Posted by In the state of Tennessee and the wider Southern US, you hear all the time from the rich politicians and their lackeys about ‘protecting freedom.’
Yet whose freedom are they concerned with? The freedom of those who struggle for a living? Those who are not white, Christian, straight, cisgender?
Quite simply, no. The rich and their bootlickers do not care about the freedom of those who do not fit their category of ‘worthy’.
What about the right of protest, freedom of speech? Nope.
A prominent lackey in East Tennessee recently wrote that people who protest by blocking roads or highways should be run over by conservatives with cars. Tennessee lawmakers even considered a bill protecting people (read: rich white people) from civil liability if they ran over a protester with their car.
Another high profile bootlicker wrote a column saying that the rather mild protests in Knoxville of Congressman Jimmy Duncan were intolerable. These constituents merely wanted to confront their elected representative about the then-upcoming health care act vote. Apparently, according to the ruling class, even official, nonviolent protest is beyond the pale.
But it doesn’t stop there. How about the freedom to go to the bathroom in peace? No. Tennessee lawmakers wanted to force transgender public school students to use the restroom of the gender they were assigned at birth.
How about women’s right to make decisions about her own body? Tennessee is essentially trying to outlaw abortion in the state.
Freedom of religion? Again no. State lawmakers attemped to make the Judeo-Christian Bible the ‘official book’ of the state, a slap in the face to all state residents who do not follow Judeo-Christian faiths.
The state even attempted to make a law banning the mention of LGBT issues in schools.
These attempts to intimidate people who are not fit the fascist ideal of ‘everyday Americans’ are not an accident. They are capitalism’s attempt to crush any possible resistance to its aim of complete dominance of the rich.
The attempt is to divide people who struggle and demonize those who do not conform to capitalist society’s ideal.
Don’t buy into it. We all need to come together to build a new socialist future.
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