Land of the free?

Clothilde is a self-employed florist and while she is annoyed enough at the red tape required to run her business, she is absolutely livid at the Mississippi proposal to prohibit restaurants and food establishments from serving food to obese customers

"Since when has it been the government’s job to force people by law to eat what it tells them to eat and to live their lives according to its dictates (backed by its Big Pharma, Big Oil, Big Bank or Big Business cronies)?" asks Clothilde. "Also, to make private businesses the enforcers of these dictates –do as we say or we'll revoke your business permits –is blatant thuggery."

"When you consider that for most of the 20th century we were fighting against communist, fascist and other totalitarian regimes –and we’re currently fighting against the oppressive Taliban in Afghanistan (who denied their people the joy of music among other things)," says Clothilde, "it makes you wonder – I mean really wonder – about the hypocrisy of our politicians and the social contract they are supposed to uphold."

"Land of the free? Yeah, right!"

"Free to listen to music (as long as you don't disturb the neighbors) and free to show a bit of flesh in public (as long as you don't do a Janet Jackson), but don't you dare eat fatty foods, or smoke or drink or take recreational drugs or do anything vaguely entrepreneurial,” sneers Clothilde. “Instead, they force feed us their latest pharmaceutical snake-oil soma and tell us to have a nice day."

Read more of Clothilde's story:

pharma pushed fat laws

fat red tape

menopausal fighter

Health Nazis

independence vs nanny states

globalized slavery

Mikki points out that slavery and prostitution are as old as the hills and both of them have been global industries millennia before the word globalization was coined and they continue to monopolize global trade today in the form of human trafficking and sex slavery from Eastern Europe and South East Asia.

“Tribes first became powerful nations by warring against neighbors -- taking their lands and enslaving them -- and as nations expanded over the globe to become powerful, technologically advanced empires they no longer needed to wage war in order to enslave less advanced populations,” says Mikki. “They just landed on distant shores, fired a few muskets and terrified the local population into slavery.”

“That, in theory, was how the Latin Conquistadores operated in Africa and South America,” says Mikki, “but Britain from 1619 onwards had a novel way of finding slave labor for its new global colonies -- it first swept up its homeless children, then its surplus poor and then its convicts and worked them all as slaves!”

“It all began with the union of Scotland and England and the settlement of Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607 -- named after the new Stuart king, the Scottish James I -- and the arrival in 1625 of English sailors in the West Indies island of Barbados (deserted by the Portuguese).”

“The plantations established in the new colonies needed labor and because the African slave trade was dominated by the Portuguese and the Spanish, and jealously guarded by them, the English merchants had to find an alternative,” says Mikki. “That alternative was kidnapping and shipping out the surplus poor, but particularly orphan or deserted children whose fate nobody would know or care about.”

“White slavery was established as an institution as early as 1619 when the London Common Council shipped out 100 homeless children to join the first permanent settlement in Jamestown, Virginia -- with more following in 1620 and 1622 despite the Indian Massacres -- and by 1627, in the early reign of Charles I, another Stuart king, it had also been established in the British West Indies.”

"And anybody who thinks slavery suddenly disappeared when laws were passed forbidding it needs to get a real education," says Mikki. "Slavery continued in all of its many forms throughout the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries - and still exists today as a thriving global industry."

Read more by Mikki on this issue:

a nation built on white slavery

whitewashing slavery

Britons never will be slaves?

so you think you’re a slave?

Tobacco and America's Convict Past

out of sight, out of mind

digging up your ancestors

is slavery the human condition?

the ghosts of slavery

kidnapped children

black v white slavery

slave migrations

Anglo Slavery

lies, felons, slave-drivers and profiteers

Britons never will be slaves?

Britons pride themselves on being a free nation, and while it is true that England in the final years of Elizabeth I's reign became a beacon of freedom for the whole world when the last form of enforced servitude (villeinage) disappeared around 1600, Mikki points out that it did not last long and got a whole lot worse before it got better in the 1900s. And now?

