(click here for part 2)
Happy Christmas, Christmas!
When the late John Lennon wrote “Happy Xmax” in 1971, I was only 6 years old and still in Shanghai, China. President “Tricky Dick” had not flown over the city of my birth yet. And my uncle had not been arrested falsely in conjunction with the president’s visit and locked away for more than 30 days for nothing (the local communists and brown shirts decided to round up all the “undesirables” in anticipation of the president’s historic visit to China, and my intellectual uncle just happened to be one of those undesirables).
“Happy Xmas” and its message was the Christmas gift of John Lennon and Yoko Ono to the turbulent world back in 1971:
War is over, if you want it.
Words of tremendous yet profound wisdom that everyone, even children, can understand--unless one is a dyed-in-the-wool neocon (Dick Cheney) or neolib (Rahm Emanuel).
Lennon wrote this pro-peace anthem because he realized that if the people really wanted peace, they can really have it--that is if they got off their collective lazy chairs and made an effort. Even if that effort was only a personal wish for peace to prevail. (Imagine millions of people of goodwill everywhere praying and desiring for peace on earth this Christmas.)
Fast forward 37 years later and nothing much has changed, has it?
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