The US vs John Lennon

[John Dolva]

"The U.S. vs. John Lennon" tells the story of Lennon’s transformation from loveable moptop to anti-war activist, and recounts the facts about Nixon's campaign to deport him in 1972. With Walter Cronkite, Gore Vidal, Mario Cuomo, George McGovern, Angela Davis, Bobby Seale, G. Gordon Liddy, Yoko Ono, and Jon Wiener--and archival footage of Richard Nixon, J. Edgar Hoover, and John Lennon.

Written and directed by David Leaf and John Scheinfeld

Historical consultant Jon Wiener

World premiere: Venice Film Festival

North American premiere: Toronto Film Festival

View the trailer for http://www.apple.com/trailers/lions_gate/theusvsjohnlennon.

Visit the official website for "The US vs. John Lennon".

http://www.theusversusjohnlennon.com/site

http://www.theusversusjohnlennon.com/

Edited June 4, 2007 by John Dolva

[John Geraghty]

You can view the whole film online here, http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=77...sus+john+lennon

[John Dolva]

You can view the whole film online here, http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=77...sus+john+lennon

Great, John. thank you very much. Just finished watching it. Fascinating, enlightning. Shine on!

notes:

Gordon Liddy lied. Kent State Troop G were a seasoned death squad tried in action in Cleveland. They were NOT green recruits.

Interesting interviews with people from the Kennedy years.

Jerry Rubin links in "Hidden" FPCC history" eopic.

Note: Strom Thurmond : a major Walker supporter.

"Time wounds all heals" - John Lennnon

I don't think it was a coincidence in timing when Lennon was assassinated. They knew what he could do. He had his green card and the Sandinistas had just overthrown Somoza, and El Salvador looked like also having it's dictatorial regime overthrown. The Contra Terror years were on the Horizon. A living Lennon, aware of what was gong on could very well have aborted the Reagan era.

Edited June 4, 2007 by John Dolva

[Charles Drago]

John,

Your rationale is sensible, but you need to consider an additional motive.

It falls more squarely into what might best be termed the spiritual realm. Lennon was an artist, and art in service to propaganda is, I would argue, the most potent behavior modification weapon imaginable.

Witness what Oliver Stone accomplished with "JFK."

Witness what Leni Riefenstal accomplished with "Triumph of the [George F.] Will."

Both losing causes, but you take my point.

The assault on Lennon was an assault on the divine.

I have zero emotional attachment to The Beatles, and only slightly more connection to a few Lennon/McCartney songs, but nonetheless I'm able to understand the deeper cultural and spiritual significance of Lennon much as his killers understood it.

In the early 1950s ... thats 1950s ... Charlie Parker stated publicly that heroin is allowed into American Black ghettos to keep the population controlled, self-loathing, and small.

Bird didn't need anyone's help to kill himself.

Charles

[John Dolva]

I think I know what you mean Charles. Yes he was an artist, that became a politician that only really wanted to play rock and roll. A defining characteristic IMO is how he exhorted people to look within themselves for the answers. ie he was anti authoritarian personified. That's what so many identified with him for. He didn't give up and he dealt with his very powerful opponents with a panache reminiscent of Kennedy, who IMO was also a very spiritual person.

I also didn't have much interest in the beatles. Jack Cassady described them as "john, george, ringo, and what's his name". Lennon went way beyond that after the split.

Seeing as there's no problem for me to be considered a CT Nut and with less regard for credibility than for the truth, whatever that may be, I'll take little a wander through a 'reality' that possibly many don't understand, likely for some it'll just be mystical gobbledygook, that's fine by me, no offence taken:

Lennon was a remarkable man in many ways, some less known, such as the so called missing months when he disappeared for a time and then returned to Yoko.

During this time he was in San Fransisco partaking in Dr Arthur Janov's (book: "Imprints") therapy program which takes the mind deep into cellular memories that stretch back to conception and in turn, as the egg is within the mother at her birth, back through generations. This, when done properly, (not rebirthing, or any chrystals, mantras, channeling, drugs, or oils, or suggestions, or stuff like that) but just allowing reality to reveal itself in its true nature, (Equanimity, or Shalom) realignes the mind and releases deep traumas. He came back from this experience with a degree of wisdom that transformed him from just a talented musician to a moral force to be reckoned with. From then on his music changed and delved deeper into the spirit. He combined this vision with a compassion and wit that raised him to the level of a powerful politician. Yoko called him her soldier at arms, and together they threw the unreason and insanity of the establishment back into its face. In this way he was not unlike Kennedy. Others have gone that Path to some extent, such as Bhagawan Shree Rajhneesh (who by the way according to his followers was irradiated with a button of radioactive stuff sown into his prison overalls while in prison and died as a result of this, (now there's a conspiracy thai wont be talked about much, it's too 'out there', or is it?) Any Orange people out there?) Before dying he said his followers should stop referring to him as Bhagawan and instead call him Fred. Then they settled on Osho. He was highly regarded by many leading psychanalysts throughout the world, and his Ma Sheela was a real b...h and proud of it, not letting any nonsense past without responding freely. While there is nothing in guru worship of interest to me and I don't recommend it, (be your own guru), I found the Orange people very funny and often loveable, even when abrasive. Some interviewer asked Bag's why he had 94 rolls royces and he answered along the line of "What nonsense, where did you get that from? I have 104."