“At the time of the Norman Conquest of England in 1066 approximately 10% of England's population was enslaved,” says Mikki. “Although trading serfs and slaves like brute animals was supposedly abolished in 1102 by the Council of Westminster, it was not until the final years of Elizabeth I's reign that the villeinage finally disappeared.”

“The denouement of England from a haven of freedom under Elizabeth I to a cesspool of slavery and cheap life began with the union of Scotland and England and the new Stuart king, the Scottish James I, who founded the colony of Jamestown in Virginia,” says Mikki. “With vast swathes of land in the colonies needing to be farmed, and a growing middle class of avaricious merchants, shippers, plantation owners and profiteers who had no morals whatsoever (despite being avowed Christians) a new way of handling the surplus poor was found.”

“With the establishment of the new colonies of Jamestown in 1607 and Barbados in 1627 came a desperate need for plantation labor and because the African slave trade was dominated by the Portuguese and the Spanish, and jealously guarded by them, the British merchants found an easy alternative to labor shortage by kidnapping and enslaving the surplus poor at home, all done with the collusion of those in power.”

“So, long before Britain traded in black slaves it had sold its own poor white people into slavery in the New World as a way of solving unemployment, getting rid of surplus population, quelling rebellion and keeping the streets free from beggars, drunks and pickpockets so that its upper and middle classes could enjoy an easier life.”

“Most of these white slaves would have been worked to death on the plantations, leaving no children or grandchildren to tell their tale,” says Mikki, “and this is especially true of those sent to the sugar plantations of the West Indies where 80% of white slaves died in their first year of enslavement.”

“Never before in the long history of slavery has a nation treated its poor indigenous people so abominably,” says Mikki, “and worse was in store for Britain’s poor when the factories came into being and agricultural workers and their children were rounded up, chained to machines and worked for 16 hours daily.”

"Fast forward to the 21st century and the British government is giving British jobs to immigrants or offshoring them," says Mikki. "What does that tell you about the social contract that was set up to protect Brits from slavery?"

Read more by Mikki on this issue:

a nation built on white slavery

globalized slavery

whitewashing slavery

so you think you’re a slave?

Tobacco and America's Convict Past

out of sight, out of mind

digging up your ancestors

is slavery the human condition?

the ghosts of slavery

kidnapped children

black v white slavery

slave migrations

Anglo Slavery

lies, felons, slave-drivers and profiteers

smoking invasions

Like most smokers, Moya, 48, is under considerable pressure at work to quit her enjoyable habit even though smoking is something she indulges in at home -- not at work -- and she is fuming that her civil liberties are being violated and invaded in this manner. She sees the whole quit smoking campaign as being as criminal, shortsighted and venal as the Iraq invasion, and believes that it's pushed by the same type of opportunistic people, for the same reasons.

"Although it's not a life-threatening violation of my civil rights -- as the criminal invasion of Iraq was, and still is, to Iraqi citizens," says Moya, "the quit smoking war is still very much a criminal act -- it's creating discriminatory attitudes in my place of work that are violating my civil liberties to enjoy a legal product in the sanctity of my own home."

"What I do at home is absolutely no business of my employer and it's deplorable that a comment I made to a coworker about smoking ended up being reported on my employment file," says Moya. "This is Big Brother gone crazy and next thing they'll be wanting to know what we eat for breakfast and what we do in bed."

"As I see it, the quit smoking campaign came about as a result of someone getting lung cancer and successfully litigating against the tobacco companies," says Moya. "That person may very well have developed lung cancer from a bacterial infection whether he or she smoked or not, but once the precedent had been set -- and the dollar signs started flashing -- that was the end of freedom for smokers."

"From then on, smokers became the enemy and the lies started coming thick and fast -- such as smokers are killing themselves and others (some of us may very well be doing that, but so are drinkers, drivers, meat eaters, gun owners, etc); we are bankrupting the health services with our smoking-related diseases (and paying for them ten times over with tobacco tax); and we crave liberation from the thralls of addiction (yeah, sure, we embrace the efforts of the nicotine-Nazis with love and gratitude.)"

