Totalitarianism—of any flavor—brings out a variety of emotions, and the desire for freedom manifests in many different ways. We have talked about a lot of then on #FreedomMusicFriday.
Fear. Anger.
Your freedom is under attack. You are justified in fighting back against any and all violations of your freedom and rights.
Love of freedom tells you to respect the freedom of others. This makes you fundamentally and philosophically peaceful. But your freedom is under attack. How do you reconcile your ethos of peace with the need to stand up for your rights? All you wanted was to be left in peace!
Cognitive dissonance. Resentment.
Do you fight? Do you escape? Do you try to make yourself mentally as strong as you can be—to set your mind free, no matter what happens in the world?
Confusion. Resolve.
Do you red-pill, black-pill, white pill, or clear-pill?
So many emotions. So many thoughts. So many choices.
All your emotions are valid. Tyranny, oppression, totalitarianism, force, involuntary social contracts—they are all a violation of your being as an individual human person. And chances are, you have experienced a wide variety of different emotions and thoughts in response to the changes taking place over the last few years.
Some days, you just want to feel like there is hope—that there will be justice someday.
Some days, you envision people rising up and throwing off their chains. And whatever you might know about the inherent problems with revolutions…whatever your fundamental inclination for peace…the vision feels good.
“Uprising” by Muse pushes that button good and hard. If I am recalling aright, it was actually the song that gave me the original idea to create a freedom-oriented playlist, back when I first started playing with Spotify and Amazon Music. And all the early songs on that list had that feeling of defiance.
If you are here reading these words, then dollars to donuts I don’t need to explain why these lyrics feel real…
Paranoia is in bloom
The PR transmissions will resume
They'll try to push drugs that keep us all dumbed down
And hope that we will never see the truth aroundAnother promise, another scene
Another packaged lie to keep us trapped in greed
And all the green belts wrapped around our minds
And endless red tape to keep the truth confinedInterchanging mind control
Propaganda. Manufactured Reality™. Mainstream narratives. Bureaucracy. Psyops.
Then, defiance and resistance:
They will not force us
They will stop degrading us
They will not control us
We will be victoriousRise up and take the power back
It's time the fat cats had a heart attack
You know that their time's coming to an end
Some days, you don’t want to think too much. You just want to feel. Feel the possibility that we might one day set ourselves free.
I think there is a strong chance that the band members of Muse may have some different views from mine/ours as to some of the sources and manifestations of oppression. So perhaps we must consider this song to be adopted rather than homegrown. And yet, on a more fundamental and important level, they hate tyranny just as much as we do.
Because tyranny is bad.
Because all living creatures need to be free.
Because whatever. It’s a good song.
#FreedomMusicFriday from around Substack:
The SOTU address so sickened us.
Are we the only ones reminded of an unhinged Hitler shouting angrily?
And not one word about domestic issues other than nothingburger topics like Abortion and Trans.
Good God, I never thought I'd see the day.
The enemy should be clear to all of us that can see.
So important what you wrote Chris. If they control us we are either dead or virtually slaves. To me it is very clear from their statements, reports and writings they want 80% or more of us dead and the rest as slaves to the Predators. THEY WILL NOT GET THEIR WAY!