Freedom & Power

I am, for the record, perfectly comfortable with where and how I have positioned myself. I am passionately and steadfastly in favour of freedom, democracy, constitutional rule and human rights; liberty, equality and solidarity; and of course, as a result, I am passionately and steadfastly in favour of freedom of speech; and passionately, and steadfastly, opposed to any form of tyranny, elitism, censorship, or authoritarianism. To my last breath, I will defend these values, and advance them as much as I possibly can. That stance, I can and will, happily take to my grave.

“I swear before God an eternal vigilance against form of tyranny over the mind of man.” – Thomas Jefferson (My brother, and my kin)

Sensible people on the left, the right, and in the centre, sensible liberals, conservatives, democratic socialists, anarchists, communitarians and greens, need to know, and realize, that we have common ground, and we have a common enemy – and that enemy is fascism and authoritarianism, in all its forms. We need to unite the overwhelming majority who support freedom and democracy, and enlighten the misled many who have been duped into supporting the new authoritarianism, against their own interests and their own values, their own common sense; and above all, we must challenge, defeat, and remove from power, the truly fascist business elite, and their corrupt political servants in government. If we do not do this, and very, very soon; our lives, and our world, will be dark indeed. Unite the people, recognize that the enemy is authoritarianism, and we will see a new and better day, and a new and better world will be born. Fail in that, and we will have failed in everything.

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The central issue is not wealth – the central issue is power. This is where the left repeatedly gets confused.

It is not the distribution of wealth that is central; it is the distribution of power. Until and unless you address that, you can forget about social justice concerns, or ecological concerns, or “inclusivity” or sustainability, or any of the other buzz words or pet projects you may have, no matter how important or worthwhile they may be.

We either remove the plutocracy from power, or we will be groveling and begging for crumbs, and rapidly losing ground, forever more. And if we are going to win, if democracy and freedom are to be reborn, and the oligarchy and plutocracy overthrown, then the central issue, the most important issue, is freedom of speech. Unless we can break through the elite-controlled media blockade, and begin to discuss issues more freely and more widely (by pamphlets circulated by flash-drives, or even by hand if necessary, which was what started the American and French Revolutions) we will continue to be dead in the water, and we will be tilting at windmills, while the plutocracy rolls on.

Freedom of speech is fundamental. It is also critical to any path or means of success in creating positive change in the world. Those who do not understand that, are simply not dealing with the real world.

J. Todd Ring,

February 26, 2021

See also, an important and possibly critically important essay I recently wrote:

Flash-Drive Revolution, on WordPress.

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