Freedom Is Not Free (That's Why You Don't Have Any)

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"Freedom is not free," goes the old bumper sticker slogan, commonly accompanied by an image of a flag or soldiers or some other bullshit.

Freedom is not free, the saying goes, because military personnel are out there laying their lives on the line fighting for your right to do as you're told and toil away at a meaningless job making some rich asshole even richer.

Freedom is not free, because we're all just so much freer after murdering families on the other side of the planet for corporate profits and geostrategic domination.

Freedom is not free, because we're all so much freer after teenagers get thrown into the gears of the imperial war machine to provide a good quarterly statement for Raytheon shareholders.

Freedom is not free, because this thing we're calling "freedom" has been paid for with the blood, lives and limbs of millions of innocents throughout the Global South.

Freedom is not free. That's why the only people doing as they please in our world are wealthy oligarchs.

Freedom is not free. And unless you're wealthy enough or psychopathic enough there's no way you'll ever find a way to pay the price.

Freedom is not free. That's why you don't have any.

Freedom is not free. That's why we're all running along on this ridiculous hamster wheel of global capitalism destroying our ecosystem so some dickhead with too much money can go float around in space.

Freedom is not free. It takes billions of dollars worth of mass media propaganda to manufacture the illusion of freedom.

Freedom is not free. Great expense went into creating the Truman Show narrative matrix that we are all caged in.

Freedom is not free. That's why your votes are fake and your political system is a scripted puppet show for children.

Freedom is not free. That's why you must obey your rulers to avoid getting censored by Silicon Valley oligarchs, assaulted by police officers, or thrown in prison by bureaucrats who play with civilizations like toys.

Freedom is not free, and we can't afford the admission fee to actually influence the direction our world is headed.

Freedom is not free, and we're watching helplessly as plutocrats and warmongers drive our beautiful world off a cliff from which there is no returning.

Freedom is not free, and we are marching doomward to the beat of Hollywood and lying newscasters.

Freedom is not free, and we are too enslaved to our own egoic conditioning and trauma-induced mental habits to see the path to true liberation.

Freedom is not free. It's going to take a lot for us to turn inward and awaken to our true potential so that we can break free of our propaganda brainboxes and become a conscious species.

Freedom is not free. But it is waiting for us, beneath the thoughts, beneath the noise, beneath the believed narratives about self, world and other.

Freedom is not free. Or hey, plot twist: maybe it is. Maybe freedom is our true nature, and all we need to do is recognize it. 

Freedom is free. And freedom is you and me. And humanity awakening to this reality is what will someday rid us of our chains.

Not too long now. Not long at all.

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Featured image via Ron Cogswell, Creative Commons 2.0