle down economics”
    strategic defense initiative and homicide on a large scale.

  • Anonymous

    Reagan was a good speaker.  I enjoyed listening to his speeches, even though I hated his politics.

  • Anonymous

    The goal of Communism was to create a democratic federation of communes.  The name USSR meant Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.  A soviet was a council.  Below the soviet would be the communes.  This goal isn’t any different than the goal of having a congress of small districts, or a senate of state representatives.

    The main difference between the idealized Communist system and our system of democracy is, below the Congress and Senate, you typically have business interests and some community groups.  Lately, the business interests have dominated.  There was a time when popular interests were more signficant, but today it’s almost entirely business interests.  In the more distant past, it was mostly business interests that held sway — to the populist period of the 1930s to the 1970s was the unusual period.

    Perhaps not coincidentally, the populist age of American politics coincided with the rise of the Soviet Union as a rival to global power.  Now that the commies are done with, there’s no reason to pander to the needs of regular people, who may now return to their former status as slaves for the businesses.

  • Anonymous

    Thanks, that adds historical detail and insight to the basic premise I was trying to describe. Thanks, I thought I fell short and that fills in the blanks considerably. 

  • Guest

    I’m a Dreamer too!

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Bobbie-Jean-Pentecost/100000391760333 Bobbie Jean Pentecost

    Am I the only one who thinks Lennon’s political leanings are completely irrelevant? He was a fucking popstar. Who cares what he thought WAY the fuck back whenever in a time that is TOTALLY different from now? 

  • Mr Willow

    I don’t think anyone was saying the things Reagan did were admirable, only the things he said. The call for full scale nuclear disarmament, the defense of workers’ collective bargaining rights, etc. (not to mention his most famous “tear down this wall”)

    The same thing could be said about the current administration. Just about everything that got everyone excited about Obama–the big, grandiose speeches about how we were all Americans and we needed to pull together and work toward a better world, and not only that but could achieve a better world because the moment “I get elected, the system will change to benefit the people of World” (not an exact quote–or even an approximate one–but you get the idea)–pales, withers, and crumbles when compared to just about anything he has actually done: half-assed healthcare, the escalation of the Wars in the Middle East (as well as introducing us to at least two new countries in the region by bombing them), and a general lack of backbone when dealing with Wall Street and the Corporatocracy. 

  • Anonymous

    This is something that gets me too. I did live through his time in office, and it floors me that any of the current neocons wants to invoke Reagan (though of course, they don’t really, they just want to invoke his popularity and use his image to give themselves authority). There are quite a few “liberal scum” Democrats today who are considerably to the right of Reagan, let alone the current state of the Republicans.

    That doesn’t get me nearly as badly as Republicans invoking Lincoln though. In his time, the Republicans were (comparatively) social progressives. He would be disgusted with the current crop of both Repubs and Dems and yet Repubs continue to invoke his name to make themselves seem more legitimate…

  • Anonymous

    *facepalm* Assuming it’s even true that he supported Reagan (and it might be. A lot of people did), that doesn’t make him a Republican. I have staunch Republican friends (believe it or not) who voted for Obama. They didn’t stop considering themselves Republicans, they just thought McCain/Palin was an embarrassment to their party. A lot of people considered Carter an embarrassment to the Dems (though honestly I don’t see why. He’s arguably one of the best people we’ve had as president, even if not a particularly great president. Then again, he was a good man and that’s probably what got him into trouble. But he didn’t do anything _bad_ during his term), so it would not be all that surprising to find a very wealthy progressive supporting Reagan.

    Second, Republicans at the time were not what Republicans today are. Many of them were socially either neutral or moderately progressive. It was before the party got completely taken over by the religious right. The defining characteristic of many Republicans at the time was being financially conservative. I grew up in a divided household (one parent a Dem, one a Repub, and also a Depression-era Repub as an additional caretaker, which is even more different than the Reagan era Repubs were), so I saw how both sides used to have some good ideas. In fact, I’d say I picked up a lot of those Depression-era values and where does that land me now? I’m part of the far left fringe who despise both parties.

    Labels change meaning. Applying today’s definitions and being shocked — shocked! *gasp* — is the height of stupidity.