9/11 Has Nothing to do with Freedom

I know, because on 9/11/2001, I was in prison for thoughtcrime.

I'm still flummoxed by the weird statement that we live in the "land of the free."

The people that claim this is the land of the free ignore the fact that this is the land of the most not-free: we have the largest prison population on the planet. That's population wise, percentage wise, doesn't matter, any figure you use, we're at the fucking top. We're not free, we're not even close.

The people I see that claim to be free are whoring themselves to the system that enslaves them. They're chasing the mighty fucking dollar, not realizing that the paper chase is empty and devoid of meaning. I've heard just about every excuse under the sun for chasing that dollar. At the end of the day, though, a majority of time it's because people let stuff own them, and in turn they sell themselves short to own stuff.

The people who struggle - we know we're not free. We know complete freedom isn't possible. But we know we can do better than what we're looking at today. Unfortunately, we tend not to have money, which means in terms of power, we are greatly restricted in this society, which encourages people mentioned in the previous paragraph, and discourages us.

So, President Bush asked us all to remember where we were when this attack on "freedom" occurred. I was in prison for thoughtcrime, when the U.S. government responded to terrorist attacks by upping their attack on our freedoms. In the seven years since then, we've seen our freedoms diminish, alongside our happiness, security, and pretty much every measure of progress you can imagine.

We still have no better analysis of why we were attacked forwarded by the powers that be. The Homeland Security Department insists it's because "They hate our freedom," - quoting the President. If terrorists hate freedom so much, check our prison population, we ought to be the last on the fucking list of targets.

If, on the other hand, they hate us because of how our government acts in the world, then suddenly it seems much clearer.

The 9/11 attacks had nothing to do with Freedom. They had everything to do with how we act in the world. Paying lip service to freedom means nothing: judge actions. We, as a society, have acted freely against almost every other country out there, but have accepted no responsibility. We freely lock up our own people, but accept no responsibility for the conditions that create criminal environments.

And I just might include the above in the next Prisoner Within. Just a heads up, to all three of you.