All of us are free…but everywhere we’re in chains…

 All people “are born free, but everywhere they are in chains.” —Jean-Jacques Rousseau

 When I first made my documentary about homelessness in America, I was surprised by the resistance and outright hostility I received from some people. “Why do you want to make a film about the homeless?! Don’t you know those people are all drug addicts, lazy, don’t want to work, etc.?!”  Yep, peeps were mad at me. Even the peeps who work and play with the homeless thought I was being pretty darned naive to think that there were homeless people deserving our compassion. Oh yeah, and even some homeless people ranted, “Those homeless people are lazy and don’t want to work, etc.” Yep, even the homeless hate OTHER homeless people. Talk about brainwashing of the masses!

But wait a minute. You’re homeless, so how can you say that about homeless people? Are you lazy? Do you not want to work? 

“Oh no, I’m an exception to the rule. I’m trying to find a job. I’m trying to get out of this situation. But those OTHER homeless people…”

Yeah, people. Okay, let’s all be haters, shall we? Let’s all accept the idea that it’s the other guy/gal who’s the problem. In fact, the “problem” couldn’t possibly be us, could it?

And then I had a stalker. Yep, creepazoid is probably reading this right now, and I probably shouldn’t acknowledge the creature’s existence. But guess what? This creep was causing trouble for Occupy members in my area. And guess what else? Many of them think this person was planted by the feds to hassle the Occupy political activists. I read about another person who caused trouble for Occupiers in another part of the country, and the description of that person was similar. Hmm… You know, there’s a conspiracy theory out there that says that  the F B I finds mentally people, people who are sociopaths or narcissists in particular, and sends them to political groups such as Occupy to spy on them and cause trouble for them. Nah, our government would never do anything so sinister. COINTELPRO never really happened. Political activists don’t get hassled by the government or by people sent by the government to stalk and harass them.  How could I have even suggested such a silly idea? That kind of stuff happens in communist countries like Vietnam, for example. Wouldn’t happen here. It’s perfectly safe to get involved in politics here in the US because this is a “free” country where people are encouraged to get involved, right? We live in a free country where people are allowed to protest and we can address our government with grievances whenever we like with no repercussions whatsoever. Nothing bad ever happened to Abbie Hoffman, John Lennon, Paul Robeson, Phil Ochs, or Martin Luther King, right? The US government was happy to hear of their concerns, and they all led happy, comfortable lives knowing that they were well-loved and well-accepted by our country’s leaders who considered them to be patriots fighting against corruption and for the rights of the average Joe and Jane. One of the founders of Code Pink was put on a criminal database and not allowed to travel to Canada but that had nothing to do with her political activism. It was just an odd coincidence. Amy Goodman was arrested and one of her producers beaten up by the police but that had nothing to do with her exercising her freedom of speech as a journalist as a political activist. We live in such a great country and are very, very lucky to have freedom of speech. In fact, no one from the government is reading this blog. The FBI/NSA/DHS (and whoever else…heck, I can’t keep up with all the “security” agencies that exist these days) aren’t interested in reading this blog at all. So I’m not worried. Of course, if I became successful and started getting 1000 readers a day… Well, then my opinions might be somewhat influential.  But even then, I wouldn’t be hassled by anyone in the government, or any crazy person sent by the government, because we live in a free society where everyone is allowed to express his/her opinions openly and freely…  Look at Michael Hastings, for example. He was successful. Oh, sorry, I guess he’s not the best example. But you know what I’m trying to say. The United States is the greatest country in the world. The greatest country ever. (Is that what you wanted me to write? Okay, I typed it up. It’s about to be published on my blog as soon as I hit “publish.” Okay, so you can put your guns down now. Please don’t arrest me, I wrote what you told me to…)

 Ehem.  (Sorry, had to clear my throat again. Allergies acting up again. Rather windy today. Something smells funny too.)

