We're too Fat and Happy to Appreciate Freedom

[Raydawg1234]

(From my recent LTE)

A wise person once said, "Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose." But lately, it seems that freedom has lost it's true meaning. President Bush shouts it out like a man yelling fire in a crowded theater. For most Americans freedom is synonyms with comfort. As if the fact that we all have a television makes us free. We are all too fat and happy shopping at Wal-mart, and pilling into our S.U.V's. We are all too eager to let big brother protect us from the terrorists and other bogeymen that lurk about. But as we turn our heads with willful ignorance, the powers that be have begun to strike our true freedoms like a chisel against stone. Piece by piece breaks away gradually over time. Not enough to notice at first. But eventually, it will all crumble. And then, people like me will say, "I wish we could have stopped it when we had the chance."

[Viva_La_Revolution]

1. please edit! "lose" not "loose"! aggghhhh!

And yes, we are.

Thank you, that is all.

[EstimatedProphet]

2. I absolutely agree

As a matter of fact, I was saying the same thing a few weeks ago

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=12982

[otohara]

3. Well Written

nice rhythm.

[doublethink]

4. Your correct ....

"I wish we could have stopped it when we had the chance." The same conclusion a few people came to in Germany ... post WW2. Peace.

[kenny blankenship]

5. Increasingly we're just fat

actually happiness was not the reason that freedom became irrelevant to Americans. The reason is more that they have in fact very little freedom left to change anything of importance in their national life, if by some miracle of restored mental capacity they someday took a notion to do so. Clinton found this out soon after taking office: deficit reduction became the number one priority of his administration after it was explained to the new President (who had promised many other things in the direction of worker retraining and healthcare) that the real control over the pace of our national economy lay with the Federal Reserve Bank Chairman and the bond markets, and that any hope he might have of being reelected depended on the disposition of these interests towards him. The mechanism to punish a nation, even this one, back into submission to corporate-directed capitalism exists, and until the sovereignty of the people is reasserted, that punitive control is absolutely air-tight.
It's not totally illogical for people to cease thinking about matters that they believe are beyond the control of democracy: if people are successfully conditioned to believe that there is no choice or freedom to act politically, "freedom" tends to shrink as a concept to the purely personal right to the limitless acquisition of property.

[bigjohn16]

6. Even us "Fat" people would like to see some change in the world. nt