We are all familiar with the propaganda drumbeat on China - they have no rights, they can't use the Internet the way they want, their freedom of religion and speech are repressed, they live in a police state. This view misses the point that freedom comes from within, not from without by a grant of rights by a benevolent sovereign. Freedom of thought can never be taken away, it can only be given away.
Case in point, the recent trial of a Chinese cop killer that has captured all the headlines in China. If a person kills a cop in the US, there is no sympathy. Merely the unsubstantiated accusation of such a crime, backed up by obviously cooked up evidence, is enough to have such a person condemned to death, and what's more, condemned by his peers, without sympathy, as the lowest form of life. But in China people are actually asking questions about what the police did to this man to provoke this response. In conflict between human and the state and its violent enforcers, the Chinese sympathies lie on the side of the oppressed human. Where do ours lie and why?
It might be nice to look at the link between freedom and liberty.
Both can be defined as a relation to a state of limits and one of the limits can be whatever it takes to convince you to elect not to participate in the decision making process.
Poverty, education, healthcare, housing, opportunities for employment
transportation, language barriers, and other constraints such as laws
rules and regulations are often what limits civil rights,
Many more people might participate in our Democracy if they could
afford to take the time off from work or school, could afford
the travel expense, were educated and informed as to what happens
when and where, and didn't have pundits misinforming them as to
what was important in the process of elections.
Despite being the beneficiaries of America's Good War, which enjoys broad bipartisan support in the US, and despite being assured by both John McCain and Barack Obama, that their liberation will be escalated next year by about three American brigades, the Afghanis continue to bitch about civilian casualties this, repeated air strikes on villages that. Now Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who is ungrateful both for his installation as puppet president and for the generous salary he received as an American oil company exec, is demanding a reevaluation of the status of foreign forces in his country, all because of some silly misunderstanding. While the Afghans aren't acting nearly as uppity as their ungrateful conterparts in Iraq, it is becoming clear that, once again, yet another backward country has failed to appreciate America's greatness and is now starting to reject the hand of generosity reached out to them by the Pentagon. It's the Dominican Republic all over again!
Feel free to read more insults to America after the flip.
For years, the most effective line of attack against Democrats has been that they don't stand for anything. Kerry was portrayed as a flip-flopper while people said that even if they disagreed with Bush, at least they knew where he stood. Bill Clinton was attacked as following the polls rather than leading. Gore was perceived by many as a bland policy wonk without clear principles.
We have some things to look forward to if we can judge from the past. Here are some quotes from Joe Biden:
No foreign policy can be sustained in the United States of America without the informed consent of the American people. And informed means just that, successes and failure, a realistic assessment of where we are and what the president plans to do about it."
This hit the nail on the head. What ever possesed them to doubt the wisdom of these words? How did they have the audacity to believe they could do otherwise? Let's have more Joe, let's have more! Look beneath the fold to see some other words of wisdom from this man.
The post-war explosion of wealth and the spread of basic financial security to an ever-wider range of Americans has altered the national political agenda.
In the Depression Era of the 1930s and the difficult World War II years of the decade following, working class Americans skirted poverty at best or were trapped in a hand-to-mouth existence.
But things have changed, and Republicans have been the last ones to admit it. Supporting "Freedom" requires more than listening to Toby Keith and slapping a bumper sticker on your car; it is a commitment to eradicating poverty and providing equal access to quality health care for all citizens, among other things...
A hearse bearing the remains of 25-year-old Staff Sgt. Alex Jimenez came to a halt in front of his father's house in Lawrence, the scene of a 14-month vigil as the family awaited word of his fate. A memorial shrine with floral arrangements and half-burned votive candles was on the sidewalk. (7-25-08)
There is no doubt in the minds of even Sen. McCain’s supporters that most unfortunately and regrettably too this admired and veteran senator have recently set the all time record in approving the most lopsided, demeaning, unpatriotic, desperate and the most bizarre advertisement in the current political dispensation in which he attempts to characterize Sen. Obama, a fellow American and presidential rival to celebrities such as Paris and Britney.
There are now 23 states that are no longer taking Title V funds for abstinence-based education. Two more are out next year, pushing that total to 25. There is now a growing consensus that abstinence-only education is nothing more than elephant shit and religious indoctrination disguised as "education." This is typical of the Bush administration, who has done nothing but pass off propaganda as objective truth.
