so who do YOU thank for your freedom today?

[datasuspect]

i thank the freethinkers, insurrectionists, revolutionaries, incendiaries, anarchists, organized labor, courageous journalists, and the people who were punished for their convictions to extend as much freedom to as many people as possible.

[Bombtrack]

1. Harland Williams

[rwenos]

2. My Dad, My Uncles, My 2d Cousin

All WW2 vets, some decorated, one posthumously.

Also all the above listed.

My heart is big enough to bleed for both.

[datasuspect]

5. WWII

i think that was the last war where we killed white people.

[Alexodin]

3. My Pop WW2 vet. n/t

[rurallib]

4. That band of insurgents called our Founding Fathers

and the brave workers who went on strikes to win our rights against corporations (which Georgie-chimp is eroding)and FDR and the brave soldiers of all our wars especially WWII and Smedley Butler and orgs like the ACLU and the NAACP and MLK ....................

[tives12]

6. I agree

This country wouldn't exist if it weren't for the "terrorists" known as the Continental Army. They gave us our political freedom from the British and then as you said, all of those other groups are definitely part of the puzzle.

[chelsea0011]

8. I second that. What balls these people had. And they were right to

fight for independence. They were great thinkers and a pack of trouble makers all for one. And if my history is correct, they only had 25%-33% of the will of the people on their side? Is this correct? It is difficult leaving my father and his brothers out, but WWII was a war that had to be fought. We were attacked and had Germany declare war on us. A brave group for sure who sacrificed all. But Washington, Adams, Jefferson and all made this country.

[Catch22Dem]

7. Grandpa

cargo drops over the battle of the bulge, then flew a glider into germany in the rhineland invasion. He wasn't accepted for service in Korea because he was a teacher. When Vietnam came around he quit his teaching job so he could fly again.

[rfranklin]

9. Freedom? I think we need to examine the concept...

Considering that we have a virtual Republican dictatorship and they are just saying the law does not apply to them I question what "freedom" means in this country. They do not represent the beliefs of the majority of Americans (who must bear the guilt of having not voted in most of the elections during the past 50 years. Is it freedom to not vote and be oppressed by a minority of corporatists and theocrats who wish to impose their narrow beliefs on the majority?

[Just Me]

19. Been there, done that. Let each venture into the meaning of "freedom".

I accept the limitations on my "freedom". I wonder if everyone even acknowledges such limitations. I doubt most consider it, except during "hard times".

:shrug:

I agree with you. Everyone should examine that concept, "freedom", that is thrown around like freakin' candy by this administration (which has a whole helluva' lot more freedom than us commoners).

[roody]

10. I thank Susan B. Anthony. I thank all the brave

black people who sat down at a lunch counter when it was against the law. I thank all who worked for civil rights. I thank everyone who had the courage to disagree with injustice.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

11. My grandparents

who came here to avoid Prussian oppression in 1872 and my grandparents (a little further back) who came here to avoid English oppression in 1620. My cousins, Sam and John Adams, who walked their talk and stood up for liberty and the rule of law when it wasn't fashionable nor popular. My cousin Grover Cleveland who did his duty, no matter how distasteful and who told the truth, even when it might have hurt him politically; my grandfathers and uncles who fought and gave "all for the Union" during the Civil War; my spiritual brothers and sisters who marched for Civil Rights; and all those who have striven to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the US.

[misternormal]

12. I thank...

... The Americans lying under the simple white marker, in every National Cemetery around the world, the ones that never made it home... I thank those Americans that lie under similar markers in every National and Veteran's Cemetery around the country, and I thank every Man and Woman, who saw it within themselves to join the military, or answer the draft. I also thank those that made the choice not to sign up, but fought for freedom in their own way, if only by exercising their constitutional rights.

[Richard Steele]

13. I thank everyone who has ever rocked the boat.

Every human being who has ever looked a LIAR in the eye
and called them on their BULLSHIT.

Every human being who has ever believed that TRUTH
trumps CONVENIENCE, and acted upon that belief.

Every human being who has ever SACRIFICED to help another.