Okay, I’ll stop. But since encountering the creature mentioned above, I’ve had trouble with (among other things–I won’t mention all of it here) all my web sites, e-mail accounts and internet activity.  Who knew that one entity, one single person, could cause so much grief for another human being? Amazing how diabolical and destructive a sociopath can be. Most of us are not sociopaths, so we have trouble understanding this mentality, but, unfortunately, it is out there.  Sociopaths are people who are motivated solely by their own self interest. Knowing that they’ve hurt other people, perhaps destroyed entire lives, does nothing for them. They have no conscience. However, if you tell them that if they do something good, it will benefit them in some way, then they’ll do something good. So yes, sociopaths can do good things. They are capable of doing wonderful things. They just don’t have the sense of right and wrong or empathy and compassion that the rest of us have. So telling a sociopath to back off because he’s harming someone doesn’t work. He’ll destroy the whole world if he thinks he can benefit from it. However, convincing him that he’s harming himself by hurting another human being will usually be effective in getting the sociopath to stop harming others.

How do I know this? Well, I live in the United States where I have had the wonderful opportunity to experience sociopathology first-hand.

Right now, our system rewards selfishness and greed and, since sociopaths only respond to rewards (they aren’t able to have empathy and compassion for others), they’ll do whatever society rewards them for doing.

So the experience with this stalker has taught me something about sociopaths. Believe it or not, they are capable of doing good things–if they think they’ll be rewarded for it. Sadly, right now we’ve decided to reward sociopaths for being greedy and selfish, and so they are quite proud of being exactly that. In fact, some of them flaunt their greed and selfishness with such flamboyant pride that one expects a Greed Pride Parade to take place in the near future. Of course, we’ll have to pay a big price to attend, but I’m sure it’ll be worth it for some of us…

Meanwhile, people who are not greedy and selfish, who refuse to be “money-motivated” sharks, charging viciously after their own personal goals without concern for the well-being of other people, will suffer in our current system. So this is one cause of poverty: kindness. Be a nice person who cares about other people and be prepared to suffer under our current system. Be a person who cares about other people, who thinks independently, who refuses to conform, who does not place money and material things on a pedestal and be prepared to suffer. 

But if we suddenly started stigmatizing greed and selfishness while lauding those who are kind and compassionate… Even sociopaths would start to do good things.  (They might do those good deeds for the wrong reasons, but they’ll do them.) And good people would have a chance at attaining power. Imagine it! We could have people in positions of power who value human life and quality of life over money and material things–people who want to make life better for everyone around them, not just for themselves. Yes, we could have those people acquire powerful positions in our society if we started rewarding them instead of seeing their compassion as some sort of weakness.

When I first began working on my documentary a few years ago, I didn’t think that wanting to help poor people and reduce this obscene inequality of wealth we now have here in the US would generate so much hate. I expected a lot more support from people than I received. In the past, peeps who cared about the poor were looked up to, admired. People might say things like, “Gosh, you’re a nice person. You care about people less fortunate than yourself.”  (Well, people unaffiliated with our government might have said that anyway.)

To be kind and generous is a sign of weakness.  Don’t even think of helping another human being, you wimp! 

Though I can’t say I’m happy to be financially-challenged, I can say that my financial struggles have made me painfully aware of America’s empathy deficit. Empathy Deficit Disorder? EDD? I’ve been watching the American people gradually sink into this quagmire of selfishness and greed for many years but I couldn’t place it, couldn’t find a name or description for it. I’d just noticed that people were getting meaner. But struggling for many years and running around in circles and every which way trying every thing I could think of to make things better, including asking others for help, has made me painfully aware of the cruelty that has permeated the American soul. How now, America? Et tu, USA?

Somehow a sinister philosophy has snuck into the American zeitgeist. It tells us that when we help someone else, we’re weak, naive and stupid. We’re wasting a lot of time and draining ourselves of energy listening to those weak, whiny bastards. When we help people, we’re encouraging them to be dependent and weak. We should leave them alone because they created their own problems and need to accept responsibility for them and solve their problems on their own.

Fascinating. So we’re responsible for all our problems? Really? Look, I can accept responsibility for things I do and say but not for things other people choose to do or say. If I send out a resume that’s poorly written with lots of typos and don’t get a response then I can accept responsibility for not having reviewed it before sending it out. Maybe it’s my fault I didn’t snag the job. But what if a potential employer hires me anyway, despite the errors of my resume? Who is responsible for that? (I’ve certainly worked for people who can’t read or write very well, so I know from experience that there are employers who really can’t see the difference.) So we can’t take responsibility for everything because we aren’t everything. Believe it or not, there are other people in the world besides us and they make decisions that we can’t control but that will affect us anyway.