"The illegal invasion of Iraq -- against UN decisions -- came about as a result of Mr Bush and the warmongers being frustrated at failing to nab Osama and going after Saddam instead," says Moya. "One criminal excuse after another was given in order to justify the illegal invasion -- Saddam was a monster (he may have been, but so are lots of other rulers and even Hillary Clinton is seen as being one by a fellow Democrat! ); he had stockpiles of WMD (Hans Blix found none); and the Iraqis crave liberation (yeah, sure, they embrace our gun-toting troops with love and gratitude)."

"The quit smoking campaign and the decision to invade Iraq are also alike in that they were based on shortsighted premises by people who have no understanding of consequences and no way to back off without losing face -- making them dangerous people."

"Their jobs -- their wealth and their pension funds -- depend upon successfully completing their mission and maintaining control over the outcome," says Moya. "They refuse to admit that they were wrong in invading Iraq -- that Saddam was the right person to rule a divided nation -- and they also refuse to admit that they were wrong in making such deceitful claims against smokers."

"The Iraqi people they claimed to be 'liberating' are now living in fear, anger and helplessness, wishing Saddam were back in power," says Moya. "And that's the way many ex-smokers feel. The rewards of being a non-smoker are not what they were cracked up to be -- all of the hidden reasons why people become smokers in the first place come back with a vengeance when they give it up."

"I have personally seen several acquiantances at work sink into deep depression when they quit cigarettes," says Moya. "Now they are on prescribed medication and spending just as much on their meds as they did on cigarettes. Big deal!"

"And there has been no massive decrease in the so-called smoking-related diseases either," says Moya. "Rather that admitting that other factors cause these diseases, the health authorities now claim that people who once smoked have already done the damage. Hmm, more reason to keep on smoking, then?"

"Finally, by far the closest likeness between the quit smoking campaign and the invasion of Iraq is, you guessed it, money!" sighs Moya. "They want a bigger cut of the Iraqi oil fields and they want a bigger cut of our money -- if not in tobacco tax then in quit programs and products."

"They've already pushed the Iraqis too far by overstaying their welcome -- and they're pushing smokers to the end of their tether, too," says Moya, "and I have no idea whether they doing what they're doing out of grotesque money-grubbing greed, arrogant self-righteous hubris or just plain dumb stupidity."

"The only way the warmongers can win decisively in Iraq is the same way the anti-smokers can win decisively in the smoking war -- imprison or shoot all the dissidents."

"I don't think there are enough prisons and bullets to achieve this end and while fellow citizens may not be too concerned about this sort of thing happening in Iraq they may start squirming when the dissendent smokers at home start getting rounded up -- or will they?"

"Judging from what's happening at work -- and what's happening in society at large --I honestly fear that our national identity as a feircely proud and free nation has been so watered down with foreign immigrants from totalitarian nations that the concept of civil liberties is fast disappearing from our national psyche."

"That so many so-called democratic freedom lovers still see the Iraq invasion as justifiable -- as justifiable as smoking and other bans -- is really scary," says Moya. "I feel so sorry for the next generation raised on Big Brother television and Big Brother government -- as well as control freaks at school and work -- because they will never know what freedom is."

"And most of all I feel sorry for the Iraqis -- especially the ones who smoke, and that's an awful lot of them -- because if western style democracy takes off in that country, they're going to be hit with an invasion of their smoking rights next."

responsibilities vs. rights

Terrie was born post-WWII and grew up in a society which prized, freedom, individualism and human rights. She saw many laws that had formerly placed restrictions on human behavior being amended or abolished -- and new laws protecting everyone's rights and freedoms being introduced -- and she deplores the new concept of government as a partnership of rights and responsibilities.

"By the late 80s, the full impact of our new freedoms were evident," says Terrie, "and I don't believe that what we had then is as bad as what we have now (and it was certainly better than what we started off with after WWII)."

"Instead of extreme poverty there was rampant commercialism; instead of marriages being held together by violence and fear there was widespread divorce and a host of single mothers; instead of rough tracks there were congested superhighways; instead of shanty towns there were massive high-rise housing estates; instead of a mass of uneducated cannon fodder there was a mass of high school and university graduates with nothing to do; and instead of rubbish tips filled with broken crockery they were now filled with discarded luxury objects."

