Commentary

Let ‘freedom to live, love and be happy’ be more than a slogan of our times

Let ‘freedom to live, love and be happy’ be more than a slogan of our times

Whatever your thoughts about the 1960s — hippies, love, peace, drugs, flower power, the anti-Vietnam war protests, freedom, and the mysteries of the cosmos — there is a remarkable similarity between them and the Occupy Wall Street protests.

It isn’t so much the protests themselves that are similar, of course. No, the real likeness is in the way the protesters are being confronted, countered and controlled not only by the police, but by the reporting — some might say misleading — in the mainstream media.

Once again the powerful in society seek to exert their control over the poor and less privileged by depriving them of a means to effectively state and distribute their message accurately.

Most likely we will see attempts to derail the protest by offerings to the ring leaders of that most rewarding of countermeasures – a job. Not too many of them, mind you, but just enough to leave the masses without leaders; now ironically without an incorruptible figure to lead them.

Already we have laws which protect the right to differ with authority dismantled on the pretext of security. Benjamin Franklin (an American politician, diplomat, scientist and author – 1775) was correct when he said, “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

Whilst Franklin’s words go unheeded, the very forces, which should be correcting that which amounts to an affront to the U.S. Constitution, are trying to placate those who would further limit the rights of all people to be treated equally.

There is an even more horrific denial of human rights being perpetrated in the extreme pronouncements of those who claim to be the moral guardians of society. That brings me to consider this, “those who would trade individual freedom for the rewards of slavery, lose their ability to understand the difference between freedom and slavery.”

Many times throughout history, we see protests of the deprived resulting in the victors either gaining or maintaining power; again and again corrupting those who have it, because it is based on control over others.

This is exactly what the founders of the U.S. Constitution tried so hard to guard against, and still we have to actively protect our right to live freely. Power is very intoxicating and addictive, and when the powerful feel threatened truth is a casualty, personal freedom is curtailed, and the impoverished are fed lies by the corrupt.

Whilst each new rebellion against the corrupt furthers the cause of human rights, it has become a lament of poets and historians alike, that successful revolutionaries eventually fall victim to the influence of power; seeking that absolute power, which corrupts absolutely into despotic control.

Despots surround themselves with unfeeling sociopaths to do their bidding, following the motto of, “Whatever it takes,” or that insidiously uncompassionate phrase, “it’s just business.” That this is happening in organized religion is sadly nothing new; that it is happening in corporate America is tragic. The resulting enslavement, denial of freedom and equality, is totally opposite to the intent of the U.S. Constitution.

The misinterpretation, deliberate or otherwise, of the U.S. Constitution has come to mean that individual freedom is being denied, and equality abandoned for the sake of morality being imposed on the citizens. The only thing this corruption of the Constitution has in common with its true intent is to have global influence; an influence now corrupted to the detriment of human growth.

I make no apology for sounding dramatic.

The dangers that face the human race are real and imminent. Yet even now the war of ignorance can be won by those brave enough to stand against imposed morality which is hell bent on subverting intelligence, instead of realizing our innate disposition to live in peace with one another, unless threatened.

If you looked at how, for example, the LGBTQ people are being treated, how all our lives are being persecuted by those who would control our freedom to express our love for each other, one cannot help but wonder that if we offered to give money to their fraudulent sanctimonious religions, would they suddenly find an interpretation of scripture that would allow them to get their minds out of other people’s crotches?

Probably not, because power and greed are commodities commonly sought by both corporations and religions, and what better way to control people than by fomenting fear and depriving them of sex, money and self esteem?

LGBTQ people are caught in this web of deprivation, as a wedge, a falsified symbol of all that is claimed to be wrong with society. A society, which is based not as it was hoped on love and democratic freedom for the individual, but on the power of avarice and greed to control the populace, is a failure.

Bigots assert that LGBTQ people will cause the downfall of Western society. Somehow we lovers of life and each other can incite God to visit humanity with earthquakes and tsunamis of economic doom, destroy jobs and bring about the downfall of governments. And all this is because we want nothing more than to love each other, to marry each other, to be recognized as equally human as everyone else under the laws of our secular nations?

But no, we are accused of having an agenda to destroy the very society in which most of us want to live and love, to protect and be protected and grow to fulfilment. That accusation is illogical; as illogical as believing that our simple desire to love one another is enough to end corruption.

If only it was that easy.

For too long the power brokers of avarice and greed have held the people captive as consumers, disguised as paid employees, but now the payments have deteriorated to the slim wages of slavery, and protests arise. The cries of those deprived of work and love are clearly heard above the shouts of the brokers and the money lenders.

Let “freedom to live, love and be happy” be more than just a slogan in the passing of our times. Let it not be our epitaph, but our non-violent resistance to freedom being denied to us all.

There is a difference between a consumer society and a society which consumes its people by preying on them, bullying them and sanctimoniously spitting them out with disdain. Preying is not the promise of democracy; it is the same ancient threat that has enslaved our cultures and people in chains of fear and misery since we left our caves.

We still suffer because of it. It must end. Help it end.

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