And that’s just how it is, people.

Is it your fault your husband is abusive? Is it your fault your best friend died last year? Is it your fault your employer chooses to pay you less than you deserve? Is it your fault there are no jobs in your field? Is it your fault you don’t have the money to go back to college? How did this ridiculously cruel, heartless, and dare I say, evil philosophy take hold in the US? Are we that flawed of a people that we could fall for such nonsense? Apparently so.

Because I think we all know what’s happening here. Sociopaths want to be able to hurt us but to blame us for decisions THEY made. They want us to accept responsibility for the things THEY choose to do. This, by the way, is a form of psychological abuse and has been used by bullies since the dawn of humanity. How many criminals have said of their victims, “It’s her own fault. She asked for it. She wanted it”?

But again, I can’t help but wonder, how did we, as a society, fall for such nonsense?

Seems there was a brief period back in the 60s when people spoke of peace and love, but now we’ve incorporated (no pun intended) war and hate into our modus operandi.

Nowadays, to care about people less fortunate means you’re weak, a bleeding heart and possibly a “terrorist.” (But that’s only because the average American doesn’t even know what the word means. Terror+ist. “Terrorists” spread terror or fear. They’re the ones who tell you that you need more surveillance, more policing, more laws regulating your personal life, more NSA, more DHS. They spread terror, try to make you afraid, so that they can control you.) Why do they want us to be fearful? Because then we feel powerless. We don’t trust each other, so we can’t ever come together as a people and voice our concerns. We lack a support system, a community, because we’re too distrustful of each other to come together. Americans are cruel to themselves and to each other but much of that cruelty results from this disconnection. Americans are very divided and disconnected from each other. Some people are living so well and so comfortably they have no idea how the rest of us live. It’s amazing how different people’s lifestyles can be here in the same country.

The stigmatization of kindness, compassion and generosity is demonstrated in a scene from the film “Wendy and Lucy.”

http://youtu.be/rt8VU8rbHUU  

In one scene, a man gives Wendy a few dollars (not much money, less than $5 from what I recall. I wasn’t able to find the clip on the Internet, so I’m going from memory here.) The man worries that his girlfriend will notice. Can’t let her see that I’m giving you a couple of bucks, ’cause she won’t understand. Understand what? Must he be embarrassed about being kind? Kindness is a quality his girlfriend wouldn’t understand. Yes, there was a time when kindness was a quality much admired, even here in the USSA. (I couldn’t find a video of the scene–guess the film’s producers weren’t so generous with sharing it online–but I did find the trailer for your review.)  The fact that the man only has a few dollars to give suggests that he himself is struggling, probably living from paycheck to paycheck, yet he must hide his generosity. Generosity is a weakness these days. Giving to the poor just enables them to stay poor, you see. No incentive to work when you know some old guy’s gonna give you a couple of dollars for doing nothing…

Oy vay!  Again, I repeat my question. How did we fall for such nonsense! Do you seriously believe that helping another human being makes them lazy? Please, I’d like you to stop and think about that for a long, long time.

Often as I write this blog, I worry. Perhaps I should delete it all this one of these days, as I know that something bad will, most likely, happen to me as a result of expressing opinions that, frankly, I’m not sure we’re allowed to express anymore. But you see, I used to live in the United States, a country that used to advocate freedom, liberty, the right to speak your mind without worry that the government might come after you, the right to privacy, to be considered innocent until proven guilty.

Yes, it was a wonderful country, and I loved it very much. But perhaps that was because I never really knew it as well as I’d thought.
And I guess all good things must come to an end.

Unrequited love.

My love was unrequited. My country did not love me back.

Freedom of speech? Technically, we all have it. Everyone all over the world can speak his/her mind about anything. What made the US different from some other countries was that we didn’t need to worry about something bad happening to us as a result of our expressing our opinions. 

