Freedom

[Larissa]

Animal Farm is an indictment of injustice. Of what can happen and what happens all to often when power changes hands. It is also an indictment of empty slogans that are betrayed by actions. Orwell hated totalitarianism in all its forms. He was not a proponent of soft socialism, but of real socialism, which to him was either democratic or not socialism at all. But the world socialism is now simply a dirty word and contemporary readers are apt to misread texts written fifty years ago. The word freedom has lost much of its meaning too.
e.g.: "We" are going to bomb Iraq to protect freedom.
What can we ever do to protect freedom? (particularly, from scary pro-war guys like Bush)

[CopperGoat]

Freedom is something that is unmeasuarble. The only way to get 100% pure freedom is for abolishing all government, all establishments, all organizations, all laws. when humans live like animals then they have freedom because they can do what ever they want without being punished.

[Corvus Corax]

Animal Farm was a good book which i read when i was younger, and one of my driving forces into politics. Also, by George Orwell, is another classic '1984', about totalitarianism on a much larger scale.


Quote: By CopperGoat on 9:04 pm on Jan. 7, 2003

when humans live like animals then they have freedom because they can do what ever they want without being punished.


Indeed that is true to a certain degree now, but what about in the future? If we can show people that in a socialist state, there is no need to behave like pigs, because the freedom makes us only as free as other people, no more free, no less.

I like to think that this will be the case someday, maybe not in my lifetime.

C.C

[Larissa]

What George Orwell said, and what I agree with, is that the context of the Cold War in no way justified dictatorship and terror on either side. Context did not justify the torture and murder of thousands in Chile and South Africa, though context was precisely the justification given by dictators in Chile and South Africa with the support of a series of US administrations.
(The US Congress took a very long time to oppose apartheid.)

Orwell was especially concerned about the direction the United States and Britain where taking. And it goes without saying that he knew that Stalinist Russia was a dictatorship that opposed socialism and democracy.

Read Homage to Catalonia if you have any doubts about this.

Orwell would have been horrified by Chile's Pinochet and he would have derided the obscene contention that context justified the overthrow of a democratic socialist and democratically elected president, namely Salvador Allende, who upheld every freedom enshrined in the constitution of his country.

About the Cold War and the reason he wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell wrote: "These super states will naturally be in opposition to each other or will pretend to be much more in opposition than in fact they are. Two of the principal super states will obviously be the Anglo-American and Eurasia. If these two great
blocks line up as mortal enemies it is obvious that the Anglo-Americans will not take the name of their opponents and will not dramatize themselves on
the scene of history as Communists. Thus they will have to find a new name for themselves. The name suggested in Nineteen Eighty-Four is of course Ingsoc, but in practice a wide range of choices is open. In the USA the phrase 'Americanism' or 'hundred per cent Americanism' is suitable and the qualifying adjective is as totalitarian as anyone could wish." Those in the
capitalist West who have supported or justified dictatorship (or authoritarian government as they have traditionally and euphemistically been called by the right in the US and Europe) because it is anti-Communist, have much more in common with the so called "totalitarian rulers" of Soviet Russia and Maoist China than they care to recognize. Freedom must not be destroyed in the name of context, anticommunism, the war against terrorism, or whathever you have.

[I Bow 4 Che]

I love Orwell as well but I agree with CG-%100 freedom is not obtainable unless we have Anarchy-which even then it is hardly %100 freedom-and if we reached that level, well, it's nothing I would want to be a part of


with 100% freedom comes major contradictions

[truthaddict11]

how much does 1984 mirror today? I mean with the "War on Terrorism" which they say will never end and the Patriot Act and more and more lessening of civil liberties how long before that nightmare becomes a reality?

[mentalbunny]

Freedom is a touchy subject, everyone is restricted by their upbringing, their genes, their culture (which is not quite the same as upbringing) and much more.

1984 shows a totalitarian society, which we know doesn't work. Why should the individuals serve the state when all the state consists of is individuals? The state, which is the people, should serve the people.

Freedom is disappearing in a thousand little ways, but some of these little ways that people make a fuss about are actually negligible and we should stop whining about having limits on our credit cards or whatever (not that I do, or ever would and I don't think you do either) and start to see the big picture. For our "freedom" in the West, we are opressing millions over the rest of the world. We are preventing the Third world from having clean water and preventing the east form having peace by letting corporations like Nestlé into Africa to exploit the poverty-stricken peoples and selling arms to Saddam and his cronies.

I think we should stop worrying about little things, obviously if something big comes along, like the prevention of free speech or government surveillance in places like this, then yes, we should stand up and resist, bu otherwise we should ignore our rich governments and concentrate on the poverty and opression throughout the world, South America, Africa, Asia.

Obviously I don't knwo everything and there is alot of suffering in the US and the UK, but I think we should sort out the major problems before we have a go at the little ones, because there are just so many big ones and we really could make a difference.

[Geddan]

Freedom does only exist when a minimum of (given or taken) authorities exist. The minimum is zero, but some authorities could exist, but the people should be able to at any moment "dismantle" that particular authority.

How would this work, if they resisted? The people would resist too, and if no one obeyed an authority it would no longer be one. If they try revolution, create a voluntary police force, or if everyone in a particular community agrees, a police force which everyone serves in a number of hours per a given amount of time. The state should be the people or else it ain't classless.

[mentalbunny]

Quote: from Geddan on 9:23 pm on Jan. 9, 2003
The state should be the people.


How right! Everything should be state owned and the state should be the people. We should learn to take responsibility for all our actions. Only then will we truly be free.

(Edited by mentalbunny at 10:14 pm on Jan. 9, 2003)

[Geddan]

The claims that human nature won't allow a society where everyone collaborates are untrue. As someone mentioned, it is human nature to procreate through rape, and through laws and moral codes rape is not as common as it would be if human nature had been left untouched. The same thing applies to if everyone were taught to collaborate at school, in a 100 years human nature would be gone.

Besides, human nature is contradictory. Love, hate, joy, anger, so why can't collaboration be human nature if someone claims competition is? Alfie Kohn even found out that collaboration is healthier.

[guerrillaradio]

Quote: from Geddan on 9:23 pm on Jan. 9, 2003
Freedom does only exist when a minimum of (given or taken) authorities exist. The minimum is zero...

Freedom is a commodity so precious that it has to be protected. Absolute freedom itself is impossible. To ensure that maximum freedom exists, certain restrictions on one's ability to undermine freedom have to be in place.


The state should be the people...

Absolutely. I go even further, and say that in a democracy the state should only be as strong/popular as the people.

[mentalbunny]

Someone, I don't know who, said "The price of freedom is vigilance". We have to watch ourselves and indeed watch each other, the human race as a whole must take responsibility for its actions, as I have said.

GR, yes. That is sort of what I meant, the word "state" for me is interchangeable for the word "people", thus is as popular or strong as the people is consists of.

[Geddan]

Another guy said something equally good: "The price we have to pay for civilization is called tax". Power to the people!

[mentalbunny]

In a world with money I believe tax is necessary (more for the rich), otherwise the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and society falls apart.

In an ideal society there would be no money, the people would be the state, everything would be owned by the state, therefore everything would be owned by the people. Everyone would be benefititng everyone else so money would be superfluous to our needs.

[RedComrade]

I don't mean to be exclude the international comrades and I understand this group is by no means socialist but i beleive they are a powerful force in the vanguard of those who defend the freedoms we do have in america. The aclu is one of the most powerful groups in the fight to defend civil liberties and societys rejects. While by no means revolutionaries I think the aclu and its actions are important in defending the freedoms we do have in america...