Uncovering The 'Truth' Behind Lennon's FBI Files : NPR

*So anyone who wants to give peace a chance is a target? This country isn't looking for peace! I don't know what it's looking for but it's not peace!

I remember reading about China. People were doing what they were told to do, their careers were all picked out for them, regardless of what they wanted to do...I thought, "Ugh how horrible. How do they live such a joyless existence.?" and they knew their life sucked, but they thought it was them, because nobody was discussing it. I feel like I've been in China and just noticed. I just realized the life I've been living is not the life I've been told I've been living (free) and for the longest time believed. Not only hasn't our government been trying to be peaceful or wanted us to enjoy our freedom and individual liberties, they've influenced people into being insane, crazy, repressed, coldhearted, Add'd, sociopathic psychopaths who have to be numbed with down with Prozak so they don't realize how much everything really sucks! Your average person is just alert enough to feel the poor are to blame for everything! Somehow, that filters through.

I haven't had a TV or listened to the radio for years. I don't even get catalogues and I rarely look at magazines unless I'm in a waiting room. The sound of TV actually makes me nuts now. I don't know how I ever could stand it before! OMG "blahblahblahblah" Shut UP!

You know the government wanted to make sure everyone had access to TV's, right? So they offered either free or low cost converters when the TV's had to be converted? I always found that odd. Why free TV? It so is not a necessity.

 I did a search for loveseats and looked at a thousand pictures of them. I don't need one, I have one. It's so old I wanted to see if it was worth any money even though I don't intend to sell it. The strangest thing happened. For the first time in years I started wanting things I didn't need. I went into a crushed velvet fugue. Then I snapped out of it and again was so grateful to be living light and free. the government, which is controlled by corporations, doesn't want people to know how that feels (I am the happiest person i know and that is no lie), hence free TV's and the legality of junkmail as long as it has no name on it-nice loophole. (tip-Put it all in it's return envelope and send it back-they have to pay for that. Then opt your name and address out as a conscience objector to litter and to invading your home.

John Lennon told people to Imagine there's no Heaven or Hell. Can't control the bible thumpers if people start imagining life with the threat of judgement for "sin." Imagine!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfDq4fwWsOw

Clean Up Radio Everywhere

Season 3, Episode 22, Aired Apr 12, 1981

http://www.tv.com/shows/wkrp-in-cincinnati/clean-up-radio-everywhere-18795/

By drwoowoocl, Mar 01, 2009

This is one of the very best episodes in the series, dealing with a very real issue in an honest and profound way. Its interesting, because, despite their generational differances, Mr. Carlson and Andy have in common the desire to do the right thing. And its not a cut and dried issue. As Carlson says at one point, "I find some of those songs offensive myself". And it was a real issue at the time, because Rev. Jerry Falwell was leading a crusade to censor songs because of offensive lyrics. But the Big Guy comes around to Andys way of thinking when the Falwell-like minister(wonderfully played by Richard Paul, who beared such an erie resemblence to Falwell, he would portray the Reverand in the film, "The People vs. Larry Flynt", starts sending a list of songs to be removed, and when Andy recites the lyrics to the classic John Lennon song "Imagine" and the minister decides to censor it too, not because its dirty, but it promotes the blasphemous idea that you can imagine a world with no heaven or hell, the censorship of ideas is too much for Andy to take, and Carlson has to agree. Soon, WKRP is losing sponsors who have chosen to boycott the station, even the beloved Red Wigglers account(yes, they are worms!). The episode ends with uncertainty about the future. But Andy knows its the right thing to do, though the Big Guy is not so sure. In the 80s, its not unusual for an episode to end with the main issue unresolved, but here it is courageous, because you really wonder about the future of WKRP. But thats what makes this such a great episode.LESS

Here's part of the article:

Jon Wiener is a history professor at the University of California-Irvine and a contributing editor to The Nation magazine. His other books include Come Together: John Lennon in his Time and Historians in Trouble.

"Anti-war songs, like "Give Peace a Chance," didn't exactly endear former Beatle John Lennon to the Nixon administration. In 1971, shortly after Lennon went to New York on a visa and met up with radical anti-war activists, the FBI put Lennon under surveillance, and the Immigration and Naturalization Service tried to deport him a year later.

Historian Jon Wiener spent 14 years fighting to gain access to the FBI's secret files on John Lennon. At first, the FBI refused to release many of the documents, saying their release would endanger national security. Wiener's Freedom of Information case went all the way to the Supreme Court before the FBI agreed to settle.

Wiener spoke with Terry Gross about the case in 2000. His book about John Lennon's FBI files is entitled Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI Files.Wiener also consulted on the documentary The U.S. vs. John Lennon, which features interviews with Gore Vidal, Angela Davis, Yoko Ono and Walter Cronkite about the case."

JOHN LENNON
"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's 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
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
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

Mark David Chapman, a psychotic, pulled the trigger, assassinating the musician in December 1980.