John Lennon, Flawed Man in Life, Demigod in Death
And this man has now turn out to be a god?" (Cassius, Shakespeare's Julius Caesar , I, ii)
To anyone who has until now doubted that Western civilization has been inexorably sliding into history's toilet, this need to reassure you that you are quite appropriate and that we're on our final, creaky legs.
To cite information and facts provided by the always-objective "Wikipedia," in life, John Lennon was jealous, possessive, violent, angry, chauvinistic, abusive, adulterous, prideful, an arrogant defender of a twice-convicted murderer, buddy to the Chicago Seven and violent Yippie peace activists Jerry Rubin , Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Angela Davis, and Bobby Seale of the Black Panther Party, Marxist sympathizer, confirmed druggie and object of a deportation try inside the U.S. as a persona non grata.
In death, John Lennon has come to be a virtual saint.
Nobody as however, to my expertise, has suggested this deeply-flawed, wife-beating, borderline seditionist, drug-addled man "is now come to be a god," except within the eyes of his celeb-fixated idolators who would, if they could, elevate him to that status within the crowded pantheon of entertainers if not crown him superior to all those lesser gods.
It's startling to witness how death and 30 years can induce such absurd, widespread mania.
It is under no circumstances good to speak ill in the dead, though liberals seldom if ever abide by that restriction and that is why I'll wait a when to comment on Elizabeth Edwards' recent demise but, when mindless adulation devolves into bizarre devotion, something need to have be said before the whole of humanity succumbs to madness.
Chief Beatle, John Winston Ono Lennon , MBE, was shot to death on December 8, 1980 by a deranged Mark David Chapman while inside the corporation of his second wife, Yoko Ono, as they approached the primary entrance of their residence, The Dakota, in New York City.
Ms. Ono, second wife to Lennon whom he called "mother," is a Japanese artist, musician, and agitator having a history of unseemly associations in her personal right but that's a subject of a future evaluation.
It ought to be noted that Lennon's MBE title, "Member of the Most Great Order from the British Empire," MBA division, was conferred on him by Queen Elizabeth II in 1965 in addition to fellow Beatles Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison. That MBE list incorporates such other illustrati as Michael Caine, Joe Cocker, Van Morrison, Steven Spielberg, and Catherine Zeta Jones.
No sensible argument could be provided in contradiction that the Beatles, formed in Liverpool fifty years ago, revolutionized and transformed music and exerted a timeless influence, based in massive component on inspiration from American rock and rollers such as Chuck Berry, Roy Orbison, and Elvis. The androgynous Fab Four deserve unstinting recognition and admiration for their numerous accomplishments, which also created the former Quarrymen into multi-millionaires and billionaires.
That's all background now. What is not true background is blind revisionism no matter whether related to historical events, statesmen, or rockers.
Considering that that fateful evening thirty years ago, Lennon's reputation and mystique have grown to inordinate proportions, as illustrated by recent headlines commemorating the anniversary of his murder, headlines that glossed over or completely ignored his numerous flaws as both a human becoming and as an entertainer.
As the American Spectator reported, Lennon himself recognized his flaws in an interview shortly ahead of his death: "He came to regret the early 1970s politicization of his art. 'That radicalism was phony, actually, for the reason that it was out of guilt. I'd often felt guilty that I made money, so I had to give it away or lose it... I became whoever I was with."
He did not say, but he became Yoko Ono.
He did elaborate on a number of his most egregious errors: "When you stop and feel: what the hell was I doing fighting with all the American government simply because Jerry Rubin could not get what he normally wanted-a nice cushy job?"
His errors, his excesses, and their deleterious social effects, went far beyond Jerry Rubin, naturally, but what can very best be learned from Lennon's later-in-life guilt trip was that he was acknowledging that he seriously was tiny more than a Liverpudlian poor kid who lucked out and made fantastic.
Whether or not he beieved early on, in the throes of worldwide acclaim, that he and/or the Beatles had been a thing far more or that he personally hoped for elevation to posthumous, virtual godhood is unknown but at 40, months just before his death, he knew he didn't qualify.
Yoko Ono and his worshippers nevertheless appear to believe in his divinity but more reasonable persons think John Lennon was basically a great talent and absolutely nothing much more.
