Gisteren was het 36 jaar geleden dat John Lennon werd vermoord en zoals dit bij meerdere vooraanstaande personen in de VS het geval was, ook bij deze moord zijn grote vraagtekens te stellen.
Lennon was een groot denker, daar zal niemand met een gezond verstand nog aan twijfelen. Terecht stelt o.a.John W. Whitehead op Information Clearing House, dat de strijd die John Lennon tegen de instituties voerde, nog steeds actueel is en misschien wel meer actueel dan ooit tevoren…….
Hier het artikel van Whitehead (onder dit artikel kan u klikken voor een ‘Dutch’ vertaling) , daaronder nog een video van Brasscheck over deze zaak:
Power
to the People: John Lennon’s Legacy Lives On
By
John W. Whitehead
“You
gotta remember, establishment,
it’s just a name for evil. The monster doesn’t care whether
it kills all the students or whether there’s a revolution. It’s
not thinking logically, it’s out of control.”– John
Lennon (1969)
December
08, 2016 “Information
Clearing House”
– Militant nonviolent resistance works.
Peaceful,
prolonged protests work.
Mass
movements with huge numbers of participants work.
Yes,
America, it is possible to use occupations and civil disobedience to
oppose government policies, counter injustice and bring about change
outside the confines of the ballot box.
It
has been done before. It is being done now. It can be done again.
For
example, in May of 1932, more than 43,000 people, dubbed the Bonus
Army—World War I veterans and their families—marched on
Washington. Out of work, destitute and with families to feed, more
than 10,000 veterans set up tent cities in the nation’s capital and
refused to leave until the government agreed to pay the bonuses they
had been promised as a reward for their services.
The
Senate voted against paying them immediately, but the protesters
didn’t budge. Congress adjourned for the summer, and still the
protesters remained encamped. Finally, on July 28, under orders from
President Herbert Hoover, the military descended with tanks and
cavalry and drove the protesters out, setting their makeshift camps
on fire. Still, the protesters returned the following year, and
eventually their efforts not only succeeded in securing payment of
the bonuses but contributed to the passage of the G.I. Bill of
Rights.
Similarly, the Civil Rights Movement mobilized hundreds of thousands
of people to strike at the core of an unjust and discriminatory
society. Likewise, while the 1960s anti-war movement began with a few
thousand perceived radicals, it ended with hundreds of thousands of
protesters, spanning all walks of life, demanding the end of American
military aggression abroad.
Most
recently, after months of protests over the construction of a
pipeline that members of the Sioux tribe insisted would harm their
water supply, the
Army Corp of Engineers has agreed to look for an alternate route for
the Dakota Access Pipeline to cross under Lake Oahe in North
Dakota.
This
kind of “power to the people” activism—grassroots, populist and
potent—is exactly the brand of civic engagement John Lennon
advocated throughout his career as a musician and anti-war activist.
It’s
been 36 years since Lennon was gunned
down by an assassin’s bullet on December 8, 1980, but his
legacy and the lessons he imparted in his music and his activism have
not diminished over the years.
All
of the many complaints we have about government today—surveillance,
militarism, corruption, harassment, SWAT team raids, political
persecution, spying, overcriminalization, etc.—were present in
Lennon’s day and formed the basis of his call for social justice,
peace and a populist revolution.
Little
wonder, then, that the U.S. government saw him as enemy number one.
Because
he never refrained from speaking truth to power, Lennon became a
prime example of the lengths to which the U.S. government will go to
persecute those who dare to challenge its authority.
Lennon
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
“neutralized” and deported. As Adam Cohen of the New
York Times points
out, “The F.B.I.’s surveillance of
Lennon
is a reminder of how easilydomestic
spying can become unmoored from any legitimate law enforcement
purpose. What is more surprising, and ultimately more unsettling,
is the degree to which the surveillance turns out to have been
intertwined with electoral politics.”
Years
after Lennon’s assassination, it would be revealed that the FBI had
collected 281 pages
of surveillance files on him. As the New
York Times notes,
“Critics of today’s 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. ‘The U.S. vs. John Lennon’ … is the story
not only of one man being harassed, but of a democracy being
undermined.”
Such
government-directed harassment was nothing new.
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 as folk singer Pete Seeger, painter Pablo Picasso,
comic actor and filmmaker Charlie Chaplin, comedian Lenny Bruce and
poet Allen Ginsberg. Among those most closely watched by the FBI was
Martin Luther King Jr., a man labeled by the FBI as “the most
dangerous and effective Negro leader in the country.”
