
Free to sound like everyone, wearing the same tone of red, chanting the same chants, thinking the same thoughts, bound to the same hates and fears, free to vote in unison, and to spit on the flag by standing for the flag by refusing to stand for what the flag stands for... how free is that? Free as a bird in a cage, as a lion behind bars, as an elephant eating peanuts thrown into its compound by school kids on a road trip to the zoo. Free to be bound to think and talk and act like everyone else who is free in the same way, makes fools free by talking about how free they are to choose whatever they want from the cafeteria buffet that is the same every day. Freedom to do what they are told and beg for more is death, and those who are free like that are dead, and getting deader by the day, thinking they are free to do anything they want, but totally not free to change their mind about what they want. And "freedom" is just another word for nowhere else to be, dreaming of a world where everyone is free in exactly the same way, unable to be different in any way. Ever.
–0–