He didn't have to do it. That's one reason he's still admired

[spindrifter]

Jon Wiener
Tuesday December 19, 2006
The Guardian

When the Dixie Chicks told an audience in London in 2003 that "We're ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas", they set off a political storm in the US that echoed the treatment meted out to John Lennon 30 years earlier. They were talking about the Iraq war, while Lennon had been campaigning against the Vietnam war.

The Dixie Chicks got in trouble with rightwing talk radio. Boycotts followed, and lead singer Natalie Maines ended up publicly apologising to President Bush.

What happened to Lennon was of course worse. The turning point for the Beatles came with their 1966 US tour, when they first publicly criticised the war in Vietnam. As the decade wore on, Lennon was the target of increasingly aggressive media ridicule, especially when he began experimenting with new forms of political protest - such as declaring his honeymoon with Yoko Ono a "bed-in for peace".

<snip>

In the late 60s, Lennon had been busted for cannabis possession. He claimed it had been planted by the police, but pleaded guilty to a misdemeanour charge. Within months of his joining the US anti-war movement and publicly attacking President Nixon, the US administration responded with deportation proceedings. Nixon claimed that Lennon had been ineligible for admission to the US because of the cannabis conviction in London, but everybody understood the deportation order was an attempt to silence him as a critic of the Vietnam war and the president.

<more>

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1975140,00.html

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1. That brand of repuke cannot stand criticism

no sir - they abhor freedom of speech if it is anything other than unwavering support for their positions.

Absolutely preposterous to on one hand claim to be bringing freedom, by force, to other nations while trying to silence the same freedom at home.

Wow, nothing anyone here doesn't see, but the hypocrisy just knocks me over every time I read about it. Flag-waving drones preaching freedom while trying to kill it. WTF?