JIM ‘PAPPY’ MOORE: Revolution

By Jim “Pappy” Moore

The Beatles emerged as a worldwide influence in the 1960s. I was barely out of boot camp in 1968 when they launched a key song setting out their views on Maoist revolutions like the one taking place in America today. John Lennon and Paul McCartney took on the dogma of the college students in America who were in streets, committing violence, burning cities, much like the conduct of today’s woke advocates. Their lyrics are instructive.

“You say you want a revolution, well you know, we all want to change the world.”

“But when you talk about destruction, don’t you know that you can count me out.”

“You say you got a real solution, well you know, we all want to see the plan.”

“But if you want money for people with minds that hate, all I can tell you is brother you have to wait.”

“You say you want to change the constitution, well you know, we all want to change your head.”

“You tell me it’s the institution, well you know, you’d better free your mind instead.”

“But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you’re not gonna make it with anyone any how.”

Lennon and McCartney. Summer 1968. When the “woke” of that era were tearing down America, claiming they had the high ground of morality. Peopled mostly with entitled college students, as seen again today, they saw the U.S. military as killers. They saw police as murderers. They called for the tearing down of American ideals and history. Sound familiar? Sound like the attack chants of the left’s army of Soros funded radicals across the country?

In America’s most prestigious universities, from Harvard to Stanford, the wannabe revolutionaries are the most entitled, least responsible people in our society. Rich kids who benefit from the wealth their parents created in capitalism, only to bite the generational hand that feeds them. None of this is new. My generation lived through this, too. But guess what? Those bratty revolutionaries of the late 1960 did not really speak for their generation. 

My generation was mostly people who served in the military willingly. Contrary to popular misperception, most who served in Vietnam JOINED the military. They were not draftees. The rate of volunteers to draftees was the same as in World War II. The greatest fiction of the Vietnam tale is that my generation did not answer the call. It did. At great sacrifice. And when those troops came home, they came home to the communist taunts by overgrown children who never had to make it on their own, never had to answer the call, always had the advantages of wealth.

Lennon and McCartney were speaking directly to the entitled American revolutionaries who wanted to tear down and rebuild in the horrific model created by China’s Communist Leader, Chairman Mao. Like today’s Antifa, like today’s Black Lives Matter, like today’s woke, they did not abide any deviation from their core beliefs. Communism has always failed. It only comes through violence and denial of human rights. 

Thankfully, the radical left was rejected in the years followed 1968. The country moved back into the realm of sanity. The extremists whose views prevailed in the late 1960s became ridiculed, as they should have been. Their college professors were held to account. 

Be wary of those who place their indignation above your rights. We have a constitution. It was designed to protect you from those who would seize control of government and take away your rights.

Copyright 2023, Jim “Pappy” Moore. All rights reserved.