Using bourgeois "Freedom" as propaganda?

[Guardia Rossa]

To the bourgeoisie, "Freedom" means "I can fuck you and you can't fuck me"

I was thinking in a way to show this in an obvious way so that even right-wingers would have to admit that their freedom and their democracy is neither free neither democratic for the poor.

An interesting example is bourgeois ideologists (Even [Or mostly] liberals) regarding the Brazilian Military Dictatorship as Free and Democratic.

So, ideas?

[Comrade Jacob]

If I had a quid evrtiem someone said "It's a free country" I would be well off and not going to a food-bank every week.
Very much that the "I can fuck you but you can't fuck me" attitude is apparent in right-wingers.
Right-wingers are either stupid and/or ignorant or just arseholes who know full-well that they are doing and what they are supporting. You can't really change them, they must change themselves.

[tuwix]

So, ideas?

I'd go to roots of word. Democracy means a rule of people. Do all people really rule?
And I any freedom a case where one can enslave other? Using money...

[ComradeAllende]

To the bourgeoisie, "Freedom" means "I can fuck you and you can't fuck me"

Depends on cultural background of the bourgeoisie in question. In the unreconstructed liberals' (libertarian) perspective, liberty is defined by the absence of coercion (physical force). In more contemporary bourgeois circles, freedom usually involves limitations circumscribed by state prerogatives (national security, political stability, etc.), which usually align with bourgeois interests.


I was thinking in a way to show this in an obvious way so that even right-wingers would have to admit that their freedom and their democracy is neither free neither democratic for the poor.

Case in point: during the Civil War (and its immediate aftermath), several Union commanders like General Sherman confiscated planters' estates and distributed the land to the slaves as an ad hoc version of reparations via land reform. Yet this was overturned by the federal government in the years following and the land was returned to former slaveholders (often in exchange for loyalty oaths).

If you're interested in pissing off right-wingers of the libertarian variety, simply mention how key libertarian intellectuals (like F.A. Hayek) supported the 1973 coup that overthrew Salvador Allende and installed a military dictatorship under Pinochet. Or how Ludwig von Mises supported the fascists against the communists. It makes light of the right's hypocrisy in playing the "Stalin card" while neglecting its own ethical "compromises."

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

I don't think "freedom" is a particularly useful term, at least not in the contexts I'm most familiar with. By and large, it seems people are pretty conscious of its "empty" rhetorical character in most contexts. The exception tends to be when people knee-jerk pull some "Canada is a free country!"-type bullshit (generally in defense of some indefensible shit like a PEGIDA march or something) - but even then people tend to have a sort of double-think about it.

Really, the only talk about freedom I find interesting is in the existential usage - which doesn't really correlate to political/social freedom at all (Sartre said he felt most "free" while imprisoned by the Vichy regime). Which, y'know, has its place, but . . .

I think, generally, even democracy is a more useful category (either used in a positive or negative sense) because it's, in a sense, more tangible. It can be used to describe the functioning of institutions, organizations, communities in a concrete way.

[Citizen]

I think, this is all on point. When manipulating the words of the enemy, this has to be taken contextually, to suit the moment, that reveal contradictions in their beliefs. As has been pointed out, "freedom" is invoked in a variety of situations -- and forgotten in a variety of situations, too. I think the Syrian refugee crisis is an example of a moment when the language of the Staute of Liberty, for instance, can be turned against reactionaries -- forced into exposing their pretenses by denying their own "values" as it were.

The U.S. Civil War, and even the American revolution at times, are examples when the enemy's thought can be used against them. The Reconstruction project was hugely revolutionary in many ways -- and even the most basic of liberals will acknowledge much of the problems of racism today can stem back to the defeat of that project. Similarly, I know one time a person said to me revolution is simply unfeasible -- change must happen gradually and passively -- to which one can say, "so would you have opposed the American revolution against Britain?"