The old radical was back and ready to cause trouble.
The Deep State has a way of dealing with troublemakers, unfortunately. On Dec. 8, 1980, Mark David Chapman was waiting in the shadows when Lennon returned to his New York apartment building. As Lennon stepped outside the car to greet the fans congregating outside, Chapman, in an eerie echo of the FBI's moniker for Lennon, called out, "Mr. Lennon!"
Lennon turned and was met with a barrage of gunfire as Chapman--dropping into a two-handed combat stance--emptied his .38-caliber pistol and pumped four hollow-point bullets into his back and left arm.
John Lennon was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. He had finally been "neutralized".
Yet where those who neutralized the likes of John Lennon, Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Robert Kennedy and others go wrong is in believing that you can murder a movement with a bullet and a madman.
While Lennon's legacy lives on in his words, his music and his efforts to speak truth to power, unfortunately, not much has changed for the better in the world since Lennon walked among us.
Peace remains out of reach. Activism and whistleblowers continue to be prosecuted for challenging the government's authority. Militarism is on the rise, with local police dressed like the military, all the while the governmental war machine continues to wreak havoc on innocent lives across the globe.
For those of us who joined with John Lennon to imagine a world of peace, it's getting harder to reconcile that dream with the reality of the American police state.
Meanwhile, as I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, those who dare to speak up are labeled dissidents, troublemakers, terrorists, lunatics, or mentally ill and tagged for surveillance, censorship, involuntary detention or, worse, even shot and killed in their own homes by militarized police.
As Lennon shared in a 1968 interview: "I think all our society is run by insane people for insane objectives... I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal means."
So what's the answer?
Lennon had a multitude of suggestions.
"If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd be peace."
"War is over if you want it."
"Peace is not something you wish for; It's something you make, Something you do, Something you are, And something you give away."
"If you want peace, you won't get it with violence."
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