We Kossacks know that when it comes to mainstream issues, politicians pander. It's nice when it's in our direction, yes, but do you ever wonder how they really feel? How genuinely dedicated they are to the protection of liberty, not just to getting reelected and keeping that congressional health care plan? Sometimes, it's hard to know. Washington constantly disappoints. Even netroots heroes sometimes talk a good game, but end up sitting back, shrugging their shoulders, and voting for a compromise bill that only serves to compromise the trust we placed in them by setting them up with one of the sweetest jobs in the world. It stings, but it's politics. We shake it off and keep fighting.
Up until today, I have been under the impression that America is the land of the free. I have always thought that we were living in a free market society. As an American, I'm very disturbed about a news story I heard while driving to work this morning. According to Reuters, the LA City Council has banned the construction of new fast food restaurants in the poorest areas of the city to "control obesity". What's worse is that the measure can be extended to a second year, if it's approved by the mayor.
Our Founders formed this nation under the assumption that a large federal system was a danger to liberty and a hindrance to progress. They had a suspicion of a large centralised government, and rightly so.
If we really want to be liberals in the classic sense, we should advocate smaller government, less centralised control and more liberty for individuals. Progressive means to make progress; a large, centralised federal bureaucracy is not progress, but a regression.
With this in mind, libertarians and progressives should rightly, philosophically find themselves more in agreement.
Let's wake up! Any politician that advocates more government, more taxes and more control is against progress!
Politics in Washington become more troublesome as the decades go by. Politicians all tell a good ‘story’ but the truth is rarely do they ever effect change to benefit hardworking, middle and lower class Americans. Americans, who work hard every day, pay their taxes, raise their children and expect a government that will ‘work for them’. It has become more evident under the Bush Administration and Republican party during the past 7 and a half years, that lying has become the accepted norm. Fear mongering has become the political tactic of the decade and the disintegration of the constitution has become a process in which Republicans use to create a dictatorship in Washington.
In 1995 Republicans promised to eliminate spending on over 100 of the largest governmental programs, but under Bush and the 6 year Republican controlled Congress, these programs actually grew over 27% and the government has grown over a whopping 40%. Bush has been the biggest spending President in the last 30 years. Under the Republican Administration the surplus left in the coffers of the American public has been eliminated. Consider the following Republican financial state-of-affairs bestowed upon U.S. Citizens.
Carl Westmoreland, Curator of the Underground Railroad Freedom Center
This is the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge. It spans The Ohio River at Cincinnati, Ohio and Covington, Kentucky. Washington Roebling worked for his father on this bridge which was constructed during The Civil War completed in 1866. Do you see similarities to the Brooklyn Bridge? Ohio was a free state and if slaves escaped from Kentucky and reached the banks of the Ohio side of the river they could be free. But if they were seen crossing, "Black Laws" compelled the persons witnessing the escape to turn the runaway slave in to authorities only to be returned to his slave master and branded with an "R" on his or her cheek or to have a finger or toe chopped off for a second offense as an example to other slaves. We are facing Kentucky and that modern tower on the left is a new luxury Condominium.
A friend of ours forwarded an email to my husband's and my email from one of her wingnut relatives. It contained the usual argument against horrible "big government" and all the giveaways that are turning America towards socialism, blah, blah, blah. Same old stuff. Well, my husband decided that he'd heard that argument one too many times, and he decided to reply to the orginal sender and when I read his reply, my first thought was that I should share it with all of my friends here on DKos...and he gave me permission to do it, so below the fold is the email that my hubby sent to the wingnut--I think I'll also send it to other friends and foe alike. It's a great rant......I'm encouraging him to sign up and become a Kossack....he'd contribute a lot--ok, I'm biased......
A mere handful of people read my diary yesterday, "Freedom is not just another word for nothing left to lose" thus illustrating, if not proving my case that America is on life support, heading for the grave if we do not act immediately to change our mindset of blind adherence to authority.
An enemy is one who wages a two-fold war against your mind with propaganda and brainwashing and against your physical body with the intent to harm, maim, kill, subjugate, conquer, control, or enslave you and all of your substance. This enemy whereof I speak, is totalitarianism, despotism, police state, and slavery. Call it by whatever name or label you wish. They all result in freedom's suffocation, starvation and death. Follow me under the fold for the rest of this call for the dead to awaken and rise up...
