Freedom is somewhat of a vaugue term. Websters defines it as follows:1: the quality or state of being free: as a: the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action b: liberation from slavery or restraint or from the power of another : independence c: the quality or state of being exempt or released usually from something onerous <freedom from care> d: ease , facility
If one were to ponder on it's exact meanings one would be hard pressed to say that they have ever been truly free. It's kind of one of those things that you don't know you have until you no longer have it. Or something you think you may have had, but never did. Only the sociopaths are free from conscience.
Personally I have lost my "freedoms" on more than one occasion. On occasion through some act of stupidity for whom I have only myself to blame. Yet more often than one might think, often times through external forces over which I had no apparent control. Which might be one reason why this whole banking thing has me eating nine volt batteries by the dozen.
I'm not happy when my illusion of freedom is shattered by my own hand. I get down right pissed when it is taken from me or anyone else, through abuses of power.
It is amazing how in this land of the free and the brave, economic slavery can not only exist but thrive.
Though me and my 3 sisters grew up poor, we usually ate something and did sleep in out of the rain. But since the rest of the neighborhood was in somewhat similiar circumstances we really didn't know we weren't all that well off. And though I did spend some time traveling on the cheap it was by my choice, one I was free to make. Poverty by choice can be an adventure, a test if you will. Poverty imposed on the powerless has no such noble connotations.
It was the recession (which depressed the hell out of me) of the late 70's (remember that gig) that taught me the true difference between the "haves" and the "have not's". Jobs disappeared over night and unemployment compensation and food stamp lines stretched around the block.
It wasn't long before I found myself in the groves picking oranges with migrant workers and degreed white collar workers who could not buy a job anywhere. I learned much from the Mexican migrant workers. Like if you put 13 boxes in a 10 box bin (only getting paid for the 10) the grove boss would move you into a better grove. And if you asked how come Social Security was being taken out of your money when they never asked for your number, well then, you went to about a $7.00 a day grove.
Mexican and blacks alike validated what I already knew but some of the white collar folk had yet to learn. You share what you got in the groves.
The difference between the "haves" vs. the "have nots" is relative I guess. Once you have been bused into a grove in the middle of nowhere and the man came around offering booze, cigarettes and stuff for sale at a price that would probably cost you a days picking. Bang you in debt. And do not think for a moment that there are not (or at least were not) slave camps scattered throughout the Florida "boonies". And do not think for a moment that your debt would be forgiven easily, if at all. Some of them buses took you places you were not going to easily walk out of.
The desperation of feeling trapped as an individual is one thing but when you look at a whole family, kids to grandpa, picking in desperation daily, with the knowledge that for them, there was no way out, this was their future, your perspective on "America" begins to get a little skewed. Mans inhumanity to man is no longer some vague poetic reference but a stark reality.
I busted out however. Got myself promoted to working out of the "labor pools" and "handy Andys" that in that day and time could only be found in the seedier parts of towns. With a lady and kid living in a migrant shack in a Pecan Grove, the $14.00 a day didn't go far. So most evenings we found ourselves shoplifting our one meal a day from the local grocery store and occasionally finding a way to rip off some rent money.
It becomes a trap. It's hard to focus on how to improve your situation when most of your thoughts are consumed with, "what will we eat tonight" and God forbid, what will we do if somebody gets sick.
There is no time for dreams. Survival dictates that attention must be focused on opportunities and threats from the transients inhabiting the same world but imprisoned even more by personal demons that had long ago stolen their souls leaving them without knowing what hope was.
By God's grace, I escaped those chains only to trip over others. Along the journey I met others chained to mere existence. Christian construction workers with families. They would work their bodies to ruin while injured so they could keep a truck running so they could feed their kids housed in cheap motel rooms and maybe, just maybe, buy some medicine for their sick lady. And do it day after day without complaint. Gut glad they had a job and always worrying what happens when that one plays out. Afraid to confront the Christian ram rod when shorted on there board count for fear they would be replaced by the endless train of others seeking the same existence.
These were not people like myself, who on occasion through my own defects of character placed myself in some of these situations. These were people that never screwed anyone over. Instead they got screwed over day after day after day, with little choice but to wake up and get screwed again. Living proof that nice guys finish last.
Like the woman forced to work the night shift at the waffle house putting up with the drunks after closing time so she can be home in the morning to insure the kids her ol man ran off and left her with will get fed and sent of to school. If of course she doesn't have to pull a double and leave the tending to the oldest child who might be all of 12.
Of course there are those who have never been in the trap that will insist that anyone if they work hard enough can get out of the trap. Like the grandmother I know who took on the care of her four grandchildren after their parents ran off and left them. Sharing what meager subsistence she had with them equally while going from church to church begging, being turned down because she was not a member of the congregation. Not all have the courage of the wolf that will chew of it's own leg to escape the trap.
There is an America out there that not many get to, our choose to see much less experience. There are those that have been there and got out. There are many more who will never get out. And sadly there are many who will self-righteously proclaim it is of their own doing while those that would profit off their backs continue to beat them further into the ground.
So forgive me if I have no use for any, republican, democrat, whatever, in a position of power who would waste our time and tax dollars on such inane issues as which direction should a license tag point while their brethren seek more efficient ways to steal from the poor and give it to those who could not possibly spend what they have already stolen.
For whatever "Freedom" I think that I may have is cheapened by the suffering of those who have none!
From Man was made to Mourn: A Dirge, 1785:
'Many and sharp the num'rous ills
Inwoven with our frame!
More pointed still we make ourselves
Regret, remorse, and shame!
And Man, whose heav'n-erected face
The smiles of love adorn, -
Man's inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn!
Inwoven with our frame!
More pointed still we make ourselves
Regret, remorse, and shame!
And Man, whose heav'n-erected face
The smiles of love adorn, -
Man's inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn!
Robert Burns-1785Add to Technorati Favorites
Wow! I hope you sent this to all of the legislators who made decisions on bills last year.
ReplyDeleteDiana
This should be required reading for all people before they vote on any person running for office.
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