From Julian Lennon's page on Facebook

[1monster]

[polmaven]

1. I see he takes after his dad.

His parents, both of them, I'm sure, taught him well. He was only 17 when his father died, but the influence was apparently strong enough.

Good for you, Julian......Good for you!

[dipsydoodle]

2. That was kicking around in January

He simply reposted it. Not sure who put it together in the first place.

[regnaD kciN]

12. True...I reposted it months ago...

I'm glad to see Julian Lennon did the same.

[Ken Burch]

18. is there a reason you doubt that Julian could have written it himself?

n/t.

[dipsydoodle]

19. There would be trace

and there isn't. Aside from that he wouldn't have missed off the two words conventionally at the beginning i.e. for whom the missive is directed. If you think there is a trace then you'd need to go back at least before 22nd December 2011.

[alphafemale]

20. ....um. He'd have typed it in his status?

Rather than creating a (rather crappy looking thing-graphically) to share as a picture that is a nice sentiment but 90% of the liberals on FB have already seen?

[karynnj]

32. Could? yes - likely - no

As was posted this has been around for some time and Julian Lennon is prominent (even if mostly as the son of one of the most famous musicians) that it would have been attributed to give it more power.

It is a very good post and I hope many will repost. I saw it right around the time that a currently prominent man was accused of cutting the hair of a boy held down by his posse - because he thought the length was not right. His defense was that no one in the 60s thought of who was homosexual. Ignoring this was not remotely true, it actually would not have mattered at that point. It was still bullying that rose to the level of assault.

[jillan]

3. I will repost that on my fb page!!

[whathehell]

4. Great stuff, whoever posted it first. n/t

[WillyT]

5. K & R !!!

[MH1]

6. Good post, EXCEPT - could we please just STOP with the "I bet 99% of you won't .."

That last line stops me from reposting almost every time. OR, when I do post it, I leave that line off. It's an arrogant, asinine way to end an otherwise excellent post.

[richmwill]

7. Thank you, I agree...

The "99% of those who read this don't care about children with cancer so they won't repost it" type of line was annoying to me from the very beginning.

[Mosby]

8. whenever I see that I think someone at FB wrote it

I have no evidence whatsoever but I think FB employees write these posts to increase posts/traffic.

[wial]

10. Yeah I don't like being bullied into reposting a graphic about bullying

[drmeow]

13. AMEN!!!!!!!!

I was just going to complain about the same thing. I've never responded well to manipulative social conformity exercises (I also don't forward chain letters - same concept) and how dare the poster make judgements about my motivations for not posting something (i.e., if you don't repost you don't have a heart).

Interestingly, in posts which are not a graphic (so have to actually be typed by the poster) it seems that it is more likely (although not exclusively) the FB newbies or people who rarely post who put that line at the bottom.

[Tom Ripley]

16. It's the social media version of the threat found in every chain letter

[JVS]

22. +1

[alphafemale]

21. hate that nt

[karynnj]

33. Excellent point - and from now on I will do the same thing

It is obnoxious and clearly a dare to get people to repost - but there are better ways to encourage that. Thank you for pointing it out.

[dana_b]

36. I hate that too!

that is the one part that seems to take away from a lot of other wise good messages.

[NRaleighLiberal]

9. So true, beautiful and profound. reading that made my day. n/t

[DianaForRussFeingold]

15. What you said! K&R

Very well said! I Like Him!

[DLevine]

11. K&R. n/t

[freshwest]

14. Tears. Thanks, Julian.

[Ken Burch]

17. That could be set to music

Thanks, Julian. Yer Dad will send you a thank-you feather if he can.

[Frank Cannon]

24. His dad was a douchebag who beat his mother...

and essentially ignored him after Yoko Ono came along. Paul McCartney actually treated him with more kindness, and he wrote "Hey, Jude" about him.

Yeah, I know everybody around here worships John Lennon, and he was undoubtedly a great musician, but he was undeniably a dick.

[Spider Jerusalem]

25. I'd say even "great musician" is kind of debatable

most of his best work was produced with McCartney who was probably the better musician and songwriter of the two (and together they had a synergy that made something greater than either alone), and he was a deeply unpleasant man (beat his first wife Cynthia, as well).