"This is terrible announced an emerging new breed of politicians who began speaking about the inseparability of rights and responsibilities -- we must do something about this!" laughs Terrie. "But conveniently overlooked by these 'rights and responsibilities' politicians was that the problems they saw were the result of a massive shift in power from the privileged classes to the underclasses -- and a massive rise in world population, too -- and were infinitely better than the problems they replaced (that these new politicians were too young to have personally experienced)."

"Inherent in these new public policies designed to place emphasis on responsibility was a theory of scarcity -- of resources, oxygen, morals, opportunity, etc.," says Terrie. "These policies were ostensibly designed to place responsibility on individuals, but in effect they actually shifted power back to the upper classes (those in power)."

"From the 90s onwards, our rights and freedoms have been circumscribed by: (1) extensive and expensive pubic education programs ordering people to conserve water and energy, recycle, give up smoking, exercise, eat better food, walk don't drive, behave more responsibly, etc; (2) mutual-obligation programs designed to force the unemployed, disabled and single mothers off welfare to find non-existent jobs; and (3) social partnerships whereby government expanded beyond the confines of the public sector to harness the self-interest of corporations, special interest communities and influential individuals towards the public good -- i.e. enforcing (1) and (2)."

"Public policies designed to place emphasis on responsibility have even encompassed early intervention strategies whereby little children are brainwashed with a complex set of rules, virtues, dispositions and habits to ensure that their individualism is squashed in favor of the public good."

"What is this public good that they keep talking about?" asks Terrie. "Who, exactly, benefits from all of these measures? It appears to me that if all of us were brainwashed into suppressing our individualism and relinquishing our rights, certain people in positions of power and influence would be superbly placed to take advantage of the situation and the next generation would be right back in pre-WWII conditions."

"Personal responsibility is all very well, but social inequality, dysfunction and disorder are largely a creation of economic and structural factors -- matters that are properly the domain of government," says Terrie, "and it is a joke that the government is shirking ITS responsibilities by shifting them onto us!"

"We bestow upon the government a right to govern us, but with this right comes the responsibility to attend to matters of government -- creating jobs, keeping the economy going and providing services -- the big issues over which no individual, responsible or not, can influence."

"This new concept of government as a partnership in which we are all engaged on a deeply personal level is a con-trick and at no other time in our history have checks and balances been more necessary."

"Sure, I'll sort my garbage into metals, plastics and papers -- and I'll compost organic matter and stop using plastic bags -- to help the recycling cause," says Terrie, "but don't you dare tell me, or other citizens, to cut water and energy consumption, give up smoking, start exercising, eat better food, change to a fuel-efficient car, stay married, go to church and behave more responsibly. That's none of your business, get it?"

"When my responsibilities, as decreed by this new government of partnership, become legal obligations, punishable by law," says Terrie, "where is the reciprocal punishment for government when it fails in its responsibilities? Voting a government out of office is not commensurate with being punished with a criminal conviction for failing to use an energy-efficient washing machine, for instance, is it?"

"Governments are constituted of real people with as many imperfections as the rest of us have, and giving them the power to dictate to us what we can and cannot do for the 'public good' is a slippery-slope leading us back to terrible class disparities."

"Governments based on freedom and individualism present problems for the upper classes (more competition means less opportunity for them to prosper), and governments based on rights and responsibilities present problems for the lower classes (more restriction on their activities means less opportunity for them to prosper)."

"That I am even talking about class wars -- a pre-WWII preoccupation of my parents, something my generation never experienced -- is scary."

"Without past governments devoted to freedom and individualism we would never have the wonderful advances in technology that we enjoy today," says Terrie, "and these are the very things that current governments devoted to rights and responsibilities ultimately want to take away from us. Hello? My generation created most of these things and because I'm approaching retirement I have a very strong vested interest in wanting to continue enjoying these things!"

"And all of the current nonsense about global warming is designed to make us feel guilty about car ownership. Why? Because the guys in power want the super highways to themselves!"

