Today is John Lennon’s birthday, and I’d like to once again remind people that by 1979 Lennon was embarrassed by his former radicalism — at least according to Fred Seaman, who was his assistant at the time:
John, basically, made it very clear that if he were an American he would vote for Reagan because he was really sour on Jimmy Carter.
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I also saw John embark in some really brutal arguments with my uncle, who’s an old-time communist… He enjoyed really provoking my uncle… Maybe he was being provocative… but it was pretty obvious to me he had moved away from his earlier radicalism.
He was a very different person back in 1979 and 80 than he’d been when he wrote Imagine. By 1979 he looked back on that guy and was embarrassed by that guy’s naivete.
“If you’re not a liberal at twenty you have no heart. If you’re not a conservative at forty, you have no brain.”
— Winston Churchill
That quote has an interesting history.
That quote is stupid. For a start, most violence is from the young.