[Frank Cannon]

26. Well, yeah, you're right.

I was being generous.

[karynnj]

34. I think you should listen to the better solo songs he did

Paul was always my favorite Beatle and the main author of most of my favorites - including the song my husband and I choose as "ours" for the wedding - Here, there and everywhere. But, both of them wrote their best songs together. It seems having two stunningly good songwriters, who could bicycle to each others' homes as kids was incredibly fortunate. That their early relationship allowed them the honesty to point to things that needed change -- or as in one line of Hey Jude when they didn't (Paul had told Lennon that the phrase that "the change that you need is on your shoulder" was a placeholder for better unwritten alternatives - Lennon convinced him to keep it. )

John's life was incredibly complicated, but it left him with a very nasty cruel streak. I suspect that Yoko (and maybe Paul) were the only ones who had the power and relationship to push him to behave better.

[1monster]

28. I don't. Always thought they way John treated Cindy was indefensible. And

I didn't much care for Yoko either.

But I do have a soft spot for Julian...

[Ken Burch]

30. John admitted to all that, and then CHANGED. He stopped being violent(most violent people don't)

Nobody here thinks John was a saint. What people admire in him was that he owned it and then worked for the rest of his life to end violence in the world AND IN HIMSELF(as far as I know, he didn't beat Yoko or May Pang, and usually, if a batterer beats one spouse, he'll keep doing that to every other woman he gets involved with).

And perhaps the change that he was willing to make in himself

Your post would be a valid summary of John's existence if he'd died in October of 1968 or so. It's what happened afterward that people admired.

You could probably find evidence that EVERY male Sixties rocker was some sort of a douchebag(and that Paul, George and Ringo were no models of perfection themselves).

[liberalhistorian]

31. I agree with you on that, he did recognize

the dickbag he'd become and was really trying to work on changing a lot of things about himself. Some people never get to that point and never do any introspection and continue to be dickbags, so at least he was trying. Of course, being married to Yoko would be enough to make anyone crazy! He was just starting to recognize how badly he'd been treating Julian (when he wasn't ignoring him and favoring Sean, that is) and was attempting to rectify that when he was murdered. Unfortunately, the crazy bitch Yoko basically shut Julian out of everything, including any real inheritance of John's, and has always treated him like shit, that is, when she's even bothered to acknowledge his existence. She resented his very existence from the beginning and I have no doubt that she played a very large role in John's bad treatment and ignoring of his own son. As far as she is concerned, Sean is the only child of John. I will never understand stepparents who pull that shit, ever. Bitch.

And let's not forget that the way John was raised wasn't all that ideal, either. His uptight aunt basically took him from his mother, even after she was remarried and her husband was quite willing and prepared to be a good stepfather, and he didn't see her very much before she died in an accident when he was just a teenager. He never had a real "father" figure in his life.

[Ken Burch]

37. You had some good points in that post

Last edited Sun Jun 3, 2012, 11:23 PM - Edit history (1)

but you kind of sabotaged them with all the Yokophobia. Yoko wasn't crazy, and it isn't acceptable to call any woman a "bitch".

John is responsible for his own actions towards Cynthia and Julian. He beat Cynthia BEFORE he'd ever heard of Yoko, If John hadn't met Yoko, he probably would have left Cynthia for somebody else anyway(they had only married because John got Cynthia pregnant, which, from what I've heard, was the primary reason for a LOT of weddings in the North of England in the early-to-mid 60's).

(third paragraph deleted after reading next post).

[liberalhistorian]

39. Um...first of all, I AM a woman.

I never, ever claimed that Yoko was in any way responsible for his horrendous treatment of Cynthia. In order for that to be the case, she would have had to have had a time machine to show up in his life at the time he first knew and married Cynthia. And he is responsible for his treatment of women, not anyone else. Hell, there were times that he didn't even treat Yoko all that well, which is one reason for their year-long separation before they got back together (I think it was before they married, but I can't remember for sure).