"They want to enjoy all the fruits that were achieved by us when we were free to express our individualism under previous governments," says Terrie, "and they are deliberately brainwashing the next generation to be their obedient, responsible slaves."

"Nobody heard of ADD and other weird childhood conditions requiring medication when I was raising my kids," says Terrie. "We understood freedom and individualism and allowed our kids to express themselves."

"The concept of controlling other people -- for my good, or the public good -- is totally alien to me," sighs Terrie, "and the ultimate future might be a terrifying Orwellian scenario where governments gain total control by mandating a personal responsibility to take medication as a condition of citizenship."

freedom and inalienable rights

Mardi, 43, married with three children, welcomes increasing government control over freedoms because she believes that freedom was never intended as an inalienable right for everyone and thinks that it's about time the myth was dispelled.

"When the Founding Fathers talked about freedom they had white men and money in mind," laughs Mardi. "They weren't thinking about women or people of other colors, and slavery and indentured servitude was rampant at the time, too!"

"Most of us have never been free to do what we want," says Mardi. "Many freedoms involve trampling upon the freedoms of others or going against social mores and becoming alienated from society."

"Who in their right mind supports a murderer's freedom to murder, a thief's freedom to steal or a tyrant's freedom to demolish the self-esteem of others?" asks Mardi. "And yet when taken to extremes this is exactly the sort of freedom that some people believe is their inalienable right."

"Freedom is something that always comes with boundaries imposed by the society in which we live," explains Mardi. "I don't believe I am free. I don't always have the right to choose. I am circumscribed in all but simple choices."

"Sure, I am better off than someone in Biafra - I have more choices - but sometimes I think that having the choice of what to eat is not what freedom is all about. A Biafran with nothing on his/her mind except where the next morsel of food is going to be found may be experiencing more freedom than I am."

"It's idealistic to believe that we need freedom in order to live and make the most of our lives," says Mardi. "In reality, we are required to conform in order to live and make the most of our lives."

"From childhood we learn that obedience is rewarded and freedom is punished," says Mardi. "We do what our parents and teachers and then employers and government tell us to do. The script is to become good, law-abiding citizens with jobs and money and things. Since when has our society applauded and rewarded the kids who believe that freedom is their inalienable right?"

"I grew up with the myth of freedom as an inalienable right," laughs Mardi, "but I soon got wise about what I could and could not do. My life has never been my own, of my choosing. It has always been ruled by what society expects of me. And that goes for all of us."

"I may be a success in the eyes of society in so far as my career and marriage is concerned," sighs Mardi, "but in my soul I know I am a failure because I am not free. I am not free to take off my clothes and run down the street in the rain - and I am not free to speak my mind freely. Who is?"

"I am tied by a job and a myriad of things which, when they all boil down, are merely means by which I can put food into my mouth," says Mardi. "I have more food to put into my mouth than I need. It is a wasteful existence. Is my life more meaningful and free than our Biafran friend?"

"I don't think so," sighs Mardi, "and that's why I support the government making no bones about cracking down on every aspect of our lives. It's about time that the myth was exposed as a myth. We have no freedom. We never did and we never will."

"Very few people pursue what is important to them, "says Mardi. "Instead, we pursue what society says is important and we naively think it is what we need. We've got to have this thing and that thing in order to be to a success and to show the world how free we are."

"It's amazing how the Biafrans manage to find love, friendship, family, children, etc without all the trappings we are told we need!"

"I believe all life is a struggle to fulfill basic needs for food and shelter, everything else is what we desire when our bellies are full and our bodies are warm and sheltered and we feel good."

"Have you ever noticed that when trouble is brewing people stock up on basic food and clothing and bedding and draw their loved ones close?" asks Mardi. "Nobody talks about inalienable rights and freedoms when times are hard."

"Lack of freedom is the price paid for membership of a group and as the world divides into camps this simple fact is made more apparent," says Mardi.

"It's silly to talk about fighting for our freedoms. We may think we have more freedoms than other people in other parts of the world, but we don't."