A dissent ...

... against Paul's decision to play at the White House. Not surprisingly, it comes down to politics. The argument is overwrought, but its heart is in the right place. Three brief quibbles (though I likely have more): 1) It's important to remember that Paul is not John and never was John. 2) We can't know with certainty if John would still possess his activist bent were he alive today. By the late '70s, he seemed to have closed the book on that part of his life. He even made disparaging remarks about the "radical" politics he espoused. 3) It's unfair to paint all Americans as indifferent to the bloodshed that the U.S. government inflicts. I'm friends with, and read the writings of, many concerned, even aghast (fellow) Americans. There are indeed many in this country who bemoan not only the continued loss of American life but also the horror visited on the innocent trapped in these conflicts.

Excerpt:
John Lennon would not have been singing to President Obama while President Obama was lying about his "having to" order all his thousands of new Hellfire Missile Predator and Reaper Drones to attack in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and Iraq still because of 9/11/2001. (Saudi Arabia is excluded from attack, though it was Saudi Arabians who flew the our airliners into the Pentagon and World Trade Center.)

. . .

I mean at what point does a musician say no, I can't perform if my performing is lending support for war on defenseless populations of poor people, nominally non White poor people, in former colonized, now neocolonized nations.