But it’s just like the French guy said,

All people “are born free, but everywhere they are in chains.” —Jean-Jacques Rousseau  (Vive la France!)

Yes, we humans say we want freedom, but then we get scared. When we’re scared, we try to control everything and everyone else around us, thinking that’ll make us feel “safe.” Of course, it’s an illusion because, ultimately, we can’t really control everything and everyone around us–perhaps only on a superficial level. And it takes a great deal of energy for us to keep trying. But like the alcoholic who keeps drinking, then drinks because he/she is drinking, we keep trying to control everything and everyone around us so that everything will be just as we expect it to be. That way, we feel less fearful (but again, only on a superficial level, as we remain fearful deep, down inside.) People rebel against our control, so we need to get even more aggressive in trying to keep them in their proper places!

Of course, there are some of us who aren’t so controlling but we’re looking for someone else to control us. I suppose it’s easier to just sit back and let someone else drive us around life’s neighborhood. So we passively sit back and let them take over so that we can blame them (and not ourselves) when things go wrong.

Okay, folks, that’s all.   

http://youtu.be/BrtOZyGL3ww

Protect the Rich and Famous! …Er…Protect IP ACT, PIPA/SOPA This is urgent!

What are PIPA/SOPA? Well, the letters stand for Protect IP Act (PIPA) and Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).  (Interesting Orwellian terminology, non? PIPA gives the impression that our IP addresses are somehow in danger and they need protection. Sounds like one of those feminine hygiene commercials we used to laugh at when I was a kid. SOPA’s terminology gives the impression that there is some sort of violence online–pirates that need to be stopped, riding online the wireless waves, their swords pointed toward wifi towers as they shout, “Arrgh, arrgh, I’ll surf the web, matey!”) Yes, there’s fear in the words chosen. We need to protect our IPs and stop those pirates just as we need to defend ourselves nationally (with the National Defense Authorization Act) and be more patriotic, or else (Patriot Act.)

Essentially, our Congress will be voting on January 24th (yep, it’s comin’ up quick. That’s why, even though it’s 2a.m., I felt compelled to write about this. No, I won’t have time to write about everything or to proofread anything, but if I’m able to inform even one more person of the importance of this then I’ve done my job!) Please, everyone, write, call, email your congressperson and let him/her know you are against this bill. Even if you learn about this after January 24th–it’s never too late! I believe that Jan. 2th’s vote is a “test vote,” whatever that means. But we must let those…uh…people in congress know that we’re paying attention and we won’t just sit back and let this draconian law be passed against us. And it is very much against us, against Americans and everything this country stands for. Just remember how television and radio were once free and available to everyone. The reason for this is that we are supposed to have access to information in a democratic society. It is necessary for people to have easy access to information. In order for people to participate adequately in a democracy, people must be well-informed. In a fascist or tyrannical society, however, it is necessary that the people are kept ignorant. Otherwise,  they might protest against injustice and unfairness.

This bill will greatly restrict our creativity and freedom to use the Internet. As a musican/writer/filmmaker, I can tell you that the people who will be harmed the most are us artists! Of course, in its Orwellian fashion, our government is doing the usual and trying to convince us that we are “stealing” from artists when we watch their films or listen to their music on the Internet. Nothing could be further than the truth! Do you think I spend hours writing these blogs free of charge because I’m hoping to get some money out of you? Certainly, we artists would like to get paid for our work but we give away our creations freely and we hope that if our work is of value that, eventually, the money will come. Of course, the money, recognition and appreciation will never come to us if we are not allowed to display our work publicly. This is even true of the wealthy, famous, celebrity artists (yes, the only few who will benefit from this USSR-like law.) They too must give away some of their work in order to get noticed. This is why there is radio and television. But I don’t care about them. I care about the starving artists, those who aren’t famous or rich yet who rely on the Internet as a platform that has helped democratize the Arts & Entertainment industry (an industry that’s notorious for NOT being democratic but for relying on nepotism, on people using other people as stepping stones.) But don’t even get me started on that one. Point is, this bill (SOPA/PIPA) will damage art, creativity, innovation and freedom of speech. Do we need to do more damage to our Constitution and Bill of Rights than has already been done by the Patriot Act and the NDAA?

