The Misled Are Neither Brave Nor Free

We are compelled to continue with last week’s tirade. We argued, then, that many in America are, supposedly, brave and free. We also said that they are gullible and in the process, very misled. This week, the discourse is simple: One cannot be brave or free if they are ignorant or completely led astray. The same meme has perpetrated itself from time immemorial. The ones who were sold into slavery were tricked by their own African brethren back in those dark days. Most of those in Africa and the Caribbean live lives of intense poverty because they either do not know how to reach for what is truly theirs or simply cannot as a result of how far away they are from the table that the few leaders eat and make decisions. On the other hand, how can you be truly free if all you have is a choice between what is bad and what is worse? If you have to make a choice between withdrawing a child from school or not looking after your dying mother, you are definitely going to face negative consequences from each hand you were dealt. Either way, you are not free and in this ‘enslaved’ position, your brevity is only bravado – vacuous and specious, at best.

That is the quandary many in America find themselves. They have been told that their president is a socialist; that he is a Moslem and that he was not born in the United States. News from conservative websites feeds an already paranoid population with conspiracy theories around the ‘evil’ things the federal government is doing. Even when the chicken and pig farms in the Appalachia pollute the fresh water sources; or when the coal mines infest the air with pathogens and dark clouds, a call goes out for the brave and the free. Many of the people in the middle of America do not hold college degrees. They went to high school then went to work in the factories. Many have inculcated their own children and descendants into that way of life: It is predictable, it is free, it is proud and it is brave. But it is also an insular life. As far as these miners or farmers are concerned, the Environmental Protection Agency is their enemy. They do not believe in global warming and do not they relate the strange strains of illness in their various communities to something that might have emanated from the chemicals spewed into the air by their very own employers.

And then that miscreant of an alien president has the audacity to suggest that they can have universal healthcare! How dare he, quoth many? Why – we do not need government in our lives! The government only comes out to regulate our freedoms. We want to be miners – free and proud and brave with our black lungs and even blacker rivers and lakes. We do not need no stinkin’ government looking over our shoulders! We want to believe in aliens and watch our television. And if you come close to our homes, you will be shot with this gun I am holding in my strong calloused hands!

This diatribe is just a collation of moments, ideas and beliefs a great many Americans have. And these are almost uniform across this rich and powerful nation. People are ignorant. People are stuck in their own ways. People are gullible. In spite of what they may see, advertising and the media in the small towns is much more powerful than the federal government. Ask most people in Kentucky who the enemy is – and they will tell you that Obama and the federal government are evil. Ask them who pays for most of their health and who subsidizes their food and work and roads – and they will talk about their taxes. Fear and loathing of the federal government is mostly rife in the poor states. Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas and Kentucky receive lots and LOTS of federal aid: But the people there still believe that the federal government and especially the president is an evil being.

Someone is laughing all the way to the proverbial bank under the circumstances. A cabal of either politicians, slavophiles or businessmen are enjoying themselves on the backs of the ignorant – the brave and the ‘free.’ This tsarist class tells tales of evil governments getting in the way of the smaller people. The reality is that just like Mr. Bounderby from Charles Dickens’ ‘Hard Times,’ its all hot air. The same hot air that we discovered at the end of ‘The Wizard of Oz.’ Unfortunately, the yellow brick road is too appealing and many do not realize that in the richest land on earth, the many who died in the past were brave so that they could be free today.

Dennis Matanda,
Editor – [email protected]