The U.S. vs John Lennon Page #6

I want to be careful.

I don't want to meet any bomb-throwing

freaks and all that jazz.

And we finally met him.

We were very nervous.

And we were both

pleasantly surprised

by how they both were

not at all like their image,

as we aren't like our image.

And many other people I've met,

I believed the newspaper image about them,

although I should know better,

because I've seen a lot of rubbish

written about myself that isn't true.

So we met and we found...

We found something in them

that was artistic.

Very sensitive.

The first thing we said to them was,

"Hey, you're like artists.

"You're writing these books.

You're performing theater.

You're like artists."

They said, "Well, you two artists

are more like revolutionaries to us."

When they met

Hoffman and Rubin,

they were absolutely

instruments

in the hands of two

political masters.

When John and Yoko came,

you know,

"Give peace a chance."

They were going...

"Now I have another weapon

to use against the state."

The knife lying on a table

is not a threat to anybody.

It requires human

responsible agency

to take the knife and use it

to cut somebody's throat.

He would be

looked upon as a tool.

In this instance,

he was being manipulated

in a way that harmed

the effort of the United States

to win the war in Vietnam

and to have order

and stability here at home.

Yoko and I were lucky enough

to meet this man

a few weeks ago,

maybe a month ago,

and we found he was

a beautiful guy

and he had a lot to say.

He was doing a lot that was not what

I had read in the paper about him.

We came straight from England.

There were a lot of these things

at the foundation...

Giving food to people,

the programs of education.

We thought, "Well, let's see that side

of these people."

The man we're going to introduce

is a good friend of ours,

and also of yours, I hope.

The man is Bobby Seale, the chairman

of the Black Panther party, and here he is.

What Bobby Seale added

to this equation

was a far more

dangerous aspect,

a far more immediate,

physical kind of threat.

He was much more foreboding

and menacing than the other guys.

We can speak of pollution

in terms of the historical

pollution of fascism,

the historical pollution of war,

the historical pollution

of hunger in the world,

the historical

pollution of murder,

the historical pollution

that we people,

poor, oppressed people

in this world all over

have been subjected to

for too many years.

That pollution is the basis

of the pollution of the nature,

the world, the universe.

The only solution to pollution

is a people's

humane revolution.

Both John and I felt that he was

a very, very intelligent guy.

And we communicated

on that level.

This is one of those

personalized

kind of coalitions.

He was telling me up front,

he says, "I want to help.

"I want to get some

money and donate,

"and do whatever we can

to help the cause,

because what you're doing"...

He saw what we were about

through me rapping with him

and talking to him

and telling him

those stories and stuff

and all the things we did.

What is the policy

of the Black Panther party?

- Because a lot of people don't know...

- Policy?

Maybe you'd like me

to talk about philosophy.

Philosophy.

Our philosophy is basically what

we call intercommunalism.

We're not nationalists.

We don't believe

in nationalism.

Nationalism or nationhood

and all it's hooked up with

is akin to superiority,

is akin to racism,

- is akin to sectarianism...

- That's what I said in my song.

- So we're not that...

- "lmagine no countries."

I guess at that point we had evolved to

really be friends, you know what I mean?

We liked each other.

I liked John, you know?

This guy was defending

something that I thought

was necessary and relevant

about those

protest movement times.

You know when you put

Bobby Seale on the team

that every cop's

gonna hate you,

that every law enforcement person on Earth

is going to oppose you

and characterize everything

you do in the context

of a true enemy of the state.

He could have stayed in music,

stayed away from drugs,

kept his mouth shut

about what he liked or disliked

about the United States.

"Don't get involved

in any politics.

Just sing your songs

and keep quiet."

Everything would

have been fine.

But when he starts

financing the people

that we're trying to put in jail,

then that gets

kind of serious.

I mean, the notion

that the world's largest,

most powerful imperial nation,

the United States of America,

could be seriously threatened

by a writer, an intellectual,

a singer, a painter

is laughable.

I mean, it's just a joke,

but it indicates

how nervous they were.

The authorities were

terrified of him

because he just had

so much sway.

Terrified.

See, they weren't frightened

of people like Mick Jagger.

That was musicians and silly long-haired

gits misbehaving with too much money.

Trouble with John is he...

There was some intellectual force

behind the argument.

Anyone who didn't like

this country

could either shut up or leave.

And that was the way

I think all of us felt.

That's what they would say.

"What is this foreigner

doing over here

with his dirty songs

criticizing us and our war?"

Patriotism is, as we know, the last refuge

of the scoundrel.

Now, we're talking about

real scoundrels, like Nixon.

And some present-day people

do play the same number.

"Oh, it's unpatriotic.

Unpatriotic."

John Lennon!

Yoko Ono!

We came here

not only to help John

and to spotlight

what's going on,

but also to show

and to say to all of you

that apathy isn't it

and that we can do something.

Okay, so "flower power"

didn't work. So what?

We start again.

This song I wrote

for John Sinclair.

I became a cultural activist...

community activist

in Detroit 40 years ago.

We wanted to say

that they should end the war

and that people

should love each other.

So then we started

proselytizing

for marijuana legalization

while smoking great quantities,

which was not really

the wisest decision.

You should kind of do

one or the other, you know,

if you want to be

successful at either.

I kept getting arrested

for marijuana possession,

and then for giving two joints

to an undercover policewoman.

He's been in jail 21/2 years

for smoking two joints!

There's such a thing

as the solidarity of saliva.

When one pot smoker

is in jail,

every one of us is in jail!

I was sentenced to 91/2-10 years

in July of 1969,

and sent to prison

and kept under

maximum security,

and I was actually declared

a threat to society

by the Michigan

Court of Appeals.

Okay, "John Sinclair."

Nice and easy now.

Sneaky.

1, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4.

It was a 12-hour concert.

It was broadcast live

all over the state.

The day before that concert,

John Sinclair

was denied appeal bond.

The Michigan Supreme Court

wouldn't let him out.

And then...

everything just skyrocketed,

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