posted on Jun, 30 2011 @ 03:59 PM
I did read the article.
You'd have to be an incurable optimist to expect any kind of consensus to be drawn on ATS about two great icons such as Lennon and Reagan. So I'm
not surprised opinions differ here.
But I don't know why you're so desperately keen to acquire an icon of the left for the right. Certainly, to do it through the unreliable medium of a
thief's tittle tattle, whilst simultaneously disregarding and/or dismissing all other accounts of Lennon's politics & thinking, does an immense
disservice to both men.
So if anyone's blinkered in this thread, I respectfully suggest it's yourself.
Still, you'd have us believe Lennon committed some astounding volte-face on meeting Reagan for the one and only time, making this quite improbable
transition from peacenik to Reagan Democrat. Fair enough. That's what you think.
But I don't know of any interviews at the time where Lennon describes this change in his thinking, do you ? I can't recall a television interview
where Lennon describes his joy on reading Reagan's plans for supply-side economics. Nor do I remember any articles in the music press where Lennon
describes in undiluted admiration the exquisite diplomatic sure-footedness of Alexander Haig & Reagan's ambitious plans for US foreign policy.
I haven't seen this Reagan narrative in any biographies of Lennon, either. Nor have we heard accounts of it from people who knew John Lennon
intimately, his family & friends.
Perhaps ... and more likely ... this political transformation of his just didn't happen at all ? And if Lennon did ever express any kind of affinity
for Ronald Reagan, it'd be more along the lines of, "Yeah, I met him, he's a nice guy" ... as he said about so many others. And that your thief
has so embellished a flippant one liner, he's made a mockery of John Lennon's testimony.
Had Lennon lived & been able to judge the man & his presidency, I'm confident that the John Lennon "we knew" would've condemned the Reagan
administration in it's entirety. Conventional thinking on my part, I know. But that's my gut feeling on the subject.
Like others, I'm receptive to the idea that our own politics change due to life experiences and such like ... and that Lennon was probably no
different than anyone else in that regard. So I extend to you the remote possibility that perhaps Lennon politics were changing, but not in way you
claim.
Niall. Denial. It rhymes. How terribly original.