In
Lennon’s case, the ex-Beatle 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.
For
instance, in 1971 at a concert in Ann Arbor, Mich., Lennon took to
the stage and in his usual confrontational style belted out “John
Sinclair,” a song he had written about a man sentenced to 10
years in prison for possessing two marijuana cigarettes. Within
days of Lennon’s call for action, the Michigan Supreme Court
ordered Sinclair released.
While
Lennon believed in the power of the people, he also understood the
danger of a power-hungry government. “The trouble with government
as it is, is that it doesn’t represent the people,” observed
Lennon. “It
controls them.”
By
March 1971, when his “Power to the People” 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 “monster” that was financing
the war in Vietnam.
The
release of Lennon’s Sometime
in New York City 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.
However,
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’s 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 “in an effort
to silence him as a voice of the peace movement.”
As
Lennon’s FBI file shows, memos and reports about the FBI’s
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.
Nixon’s
pursuit of Lennon was relentless and misplaced.
Despite
the fact that Lennon was not plotting to bring down the Nixon
Administration, as the government feared, 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 and by 1980, he
had re-emerged with a new album and plans to become politically
active again. The old radical was back and ready to cause trouble.
Unfortunately,
Lennon’s time as a troublemaker was short-lived.
Mark
David Chapman was waiting in the shadows on Dec. 8, 1980,
just as Lennon was returning to his New York apartment building.
As
Lennon stepped outside the car to greet the fans congregating
outside, Chapman, in an eerie echo of the FBI’s moniker for Lennon,
called out, “Mr. Lennon!”
Lennon
turned and was met with a barrage of gunfire as Chapman—dropping
into a two-handed combat stance—emptied 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.
John
Lennon was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital.
Much
like Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Robert
Kennedy and others who have died attempting to challenge the
powers-that-be, Lennon had finally been “neutralized.”
Still,
you can’t murder a movement with a bullet and a madman: Lennon’s
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: “A 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, and he was. He gave encouragement,
inspiration and dreams to people regardless of their race, creed and
gender.”
Lennon’s
work to change the world for the better is far from done.
Peace
remains out of reach. Activism and whistleblowers continue to be
prosecuted for challenging the government’s authority. Militarism
is on the rise, all the while the governmental war machine continues
to wreak havoc on innocent lives.
For
those of us who joined with John Lennon to imagine a world of peace,
it’s getting harder to reconcile that dream with the reality of the
American police state. And as I point out in my book Battlefield
America: The War on the American People,
those who do dare to speak up are labeled dissidents, troublemakers,
terrorists, lunatics, or mentally ill and tagged for surveillance,
censorship or, worse, involuntary detention.
As
Lennon shared in a 1968 interview:
I
think all our society is run by insane people for insane objectives…
I think we’re being run by maniacs for maniacal means. If anybody
can put on paper what our government and the American government and
the Russian… Chinese… what they are actually trying to do, and
what they think they’re doing, I’d be very pleased to know what
they think they’re doing. I think they’re all insane. But I’m
liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That’s
what’s insane about it.”
So
what’s the answer?
Lennon
had a multitude of suggestions.
“If
everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then
there’d be peace.”
“Produce
your own dream. If you want to save Peru, go save Peru. It’s quite
possible to do anything, but not to put it on the leaders….You have
to do it yourself.”
“Peace
is not something you wish for; It’s something you make, Something
you do, Something you are, And something you give away.”
“If
you want peace, you won’t get it with violence.”
“Say
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.”
And
my favorite advice of all: “All you need is love. Love is all you
need.”
Constitutional
attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The
Rutherford Institute.
His new book Battlefield
America: The War on the American People (SelectBooks,
2015) is available online at www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be
contacted at johnw@rutherford.org.
Click
for Spanish, German, Dutch, Danish, French,
translation- Note- Translation
may take a moment to load.
=============
Hier de video van Brasscheck TV:
The
mysterious death of John Lennon
When
John Lennon was shot and killed
the
news media went into “lone nut with
a
gun” mode.
They
left out the “lone nut with intelligence
connections,
endless financial resources,
and
obvious signs of having been brainwashed” part.
Here’s
the untold story.
Zie ook: ‘Nam Kurt Cobain zijn eigen leven? Niet volgens een flink aantal mensen‘ (en de links onder dat bericht naar o.a. de moord op M.L. King en J.F. Kennedy)
Tot slot een link naar de YouTube pagina waar u naar muziek van Lennon kan luisteren.