- "There's a world outside your window
- And it's a world of dread and fear
- Where the only water flowing
- Is the bitter sting of tears
- And the Christmas bells that ring
- They are the clanging chimes of doom
- Well tonight thank God it's them instead of you..."
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- --Bob Geldof's 'Do They Know It's Christmas?'
-
- From the beginnings of my adolescence to the present
day, I have had one recurring nightmare. This rancid chimera revisits my
sleeping consciousness like the ghost of Christmas past in the chamber
of Ebeneezer Scrooge. It is not merely a psychic hiccup or expurgation
of unconscious muck clogging up the engine of my anima. It is the uttermost
of bad dreams, the sum total of all that Homo sapiens dread and fear down
to our very corpuscles.
-
- I am locked in a jail cell, facing imminent execution
for a crime that I did not commit. I have no memory of how I arrived here,
but know beyond doubt that I have done nothing to earn this ultimate castigation.
I protest my innocence to anyone who will listen, but no one seems to care.
I implore my Creator to intervene on my behalf, but this plea also seems
to fall on deaf ears. When the day of my execution arrives, I beg for the
right to call a loved one and say my goodbyes, but curiously, I cannot
remember the phone number of a single person. I will die alone and forsaken,
my life brutally cut short by an unspeakable injustice.
-
- To date, I have yet to experience my own "dream
death." I awaken moments before it happens, trembling with relief
and gratitude that the nightmare has ended. Its reality is always visceral,
choking. I feel no shame in admitting that I often weep in wake of this
dream. I cry in joy to be free and alive, and I cry in grief because I
know that in the real world, countless others have not been so lucky.
-
- To steal the life or freedom of another human being is
the greatest of all crimes. And every day on planet Earth, untold numbers
of innocent people are jailed, tortured, and killed for daring to live
as free individuals. The only "crime" they've committed is to
think and act in a manner contrary to the wishes of the State. These atrocities
are fed to Americans as innocuous sound bites on the evening news, not
really enlightening or informing us as to the plights of our brothers and
sisters in other countries, but certainly reinforcing the widely held belief
that the U.S. is the greatest and freest nation in the world.
-
- At the risk of sounding terribly naïve, as a born
and raised red-blooded American, I have always FELT free. After all, I've
spent much of my adult life publicly lambasting the most powerful people
in this nation, and I have never been greeted by a gun-toting Gestapo at
my front door. I speak and act and worship precisely the way I choose,
and no ill consequences have ever befallen me. If asked, I suspect that
a majority of Americans would say the same thing.
-
- I FEEL free, but I still consider my freedom to be the
most perilous of all my God-given rights. That is why I am so very frightened.
When I look at the United States, I see a people who understand neither
the value of freedom, nor the enormity of the threat it is constantly under.
-
- Our concept of freedom is inextricably linked to physical
imagery. We are convinced that to "live free" is to literally
walk around in the world, fulfilling our impulses and desires, buying and
doing and eating what we want. But there are less tangible, though no less
important, aspects to freedom that most Americans rarely ponder.
-
- Freedom does not exist without personal choice, and choice
is often the most illusory of all freedoms. We see this demonstrated most
profoundly in the "democratic process" in the U.S.. Americans
overwhelmingly believe that they actually CHOOSE their elected officials.
Of course, when one is faced with the choice between a "turd sandwich"
and a "giant douche" (as were the boys in a hilarious South Park
episode), one's freedom has all the value of a three-dollar bill.
-
- Even if one believes that elections in the US are not
outright stolen through tampering and vote fraud, democracy ceased to exist
long ago in this country. When was the last time the Republicans or Democrats
have supported a candidate who has truly wished to affect radical change?
Someone who would tirelessly work to correct the inarguable injustices
perpetrated at every level of our government? E.g., the deliberate dumbing-down
of our children by the socialist/fascist elite in the NEA, the deliberate
cessation of basic rights and freedoms by the Patriot Act, the open-borders
policy creating an endless stream of illegal aliens, the perverted U.S.
foreign policies that give MFN status to China while "punishing"
other governments by withholding life-saving funds, the perpetual war machine
eternally assaulting oil-rich, Muslim countries, the deliberate poisoning
of the water with fluoride, the deliberate poisoning of the air with chemtrails,
and the deliberate poisoning of our bodies with an untold myriad of toxins
in the form of vaccines, drugs, genetically modified foods, aspartame,
and countless food additives that have rendered us fat, sterile, cancerous,
obliterated.
