John and Yoko in their full-blown hippie phase and the height of the hippie era in the US in 1971. I was a freshman in high school, and I didn’t think much of hippies. In fact, the next year I worked for CREEP (The Committee to Re-elect the President) for the Nixon campaign.
This was the infamous campaign organization that was behind the paranoid Watergate mess. And that whole mess was caused by anti-Communist paranoid McCarthyite fanatics (of which Nixon was one). The broke into the DNC headquarters because they thought the Democrats were Communists!
What’s an insane anti-Communist campaign in the US without a few gusanos (Cuban exiles)? Not much! And sure enough, crazy gusanos played a huge role in this idiotic break-in because gusanos like their compatriots in Venezuela, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, and Paraguay, are some of the most flat-out deranged anti-Communist fanatics on the planet. The rest of the world doesn’t have much resembling this type, although Hong Kongers are similar. There are plenty in the Baltics and the former East Bloc and in the Ukraine and Belarus. There are probably some in the Philippines too.
Believe it or not, the entire rest of the world doesn’t give two shits about Communism or socialism or any of that. Probably because almost the entire rest of the world is already socialist in one form or another. Latin America is odd as a far rightwing outlier, the last holdout against socialism.
Anyway, John and Yoko released this as a single. The backing singers were done by the Harlem Children’s Choir, and boy were they good! Hey, Black ghettos can produce a lot of decent and talented people. The whole problem with places like that is not that everyone is lousy but more than there are way too many lousy people. I’ve met some of the finest, more morally upstanding folks in the ghetto when I used to teach there. They were often older, of course, but I also met some young ones. They’re often very religious.
Hardcore Christianity seems to be pretty good for Black people. This may be what keeps crime rates artificially low in the Black South, especially the rural South, as opposed to the cities. Also the South is where is actually an authentic and true Black culture or even Black civilization if you will in the US, with deep roots. You see it most in the rural areas, and yes, there is a lot of religion, but a lot of Southern Blacks act really, really good. So good that they would surprise you. And a lot of those smaller Black towns actually function pretty well. I don’t think Blacks up north ever created decent cultures. Even in Harlem, they mostly just created ghettos.
Happy Christmas, Kyoko
Happy Christmas, JulianSo this is Christmas
And what have you done?
Another year over
A new one just begun
And so this is Christmas
I hope you have fun
The near and the dear one
The old and the young
A very merry Christmas
And a happy new year
Let’s hope it’s a good one
Without any fearAnd so this is Christmas
For weak and for strong
(War is over if you want it)
For the rich and the poor ones
The road is so long
(War is over now)And so happy Christmas
For black and for whites
(War is over if you want it)
For the yellow and red ones
Let’s stop all the fight
(War is over now)
A very merry Christmas
And a happy new year
Let’s hope it’s a good one
Without any fearAnd so this is Christmas
And what have we done?
(War is over if you want it)
Another year over
A new one just begun
(War is over if you want it)And so this is Christmas
We hope you have fun
(War is over if you want it)
The near and the dear one
The old and the young
(War is over now)
A very merry Christmas
And a Happy New Year
Let’s hope it’s a good one
Without any fearWar is over
If you want it
War is over now
Happy Christmas!
Happy Christmas!
Happy Christmas!(War is over if you want it)
The near and the dear one
The old and the young
(War is over now)
A very merry Christmas
And a Happy New Year
Let’s hope it’s a good one
Without any fearWar is over
If you want it
War is over now
3
20
20
20