Every human being who has ever believed
that that being a GOOD person is more important
than being a WEALTHY person.

Those are the folks I thank for my FREEDOM...
because 'freedom' is an intangible ideal which exists in my mind.

Good thing, too...
because it's in very short supply in the world OUTSIDE my head.

[marano35]

14. WHAT FUCKING FREEDOM?

We are only free to do what the rich allow us to do. Don't believe me. Walk down to the corner and fire up a joint....or protest at a Presidential speech...or refuse to pay your taxes...and so on and so on.

[misternormal]

15. Welcome to DU marano35... n/t

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

16. People like Beethoven, Tolstoy, Picasso, Kieslowski, and Lao-Tse.

The ones who open eyes and free minds.

[Just Me]

17. My Mom, myself, my brother, truth-seeking journalists, noble prosecutors,.

,...all soldiers who believe they are serving humane interests (in spite of the betrayal by which they are ordered into war), my neighbors, my capacity to breath.

My family did a one-hour vigil, with dozens of candles, today. We honored all those who sacrificed their lives, being ordered by any CIC into any war. They SERVED and DESERVED our respect.

Fuck the bastards who are in charge!!!

[musical_soul]

18. I thank these people.

First, I do thank the troops because some wars were fought for our freedom. If some other country tries to take it away, they are there to help.

I do thank intellectuals, civil rights activists, feminists, and other progressives who fought for my freedom.

I thank all those who stood up to things like McCarthyism and to the trials we're going through today.

I thank those who have helped expose Bush's violations of civil liberties. I do think things would be worse if it wasn't for those people.

Most of all, I thank God for sending all those people here.

[tlsmith1963]

20. I'd Like to Thank...

George W. Bush, for taking my freedom away.:sarcasm:

Tammy

[revree]

21. I thank them, too, and all those who fought for

PEACE. I think we owe them a holiday of remembrance, too.

I thank Mother Jones and all the rabble rousers that ever walked the earth, from Jesus to Cindy Sheehan.

[leftchick]

22. Howard Zinn

He forever changed my view of the "official" US History...

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0060528370.01._PIdp-schmoo2,TopRight,-27,-26_PE19_.A-Peoples-History-of-the-United-States-1492Present-Perennial-Classics._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

[sweetheart]

23. Ra, Rama, Ramana

Ganga, Gayatri, Saraswati

Padmasambhava, Yeshe Tsogyal, Namkha Drimed

Plato, Rousseau, Locke, Mill, Marx, Ghandi, Simone de Beuvoir, Elanor Roosevelt, Jean Baudrillard

Stanley Kubrik, Peter Sellers, Terry Gilliam, Joe Satriani, Tangerine Dream, Led Zepplin, Jimi Hendrix

[UTUSN]

24. DU and ACLU n/t

[Joe Fields]

25. What freedom today? We live in a fascist society.

Where are you living?

I must say that it is a sin and a spit in the eye for all who have served in the military, through the revolutionary war vets, on up through the world war two vets for our current leadership to wrestle what we had worked so hard in achieving, away from us in five short years in a bloodless coup.

I don't feel free.

[Asgaya Dihi]

26. Those who stood when needed

We've needed different types at different times so I can't credit any one, but the thinkers, soldiers, lawyers, teachers, protesters and others have all played their parts at times. In general people who saw a need and stood up for it, tried to change something.

[LibDemAlways]

27. I'm not feeling very free knowing my

government is spying on its citizens; the "press" has become a propaganda tool; my vote may or may not be properly counted; my "representatives" are beholden only to lobbyists and corporations; I don't even have a legitimately elected head of state; I am not allowed to exercise my "rights" of free speech and assembly without fear of being arrested; a medical emergency could bankrupt me; more than half the members of Congress are rubber stamps for the most corrupt criminal regime ever to come to power in DC, and the other half rarely show any inclination to put up a fight; my government invades sovereign nations for oil and imperialism, slaughters innocent people, and practices torture - all in my name.

The America the founding fathers fought to realize is dead, and the American people stand idly by while the Bush Crime Family continues to desecrate the corpse.