The Cost of Freedom

"Find the cost of freedom buried in the ground.  Mother Earth will swallow you.  Lay your body down." ~Find the Cost of Freedom~ Crosby Stills Nash and Young

I'm writing this entry on Memorial Day weekend.  Usually people make use of this three day weekend to get great deals at local retailers, get together with family and friends for a barbeque, or just take advantage of a day where they get to sleep in.  I admit, I'm guilty of this as well.  But this year, for some reason, I got to thinking.  There is so much propoganda around this holiday, both related and unrelated.  The related propoganda comes in the form of "Honor those who have fought for freedom."  I have no trouble honoring a good majority of service men and women.  It truly is a form of service that I know I wouldn't be able to do.  But my beef is with the idea that they are fighting for freedom.  What does that mean exactly?  What does someone fighting over in Iraq have to do with my civil liberties?  (And frankly, haven't our civil liberties been somewhat diminished since this whole war on terror started?)   What freedoms are they protecting?  Who exactly is threatening these freedoms?  While I will gladly honor those who have fought in past wars and even in the current ones--though I do not agree with the motives in which those wars were and are being fought--I have a difficult time swallowing the sound bite of "fighting for freedom."  If they are fighting for freedom, does that mean they're fighting against the bill that was passed in Arizona which makes it easier for police to target brown people?  Are they fighting for the rights of LGBT people to have their marriages legally recognized?  Are they fighting for a woman's right to low cost health care?  Are they fighting for people to be free from the oppression of poverty? 

The answer to these questions is, obviously, no.  The freedom that is mentioned in that line of propoganda is abstract.  While some may sum it up as, "They're fighting so that I can continue to live my life as I please and don't have to worry about someone coming in to tell me what I can do or say" it isn't clear exactly how fighting in a war is the best insurance policy for those rights.  Furthermore, as alluded to by the questions above, exactly which freedoms are they upholding?  I honestly believe that those in uniform are not fighting for freedom, but against some potential (yet unspoken) threat to those freedoms.  In today's events, that threat may look like Muslims who want to take over our way of life by way of Caliphate.  So of course, we need to pass state laws that forbid Sharia law.  And we need to engage in wars in predominantly Muslim countries (except Saudi Arabia, cuz...you know...they're the good guys).  You get the idea.  This isn't about a fight for freedom, at least in the case of the wars we are currently engaged in.  This is about a perceived threat.  Maybe not even that.  Maybe it's something that's only been vocalized as being perceived without actually consciously perceiving it.  In other words, it's been said that this threat is perceived, but no person with an adequate amount of brain cells would actually perceive that to be an actual threat.

When I think of people who have fought for freedom, I think of the Freedom Riders, the people who marched in Selma, Ida B. Wells, Susan B. Anthony, Frederick Douglas, Rigoberta Menchu, the Zapatistas, Cesar Chavez, Howard Kunstler, Jesus, Moses, and many countless others who have fought and continue to fight on the side of the oppressed.  Because if anyone is in need of freedom, it is certainly those who are oppressed--whether directly by a malicious dictator, or indirectly through laws passed by governments or even citizens themselves. 

The bumper sticker that says, "Freedom Isn't Free" is true in a very literal sense.  Many people have paid with their lives in the struggle for freedom, both in this country and throughout the world.  But what is also true is the quote, "No one is free while others are oppressed."  Think about it.  If men and women in uniform are willing to lay down their lives for some greater cause (i.e. freedom, or as discussed above, the perceived threat to freedom), and yet our own government continues to chip away at our rights, then what exactly are they fighting and dying for?  We honor our soldiers with federal holidays and yet the government constantly takes away health care (including mental health care) for veterans.  We proudly display American flags, and yet women recruits and soldiers are raped and sexually assaulted by their peers, and have very little support within the structure of the military to press charges; not to mention that should these women become pregnant as a result and choose to terminate their pregnancies, their abortions will not be covered under their insurance provided by the government.  Again, what freedoms are being upheld?  What freedoms are people dying for?

What I am about to say next may anger some, but I'm willing to take that risk.  While I know that it may never happen, I do not think that Memorial Day should be just about those in uniform who have lost their lives in combat.  I think it should be about remembering all of those, both known and unknown, who have fought against oppression and have died as a result.  And it shouldn't be just for those who have died in our own country, but from all over the world.  Perhaps the weight of known and unknown names will give us pause before we light up the barbeque or head out to that three day sale at Macy's. 

Ok, I know this won't happen.  It won't.  And if it did, it would probably end up being commercialized just like everything else that's appropriated by the mainstream.  "Be sure to come in and get your free Ghandi gift bag with a purchase of $50 or more!"  My point is that, in the current state of things, the real cost of freedom is losing the very notion of what freedom is.  By honoring those who have supposedly fought for it, we buy into the illusion that we are free from oppression, as well as being protected from those who would serve to take our current freedoms away.  We have let the earth swallow up our conscience, our awareness of how things really are, and we have erected an abstract and false idea in its stead.  Should we continue to worship this idea blindly, a new form shall be erected: a simple marker, much like a headstone, which reads: Memores libero.