From http://www.FightFortheFuture.org and http://www.AmericanCensorship.org as well as our very own WordPress.org I was led to a petition that began as follows. Beneath the quotes, you’ll see what I added to my own petition. I urge you to please write, email or call your senator or representative (or both) and let them know you’re against SOPA/PIPA

http://vimeo.com/33845671

“I am writing to you as a voter in your district. I urge you to vote “no” on cloture for S. 968, the PROTECT IP Act, on Jan. 24th. The PROTECT IP Act is dangerous, ineffective, and short-sighted. It does not deserve floor consideration.  I urge my representative to vote “no” on SOPA, the corresponding House bill.

Over the next coming days, you’ll be hearing from the many businesses, advocacy organizations, and ordinary Americans who oppose this legislation because of the myriad ways in which it will stifle free speech and innovation.  We hope you’ll take our concerns to heart and oppose this legislation by voting “no” on cloture. ”

(my words added to the petition are below:)

By the way, I myself am a musician, filmmaker and writer. My work has been available for people to view for free on the Internet for several years. Most of us artists want our work to be seen and are grateful for the chance to present our work to the world via the Internet. Creative people of all types, musicians, photographers, fine artists, actors and filmmakers who are not yet wealthy and famous will suffer as a result of PIPA and SOPA. Only a tiny percentage of people (perhaps the 1%?) will benefit from this fascist, undemocratic and unAmerican bill. Many of us Americans have gotten the impression that you folks in Congress do not care about us at all. Please show us that you do not support draconian or tyrannical laws such as this one. What had made America great was our freedom of expression. This time in history (if future historians have the freedom to accurately record it) will be reported as a dark time in which there was very little innovation or creativity thanks to draconian laws such as PIPA/SOPA.

But maybe you don’t care about that, nor do you care about the many artists and creative people who’ll be harmed by this Soviet-like bill. Nor do you seem to care about the Constitution or Bill of Rights and the fact that the US is beginning to resemble the USSR. My guess is, though, that you do care a great deal about yourself and your money. So how about this:

This bill will not help you (or your wealthy donors) to make more money. It will not make you happy. Most Americans, particularly young people, spend a lot of time on the Internet. Americans will notice this censorship. This bill will cause tremendous discontent among Americans. Americans will not ignore this attack on their civil liberties.

We cannot afford to pay for everything. This will prevent people from listening to music, watching films, reading literature.  As someone who has spent years writing books, producing films, creating music, I know how much hard work artists put into our work. We don’t want to prevent others from having access to our creations. We just want to get credit for our work. Most of us don’t get paid for our work. Only a wealthy, privileged few typically earn a living as artists. Obviously, this bill is targeted toward helping those wealthy few to greedily attempt to get more.

It will only backfire, as most Americans are struggling financially right now. We cannot afford to buy all the movies and CDs you want us to buy. The mean-spirited greed and selfishness behind SOPA/PIPA will result in more dissatisfaction with the government and corporate America, less buying of CDs and DVDs, less innovation and artistic expression and less freedom and democracy and more tyranny, more resemblance to the USSR. This is both scary and sad.

What part of freedom do you not understand?

What part of freedom do you not understand?

What part of freedom do you not understand?

So shouted Rush Limbaugh repeatedly into my ear one morning after I’d accidentally fallen asleep…leaving the radio on–a dangerous thing to do these days.

And it started me thinking.  Rush Limbaugh believes (or wants us to believe) that he’s advocating for freedom?  Whose freedom?  His own, I suppose.

Freedom is a concept I’ve always been attracted to.  Since childhood, I’ve always longed to be free, free from my highly dysfunctional family, the gangs of kids who attacked me on my way to and from school, my painful childhood, the poor city I grew up in, the working-class, blue collar prison that says, “You must be a working class hero.  Work shall set you free.  Just work.  Work, work, work.”