Reminds me of Lennon being asked why he was so attacked by some people, answering that his face was the reason, some people just dont like what they see.

What I'm trying to express is that it is possible to take charge of the agenda and not be drawn into the 'official agenda'. Answer loaded questions with an aim at keeping charge.

There's an oriental game called 'GO' that was invented mellinneas ago in the mists of early Chinese history. It's very simple to learn the rules, but takes a lifetime to master to any degree. A prime directive in the game is that it's imperative to maintain 'sente' or 'at least one step ahead'. If you lose 'sente' then you have 'gote' and the trick is to force the opponent to relinquish 'sente' again. Often this can only be done by 'knowing through experience'. Watching two masters at play is mesmerising, as the hold on 'sente' is a matter of balancing on a razor thin division. The outcome, where, as it is traditionally, saving the opponents face is also premium, is poetic.

The story which is sold as History is often not our story. The common man and woman has a story too. Often it's elusive and fragmented, but it's there and sometimes it just takes a mindgame or a jolt to thinking to align oneself with it and the wool that's pulled over one's eyes fades away. Part of the problem is becoming mesmerised with what is revealed which mostly is just an other layer in the Onion. Lennon was master at facilitating this change in persons and thus, like Kennedy, was a major enemy to the Status quo.

Perhaps it would be apt to mention persons such as Bugliosi at this point.

There's a saying that if you can't convince with reason, baffle with BS.

Let Bugliosi think for you and life's so much easier. (The same goes for any other 'sage' in any field.) He's a seductive cultist with a sado-masochistic mindset, which is why his Manson book has such a narcissistic tone, apart from where he relays simple facts. Probably that's why he agonised so over his chapter on Oswald the person. I suspect in there he sensed the lie that his whole book was, and couldn't massage into form a cogent analysis that would mesh with the rest of the book. IOW he had to personally deal wth a real person.

Lennon on the other hand, like truly wise persons, Kennedy as well, continually exhorted people to find the answers in themselves, through education, self knowledge, and right thinking. Buglosis problem methinks is that he doesn't like what he finds when doing that, and Like it he Must. Hence the vitriol that the book spews. (Thank goodness he's not the Boss.)

the cure, the kernel: "Know Thyself". Everything else flow from there.

_____________________

As far as the film goes, knowing a little bit about Lennon himself is one thing. Seeing the numerous personalties who were interviewed is fascinating. Now Jerry Rubin is more than just an account in the Mississippi Sovereignty Files but a real person, who Lennon himself had trepidations about meeting, but once they met he said Jerry is an artist and Jerry resonded that Lennon is a revolutionary.

Hearing Cronkite still there, now announcing John's death and all the other individuals that stretch back to the early sixties and the Kennedy years, right through his confrontation with the Nixon administration and to his death, fills in quite a lot of background that those who were too young, not born, or too stoned, or too seduced by the status quo, may not be aware of.

Seeing Gordon Liddy, a spook in the real sense, and Thurmond and all the others adds a real dimension to the period.

Edited June 5, 2007 by John Dolva

[Charles Drago]

John,

I am most in tune with your ... how shall I put it ... streams of consciousness.

I urge you in the strongest terms to read Peter Levenda's Sinister Forces trilogy. This massive works speaks volumes to the concerns we apparently share.

Levenda's is a superbly written, researched, and reasoned meta-argument, and I submit that we cannot understand, to any meaningful degree, the events of 11/22/63, their progenitors, precursors, and consequences, without a grasp of the realities into which Lennon set foot and Levenda analyzes.

"They" are ahead of "us" in this regard -- to our enduring peril.

I look forward to an expansion of this exchange.

Charles

[John Dolva]

Hi Charles,

The 'streams of consciousness' and such issues are seldom dicussed in depth in relaying history. Yet it is the loss of control over the minds of people that is most dangerous to many systems. Perhaps the loss of control over the minds of people is equated with the loss of ones own mind and therefore rejected. I suppose this is a realm where art meets politics. So, Lennon as an honest artist, necessarily took the path he took.

IMO:

Broadly, IMO, there are three kinds of people in the world, those who are awake and those who are asleep. In between there is a large gray mass that is oscillating often without clear proper direction.

Conscientious politicians like Kennedy, and Lennon too, who don't abuse those who are sleeping or wandering and perhaps therefore prone to manipulation, are a threat to authoritarian minded persons like Nixon. Those who seek to enable the individual to think for themselves and allows or legitimises those traits that are most pro life/peace by living it themselves generally break with tradition. Therein part of the 'why' of the assassinatins.

In infancy, before losing sense, the infant is totally dependent. If the process towards independence is guided by bigotry and abuse, the person is likely to mirror that influence. Some people then, as adults, can't cope with being loved or cared for as it evokes all that has been missed. At the same time, if there was at least one seed of love planted then every chance exists for that seed to flower and produce further seed, no matter how horrendous life may have been.

It seems that for Nixon, Lennon (+ Kennedy and people like them) was an enemy not only because he had the ear of a generation, but also because, through him, Nixon became aware of his own corruption. The consequences of trying to face those contradictions when not following the path to 'enlightenment' results in the mental breakdown that characterised Nixons last period in politics and the subsequent withdrawal. Ditto Lyndon in his dotage.