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

"Freedom is not free. It takes billions of dollars worth of mass media propaganda to manufacture the illusion of freedom."
caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/freedom-is-n…
"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.
Freedom Is Not Free (That's Why You Don't Have Any)

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More from @caitoz

12 Jul
Anarchism sounds good in theory but in practice it just means regurgitating foreign policy talking points from the US State Department.
Anarchists lining up on this post to prove it wrong by proving it right.
Read 4 tweets
11 Jul
Many leftists shy away from speaking out against western imperialism because they see international dynamics as too complex, when really it's the LEAST complex part of the capitalist empire. The world's largest power structure murders human beings to exert control. Very simple.
If you understand that police brutality is a problem or that oligarchs are robbing the working class, then the idea that they're also holding together a globe-spanning empire using nonstop mass murder should be super easy. Only propaganda spins it as more complicated than that.
Once you see how simple it is, how profoundly evil it is, and how all the other abuses of the empire depend on it, you understand that opposing the war machine of the US-centralized power alliance should be the very foremost priority of any leftist. It is the head of the beast.
Read 4 tweets
11 Jul
Space colonization will never happen. It's a delusion promoted by billionaires who have a vested interest in marketing the idea that the ecologically unsustainable nature of status quo capitalism can be resolved by turning humanity into a spacefaring species. They are lying.
Further reading on the fact that space colonization will never happen:
threadreaderapp.com/thread/1411304…
Space Colonization Is A Capitalist Perception Management Op

"If space colonization isn't possible, then the people who are destroying our environment for money are just deranged lunatics who must be stopped at all cost.
But they are. And we must."
caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/space-coloni…
Read 9 tweets
11 Jul
Sunday Funny Pages: Notes From The Edge

"A military which can afford to spend trillions on a twenty-year war which accomplished literally nothing besides making horrible people wealthy is a military that needs its budget slashed to ribbons."
caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/sunday-funny…
Got some fun and relatable comic strips for people to share on social media:
Read 8 tweets
11 Jul
If it had just been "let's end racism" instead of "let's end racism by supporting horrible corporate warmongers" there'd be a lot less racism today.
Any time I talk about racial justice I get people calling it identity politics when it's really not; becoming conscious of racial injustices in our society isn't about promoting any political agenda, it's about consciousness. But people think that because it's been so exploited.
If people weren't so acutely aware of the disgusting ways in which race and racism have been used to promote the political agendas of absolutely horrible people and parties, that aversion to seeing this stuff would not be there. They made institutional racism impossible to heal.
Read 4 tweets
10 Jul
Stomp out the authentic revolutionary impulse and you're left with inauthentic revolutionary impulse. You don't kill people's impulse to rise up and push for change, you just get them doing it in weird, ridiculous, ineffective ways. Hence the pseudo left and "populist" right.
Most of the bizarre things about western politics in general and US politics in particular ultimately boil down to this. "Okay we need to overthrow our oppressors and change things... let's elect that rich casino guy for president." All the IDpol and shitlib stuff, same thing.
If the door to real leftward movement hadn't been bolted shut, you wouldn't see one side trying to change things by freaking out about immigrants and trans people and the other side freaking out by punching them in black bloc without either threatening power. You'd see change.
Read 4 tweets

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