Shout Out to John and Yoko

This is my first post for Identity Is Yours! YAY! I have a lot to say about the inspiration for this blog and my hopes for it's future and I thought a good place to begin would be with the inspiration for the title. 

About a year ago I discovered the Peace Store located on State Street in Santa Barbara, California while visiting a friend who attends UCSB. Painted on the side wall of the store was this quote, "WAR IS OVER! (If You Want It) Happy Christmas from John and Yoko" I left the Peace Store with more than an overpriced purple t-shirt that day. This quote has remained in the back of my mind since then, not only because it was particularly salient at the time (when the tide was shifting against the war in Iraq and the Bush administration) but because it relates to something I am personally very interested in - ideas about the construction of our realities in society. 

One of the most interesting concepts that I have learned as a Communications major in college is that our realities are constructed and that our methods of communication not only convey realities, but create them as well. John and Yoko advertised this message on billboards all over the world in 1969 in reaction to the Vietnam war. They were saying something about the power that individuals have in determining the way things happen in their societies. John and Yoko's Christmas gift to the world was a reminder that individuals have the power to create the kind of reality that they would like to live in. There is no all powerful monolithic being somewhere at the top who dictates our reality. We create it everyday with our interactions, our decisions, our interpretations, our understandings and our actions. I related this quote from John and Yoko to the concept of identity. You have control over your own self image and you have the right and the power to talk back to the media....Ill finish this post later ahhh class is starting!