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A new documentary is coming out, entitled The U.S. Versus John Lennon, made by David Leaf and John Scheinfeld. Much of the film draws on the research of historian Jon Wiener and his book, Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI Files. Essentially, the FBI tried to shut Lennon’s political activism down, and they succeeded – even though one of their own reports, establishing that Lennon was a peace activist opposed to violence, contradicted their stated reason for going after him.
While J. Edgar Hoover is no longer around to abuse his nearly unchallenged power at the FBI, with news reports earlier this year that the Pentagon and other federal agencies illegally kept records on various peace groups because they considered them national security threats, the documentary is quite timely. It’s always struck me as sad and troubling that while dissent is a core America principle, fiercely fought for by our founding fathers, it seems there’s always a sizable faction in America that views peaceful dissent as unpatriotic.
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Jon Wiener discusses John Lennon and the FBI with Terry Gross on Fresh Air here.
He has a website dealing with the FBI files here.
The site for the documentary is here.
And the official John Lennon website is here.
The trailer is below.
1 comment:
Loved the trailer and loved the post! Thank you! Can't wait to see the movie!
Peace.
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