Then one day, you’ll wake up and realize that even though you’ve worked hard your entire life you still have nothing.  Nothing.  No matter how frugal you are, no matter how many necessities and desires you do without, no matter how hard you struggle and deprive yourself, you still can’t get any money saved up.  Any money you deposit in your bank account (if you can afford a bank account, that is) is just money you are keeping for withdrawal at the end of the month when you pay your bills.  There’s no vacation this year.  Nor the next.  Nor the next.  Not ever.  Until the day comes when you’re finally allowed to rest peacefully, and that will be a permanent vacation.  They say there’s no rest for the wicked.  But these days, I think that the opposite is true.  There is no rest for those of us who have good intentions, who want the world to be a better place, who are just trying to survive and live peaceably in this troubled world.  This is a world that supports and condones and rewards the wicked, the violent, and the mean-spirited, while it penalizes those of us who want things to be better.  Because, as we all know, making the world a better place means “socialism.”

And we can’t have that.

So let’s just get rid of those pesky public libraries, public schools, fire departments, police departments, hospitals, clinics, parks, and anything else we can think of that constitutes “socialism.”  I’m watching, sadly, libraries and public schools close down in my city.  Do you see this happening in your neighborhood?  I guess that would depend on whether you live in an affluent suburb or a poor, inner-city area.  You can guess which of the two would best describe my neighborhood.

We don’t need to pay taxes or to do anything collectively.  The heck with other people.  We’re all rugged individualists now.  So, everybody, just take a good look at yourself in the mirror and thank yourself.  Thank yourself for being you, and tell yourself you love you.  Feel good about yourself, take really good care of your health, and be the best you can be.  Because remember, in the USA, you are all you have.  If you lose your house, your car, your job, your mind, your spirit, your self esteem, (whatever!), you’d better just be ready to help yourself, pick yourself up by your bootstraps.  Don’t you dare ask anyone else for help.  Don’t even think about it.  We’re not all in this together.  We’re all in this alone, but together reluctantly.  The idea is to be alone, be very alone.  Suck it up and pick it up with those fraying bootstraps you inherited from your parents.  Since you won’t be able to collect social security when you grow older, I’m sure your parents will be ready and willing to provide for you in your old age too–unless they die by then.

Well, who needs a place to live and three meals a day anyway?  Did you know that eating is overrated?  There’s actually an obesity problem in this country.  People are just eating way too much.  So stop feeling sorry for yourself, and just be grateful that you won’t have an obesity problem because you can’t afford to eat enough to get fat.  Besides, if you read about Nazi Germany you’ll discover that many people went without eating, even suffered from malnutrition during Hitler’s reign.  Yet everything seems to be okay in Germany now.  So stop complaining.  Stop whining.  What’s a little poverty?  Builds character!

But I digress.

What I really wanted to post about on this blog was freedom.  The Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Republic-con, Tea Party versions–as well as some other notions of freedom–truly are intriguing.

For example,

Some people want to be free to speak their minds, even if what they have to say is in disagreement with those who possess great amounts of money and power.  They want to have the freedom to express ideas and opinions that other people just don’t like.

Other people want to have the freedom to oversee that speech, to prevent those people from saying things they think are offensive or harmful to others, or to themselves perhaps.  They want to control what is said or not said, to screen speech in all its forms–television, radio, film, poetry or novels.  To decide whose music is played on the radio, which actors will be cast on TV or film productions, which directors, producers, news anchors or writers will be allowed to participate in the process of disseminating information.  They see themselves as keeping the world in order and preventing chaos.  After all, allowing other people to be free to just say whatever they want can be dangerous, right?  Of course, these people who decide what speech is okay and what is not okay are human beings who can make mistakes or who can be corrupted by bribery or manipulation.  But what can you do?  Someone has to watch people and make sure they’re not saying things other people don’t want to hear, right?

Some people want to be free to walk down the street or drive their cars or hop on a bus or a plane or a train and travel.  They want the freedom to travel, to move around, to live or to visit anywhere they’d like.  (Of course, these same people will want to speak their minds anywhere they go too.   They just want it all, don’t they?)

