Comments on: War Is Over (Not Really)

By: Twisted_Colour

Twisted_Colour — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 07:44:28 +0000

Q: What did Yoko Ono get for Christmas 1980?

A: Five slugs and one dead beatle!!(heh)

By: Larry Jones

Larry Jones — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 00:09:06 +0000

Maybe the movie is a piece of shit. I haven’t seen it, so I don’t know. But I do know about the environment in the anti-war movement in the late 60′s because I was one of the anonymous marchers who got teargassed. I was grateful to have Lennon doing whatever he did to call attention to the our effort, even if he may have looked foolish. I don’t hold it against him that he wasn’t at the rallies, because he did stuff that most of us couldn’t do, and just by standing up and being counted I’ll bet he swayed the opinions of many who would otherwise have ignored us crackpots.

By: tommytimp

tommytimp — Sun, 17 Sep 2006 01:09:33 +0000

John was not just a product of his time-he and the Beatles created the times in which they made their art. Unfortunately, a lot of avant-garde art from that period is dated and really, really grates. I don’t think Lennon was as much of a famewhore as he appeared-he was the only celebrity supernova at that time, and a “Bed-in” or “Bag-in” or whatever got press because it was him, he was as famous as anyone, and he was making news simply by being outside the stream that was main. And he was more politically acted upon than anybody is these days-can you imagine the Bush administration trying to deport Bono?

By: dAnimal

dAnimal — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 21:04:28 +0000

Whoa, I like what I commented in 2003 better than what I commented this year.

Oh my god, I can’t believe how fast the last three years flew by!

By: greg

greg — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 18:25:08 +0000

I wish that we had celebrities in our time buying billboards encouraging us to become politically active.

I agree, but I wish more people would point out that the "War Is Over (If You Want It)" billboards just happened to correspond with the release of John Lennon's single "Happy Christmas (War Is Over)". Not that I'm doubting Lennon's sincerity, but there's more to that campaign than just a touchy-feely token gesture against the war. Which, if you think about it, isn't much different than the "War Is Over" billboards that popped up last month. It's not like the people at Lion's Gate films are making a stand against the Iraq war, they just see the growing anti-war sentiment as a prime demographic that they can target. In '69 they were selling a record, in '06 they're selling a movie. As a Beatles fan, the thing that really bothers me is that Lennon's activism is taken more seriously than Paul McCartney's far more strident activism to ban landmines and for animal rights. McCartney isn't interested in playing games with the media and making an artistic statement, he just wants to make a shitload of money to help his pet causes. (More on this here)

By: dAnimal

dAnimal — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 16:32:20 +0000

Yeah, I’m kind of down with John I on this one. John Lennon wasn’t a hero in the vein of Gandhi, but he did try as hard as he could, for a guy who’d been detached from reality for so long, to foment political change. And I would disagree that it is only the anonymous protestors on the front lines who make changes–progress is a multi-tiered front, and includes both numbers AND actions AND multi-media encouragement. If even one kid decides to become politically active after hearing John and Yoko’s “Give Peace a Chance,” we need to give him credit for that. I wish that we had celebrities in our time buying billboards encouraging us to become politically active. And like John Sinclair, people are being jailed all over the place nowadays for bullshit reasons–who now writes songs for them?

By: Mr Furious

Mr Furious — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 15:05:28 +0000

Instead, he struck arty poses and mouthed platitudes between bon bons?

I don’t have a big opinion one way or the other. In my mind Lennon and the Beatles were always overrated, so I enjoy a good takedown piece like the one above.

By: John I

John I — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 14:45:57 +0000

Say what you want about the effectiveness of his shenanigans, but jeez, would you have prefered him – perhaps the most popular entertainer worldwide – to have simply ignored the war and rested on his wealth and eaten bon bons? The fact that he used his celebrity to keep the war in the headlines makes him, um cool.

No he’s no Gandhi, but then Gandhi couldn’t write songs for crap.
-J