The Larry Kane Report

Okay! This is not a plug for the paperback of my best-selling Lennon Revealed – a riveting account of John Lennon’s adult life. The book is on sale everywhere, and I will be at the Book Expo in New York on Saturday.

Now that I have that out of the way….

Today is the 40th anniversary of the release of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, an epic album in the history of recorded music. For the Beatles, who took 129 days to produce this album, it was a turning point – a move away from their already amazing music to the psychidelic (or psycho-delicious world) being created in the late sixties. When the album first came out, a New York Times critic called it “fraudulent.” The Times of London called it a seminal moment in the history of wester civililization.

The album was more like a broadwayt play, a symphony of futuristic delights. The album cover still motivates controversy. But there is one definite message. The Beatles, dressed up in their Sgt. Pepper’s regalia, stand next to pictures of the Beatles of 1964. It is a sign that, “Yes world. We are grown up and marching to a different tune.”

The drug references are obvious, and in retrospect, not very responsible. Unfprtunately Ringo and John took the lyrics seriously, fighting drug and alcohol abuse for years. But the Beatles also seemed to be reflecting where people seemed head during a tense time of war and racism

The album was greeted with shock and delight. John told me later that the “boys” were stunned by its success. Songs like Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds, A Day in the Life. A Little Help from my Friends, Lovely Rita, and When I’m 64, became iconic, along with Sgt. Peppers. New instruments were used. The entire album was scintillating.

By the way, the album was released on June 1 in England – June 3 in the U.S.

I have great memories but I can’t believe that 40 years have passed.

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First of all, please read Michael Smerconish’s incredible column. Click on Philly.Com on the right side of this page, search “Smerconish” and read his Sunday Memorial weekend piece. IT IS A MUST READ!

Sources close to three area Congress members (both parties) report that there is evidence that Pentagon Generals are beginning to view the troop surge as a failure. U.S. troop deaths are increasing at an alarming rate, at the same time the Iraqi government appears ever closer to failure.

Although the ‘spin doctors” are working overtime in D.C., the news is getting worse. That’s the reason our nation held its first talks with Iran in 27 years, putting pressure on the Iranians to try to hold down Shiite militias that are trying to defeat American progress.
The iranians are not to be trusted, but thank goodness, we at least have put them on notice diplomatically that a collapse of the Iraqi government could be hazardous to them.

Also, watch the situation in Gaza carefully. The Hamas rocket attacks are eeringly similar to the Hezbollah attacks on Northern Israel last year. Israel must continue to answer these attacks, lest the militants and their terror buddies in Syria and Iran begin a new reign of rocket barrages on civilian neighborhoods

When offered peace, Hamas and Hezbollah, can’t take YES for an an answer from Isreal. Israel left Gaza and Hamas wasn’t satisfied.

The Hamas PM says he’s afraid Israel will kill him. He should be. Firing rockets aimlessly at unarmed civilians is not civil – it is strictly genocide at the grass roots level. AND IT SHOULD ME MET WITH A VIOLENT REACTION.

ANYONE WHO DOESN’T UNDERSTAND THIS NEEDS TO READ SOME HISTORY – FAST.

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I have some brief notes on this holiday.

On a day like today, the message is: don’t forget the real meaning of the holiday, a memorial to the nation’s troops who never came back. But there is an added dimension to that.

Most of the focus, as it should be , is on the those who were lost in Iraq and Afghanistan. Controversy surrounds Iraq, but no one doubts the daily sacrifice.

What is missing though is the long vision of what our soldiers gave us and how many paid the final price. Let’s take a quick look. World War One – 126 thousand dead. WW II – 406 thousand. Korea -34 thousand. Vietnam – ten years and 54 thousand. The first gulf war – 146. Afghanistan 325. in Iraq – 3400 .
Each war had a mission and in the current one, whatever you think of it, the men and women who serve conduct themselves with raw courage that few us will ever face.

There is a lot of anger about the war in Iraq, with 34 hundred dead and so many wounded. Although the war is the most controversial in the nation’s history, the men and women there put aside politics and follow a tradition that began many years ago doing their jobs under direction of a civilian Commander in Chief.Today is about those who didn’t come home. It is also about the sacrifices made going back hundreds of years.
That’s why the meaning of Memorial Day is passed on from generation to generation, from war to war, and its also the day when we put our political differences aside to remember those who never came home to offer their voices in debate.

The numbers are staggering. 3400 Americans killed. 95 billion okayed by the Democrats for just the next three months in iraq. The President seems to be in a fog. The Democrats look weak and disorganized. The troops are at risk. Body armor is lacking. The President warns of higher casualities.  We had 9 soldiers killed in one day this week.

Democrats justifiably should not have the nation announce withdrawal dates and telegraphing our intentions to the killers. That would be horrible, and leave us vulnerable. But the President must insist on a takeover by Iraqi forces sometime in the next year. We are no longer fighting a war.  We are police men and women in a neighborhood battle.

The CBS News poll now shows 76 percent of Americans presuming that the war is going badly, including 52 percent of Republicans. The President’s approval rating is at 30 percent. The Congress’s approval rating is at 36.

Who is kidding who? What is more patriotic – sending Americans into fatal situations for a country that doesn’t care about us, or the plan that wlll work. Keep our forces in the region, on the borders or in Kuwait.

We should stay in the region, in force, and ready. But we should get our troops out of the internal conflict in Iraq. Almost every sane military leader has argued that point.

A combat ready force in the region will make a lot of extremists think twice about spreading conflicts. But right now, the iraqi civil war is a killing field with no solution except a political one.

As far as the Democrats in Congress. People want action. It might be the Congressional Democrats who are vulnerable in 2008, unless they show the poltical leadership to manuever our forces out, and at the same time protect the troops and the region by forcing this President to look at all options.

This is really frightening news. And don’t accept this as just a footnote to the headlines. This is important!

A survey by the Anti-Defamation League shows that in
France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Poland, a large
portion of the population is anti-semitic. Nothing new, you ask?
Some highlights or lowlights –44 percent of these
Europeans believe that Jews have too much influence in
business and finance. That phony theory allowed Hitler
to wage genocidal war against the Jews.

Over 40 percent believe that the Jewish minority in
Europe talks too much about the Holoccaust. 51
percent think that Jews are more devoted to Israel
than their own countries.

These attitudes stem largely from two thousand years
of passed down generation –to-generation ignorance and lies.
I wanted to share a personal story from a
friend who just returned from France, a nation whose
many citizens willingly turned over at least
80-thousand Jews to the Germans for execution in WW
II.

It seems that he ran into several people in Paris who
told him that showing any signs of Judaism , even
wearing religious symbols, is now a very dangerous
thing to do in France. The result, according to these eyewitnesses -
harassment and even beatings

I bring this subject up because America largely looked
the other way when Europeans first persecuted and then
imprisoned and murdered the Jews.

Just like in Darfur and Rwanda, we have learned that
we cannot, as a nation, afford to look away again.

These reports from Europe are scary, but not surprising
especially from France, a nation whose anti Semitism
is well known and spreading.

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