Other people are concerned that strangers walking or driving down their streets might do them harm and would like to have the freedom to stop them.  They’d like the police to stop innocent, law-abiding citizens and just search them, search their cars, search their possessions, check their identity cards.  Are they US citizens?  What if they’re here illegally?  What if they intend to cause trouble in our neighborhood?  Who are these people?  I don’t recognize them.  Maybe they’re good people.  Maybe they’re not such good people.  I don’t know.  But if we stop them when we notice they seem different in some way, perhaps dressed differently, in possession of a different skin color from the type we normally see in this part of town, or maybe they speak funny, if we stop them and search through all their belongings we can determine whether they mean us any harm.  Or not.  (This is, of course, a violation of the 4th Amendment law that used to be in force here in the US.  The 4th Amendment was a law that stated that people could not be searched and that their belongings could not be searched or seized, unless it was known beyond a doubt that they were guilty of something.  A police officer would need to be ready to swear before a judge that he/she knew this person was guilty of something before the officer could search or seize the person or person’s property.  Of course, that law no longer exists in the US and for “good” reason.  We are in so much danger!  There are just so many people attempting to exercise freedoms.  These people need to be stopped, controlled, screened.  The authorities want to have the freedom to do exactly that.  But if they have the freedom to limit other people’s freedom…then other people lose some of their freedom… Oh dear, this does get confusing.

Corporations want to have the freedom to maximize their profits, even if that means laying off American workers and outsourcing labor to third-world countries, exploiting their employees and shortening their lifespans by practically working them to death, paying them tiny wages yet raising the prices of the goods produced and further cheating their customers by overcharging them for goods and services they’ve produced cheaply.  Corporations want to be able to dump toxic waste into our environment and to save money by not implementing safety measures that would protect our environment (as well as protect their workers) from harm.

Corporations want a free marketplace but only for themselves.  You as an individual are not free to stand on a public sidewalk and sell your handmade candles.  You’ll get a ticket, perhaps even arrested, for trying.  Yet a large corporation can dump toxins into our environment.  Are the CEOs arrested?  Jailed?  Do we see articles in the paper (or on the Internet) about CEOs going to prison for cheating consumers, their employees and the environment?

Yet we, the people, want to have the freedom to earn a decent livelihood, to provide for our families, heck, to have families of our own.  We’d like to live full lives and not have our lives cut short because our bosses overwork, underpay and uninsure us.  We’d like to pay the price that products are worth, no more (and certainly not ten times more.)  We’d like to buy products that last, not that are made to break.  We’d like the trees and the birds and, yes, the bees to still be around for our grandchildren.  We’d like for them to have the freedom to walk down a street, breathe fresh air and hear birds sing.  But what we want to be free to do impedes what large corporations want the freedom to do.  And, remember, they’re people too.  Under the law, at least.

Hmm… how do we resolve such conflict?  Seems that what some people want to be free to do conflicts with what others want the freedom to do…

I guess that’s the part of freedom that I don’t understand, Mr. Limbaugh.  Why am I not free to go on national radio and express my opinions about how I think things should be?  Why do you have that right and I do not?  Can you explain that, fat boy?  Because, believe me, I have a lot to say and I’m very articulate.  I may not be as fat as you, Limby, but my lungs haven’t been completely destroyed from breathing in the pollution, asbestos, lead and whatever else infests the poor buildings I’ve had to live in over the past few years, thanks to Republican policy.  I can speak.  And even if you and your cronies try to shut me up, I’ll always be here speaking–in the form and shape of someone else perhaps, but I’ll be here.  Ideas are bulletproof, Limbaugh.  Disenfranchise and discredit me, make it impossible for me to earn a living, or shoot me, if you will, but someone else will come along, someone louder and stronger than I am.  The more you try to shut us up and shut us down, the greater our numbers will grow, the stronger and louder we’ll sound.

You assassinated Kennedy, King, and I believe many other civil rights activists whose deaths were ruled as suicides.  But you can’t assassinate all of us.  And every time you kill one of our heroes, our anger silently grows.  And our mistrust of your system increases.  More and more of us are seeing the truth.  This is not a democracy.

