John Lennon Remembered
Earlier today, I got an email from my girlfriend who is pretty active politically, saying that she was frustrated by the self indulgent attitudes of lots of Americans regarding life. She was feeling pretty depressed about it and during the day I heard John Lennon's anti-war song "Imagine" on the car radio—he died on December 8th, 1980.
My girlfriend's a big Beatles fan, so when I got back to my place, I sent her an email with part of the lyrics in it as some encouragement for her.
You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one.
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will live as one.
She's at work at the moment so she hasn't see it. But it had been awhile since I'd done so, so I read through the full lyrics and it really is a beautiful song. But let me digress for a moment and mention that I'm almost finished reading a great book titled The Worldly Philosophers by Robert L. Heilbroner. It is a pretty thorough overview of the development of capitalism in the Western world. Read it if you have a chance. It left me a bit ashamed of our country, the values that our economic system is based upon and the lengths that we will go to, to maintain our economic power. I mean really, it's based upon the flow of money from pocket to pocket. Economists call it Consumer Spending. Business Investment, too. The idea that we need to be taking money from someone else for our livelihood. I'm oversimplifying of course, but that is a big part of it. Another value is making as much money as you can without necessarily working for it. Also, the notion of an elite group of people with access to higher education and circles of influence, and therefore management skills and connections enabling them to lead the rest of us poor saps around by the nose.
I could go on and on, but basically it just seems wrong somehow. So the sentiments in Lennon's song Imagine really describe a world of peace to me. Without the greed of capitalism, celebrating the unity of humanity. Pretty idealistic I suppose, but there must be something better than the way it is, everyone out for themselves. Know what I mean? That would be worth working toward!
I did more checking and found out that Lennon was murdered on December 8th which I mentioned earlier, two days from today. There's a bunch of memorial events going on for the next several days. Thought it might be good to mention it here. Think about it... take some time a remember a guy with some vision.
By the way, the original discussion I had with my girlfriend was about a documentary series which aired twice last year in UK. It's called "The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear".
It is a 3-part series written and produced by a fellow named Adam Curtis that was broadcast on BBC2 on October 20, 2004, and again in January of '06. The series arose from an investigation into the rise of Americian conservatism but grew into a wide ranging discussion of
how a sense of fear can be manipulated by govenment agencies.
his influence on Paul Wolfowitz, and leads us into an examination of evidence that al-Quaida may not actually be as powerful as the Bush administration and other governmental agencies would have us believe. A troubling veil of deception that needs to be looked at with a discerning eye.
There's a lot going on in the documentary and neo-cons will no doubt pooh-pooh it but it's worth looking into and thinking about. I believe that it is conceivable. I just found out about a site where you can watch the whole series called archive.org. Go see it.
Imagine
by John Lennon
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's no countries,
It isnt hard to do,
Nothing to kill or die for,
No religion too,
Imagine all the people
living life in peace...
Imagine no possesions,
I wonder if you can,
No need for greed or hunger,
A brotherhood of man,
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...
You may say Im a dreamer,
but Im not the only one,
I hope some day you'll join us,
And the world will live as one.