-
- Speaking of our bodies, the most inalienable of all freedoms
is the right to control one's physical self. It is an inarguable fact that
this right NO LONGER EXISTS in the U.S.! We have an FDA working hand in
hand with the Food and Chemical giants to ensure that Americans DON'T KNOW
what they are putting into their bodies. According to our government, you
have no need and no RIGHT to know if you are eating genetically modified
foods, even though the long-term consequences of consuming these products
remains a complete UNKNOWN. The FDA is demanding that we put 100% trust
in their competence and ethics, even though the credibility of both have
been completely shredded in recent years. (The enormous Vioxx scandal alone
is evidence enough of this.)
-
- We accept these affronts to our freedoms not because
we don't care, but because we are pathologically distracted. In a society
where mercenary selfishness is both encouraged and rewarded, it is difficult
to see the big picture beyond one's immediate, tangible, physical concerns.
I don't claim to be above this, either. I can't say that I spend most of
my days worrying about freedom in this country. But every new moon or so,
my nightmare of wrongful imprisonment and execution re-visits me, and I
can't help but wonder just how close to reality this "dream"
might already be.
-
- I say that I "feel free" largely because I
can "mouth off" to the Mighty Elite without fear of consequences,
but upon reflection, a terrible analogy arises unbidden in my mind. I see
myself in a large and luxurious suite, replete with mini-bar, flat-screen
TV, king-sized bed, and mint on the pillow. But when I open the door and
try to walk out, my nose touches huge, black, impenetrable steel bars.
I see the Warden in the hall on his Majestic throne, and I bang a tin cup
against the bars, screaming, "Hey, jailer, jailer! Hey you fat fuck!
I want OUT!" And he leans back with his thumbs twiddling, grinning
like a Cheshire cat. He knows that I can bellow and holler until my throat
is raw, and it won't make any difference. Because he has the key, and no
amount of bellyaching will change this. And anyway, my little suite is
so comfortable, why would I feel any need to break out?
-
- Our mothers and fathers told us to clean our plates at
dinner because there are "starving children in China." I always
thought that the lesson behind this statement was, "Be grateful for
what you have." But there is an ominous subtext just below the surface
of this inane platitude. It is a suggestion that, just maybe, we're not
nearly as damn special as we think. In fact, the only thing differentiating
us from those "starving Asians" half a world away is a little
geography, and a little luck.
-
- How do we know that 50 or 100 years from now, mothers
in China won't be admonishing their children about those "starving
Americans?" The very notion seems absurd, because we are absolutely
convinced of our own grandiosity. America is the BEST and the FREEST country
in the world because...well...we have a CONSTITUTION and BILL OF RIGHTS!
But other countries with constitutions and laws just as noble and rational
as ours have managed to descend into Hell on Earth. It doesn't take very
long, either. All that is required is a subversion of the democratic process
by a few powerful people who maintain their stronghold by rigging elections
and relentlessly oppressing the opposition. President Mugabe...President
Castro...President Bush...is there really that big a difference?
-
- Let's say that a situation arises in America that is
identical to the one in the Ukraine (and never mind that most intelligent
people believe it happened in '00, and again in '04.) Will Americans leave
the comfort of their homes and jobs and take to the freezing cold streets,
risking life and limb in defense of democracy and freedom? Or will they
remain in their cozy little suites, watching their flat screen TV's, and
maybe yelling at the warden once in a while purely for the sake of form?
My God, but I don't want to know the answer to that question.
-
- It is absurd for Americans to look at the world's citizens
living under dictatorships with the attitude of, "Thank God it's them,
and not me. It can never happen here." Just like "them,"
we are living in a figurative prison, one where the only real "choices"
we have are trivial, inane, and of no consequence to the wardens who hold
us. The difference is, in America, we are just a little too comfortable
to notice or care.
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