Go ahead, destroy more of our heroes.  It only makes more of us wake up to see you for what you really are.   We’re starting to see your weaknesses too.  You’re bullies–like the kids in the schoolyard who tried to make the rest of us afraid of them except now we’ve grown. Now we realize that it is you who are afraid.  You want us to be fearful all the time because that is how you feel deep, down inside.  And the only way you can stop us from ganging up on you and stopping you is by convincing us that you are invincible and we should be afraid of you.  Well, guess what?  The emperor’s naked.  You are a tiny minority of wealthy, fat, spoiled, lethargic, white males.  We the people do most of the work, so we are strong.  We are powerful.  You need us to get the work done.  You need us to buy your poorly made products.   You need us to be afraid, so afraid of losing our jobs, of not having enough money, of not being able to survive in this world, that we’ll just go along with all your demands, that we’ll just do whatever you tell us to do.

Well, I for one am saying enough.  You can kill me, you can refuse to hire me, and I’ll become homeless and languish on the street or in some homeless shelter.  Maybe I’ll get raped and murdered in the street.  Maybe no one will remember me or want to know me.  Maybe I’ll be shunned and mocked by society, a “crazy” political activist, a “crazy” conspiracy theorist.  Maybe I’ll die painfully and very much alone.  But you still don’t have me.  I’ll never be one of you.  You’re not going to convince me to go along with your plans.

I refuse to work for the collections agencies or the homeland security offices.  I refuse to go along with corrupt corporate policy.  I’ll do my best to survive in spite of my refusal to go along with your wicked plans for this country.  But if I don’t survive, if I die of starvation or being beaten by your police officers for expressing an opinion you don’t like, then so be it.  I will speak to the Higher Power, the force of good which some people refer to as God.  I am accountable to my own conscience, to my own sense of self-respect.  I am not accountable to you.

Thanks really.  Thanks for destroying my country.  Thanks for destroying my life.  Because before I began suffering like this I didn’t know I had this strength within me.  I didn’t know my character was this strong.  As a child, I read a lot about the Holocaust.  The Nazi’s stranglehold over people’s minds really fascinated me.  I wondered, if I were a German alive during the Nazi occupation would I have gone along with Hitler?  Would I too have become a Nazi?  To have allowed myself to be filled with such murderous hate?

I am relieved to know that, as much as I struggle now, I have, at least, not become one of you.  I am not a courageous person.  I don’t think of myself as very strong.  But I am true to myself.  My inner spirit shall not be broken.  You can damage my mind, place me in solitary confinement, torture me at Guantanamo–God knows, you can do that!  You can beat my body and mind into submission.  But my spirit will remain alive.  You may not see it because you are not very intelligent in that way.  You lack a spiritual and moral compass.  You think that is your strength, but it is actually your weakness.  The money and power you wield (and that you value so much) will not last.  Hitler was defeated.  You will die too, one day.  But my spirit remains eternal because it doesn’t end with me.  The spirit of freedom, true freedom, love, kindness and respect for our fellow human beings; the spirit behind the desire for “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” (as inalienable rights, not just for me or for you but for everyone, everywhere!) will never die in spite of your futile attempts to assassinate it by exterminating a mere human being who is only a channel, temporarily carrying that spirit until someone else’s turn comes along.

And I guess that’s why you’re fighting so hard now, to take away our civil liberties, to shut us up, to kill or imprison our heroes, because you know that you’re going to lose, eventually, to death–the master of us all.  Your attacks on “we the people,” are just attempts at postponing the inevitable.  And when you die, you’ll be replaced with new, young leaders who will not (if they want to survive) support your diabolical, malicious policies.  How do I know this?  Because your system is not sustainable.  Even evil-hearted men and women cannot support such an unsustainable system forever.  Eventually, you will destroy and demoralize this country completely and people will be unable to live in this society.  Their only choices will be to leave or to create substantial change.  Change will have to happen.  It is inevitable (sort of like death and taxes–the Tea Partiers not withstanding.)  You will die, as we all will, and you will be replaced.  And the new leaders who replace you, if they choose to continue your unsustainable policies, will destroy the entire world and then nothing will be left.  Either way, you and your corrupt policies will die.

But the force of good will continue to thrive somewhere else.  In another country, another land, or perhaps another spiritual realm, it will continue because the force of goodwill reigns eternal.  Opposing forces are just like waves in the ocean, sent to make the water move and grow.  But it’s the water, not the waves, that makes the ocean.