But, sorry, I call things as I see them, and Yoko bore a lot of responsibility for his piss poor treatment of his own son. Whatever his issues with and feelings toward Cynthia, he should have left them out of his relationship with Julian and he didn't do that, he didn't separate the two. And Yoko not only did nothing whatsoever to stop that, she encouraged his ignoring of his own son because she resented said son's very existence (it was a reminder that he had another marriage and life before her) and didn't want to have to deal with it. You would think she'd want to encourage a relationship between her son and her son's half brother, but no, she wanted to act as if he didn't exist. She also pretty much cut him out of any real share of his father's estate, even any share at all of royalties. As a stepchild myself, I consider that a very, yes, bitchy, thing to do and that makes her a bitch in my book. I will NEVER understand stepparents who do such things and there is never any excuse for it.

[Ken Burch]

40. I apologize for the assumption that you were male.

(and have now deleted the third paragraph of the post you responded to).

Still, John COULD have had a relationship with Julian if he'd wished to. He wasn't at Yoko's mercy.

Yes, stepparents who discourage continuing relationships between their spouses and their spouses kids are wrong...but part of the responsibility there is that the parent has to make the stand and keep that relationship going anyway.

Yoko wasn't a saint...but it's too easy to put everything that was screwed up in John's relationship with his ex-wife and with his oldest son on her.

I think it also bears remembering that Yoko, at the time this was happening, was barred by her ex-husband, Tony Cox, from having ANY contact with her daughter Kyoko(she didn't see Kyoko again for another twenty years, IIRC)and that her actions were probably conditioned by her pain at not getting to see her own child(perhaps at some level she felt"why should he see HIS kid if I can't see mine"?) and I'll always wonder if Yoko might have behaved differently about John's relationship with Julian if her situation with HER daughter had been allowed to be different.

[karynnj]

35. I don't think any musician - or politician - is a model of perfection

but many lead lives that show that they are basically good guys. Recently, my husband and I visited Liverpool and took the National Trust's tour that lets you visit the inside of John and Paul's childhood homes. One story really suggested to me that Paul was a genuinely considerate person. Paul, as the older son had the second biggest bedroom that got the more sun. When Michael developed an interest (and a lot of talent) in photography. He asked Paul if they could switch rooms so he could convert the closet into a very small dark room - and Paul agreed.

In addition, Paul seems to have been a very decent husband and father.

George Harrison, with his Concert for Bangladesh and other efforts did an enormous amount of good in the world. It is harder to have a real image of who exactly Ringo is - other than one of the luckiest guys in the world.

[Ken Burch]

38. Paul has some good points

I still remember, though, the humiliating way he treated George and Ringo at times during the Beatles' existence(Ringo caught Paul removing HIS drum parts and overdubbing drumming of his own, and there was that scene where Paul brought George nearly to tears by telling him EXACTLY how to play the guitar part and treating George not as the great guitarist he was, but rather as a slow-learning three-year-old. If you treat the people you work with like that, you've probably treated other people lower on the food chain far worse. Paul also cheated on his longtime 60's fiancee, Jane Asher, on many, many occasions(it's a miracle that he never passed on any std's to her after all that, since most of his philandering would have been unprotected sex) and was quite hostile to Yoko for getting involved in John(even though Paul himself wasn't in any position to judge anybody on that score)

George was a total shit to Yoko when John first got together with her(When Yoko had never done anything to George at all, and when George had shagged just as many groupies after marrying Patti Boyd as John and Paul had done, thus ALSO losing any right to judge Yoko OR John for anything, and then went on to sleep with Ringo's wife Maureen while Ringo was still married to her) and Ringo himself had a massive problem with booze for years that probably led him to do a great number of things that weren't particularly pleasant.

Yet all three of them, as well as John, had good sides, massively good sides, in spite of all that and brought much joy and hope to this world.

Look at anyone you admire long enough...and you'll find that they're a fdeeply mixed bag at best.

[hlthe2b]

23. Oh, my....

Powerful....

[baldguy]

27. He is his father's son.

[RoccoR5955]

29. The kid has great parents!

They should be an example of what parents today should be.