Find The Cost Of Freedom. Are You Ready To Pay The Price?

[omega minimo]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-Y0SMitMpk
Find The Cost Of Freedom
Neil Young

Daylight again, following me to bed
I think about a hundred years ago, how my fathers bled
I think I see a valley, covered with bones in blue
All the brave soldiers that cannot get older been askin' after you
Hear the past a callin', from Armegeddon's side
When everyone's talkin' and no one is listenin', how can we decide?

(Do we) find the cost of freedom, buried in the ground

Mother earth will swallow you, lay your body down
Find the cost of freedom, buried in the ground
Mother earth will swallow you, lay your body down
(Find the cost of freedom buried in the ground)



When you witness the cost of freedom, up close and personal, or even on the TV set, in the newspaper, does it make it harder to give it up too easily? When the personal pain and sacrifice of people you know and those you don't, perfect icons and perfect strangers, or faces passing by in a stream in silence on the nightly news -- when their pain is close enough for you to feel it, does it make you value freedom more?

What does it take to understand the sacrifice of others, who gave of themselves so that you have the freedoms and rights that you do (did)?

This is what I have not understood -- how, in the space of one lifetime, the hard fought gains of not-that-long-ago were not guarded more fiercely by an awakened public that witnessed the power, the vital importance and values of our shared civil rights.

Once you know what it took to achieve that, for it to be handed to you, bequeathed to you, do you take it for granted, let it be abused or taken away? Do you allow yourself to be convinced to hand it over willingly?

Do you let the blood, sweat and tears of those who came before you be as nothing? Do you relate to groups other than your own, whose fight for social justice is also yours, whose successes are shared by all, in the eternal human struggle for justice and freedom?

And if all their work is undone by your betrayal, by your avoidance and procrastination, do you think you can recreate it? Do you intend to do what they did? Do you expect someone to do it for you? Again?

What if the rights that you have taken for granted are gone and you're in for a rude shock? What if the rights you scoffed at have been suspended? What if there is no one else to fight for those rights again but you?



"The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater." - Frank Zappa

[leftstreet]

1. K&R

[omega minimo]

2. LOL Brilliant!!

:yourock:

[EmeraldCityGrl]

3. Written like poetry.

Been asking those questions alot lately.

[omega minimo]

4. high praise

:)

and all those questions are the answer to a question!! :spray:

[omega minimo]

5. "The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion."

[bertman]

6. Excellent post, Omega Minimo. I'll need a few more minutes to think about my answer.

Rec.

[omega minimo]

7. Thanks bertman.

Glad it resonates.

[omega minimo]

12. .

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

8. Freedom

"Freedom for the supporters of the government only, for the members of one party only - no matter how big its membership may be - is no freedom at all. Freedom is always for the man who thinks differently." Rosa Luxemburg

"All I ask is equal freedom. When it is denied, as it always is, I take it anyhow." H.L. Mencken

"Freedom is the right to one's dignity as a man." - Unknown

"I know of but one freedom and that is the freedom of the mind." Antoine de Sainte Exupery

"Freedom cannot be granted. It must be taken." Max Sterner

"Freedom is the absolute right of all adult men and women to seek permission for their actions only from their own conscience and reason, and to be determined in their actions only by their own will, and consequently to be responsible only to themselves, and then to the society to which they belong, but only insofar as they have made a free decision to belong to it." Mikhail Bakunin

[omega minimo]

9. Perfect

for where we are now. Thanks for that contribution. :toast:

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

10. kick

[omega minimo]

11. Nothing will ever change if this doesn't, folks.