Edited by Elizabeth Thomson & David Gutman
The deportation case had its roots in a concert-rally John and Yoko gave in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in December 1971--a benefit for a local activist named John Sinclair, who had served two years of a 10-year sentence for selling two joints of marijuana to an undercover cop. Lennon and his movement friends regarded the Sinclair concert as a trial run for their proposed national tour. They wanted to see how a typical rock audience would respond to a rally that combined music with radical politics. The FBI was interested in precisely the same question. Its undercover agents were salted among the 15,000 excited Midwestern college kids who came to Crisler Arena to see John and Yoko and their friends.
The concert-rally began with Allen Ginsberg, who led the crowd in chanting 'Om-m-m-m-m'. Phil Ochs sang a song about Nixon. A local band played Elvis Presley's 'Jailhouse Rock' for the man behind bars, and a version of Chuck Berry's 'Nadine', with new words about Bernardine Dohrn, a member of the Weather Underground: 'Bernardine, sister is that you?/Your picture's in the post office/But the people are protecting you'.
Showing posts with label john lennon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label john lennon. Show all posts
Sunday, 12 April 2009
Monday, 16 March 2009
Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI Files
by Jon Wiener
Sinclair was a local activist leader who had been sentenced to ten years in the state prison for selling two joints of marijuana to an undercover agent. The rally had a huge program lasting eight hours; the speakers included Allen Ginsberg, Bobby Seale, and Jerry Rubin, and the performers included Stevie Wonder, Archie Shepp, and Phil Ochs as well as John Lennon and Yoko Ono. The FBI was interested because Lennon considered his appearance at the rally a trial run for a national anti-Nixon tour, on which he would bring rock 'n' roll together with radical politics in a dozen cities. At each stop, local organizers would give speeches, and young people would be urged to register to vote and vote against the war. Lennon had talked about ending the tour in August 1972 at a giant protest rally and counterculture festival outside the Republic National Convention, where Richard Nixon was to be renominated. The rest of Lennon's FBI file documents the Nixon administration's efforts to stop him from setting off on this tour, to silence him as a voice of the antiwar movement and critic of the president.
Sinclair was a local activist leader who had been sentenced to ten years in the state prison for selling two joints of marijuana to an undercover agent. The rally had a huge program lasting eight hours; the speakers included Allen Ginsberg, Bobby Seale, and Jerry Rubin, and the performers included Stevie Wonder, Archie Shepp, and Phil Ochs as well as John Lennon and Yoko Ono. The FBI was interested because Lennon considered his appearance at the rally a trial run for a national anti-Nixon tour, on which he would bring rock 'n' roll together with radical politics in a dozen cities. At each stop, local organizers would give speeches, and young people would be urged to register to vote and vote against the war. Lennon had talked about ending the tour in August 1972 at a giant protest rally and counterculture festival outside the Republic National Convention, where Richard Nixon was to be renominated. The rest of Lennon's FBI file documents the Nixon administration's efforts to stop him from setting off on this tour, to silence him as a voice of the antiwar movement and critic of the president.
Sunday, 1 March 2009
Come Together: John Lennon In His Time
by Jon Wiener
John did not know that a similar "War Is Over" campaign had been launched by Phil Ochs and the Los Angeles Free Press more than two years earlier. Ochs wrote an article for the paper in June 1967 calling for a "War Is Over" rally in Los Angeles, across from the Century Plaza Hotel, where Lyndon Johnson was scheduled to speak at a five-hundred-dollar-a-plate dinner and the Supremes were to entertain. Ochs wrote a song for the occasion: "I Declare the War Is Over." Lots of people came, marched down the Avenue of the Stars to the hotel, and chanted, "The war is over!" Ochs started to sing his song; the police ordered the crowd to disperse and then attacked, beating the marchers while TV cameras, on hand for the President, whirred. Delighted by the extensive TV coverage, Ochs staged a second "War Is Over" demonstration in New York's Washington Square Park in November 1967. Paul Krassner and the Diggers commune helped organize it. This time the police did not attack, but again the press coverage was extensive. The Village Voice ran a front-page story on the event.
Ochs had demonstrated that clever and novel forms of protest could win much more media coverage than traditional antiwar demonstrations. Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman grasped the implications of Ochs's "War Is Over" events. Shortly after the Washington Square demonstration, they began to plan an even bigger festival at which their "Youth International Party" would nominate a pig for President outside the Democratic national convention in Chicago the following August.
Although the similarities between John and Yoko's "War Is Over" campaign and the proto-Yippie ones which preceded it are striking, the differences are equally significant. John and Yoko put up billboard; Ochs organized demonstrations which thousands of people attended. John and Yoko were a long way from real mass politics.
BBC-TV featured John as a "Man of the Decade" in a special broadcast on December 31, 1969. In a long interview, John reflected on the sixties. "Not many people are noticing all the good that came out of the last ten years," he said. "The moratorium and the vast gathering of people in Woodstock--the biggest mass of people ever gathered together for anything other than war. . . . The good thing that came out of the sixties was this vast, peaceful movement."
And with his sweet optimism, he said, "The sixties were just waking up in the morning. We haven't even got to dinnertime yet. And I can't wait! I can't wait, I'm so glad to be around."
John did not know that a similar "War Is Over" campaign had been launched by Phil Ochs and the Los Angeles Free Press more than two years earlier. Ochs wrote an article for the paper in June 1967 calling for a "War Is Over" rally in Los Angeles, across from the Century Plaza Hotel, where Lyndon Johnson was scheduled to speak at a five-hundred-dollar-a-plate dinner and the Supremes were to entertain. Ochs wrote a song for the occasion: "I Declare the War Is Over." Lots of people came, marched down the Avenue of the Stars to the hotel, and chanted, "The war is over!" Ochs started to sing his song; the police ordered the crowd to disperse and then attacked, beating the marchers while TV cameras, on hand for the President, whirred. Delighted by the extensive TV coverage, Ochs staged a second "War Is Over" demonstration in New York's Washington Square Park in November 1967. Paul Krassner and the Diggers commune helped organize it. This time the police did not attack, but again the press coverage was extensive. The Village Voice ran a front-page story on the event.
Ochs had demonstrated that clever and novel forms of protest could win much more media coverage than traditional antiwar demonstrations. Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman grasped the implications of Ochs's "War Is Over" events. Shortly after the Washington Square demonstration, they began to plan an even bigger festival at which their "Youth International Party" would nominate a pig for President outside the Democratic national convention in Chicago the following August.
Although the similarities between John and Yoko's "War Is Over" campaign and the proto-Yippie ones which preceded it are striking, the differences are equally significant. John and Yoko put up billboard; Ochs organized demonstrations which thousands of people attended. John and Yoko were a long way from real mass politics.
BBC-TV featured John as a "Man of the Decade" in a special broadcast on December 31, 1969. In a long interview, John reflected on the sixties. "Not many people are noticing all the good that came out of the last ten years," he said. "The moratorium and the vast gathering of people in Woodstock--the biggest mass of people ever gathered together for anything other than war. . . . The good thing that came out of the sixties was this vast, peaceful movement."
And with his sweet optimism, he said, "The sixties were just waking up in the morning. We haven't even got to dinnertime yet. And I can't wait! I can't wait, I'm so glad to be around."
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