Saturday, February 9, 2013

FREEDOM TALKERS AND FREE THINKERS

Freedom Tower:
The New York City Freedom Tower… Why call it Freedom Tower? Was America previously unfree, but is free now? Nonsense! Does it have something to do with America’s freedom victorious in its war against the perpetrators of 9/11? Hardly! The so-called “war on terror” is admittedly still going on. Meanwhile, on the domestic front, American freedom has suffered a serious setback since 2001, a setback beyond Osama bin Laden’s wildest dreams, and well beyond his al Qaeda’s maximum capacity…
So, whose freedom are we talking about? Certainly not about the freedom of the incessantly terrorized people of the ‘liberated’ Iraq, many of whom, Shiahs prominently included, are today nostalgic for the stability of Saddam Hussein’s brutal regime. Certainly not about the freedom of the Afghanis, or the Libyans under the post-Qaddafi chaos, or the Palestinians under their newly gained quasi-statehood… Generally speaking, the world at large is a terrible place these days, and the word “freedom” sounds like a very cruel joke…
Apparently, this word comes out with a twist, in the new “Freedom Tower.” “Freedom” in the new century means being pro-American. The people of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain are freedom people, just because their rulers are pro-American… Those who do not obey Washington’s guidelines of freedom, are slaves in need of liberation… Easy! That’s “Freedom Tower.
Freedom Talkers:
Never in my previous life had I imagined that the word “freedom would one day be making me sick. But so it does today, and I wonder what they are thinking, all these cynical scoundrels and intellectual perverts who say freedom in that most obnoxious sense of the word.
The freedom talkers of America, both the brainwashers and the brainwashed--- what are they thinking when they say this word which they obviously do not understand as they never have traveled to its pristine source themselves, and never have forfeited their eye as the price of knowledge?
Freedom Thinkers:
There is an unbridgeable chasm between the authentic free thinkers and these manipulative freedom talkers, who use the word freedom in order to enslave. And, alas, as I have repeatedly pointed out, it is much easier to enslave the relaxed minds of free-talking citizens of ‘free societies’ than the intensely watchful minds of the free-thinking citizens of the world’s most oppressive tyrannies. Indeed, as the following shocking, but convincing argument made by my family friend and professional colleague General Mikhail Milstein, goes:
Our Soviet public, in terms of its susceptibility to propaganda, is much better off than in a country such as America. Here (in Russia) everyone knows that our agitprop people are doing their job, and take what they hear always with a large grain of salt. But in America people are so sincerely convinced that they are free, that their minds are really careless and willing to be played with. Yes, they may all be street smart as much as they want to be, but in politics they are pretty gullible to propaganda, as long as they do have their little vanity toy to play with: the “choice,” the two-party system, obligingly allowing them to make up their own mind as to whose mush they will be having for breakfast for the next four years.
Thus, it follows that for the purposes of genuine freedom, free thought is of far greater importance than free speech. What can be worse than “controlled” free speech, the speech of ignorance and propaganda?
Free Speech:
Incidentally, free speech, the one, which is so much protected in Western democracies and so much abused in other places, should be indeed controlled in all societies, but not by suppressing it, as is usually the case in all controlled societies, but simply by denying it the authority of “ipse dixit.” For, it is customary for the people anywhere, but especially in free societies to bow to the authority of an authority, if I may put it this way. It is the bowing to the authority, which cheapens the value of free speech in free societies, making the citizens easy prey for manipulation and brainwashing.
At the same time, I have sadly witnessed the fact that even in free societies, and America is most certainly one of their foremost, there are many ways, both crude and refined, to control free speech, allowing filth or mere trivium to pass as free speech, as long as it is politically harmless to the power elite, while effectively suppressing the speech, which the elite sees as threatening to their status quo, that is to their hold on power. This suppression of “dangerous” (sometimes known as politically incorrect) speech reaches such levels of forcefulness, that the only difference between the free us and the unfree them, meaning, of course, between free and unfree societies, will be the severity of punishment for the persons who are the actual perpetrators. Meanwhile, the actual punishment for the chief offender herself, free speech, is effectively the same, which is the capital punishment of silence.
Last Word:
And now the last word on this matter. If the harshness of my judgment sounds excessive, I should refer my reader to some other sections of the book, particularly, to Russia and the Lady. Why is it, I used to be asked fairly often, that I’m the only one speaking of such things? In the past I used to think that what I was saying others may not have known. These days I realize that the reason why nobody knows the things which are so elementary in my mind is not some general ignorance about them, but a conspiracy of silence tantamount to the suppression of free speech. While I have not been denied the opportunity of ‘free speech,’ to which this blog, plus a few published articles of mine bear witness, my free speech has been rendered worthless by denying it the authority which comes with a successful career, and we all know that a successful career possesses such an authority that one can easily pass around counterfeit money as the legitimate coin of the realm.

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